Just like I though that the USA election would be won/lost on key issues like economy and border, I think the Canada election will be won/lost on the issues of economy and housing (I know, very specific issue).
No idea what to do on housing other than bureaucracy, however on economy the main solution imo will not only to remove all climate initiatives, but to actually reverse them into the negative for the short term. I don’t think the conservatives have the stomach and ability to survive such an extreme policy.
The housing imo is nearly impossible to fix in a satisfactory way, and what I mean by this is from professional experience in the personal finance market, there are a ridiculously large number of Canadian home owners that are actually funding retirement though their home. The clients that I came into contact with, besides independently wealthy individuals, were split into three groups, 1. Those with legitimate pensions (Police, education, etc) 2.Those with houses as retirement 3. People that are so far behind (combo of too much debt, little rrsp, little tfsa, no company pension (ignoring stock and rrsp matching). The 3. people cant afford houses, the 1. people already have houses or cant afford, or have huge mortgages, the 2. people can not afford the house prices to go down as they need the reverse mortgage or profit from selling and downsizing. Anyway you slice or dice it, a large portion of the population will suffer if the housing market changes. I think a large portion of the younger crowd will now vote conservative as these are the people that can not realistically afford housing from a debt ratio pov (rent or own). If I remember correctly, the salary required was over 200k in order to safely navigate a mortgage when taking total debt service into account. I might have got the salary wrong, however I am 100% sure that whatever the actually number was, it was way, way higher than the median Canadian salary, and unrealistically out of reach for anyone close to minimum wage.
I 100% think he will reinstate or call it something else. I think he has been quite clear on this. Its obviously a smart move and will convince a portion of the voting public to vote for him. I don’t think it will be enough. The issue with this type of change is that you are relying on the savings being passed down to the consumer and in my opinion it is not done to the degree it should be done, e.g. Egg’s were hypothetically $10, went up to $15 because of policies, it should be a $11 when ignoring policies (standard inflation), yet when policies are removed, it only goes down to $13.
What I expect is that it will be moved upstream, so to speak - which means to achieve the same emissions reductions, it has to be higher. If we are going to do that, I’d like to see a switch over to an emissions trading regime. The proponents of a carbon tax had a key argument in the universality of it. If that is gone the tax is just nowhere near as efficient. But I also expect there will be a shift away from relying on pricing in any form, and toward state intervention in the form of both investment subsidy and direct regulation. I can’t say I am thrilled with that, but the world has changed.
Five months ago, I would have said no question. But I think this is going to be the Trump election, and right now the Conservatives don’t have a clear strategy let alone message. Their problem is neatly encapsulated in this social media post
Poilievre cannot even say Carney has nothing but slogans without putting out a slogan that reminds people of the fact he has been channeling Trump for about 5 years.
If I compare the elections again, I would liken the “Trump/Canada” issue to “End of democracy” issue that the Dems attempted to use. Imo too much has happened in the past 8/10 years to refocus Canadians memory to the current “Trump” problem. I think Canadians know that in order to get this resolved, the next government needs to be in place. Everything right now from the Canadian federal side or opposition, is posturing. The main work is being done in the provincial level as these governments are stable atm. I do agree that the main loser in the Canada/USA issue is Poilievre right now, but I don’t think its because of the similarities of the 2 parties, I think it has more to do with messaging, as Poilievre was doing well when focusing on the fundamental issues in Canada, while now he has refocused way too much time on Trump, and essentially parroting the same as all other parties. There is very little differentiating the parties when it comes to the USA/Canada relationship, so nobody stands out right now. All this “Canada will not become the 51st state” is ridiculous, everyone knows this wont happen, yet so much time is spent by parties, mired in hysteria, over how this is never going to happen. Such a waste of energy, and very little in the way of solutions.
I think there is a massive difference between the Democrats trying to shift the election issue from the economy to end of democracy framing, and what is happening in Canada. Trump has made himself the ballot box issue, and the fundamental difference is that Poilievre is not trusted on that issue, and nor are the Conservatives. We all know which party the 10-15% of Canadians willing to contemplate annexation and willing to lick Trump’s boots support. Lots of Conservatives don’t, obviously, but they are heading into deep waters with a millstone.
I saw a poll yesterday saying Poilievre is 38% behind Carney on approval. That is a staggering hole to climb out of in what may be as short as 8 weeks.
I am not sure why you would say that, given that both Poilievre and Trudeau have had dismal personal approval ratings for months. Both have been tracking lower than their respective parties. Poilievre’s number isn’t that much of an outlier. My question would be how solid the Carney number is, given how little direct voter information it is based on.
Probably the weirdest thing is how far off Poilievre scores on ‘best PM choice’ versus the ‘likeable’ type of approval. On PM choice, Carney and Poilievre are quite close together.
Apparently, according to the Toronto police, labeling a pro-Palestinian rally as “pro-Hamas” is a hate crime, but saying “death to Israel” or “death to Canada” is not. SMH
I believe in controlled immigration that prioritizes high skilled immigrants, being one myself. And even a small amount of low skilled immigrants is fine. But I don’t know why anyone thinks bringing in massive amounts of low skilled immigrants into a high skilled economy is beneficial to the nation. Massive immigration 150 years ago was fine because the economy was primarily geared towards low skilled jobs. Coming off the farm to work in a factory wasn’t particularly different and required a similar skill set. But that’s not the case today.
Immigration policy under the Trudeau Liberals was broken, and unfortunately the provinces were more or less complicit. Ontario’s higher education system in particular pivoted with Ford’s funding freeze (capped at 2017) in order to finance itself, basically selling permanent residency for some fairly weak educational credentials. Other provinces saw similar, but the funding freeze made Ontario particularly bad. The Government has closed that door, precipitating a crisis, but the damage has already been done.
It was absolute madness to increase arrivals at a time when the covid inflationary stimulation was starting to wind down, and needed to be paid for. Instead of a tapering, arrivals doubled - and these numbers do not include refugees, also a number that increased. I have less of a problem with that, because the vast majority are legitimate (fucked as the process may be) such as Ukrainians fleeing a war.
i) For the first time in my lifetime, and really the generation before, the Canadian consensus around immigration has been shattered. Hostility to immigration and immigrants is now mainstream. The sulphur whiff of racism cannot be far behind.
ii) When I was growing up, kids around 15-16 would get their first part-time jobs, often at fast food places like Tim’s or McDo. I have kids hitting that age, and the brutal reality is that in urban Canada, international students (overwhelmingly Indian) are doing those jobs. That isn’t the students’ fault, but it is actually a significant shift in our society. My 16 year-old more or less gave up looking recently, and is just going to take summer school courses to improve his university prospects. I know I didn’t really understand how much $20 was worth until I had worked a couple of months at minimum wage.
The Conservatives have to change their tactics. Poilievre has to stop talking about axe the tax and instead focus on attacking Carney on his greatest perceived strength, the economy. If the Conservatives can brand Carney as he ain’t all that - which he is definitely not - they will win. But the catchy slogans ie “Just like Justin” seem trite and unserious. You can do that but in other ways.
Good to see Carney saying we’re a European nation. He may be but we are not of course. Canada is far closer to America than the UK let alone France, Italy and the Spain. But the “genocidal colonel state” people will hate it.
The Liberals and Carney cannot let the net zero goals go. But their policies are incredibly damaging to the Canadian economy. Canada is 1% of global carbon emissions. India and China completely swamp anything we do. Making our industry even less competitive - like the Europeans are doing - is insanity.
