Trudeau says people are frustrated, but now is time for ‘doubling down’
Trudeau says people are frustrated, but now is time for ‘doubling down’
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he knows the same young voters who propelled him to office are frustrated, but that he will double down on the work he's been doing.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he knows the same young voters who propelled him to office are frustrated, but that he will double down on the work he's been doing.
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“We’ve got a great team of amazing people who are putting forward the kinds of solutions that Canadians need, whether it’s on housing, whether it’s on paying for groceries, whether it’s on building strong careers for the future, fighting climate change, reconciliation,” Trudeau said.
Have their ideas gotten any farther than an email or meeting? I haven’t seen any action. If that were my job I’d have been fired long before 8 years. I wouldn’t have the balls to ask for a 4 year extension.
Housing? Immigration is set to increase the population orders of magnitude more than housing starts. Nothing has changed regarding corporate landlords scooping everything up. Most MPs have a lucrative side gig renting out homes at inflated, crippling rates.
Grocery prices? What have we done? Invited Galen Weston to come to a committee and shrug? They’re still more expensive and in smaller packages.
Strong careers? Salaries have come nowhere near increases caused by inflation. A small number of unions have negotiated something decent, but the government sure doesn’t get any credit for that.
Climate change? The country is on fire annually and the last thing you did was buy Alberta a pipeline nobody can use. The time for action was 30 years ago. You were in power for the last 8 and did nothing.
Reconciliation? You made a holiday for government workers and then went surfing.
The only thing the Liberals have they can use is “we’re not the CPC”, which is often enough, but pretty flimsy when your track record of the last 8 years is part of the next election.
Housing - They put 82 billion dollars towards building new homes. It's a process that takes years, if not decades. Even though, housing is generally, something that should be handled at the municipal/provincial level. I also love the idea of looking into the war time housing measures to mass produce houses.
Groceries - Inflation and a war in the bread basket of Europe have caused an issue everywhere. I'm not entirely sure I want the government mandating prices... Have we seen a plausible alternative from any of the other parties?
Climate change - Did you not see the whole "only EVs by 2030" pitch? Or the carbon tax scheme that has Polievre absolutely freaking out?
The other big things that are in progress (again, government shit, especially coming out of a global pandemic, takes time) and most impress me are:
National $10 a day daycare. That is an absolute game changer, especially for our lowest earners and young families. (Talk to any parent about how crazy expensive day care is. For a parent on minimum wage it makes almost no sense to work.)
Dental care for low income folks. Teeth are super important and I've had low earning friends have serious trouble because they couldn't afford check ups which caused real problems down the road.
And of course, I would say that rolling out the covid relief plan in a coherent targeted way was nothing short of impressive. Compare that to our southern neighbours who gave less money and poorly targeted, a colossal waste of money.
Are things perfect? No! Could they be better? Absolutely. But to say they have nothing other than "we're not the CPC" seems disingenuous, poorly informed or a poor grasp of how politics and reality work.
Housing - They put 82 billion dollars towards building new homes. It’s a process that takes years, if not decades. Even though, housing is generally, something that should be handled at the municipal/provincial level.
They pretty much took the smouldering fire of housing unaffordability, poured gasoline on it, and then watched for two years as it burned. I'll credit that the provinces largely did fuck-all to help, but this is the same government that increased immigration when we have nowhere to house people, and is still steadfastly refusing to do anything with the tax code to disincentive property hoarding and investment/speculation because they're still terrified of offending the rich.
I also love the idea of looking into the war time housing measures to mass produce houses
Liberals love "looking into things". Not actually doing anything, but boy does "looking into" sounds enough like "doing something" that it might fool some people. I'm sure they'll be done "looking at it" just in time for the next election, too.
Are they "looking into" telling the CMHC to directly build public housing? How about nationalizing a developer like how they bought a pipeline to nowhere for Alberta? That 30 billion spent on TMX would sure come in handy right about now, and boy howdy did they jump on TMX real fast, at least compared to housing.
Groceries - Inflation and a war in the bread basket of Europe have caused an issue everywhere. I’m not entirely sure I want the government mandating prices… Have we seen a plausible alternative from any of the other parties?
They could raise corporate taxes. I mean, we used to do that to control profiteering and force businesses to reinvest, instead of hoarding cash.
National $10 a day daycare. That is an absolute game changer, especially for our lowest earners and young families. (Talk to any parent about how crazy expensive day care is. For a parent on minimum wage it makes almost no sense to work.)
Left to the provinces to screw up, subject to the same crippling under-staffing that's currently killing healthcare. Wait lists are still monstrous, and staff are still overworked and underpaid.
Dental care for low income folks. Teeth are super important and I’ve had low earning friends have serious trouble because they couldn’t afford check ups which caused real problems down the road.
Again, I'll believe it when I see it. Right now, it's going to be open to people over 85 and phased in slowly, and even then I suspect the provinces will find ways to nickle-and-dime it into uselessness, as they've managed to do with healthcare in general.
And of course, I would say that rolling out the covid relief plan in a coherent targeted way was nothing short of impressive. Compare that to our southern neighbours who gave less money and poorly targeted, a colossal waste of money.
I'll give you this one, they did this pretty well. What they didn't do well was getting early control of inflation once the economy started to recover. Housing was probably the worst-run aspect of this, and we recognize that governments move slowly, and that the Canadian government is hardly the only one at fault, but it doesn't excuse the government from steadfastly refusing to take corrective action on the housing portfolio eight years ago.
Do I think the CPC would have done better? Heck, no--they'd have made larger versions of the same mistakes and added a soupcon of social conservatism--but "better than the CPC" does indeed seem to be the Liberal modus operandi.
No one's being naive, but we're also seeing that "sunny ways" really meant eight more years of the same neoliberal bullshit that's been degrading western nations since at least 1992.
meant eight more years of the same neoliberal bullshit that's been degrading western nations
I think this is the crux.
I mean that in terms of what a modern western government is going to do, the Liberals have done pretty well. I'd like more etc but I'm relatively impressed by the start.
There's a large difference between "not doing what you would do" on an issue and not doing anything.
I also tend to think that creating and refining multiple new national programs takes more than a couple of years.
They wouldn't have done any of those programs if they didn't need NDP support to govern. National daycare and dental programs are both NDP ideas that they've been pushing forever
Oh absolutely.
$10/day daycare will be a game changer, once there are enough spots. There are waitlists for the waitlists, where I live.
Not saying that's the Fed's fault. Just that in some places, lots of people aren't seeing the benefit yet. And the angry representative of the fields south of Ottawa will happily tell us it's due to a lack of federal planning.