Cardy laid out five policy planks on which he says the new party will be campaigning: reforming government programs, increasing Canada's defence spending to two per cent of its gross domestic product, reforming immigration through "better gatekeepers," making life more affordable by "dismantling protectionism" and increasing competition in the airline, telecommunications and agricultural sectors.
Climate change? Cost of living? The housing crisis? Collapsing healthcare?
"Increasing competition" without lowering prices is meaningless. Protectionism is fine, so long as we generally benefit from it.
Government-controlled protectionism is supposed to be good - and in a functioning democracy should benefit the people over businesses all of the time. The problem we have is far-(self)-righteous parties whose members only care about themselves and those who pad their pockets with bribes and "donations".
Increasing competition adds downward pressure on prices and forces our domestic oligopolies to compete.
That's how markets work.
There's value in promoting a strong local industry, but when that industry fails to compete that's a market failure. The smaller the market the more likely it is to fail.
The two things are only loosely connected. The unprecedented wealth and income disparity shows that there are no improvements in efficiency that cannot be clawed back and stolen from the public purse.
"Increasing competition" without lowering prices is meaningless.
Tell me you know nothing about economics without telling me you know nothing about economics. The effect of increasing competition in a heavily monopolized industry is to lower prices.
Edit: I slightly misread the quoted text. I had assumed that "increasing competition" meant breaking up Canadian monopolies, not opening the floodgates to other markets. I'm really surprised that a party called "Canada future" is against protectionism. I still stand by my point here, but I see where you're coming from.
the CFP is portraying themselves as centrist but their policies and strategy is right learning
alrighty then🥱
Edit:
ok after rereading I actually like one of their policy "planks":
increasing competition in the airline, telecommunications and agricultural sectors.
although the agricultural sector here doesn't really make too much sense as it's not the fault of the farmers that produce and goods are expensive, it's our supermarkets like Loblaws that needs an increase in competitors
"Under the shell on the left, the social programs you need. But along with it, too often you have to buy bloated government, ever-increasing spending, divorced from delivering results.
"Under the shell on the right, we're supposed to find fiscal discipline. But along with it, too often there's a mean-spirited approach that blames the most vulnerable for their plight, selfishness masquerading as liberty that happily misdirects government resources to the wealthy, and polices our bodies and our bedrooms."
Holy shit, what a well-phrased criticism of the big 2 parties!
What Canada needs: yet another party jostling to get to the center as quickly as possible. Another party whose platform is the Overton Window. The most average party possible.
To me a party that says they're going to look at the options objectively and pick the best from each side is appealing.
For the most part Canada is pretty great, there are a lot of things that I don't think need radical changes. Of course I do want radical changes where needed (say fixes to our healthcare, disability systems, etc).
"Each side" is the issue - this party is going to let the conversation be driven by existing parties rather than any objective thinking. It's leaving the conversation to be defined by the hegemonic political machines. So I expect nothing new. Another party of business as usual.
Sure, Canada's doing great but we're driving off a cliff in many respects. Once the ground gives out we're gonna have a bad time.
The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse.
... basically the idea that political ideas and discourse can be subtly moved from one position to another over time ... the danger being that people can be influenced or convinced to move to ever more extreme ideas and policies.
Oh look! An actual reasonable conservative party rather than the Trump Party Annex. Sure there's some populist sort of stuff on the platform but it is refreshing at least.
I don't mind if it siphons some fiscally hawkish liberal support from Trudeau and socially inclusive conservative support from Poilievre. We do need alternatives.
I'm mostly a liberal voter but I might throw my vote their way as a protest vote.
The LPC isn't taking the actions I want, I actually do like the NDP's platform but I think they need a massive shakeup, they're not marketing themselves right, and the CPC right now is so far beyond anyone I could remotely support.
I'll see what their platform really looks like come election time, and if they run a good candidate I'll give them a vote.
I would be more than happy if the two major federal parties were CF and the NDP, representing between them what the majority of Canadians actually want. Greens would be a good centrist party if they could keep enough strong leaders in the party.
What Conservatives and Liberals know how to do is sell themselves. Actually governing has become secondary.
increasing Canada's defence spending to two per cent of its gross domestic product, reforming immigration through "better gatekeepers," making life more affordable by "dismantling protectionism" and increasing competition in the airline, telecommunications and agricultural sectors
the party will have a strict vetting system to fend off potential foreign interference
strict vetting against foreign interference is rich coming from a party that agrees with the US state department at every opportunity
They should just nationalize politics across the entire system.
Anyone or any business that wants to contribute money to politics only has the opportunity to send funds to a general public non-aligned, non-affiliated national organization.
All the money is then equally distributed to nationally recognized and approved political leaders across the board.
The way its set up now is basically a system to maintain an oligarchy, aristocracy or plutocracy ... it definitely is not democratic. The current system runs on money and whoever has the most of it gets to have all the power and control. It doesn't run on the voice of the people, the will of the people or even the participation of the people .... it's all just a glorified money system that is basically the playground for the rich and powerful.
I'd be interested to see how well they poll. A proper fiscally conservative government wouldn't be a bad idea. That being said, I highly doubt they'll get even a single seat.
They're starting with bielections which are safe protest votes.
People know their vote won't change things so there is very little consequence for a protest vote, and in that light I think they might do fairly well.
At least the current polling it would be hard for the liberals to lose harder.
They're set to lose around 100 seats, and the conservatives are set for the largest majority government in almost 40 years.
The NDP aren't forecast to gain any seats.
So maybe it is time for another party to take a swing.
ETA: I don't even think the NDP platform is bad, but their messaging is not getting through and frankly I think people are as tired of Singh as they are Trudeau.
If they don't willingly change they deserve a shakeup.
If only a federal political party with electoral victory within their reach had promised a meaningful reform to the first past the post system. Around 2015. That would have really been timely, and materially improved the Canadian political space.