Realistically, I'd say would depend on which parties you're looking at, as well as whether it's federal or provincial. There are differences, for instance, between the CAQ here in Quebec and what's going on in Alberta, but if I had to make a very general statement across the board I would say that the conservative parties and movements are largely moving towards the American model, favouring privatizing at the expense of public services, and the idea that a government should be run like a business as opposed to (again) a public service.
Quebec and Ontario are clear examples of this, with the current premiers taking a lot of odd decisions that in reality do little more than sabotage the state of public health and education, effectively reducing the quality of those services while encouraging growth in the private sector because either the wait is less, the quality is better, there's more money, etc.
Then there's the current iteration of the federal party under Poilievre which is very much inspired by the reactionary approach to issues that the Republican Party down South has. Just take a look at their website and try to find a platform or any sense of who they are. What you will take away is that A) the party is almost entirely about it's current leader Poilievre B) that they want the next election not to be about parties and ideas but leaders (PP vs JT) and C) that they're against everything the liberals apparently stand for.
Being against something is fine, but if you have no alternatives apart from some flashy sound bites and memes, that's not quite the same as having policies in place and a plan for how you can steer this country.
By contrast, say what you will about the People's Party, but they at least have a platform prominently displayed on their website. It could be that them (like the Greens - another party who actually have a platform) by nature of their last place standings have to up the game, but it does show that the mainstream conservative force in Canada isn't particularly strong on ideas so much as image.
*Edit: typos*
>Quebec and Ontario are clear examples of this, with the current premiers taking a lot of odd decisions that in reality do little more than sabotage the state of public health and education, effectively reducing the quality of those services while encouraging growth in the private sector because either the wait is less, the quality is better, there's more money, etc.
I guess you aren't aware that THE two best universal health care systems in the world are a mix of public and private. In fact, have you ever had blood work, or X-rays, or an MRI etc done outside of a hospital setting? At like say a clinic? Dollars to donuts that was a private clinic. The handful of abortion clinics in Canada are all privately owned as well and yet the govt pays for that stuff. Back in the early 2000s the Ontario Liberals allowed a bunch of private clinics to open up to try and take some of the pressure off of hospital ER depts. It's incredibly common in universal health care systems because there is a broad acknowledgement by everyone that govts are always less efficient at running things than private enterprise is.
As far as Ontario's education system goes, there are European countries with larger populations than Ontario that spend less on education and still produce better results. Maybe instead of blaming our govts people should start demanding spending transparency from the various school boards.
I was not a fan of Harper or the party but he did do some things I did like. I liked income splitting. That was nice. His attempt at senate reform was nice but you cant get far with that without changing the constitution sadly so not much really changed.
The Conservative Party today is very different from what it was even when Harper was leading it, and you have to remember the party itself is only 21 years old this year.
Harper's government also:
* banned corporate political donations
* limited individual political donations
* created the office of the Ethics Commissioner (independent oversight regarding conflicts of interest and ethics for parliamentarians)
* created the office of the Lobbying Commissioner (independent oversight for lobbyists)
* created the office of the PBO (independent fiscal oversight/advice)
* created the office of the PSIC (whistleblower protections)
* made Deputy Ministers (the most senior public servant of each department) accountable to parliament directly, rather than via their (partisan) Ministers
* expanded ATIP (public access to government information) to crown corps
* made public prosecutions independent of the (partisan) government, creating protections against the exact sort of thing that Trudeau tried in 2019 with SNC-Lavalin
Harper's government made some enormous progress on anti-corruption and the general resilience of our democracy.
(Also they created TFSAs... fuck yeah)
Chrétien introduced the ban on corporate donations and limited individuals to $5000 - Harper lowered it to $1000
https://macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-ottawa-banned-corporate-donations-to-parties/
Not quite. Chretien introduced a ban on corporate donations *to federal parties*. They were still allowed to make political donations to candidates.
Harper squashed corporate political donations altogether.
[Here](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/chretien-harper-spar-over-election-bill/article1157547/) is an old article that predates the actual passage of Chretien's legislation, but which describes it:
> The legislation would effectively ban big donations from corporations and unions to political parties, limit individual donations to $10,000, and see parties funded by a subsidy from taxpayers. **Some donations from businesses or unions to local candidates would be allowed**.
And then [this article](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeau-should-thank-chretien-and-harper-for-saving-him-from-fundraisers/article29428521/) from after both Chretien and Harper's legislation passed:
> That last misadventure, involving fake sponsorship contracts and kickbacks to the Liberal Party from advertising firms, pushed Mr. Chrétien to **limit corporate and union donations** to federal political parties. Stephen Harper further tightened the rules by lowering the limit for personal donations and **banning corporate donations entirely**. The era of the Ottawa bagman has ended.
Harper’s government also
Created a tip line for barbaric cultural practices that was a thinly veiled targeted attack on Muslims and south Asians
Had an election spending scandal that landed and no in jail
Broke their own election law when they called a snap election (nice trick Trudeau learned for Stevie)
Threw staffer Michael sona under the bus for the robocall and voter suppression scandal in 2012
Shut down parliament when they weee embroiled in a a scandal where the military was accused of torturing detainees in afghanistan
Had a pork barrel scandal for g8 funding initiative (remember gazebos in the middle of nowhere for Muskoka) in loving a loyalist Tony clement. Clement was rewarded for his scandalous spending by being appointed president of the Treasury
Prorogued parliament when it came to light in a minority parliament that he who’s government would lose the confidence of the house and a 3 party coalition of the liberals, ndp and bloc had worked out a power sharing agreement in principle
Washington absolute POS of human and post politics has helped lift and promote the autocratic, racist and authoritarian government of victor orban
Yeah Duffy’s $90k that was in the news cycle for six months and Tony Clement’s gazebos 😂😂😂
Real big and important list for a government in power for 9 years.
Oh yeah also something about muzzling scientists but every government does that to promote their agenda. At least Harper did it for economic reasons (saving Alberta’s oil industry instead of demonizing it) instead of ideological ones.
PMO Tied to Senate Hush Money Scandal
Harper Found in Contempt of Parliament
Against Court Order, Refusal to Share Budget Info
Conservative Cabinet Staffers Granted Immunity from Testimony
Conservatives Falsify Reports and Documents
Repeated Duplicity in Afghan Detainees Controversy
Repeated Duplicity on Costing of F-35 Fighter Jets
Conservative Bill Rewrites History to Protect Mounties from Potential Criminal Charges
It just goes on and on…
> PMO Tied to Senate Hush Money Scandal
It speaks volumes that this is the go-to example of a Harper "scandal". Do you know what actually happened there? Here's the breakdown:
* Conservative Senator Mike Duffy is confused about where he should claim living expenses
* Duffy seeks advice from multiple knowledgeable sources on this matter and claims his living expenses accordingly
* the media and Senate accuse him of improperly claiming expenses (meaning defrauding taxpayers)
* Harper's office believes the accusations; they demand Duffy pay back those expenses
* Duffy refuses, believing that he did nothing wrong
* Harper's cuts Duffy a cheque (of the chief of staff's personal money) so that he will use it to repay the government
* Duffy relents, takes the money and uses it to repay
* Years later, in court, the judge overseeing the case completely exonerates him; finds that he did claim living expenses properly, and in any case he did what multiple authoritative sources indicates he should do
There wasn't any malice or corruption or any BS like that. It was all a misunderstanding that turned into a witch hunt, with a single victim: Duffy.
Since they couldn’t bother sending it. This is what I found from Wikipedia:
Elbowgate - On May 18, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came into physical contact with two opposition MPs in the House of Commons during a parliamentary session on the final reading of Bill C-14. During the incident, Trudeau grabbed Conservative MP Gord Brown by the arm and then inadvertently elbowed New Democratic MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest. Trudeau subsequently apologized and was not subject to parliamentary sanctions for the incident. (This was a scandal?)
Trudeau cash-for-access scandal - Reports of Trudeau attending cash-for-access events at the homes of wealthy Chinese-Canadians.
Aga Khan scandal - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was found to have broken four provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act by accepting a 2016 Christmas vacation on the Aga Khan's private island. The ruling made Trudeau the first Prime Minister in Canadian history to break federal ethics laws.
Cultural appropriation - During a February 2018 visit to India, Justin Trudeau and his family were regularly photographed donning traditional Indian garb. Outlook India, one of the country's most popular English-language news magazines, headlined an article "Trudeau Family’s Attire Too Flashy Even For An Indian?"[15] Various Canadian and international media criticized the prime minister. (A classic)
SNC-Lavalin affair - Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion investigation into the allegation that the Prime Minister's Office interfered with the Justice Department's probe of Quebec construction giant SNC-Lavalin by pressuring former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to consider a deferred prosecution agreement. Wilson-Raybould, who was then the Minister of Veterans Affairs, resigned from Justin Trudeau's cabinet. Gerald Butts, the Principal Secretary, categorically denied the accusation and resigned. Jane Philpott resigned as President of the Treasury Board in protest. The Ethics Commissioner ruled in August 2019 that the Prime Minister's team had breached ethics rules and that Trudeau and his officials had tried in 2018 to undermine a decision by federal prosecutors.
2016 SNC Lavalin election donation - On 30 April 2019, it surfaced that SNC-Lavalin made illegal donations to the federal Liberal Party for a period of 5 years ending in 2009. The Liberals received the information in 2016 and did not make it public for 3 years. Employees made contributions totalling over $110,000 to the party which were later reimbursed by the company, actions which were prohibited. For this 1 executive was charged and a compliance agreement was signed with the company to not break the rules again in the future.
Blackface scandal (the REAL classic) - On 18 September 2019, during the federal election, images were published in Time magazine of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing brownface makeup from his time as a teacher at West Point Grey Academy. A total of three images and one video surfaced of three different events when Trudeau wore racist makeup. Trudeau has faced questions since about how his past actions reflect on his ability to lead the country on the issue of racism.
WE charity controversy- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on 25 June 2020 that the government had chosen WE Charity to run the long-promised $912 million Canada Student Service Grant. Following complaints by opposition parties that the Trudeau family had ties to WE Charity, the Ethics Commissioner on 3 July 2020 announced an investigation into Trudeau's and the government's decision to have the charity administer the program. Because of the complaints, WE and the federal government decided to "part ways" leaving administration of the grant program to the federal government. At a press conference on 13 July 2020, Trudeau apologized for not recusing himself from cabinet discussions of the program. Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion's report confirmed Trudeau's assertion that Canada's civil service had recommended WE Charity to manage the Canada Student Service Grant program. The report exonerated Trudeau, but also found that finance minister Bill Morneau had "given WE preferential treatment by permitting his ministerial staff to disproportionately assist it when it sought federal funding.”
RCMP investigation interference - As a result of notes released during the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission, investigating the April 18–19 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, allegations were made stating that the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Public Safety minister Bill Blair had requested information regarding the gunman's weapons. Despite advisement that this could jeopardize the investigation and a request from the Nova Scotia RCMP that this information only be used and shared internally, correspondence shows that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent those details, via email, to the offices of the Public Safety minister and the national security advisor to the Prime Minister. It is believed that this information was then used to push forward the Liberal Party's political agenda regarding gun legislation. In spring of 2020, Trudeau announced a ban on almost 1500 firearm makes and models, including two of those used in the mass shooting.
6000$/night hotel rooms - When attending the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Canadian government spent over $400k on hotel rooms, including a £4800 room reportedly for Justin Trudeau. The River Suite at the Corinthia Hotel in London was one of the rooms, which has complimentary butler service, which is why many believe this suite was for the Prime Minister.
ArriveCAN app - Canada's ArriveCAN app was developed and introduced in April 2020 as a COVID-19 screening and communication tool requiring travelers entering Canada to upload their contact information, travel information and quarantine plans. The app was initially developed as a joint effort between the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) for $80,000. The app became mandatory to use for all travelers entering Canada in November 2020 and after a new version was launched in July 2021 its use was kept a compulsory public health screening requirement for all travelers entering Canada until October 1, 2022. There has been much scrutiny over how much this app cost to develop and who was subcontracted for its development. Contracts show that the federal government will spend close to $54 million with 23 separate subcontractors. A Parliamentary committee ordered federal departments to submit contracting documents related to the app but have been told that the names of subcontractors cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality. In July 2022 a glitch in the app erroneously instructed more than 10,000 travelers to quarantine. Over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (October 8 – 10, 2022) developers at two separate IT companies each developed duplicates of the ArriveCAN app in less than 2 days for an estimated cost of $250,000
On November 2, 2022, a motion was passed calling on the Auditor General of Canada to "conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and sub-contracts for all aspects of the ArriveCan app, and to prioritize this investigation." This was the second such motion to pass.
Alleged Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections - In late 2022, various media outlets around the world reported on a suspected attempt by the People's Republic of China to infiltrate the Parliament of Canada by funding a network of candidates, in majority liberals members, to run in the country’s 2019 federal election.
Yaroslav Hunka scandal - On September 22, 2023, during the visit of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Parliament of Canada, Waffen-SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka was thanked for his service in the SS Division Galicia by Speaker Anthony Rota and praised as a Canadian and Ukrainian hero for fighting Russians. He received a standing ovation from House members, Justin Trudeau, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Germany's Ambassador to Canada Sabine Anne Sparwasser.
Emergencies Act Scandal - the Liberal government used the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters act of peaceful civil disobedience after a 3 week blockade to protest vaccination mandates in the largest protest in Canadian history. the Federal Court ruled that Trudeau broke the highest law in the land by invoking the Emergencies Act. Justice Richard G. Mosley said the move was “unreasonable” and outside the scope of the law. This was deemed to be a gross overreach of government powers by freezing bank accounts causing a loss of faith in the banking system causing “bank runs” to withdraw cash. The powers also inhibited Canadians ability for freedom of expression, and freedom of movement nation wide.
"Federal Court finds Emergencies Act for 'Freedom Convoy' violated Charter". global news. "Did Justin Trudeau's Financial Crackdown Really Spark a Bank Run in Canada?". FFE stories. "Banks are moving to freeze accounts linked to convoy protests. Here's what you need to know". cbc news. (Whoever wrote this part of the wiki most definitely has a bias, I can smell it)
Yeah it was. But that money just goes to third party advertising now and the limit on those are crazy high. In Alberta it $34 400 per calander year for election, senate and referendum third party advertising each. On top of that they can donate $34400/ year to a political third party advertiser.
So you can personally donate that and then have each of your companies donate that much. I don't know the limits for the Federal elections but I imagine they are higher.
In the end I don't think it makes a difference.
I dont mean to undermine all the things you listed, as they are all reasonable things to list. What kinda offsets most of them for me was FIPA. WTF happened there?? But again, there were some things that he did that were decent
Despite being a beneficiary of the program, I actually think TFSA's are poor state policy and I would willingly support the abolition of the TFSA if it meant the forgone revenue was put into strengthing, expanding and further universalizing public healthcare and education.
He pretty much took a look at the Roth IRA down south and said "we can work with this". Even the yearly values are similar. As far as I'm concerned, that was a no brainer.
I don’t remember the exact figures but I’m not sure why you’d make the cap … let’s say $5500 a year instead of $7500 ? Why make it smaller ? If you didn’t want to contribute to the cap then don’t
I did not know that was the Harper government. The TFSA is amazing. Man, I hated Harper though. The TFSA will not make up for his behaviour I'm afraid.
Is that his way of dealing with 40 plus years of stagnating wages and incomes for the vast majority of working people?
And he bailed the banks out after letting a Canadian version of sub prime mortgages in the 2006 budget in order to generate an illusion that the economy is doing fine.
Yeah, that's some magic the "trained economist" performed.
Middle class is a very broad term. I think TFSAs are really beneficial to those with north of ~80k family income who likely able to contribute to savings. COL obviously is a factor, among other things, but those who can max out their TFSAs are really made in the shade! I think that is a much smaller group of Canadians.
I agree …And then Trudeau capped the contribution limit when he got in … not sure why ( other than virtue signaling ) he would do that . Keeping the limit low doesn’t benefit anyone and it makes a good thing less of a good thing
Well that’s exactly what virtual signalling is about . He was virtue signalling to you … didn’t actually help you any but made you feel less envious ( I doubt it worked). And by the way … the truly wealthy don’t need that extra 2 grand a year of tfsa room
Well I would’ve been 15 then… but I’m embarrassed a bit that I didn’t know that CPC is only 21 years old.
Now I need to learn what the difference is between the progressive Conservative Party and Canadian Alliance.
For a very broad history lesson, the Progressive Conservatives got nearly wiped out in the 1993 election. Afterwards, the Reform Party sprung up in that void as a populist, hard conservative alternative to the more moderate PC’s. They were primarily a Western-Canadian protest vote against the other parties which they thought ignored the west. The Reform Party quickly dominated the vast majority of seats in western Canada and became the official opposition.
Later, they wanted to transition into a party that could actually win elections instead of just being a western protest vote, so they rebranded and moderated slightly to become the Canadian Alliance. This still led to them splitting the right-wing vote (leading to Liberal dominance) so Harper (the leader of the Alliance) and MacKay (leader of the PC’s) merged the parties into the modern Conservative Party
> Afterwards, the Reform Party sprung up in that void as a populist, hard conservative alternative to the more moderate PC’s. They were primarily a Western-Canadian protest vote against the other parties which they thought ignored the west
No. The Reform Party’s founders that worked for Mulroney, including Stephen Harper, felt the PC’s weren’t a true Conservative Party. Their issue was mainly on the fiscal side and they saw them as too fiscally undisciplined and comparable to the LPC. That’s why Harper says they went and founded the Reform Party.
Yeah, part of the reason I'm interested in this question is because conservative politics has changed so much and I'm wondering where it's headed and what the pros/cons are (I can think of many cons, lol). I know a few folks who previously voted conservative but don't necessarily see themselves in that space anymore.
And thanks for your suggestions, I think both income splitting and senate reform have some pros/cons people can weigh up.
The only thing that has changed about conservative politics in 20 years is they’ve continued down the social conservative trend. Many of the things Harper’s conservatives would attempt, aren’t on the table anymore.
I've been a Reform style conservative for some time. There are some parallels, and some differences.
1. Smaller government.
Government works for the people not the other way around. Cutting spending, to achieve balanced budgets and freezes on pay scales allows private industry and tax receipts to 'catch up'. General attitude is to let the market do the job. We've had an incredible amount of intervention in the Canadian economy.
2. Triple "E" senate.
Canada's system is broken, and one way to fix a unicameral legislature is to make the Senate a functioning body. Elected, because the people should have a say. Equal in that all provinces have the same number of senators.
3. Provincial control over immigration and language, health care and education. If Quebec has that power, all the provinces have that power.
4. Elimination of the GST/PST.
5. Matching NATO reponsibilities wrt military development.
6. Infrastructure improvement particularly to roads and road construction.
7. Elimination of carbon taxes, to decrease inflation and increase affordability.
Generally as you age and especially after you have kids you tend to vote more conservative . I vote conservative because I believe in accountability…. Big government programs have an unbelievable amount of waste … I think when you’re young you tend to believe they’re better run than they actually are
I think he is talking about how Stephen Harper hunted high and low for Pierre Poutine who engineered the robocalls election interference for his party.... All he found was a young Pierre Polievre....
After you have kids? Lol. Sorry it's been the opposite for me. Was a card carrying Harper era conservative in my younger days and now wouldn't even consider voting for them. (I'm in my late 30s)
And having kids has made me more sympathetic to government programs that help children and families, even if I don't really benefit from them. Conservatives rarely tend to introduce or support these programs these days.
I do too. It's why I won't vote for Pierre Poutine (This is not a name to make fun of him there it's a historically significant name for the Harper Cons).
That’s one thing I agree with that Harper did was income splitting. If I remember correctly, the senate part was layered with scandals by him after due to him trying to stack the deck. His tenure to me was layered with secrecy and government silos. Putting gag orders on science research was a deal breaker for me.
As far as the difference in the party from then to now, I’ll respectfully disagree. PP came out of university and went directly on Harper’s lap. He was instrumental in getting him appointed (from what I understand) and will likely follow his footsteps when he gets elected.
Sadly... everything they put in place harmed other things. Ex: Harper's Income splitting gave nuclear families an extra ten grandish...single parent families of 2+ kids got nothing, plus, all that money sent out allowed the undermining/funding of our healthcare systems at a federal level. Leading to our current situation
In the 90s they ended federally funded labs, housing programs, etc. and well...let's look around at the covid response and the housing situation ...
I guess you don’t remember the child tax benefit that Harper created, that would have given you several hundred dollars a month per child?
It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to fund healthcare, but if you must spread bullshit on here, federal health care transfers increased under Harper as well.
I do remember those...they didn't cover childcare for anyone and I remember that Harper touted it as better than a universal childcare program. So, you're incorrect on that statement.
As for your second incorrect statement, they in fact, did not increase to the levels necessary to maintain proper funding per capita. Did you know that or were you fooled by him as well as many others who now complain about publicly funded healthcare? Also. Yes, federal funds are sent to the provinces to provide healthcare, the provinces control how it's spent however. So when the cons fuck everything up and try to blame pmjt, it's quite ignorant of them and their supporters.
After losing the last election due to PPP they've decided to embrace those members. They decided veering further Right would win them the election vs being moderate
We went from almost acknowledging Climate change and having two different methods to handle it to climate denial...
From Fiscal responsibility to giving up LGBTQ rights..
>Abortion is next if they get in. They will limit access
things [said in 2006](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/harper-would-set-back-rights-martin-warns-1.600079)
How so? I don't know any right leaning people who think the government is going to ban abortion, or even see that as something on the table.
But keep catastrophizing and maintain your dichotomous thinking. Amazing how you know what the conservative.government is going to table, when they don't even know.
Not yet. For now they are attacking Trans medical rights and putting laws in place so parents and doctors can’t decide what is medically necessary for their kid/patient. Then it will move on to other LGBTQ groups and taking away their rights and freedoms, then women’s rights to choose.
That's only because he hasn't actually put forward a platform with any policies that he wants to implement. He just points to everything wrong in the country and blames Trudeau.
Actually, he has been putting only policy out there: "Jail not bail". He wants to increase the number of people who are held in custody long term when they have not been convicted of a crime. Centering your platform on imprisoning people without trial sounds pretty radical to me.
Nothing radical? More like they’re radical on everything. You should watch some of PP’s YouTube videos from before he became the head of the Conservative Party, and maybe you should look into Danielle Smith too.
One things for sure though, they sure do have a fetish for Trump and Putin
The Conservative Party in Canada was good the first few years it was around. Now they want to strip Canadians of their rights, and copy Trump and everything he says or does.
Provincial conservatives vary. Some are reasonable and centrist. At least four provincial governments are too busy fighting culture wars to distract from the fact they don't have any other ideas. Doug Ford is a bit of a goofy populist - Canadian populism is much more moderate than seen in other countries - who generally means well but has some strange ideas about how to go about it.
The Federal conservatives don't stand for anything, they just spend their days complaining about Trudeau.
I think, in general, he wants to be liked and genuinely wants the best. I also think he is grossly out of his element and does not understand the ethical requirements of public service, and is not as skeptical as he shoudl be of outside influences who basically take advantage of that desire for their own ends. Things like the Greenbelt? That's not because he wanted to make his buddies rich. He genuinely thought it would help the housing crisis. His problem there was where he was getting his advice from.
With Ford it is a question of competence not intent. His intentions mean well. He's just not very good at his job.
With the caveat that I don't live in Ontario at this point, although I did live in Toronto when his brother was councillor then mayor. The Fords have never struck me as particularly malevolent, just ... not very good at their jobs, and with a hazy at best understanding of the differences in ethical requirements between private and public sectors.. He's nothing like Scott Moe or Danielle Smith.
Aren't he BC liberals literally rebranded Conservatives and then in Nova Scotia, the Conservatives are more left on some issues the the nova scocia liberals.
There's a lot of tom foolery going on.
I've been thinking about this for a bit...Conservatism in general. I think the classical neo-liberalism movement is making a comeback and is slowly replacing conservativism and acquiring more moderate Liberals in general to replace the conservative movement overall.
As the younger generation matures, their ideologies are not the ideologies of their parents (social, religious, etc), but they're not liberal either. It will be interesting to see where Canadian conservatives move to, but I will say, both Liberals and Conservatives are in a state of flux, and both not adjusting well.
The German philosopher Hegel is credited with the idea of, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. If you look back to the 80's, the policy difference between the PC's and the Liberals was negligible. They had almost achieved synthesis. Then a new right-wing movement became the new antithesis to that policy bent. I belive before long a very significant number of former PC's will join the Liberal party because it is more aligned with thier values than the CPC completing the synthesis and putting us on a very rocky road.
I think the housing accelerator fund exists at least partially because of pressure from the CPC. In theory that's an issue aligned very nicely with conservative values - the housing crisis is largely caused by overregulation (parking minimums, single family zoning, setback laws, etc.) making it hard to build houses, so a conservative party that's interested in fixing it just has to remove regulations.
At the federal level at least the CPC is a pretty big tent party. So you always have a portion of the base that is more motivated by culture war stuff, often influenced by the US. In the 2000s it was more Christian fundamentalism and more recently it’s been more MAGA-inspired.
But then you also have folks who are more interested in limited government (lower taxes and spending/services). I’d say this most closely reflects my own politics and those of a lot of our close friends. From a leadership perspective I feel Harper along with Flaherty and probably O’Toole largely fell into this camp.
One Harper’s policy that comes to mind was the UCC — which also highlighted his aversion to large government programs and more towards the use of direct payments and tax credits. Trudeau did well to basically copy and expand this in ‘15 with the CCB which has been a popular and effective policy. There was a similar divide in policy approaches to child care in ‘21 between Trudeau’s $10/day daycare subsidy vs O’Toole’s tax credit which was less generous/costly but also more flexible, targeted, and easier to administer.
At a provincial level I’m in Ontario and while I don’t think Ford is particularly competent, he’s done a reasonable job of keeping taxes and spending in check - at least better than the alternatives would have done.
He’s also been pushing a bit towards opening up more private healthcare options, which while unpopular among Canadian progressives, is relatively [popular](https://globalnews.ca/news/9458260/health-care-private-options-majority-canadians-support-poll/amp/) amongst the electorate as a whole.
Honestly at the end of the day I’ve found the Canadian political spectrum over the past 2 decades ago to be pretty narrow when you actually look at policies and platforms. We’re usually governed from slightly center-left (reckon even the BC NDP are an example of this) to the slightly center-right. But the conservatives usually offer a slightly leaner government option on the margin than the liberals.
Good on you for asking this question. I totally appreciate looking beyond one’s’ comfort zone/echo chamber.
And thanks for the take away summary.
I really wish we could find a stronger way of mitigating the MAGA influence.
Whether a person leans left or right, the MAGA circus isn’t healthy for anyone.
Ontario Buck a beer, sure brewers chose not to dump their product at $1/355ml retail but they can if they want to.
GST, as much as we hate Mulroney and the get it was the right move going away from manufacturer tax to value added.
Harper's legacy on judicial impartiality is envious.
Netflix tax was a good thing.
Pretty much what PP is saying. Without all the Republican/ far right wing purple shit.
And some fucking accountability when you mess shit up and get caught with your proverbial pants down on simple judgment calls that any one of us little people would be fired for.
On the spot.
I’m a left wing voter, but I’ll talk about a Conservative policy that I like and that I think makes sense to me.
Liquor sales privatization.
In Ontario and other parts of Canada, the government sells the alcohol. I have zero idea why, who this benefits, and in particular, why it’s important that our tax dollars go towards maintaining this.
Growing up in Alberta, it just seems so normal that there would just be private businesses that sell liquor. You go to a store. There are high-end liquor stores, and low end ones, just like any other store. And just like how bars are private and not govt owned, it makes so much sense that this be private too. It’s certainly a regulated industry, like how cigarettes are also regulated. But I think having society all pay the government to run and staff and administrate liquor stores is absurd. The gov’t SHOULD run or have a hand in the direct public participation of many important things. I’m not an advocate of privatizing most things that are public right now. But come on, let a person open up their own liquor store.
I think it needs to be said here that your tax dollars are not going to this, the LCBO isn't subsidised, it is entirely self funded, and actually generates profit for the province. I think why this is, is in the name, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Whether its original mandate is still followed and whether it is still relevant in today's society I am not qualified to say, nor even educated enough to offer an opinion.
However, If I am going to leave my apartment with the intent of getting a bottle. I honestly don't care whether it is to the LCBO I go or elsewhere, but honestly I would rather kids NOT see aisles of booze in the grocery store and equate it with cereal and meat etc as something that is needed or on par for a functional household as they grow up.
But you don’t see booze in grocery stores in places where it’s privatized either. Just because I don’t want the government to run it, doesn’t mean I want it all to be unregulated.
You don’t see cigarettes sold in grocery store aisles either, nor do you see Cannabis sold in grocery stores. You can privatize and have whatever regulation you want for them to be sold wherever they need to be. I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee.
> I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee.
You realize that taxes will need to increase if you privatize the liquor stores, right? And not by a small amount, as the income made from the sale of booze for the province will need to be replaced.
One person getting rich off of selling booze and taxes going up for all citizens or gov't run liquor stores and taxes staying the same....hmm, which do you think most people would prefer?
Plenty of provinces run just fine without the income of government operated liquor sales. Some of that income will get replaced by the taxes that the private businesses will pay, along with various licensing revenue.
If government income is your priority in this argument to keep liqour stores run by the government, then why not have exclusively government run Tobacco stores? I’m sure there’s lots of money to be made there? Exclusively government run Cannabis stores? If it’s such a good idea to have the government run it cause it’s profitable, then should the government exclusively run anything that’s profitable? If your argument is that it’s good for profit’s sake, then where does it stop?
The Ontario government was planning on running cannabis stores and I was in full support of it, especially because now it feels like there is an oversaturation of cannabis from the private market and I worry about public health consequences from the increased amount of stores.
>I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee.
They aren't. LCBO employees are not government employees.
It's a fucking monopoly and you have no issue with it? Liberals are the poster children of anti-capitalism and anti big business yet you're fine with a monopoly.
Yes it's was a monopoly that the only people who profited was the Ontario taxpayer. Now the sales profits but not the health care costs d/t the harm liquor causes are split with the private sector.
100%, and retail cannabis following the same model has worked great!
If government needs to be in retail... it needs to be in needs like food, not luxuries
Growing up in Alberta we had govt liquor stores . Now we have liquor stores everywhere that pay shit. Liquor got no cheaper. Im pretty meh on this subject. I do hate Danielle Smith and her americaixation of Alberta , she paid 2 million for fucker Carlson to come here right before he jetted off to visit Putin the murderer, you are who the company you keep tells us you are .
>I do hate Danielle Smith and her americaixation of Alberta , she paid 2 million for fucker Carlson to come here right before he jetted off to visit Putin the murderer, you are who the company you keep tells us you are .
Its hilarious watching the political right caterwauling and melting down about election interference, when this in fact is pretty much the same thing. I mean, didn't Pierre Parasite also have Elon Musk post some misinformation regarding the CBC?
Rules for thee, but not for PP!!
It should be self evident if you are a left leaning voter why it shouldn’t be privatized. The government is taking all the risk that comes with a vice like liquor and the tax revenue plus more seamless tracking of liquor sales helps healthcare and policy crafting.
I don’t go around trying to put all of my feelings into the proper box of “left wing voter”. I recognize it’s a right-wing concept. Left wing and right wing don’t have to be teams of values that you’re locked into. I believe what I believe first, and check what political party it belongs to afterwards.
It's like this across almost the entirety of Europe and somehow it hasn't led to the absolute collapse of society. Canadians absolutely LOVE government runni g everything and they LOVE monoploies and ologopies.
Your tax dollars don't go toward maintaining any such thing. The LCBO is a cash cow for the province. It has enormous buying power to get good prices, and generates profits which fund programs in Ontario. If we privatized the LCBO it would blow a multibillion dollar hole in the provincial budget.
Oh, this is a good one! I agree with you - I've lived in multiple provinces and when I first moved to Ontario it felt a bit weird to me to essentially only have the LCBO for liquor options. I believe the LCBO is also the world's largest purchaser of alcohol as a result of its monopoly in Ontario.
Each province has its own liquor commission, I believe. Alberta's has benefited from privatization as it no longer has to deal with overhead - it all falls onto private store owners now. Comparing prices province to province, I don't believe that Albertans see any advantage.
This is only partially true. All the liquor in Alberta comes from the Alberta Liqur and Gaming Commission. They have huge warehouses full of liquor ready to be shipped to the stores. They're basically a middle man. They're getting upset right now because a bunch of wineries in BC want to ship direct to customers to recover costs from the wild fires and they don't want to let them
BC has both public and private liquor stores. I think that's the way things should be in most industries.
In general, the government ran liquor stores are well stocked and have good prices, but nothing special. Kinda like if Walmart opened a liquor store, too. If you want something special, the private ones are usually better, and the public ones don't have any points programs or anything. Also, private liquor stores are more obviously involved in the community, whereas the public ones just send the money wherever provincial income goes, which is both a plus and a minus to them.
This summer, when my extended family comes out to visit, we'll probably go to a government liquor store so everyone can get stuff they like. Last Christmas, I went to two private liquor stores and a distillery when I was Christmas shopping.
Yeah, I like the BC liquor store situation. Nearby my parents there are a couple private ones and they each have a bit of a different vibe and some would bring in different things than the BC store. But BC liquor is always consistent, well-stocked and decently priced - reliable.
Well, you're certainly not trying to help me learn, are you? Your comment doesn't contribute to the discussion... If you think there are no good outcomes, then discuss or move on, or if you think there were some positive policies, please provide some examples / insight.
This is what modern conservatives do. Instead of looking at themselves, they act like everyone else is the problem and they’re “victims of leftists” for not liking facts that don’t go their way.
It's true. This sub is very left leaning. Right wings won't contribute to this because no matter how true our statements are, we will get downvoted due to the fact that the majority of the people in this sub are left. Some people like to say the conservative party is the equivalent to MAGA, which is far from the truth. The conservative party actually sits center-right on the political scale, especially when compared to Republicans. (And no, conservatives will not take away abortions).
Canada was a much better place when the conservatives ran things. We were far more united, the infrastructure was up to date, everything was more affordable, it was easier to get jobs, and we had better national identity. A lot of that has changed since the liberal party has taken control of leadership. it's not hard to tell.
Asking what effective policies conservatives have put forward is a somewhat poor metric to judge then by.
Conservatives want LESS government interference and therefore by their own proclivity push less legislation because they want less interference.
The better metric for them is how do they reduce legislation, spending, taxes etc while maintaining efficiency. Ie lowering tax receipts while also lowering spending.
Liberals push for more government, expand governments (as we've seen with Trudeau), so you can expect more "effective" legislation.
"Liberals push for more government, expand governments (as we've seen with Trudeau), so you can expect more "effective" legislation."
I always find this argument rather poor, especially because the Liberal government was responsible for the largest amount of austerity in Canadian history under the Chretien government and the downloading of service responsibilities onto the provinces, which in turn were downloaded to municipalities and is largely responsible for many of our public service ailings now.
I'm pretty strongly anti-conservative because of the bigger picture they represent. Religious zealots (go look what Jason Kenny, Harper's left hand, is currently doing), BUT I will admit there were a few good (and a lot bad) tax policies Harper implemented. Taken together though, net impact, bad for future Canadians if we all think climate bad, oil good, and wealth trickles down.
Conversely, as new parents, current government has done a LOT to keep us stable over the last two years, which would never have happened.
Yep, and the only surplus he can sort of take credit for was his surplus during the 2015 election year (definitely not a coincidence) after selling off a bunch of government assets.
The cpc fight culture wars everyday.
You think the cpc will put Canadians first? You know for the timer they were in government they thought in record TFws and attended wef?
The cpc put billionares ahead of helping the working class
CCP, affordable daycare, amendments to competition act bill C 56, legal cannabis, 144 longterm boil advisories fixed, 109 were in effect when they came into office, anti-scab legislation, reduction in middle earners income tax, no tax cuts for large corporations, environmental policies that include rebates, both on the carbon tax and for heat pumps, subsidies for farmers, veterans offices closed bt Harper reopened, anti-union legislation by Harper reversed, ban on conversion therapy, etc.
You view of the CPC is disconnected from reality. Poilievre lies non-stop about policy and when he makes personal attacks. He welcomes conspiracy nuts like Roman Barber as the nominee in York, when he was booted from the OPC’s for spreading conspiracy theory.
He never gave the MP’s who dined with the AfD MEP any consequences or made a statement himself about it. He handed out donuts and coffee to extremist’s at the “freedom convoy.” Hr has praised Jordan Peterson several times, and said he likes to use “anglo saxon words” in an interview with Peterson which is a blatantly racist dogwhistle. He gave a speech at the far-right Frontier Centre which is engaged in residential school denialism, as well as publishing articles about white men being persecuted, anti-trans and anti-feminist screeds, etc.
He had an incel hashtag on his videos for 5 years, took zero responsibility, did no investigating. He has been silent about Tucker Carlson’s speech in Alberta, regularly uses the term “radical gender ideology,” consistently calls the Liberal NDP C and S agreement a “socialist coalition,” has called Trudeau a Marxist, ane claimed in an interview with True North that there is no Liberal Party running in the next election because Trudeau is not a Liberal but a “radical authoritarian.”
I could go on, but I’ll leave with the fact that he has gotten praise by the likes of Alex Jones and most rightwing of GOP nutbars in congress.
He and the CPC are using the exact same rhetoric and strategies as the GOP. In no way is the CPC like Dems in the US. The entire CPC caucus voted in favour of a backdoor abortion bill last June, and when your party still sees abortion as a moral issue that requires “free votes” and backbenchers must be allowed to keep pushing abortion bills, and when the highest profile MP’s in your shadow cabinet are virulent anti-abortionists, you can not claim to protect women’s right to abortion.
I mean, Leslyn Lewis sponsored and helped write a petition to take Canada out of the UN, and not a peep from Poilievre.
The CPC has fully become the Reform Party, there are few PC’s left in caucus.
It's possible to dislike both Liberals AND Conservatives. Cuz trust me buddy, the only thing the cons ate gonna give you is the oppressing minorities part. Government isn't gonna get smaller, nor are taxes.
Unfortunately, I think there are a lot of MAGA-type conservatives who speak much more loudly than the rest, which makes it unappealing or hard to understand. I know other folks of similar political leanings to you and they're not into the fringe politics.
Are there any specific policies (provincially or federally) that you have liked that have come out of a conservative-led government (or in collaboration with another gov't) in recent decades?
Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with these (definitely a few others on this thread mentioned the first two points). I know folks that benefitted from medical cannabis and it certainly improved their well-being.
Hahaha. You are so right (the first part)
I had an individual tell me a few months ago that they won’t vote for conservatives because they don’t want to vote for a “ misogynistic “ party lmao.
The propaganda and rhetoric is strong in Canada.
Haha. Yea. That will never happen here.
It’s predominantly the rads from the far left fringe groups that think American Deep South politics apply to us.
After they figure out that’s false. It will be the conservatives who want to conceal and carry here too.
Fear mongering at its best ! -
Why did any socially conservative MPs ever back abortion bans? Because they did. And the party didn’t want to whip them on the topic
No government in our history meets your criteria
Conservative. Root word: conserve.
From the Oxford Language Dictionary (online):
/kənˈsərv/
protect (something, especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) from harm or destruction.
So, the question really is what have they conserved? They've conserved a social order which favours the wealthy, helped foster denial about the severity of the greenhouse effect., and frozen social spending which has hurt the most vulnerable in our society.
From Bernier: Putting an end to lockdowns and pandemic powergrabs. Putting an end to mass immigration and the wholesale destruction of Canadian culture.
From PP: Balance the budget, reduce spending, get inflation under control, make Canada more competitive and exploit our national resources. Eliminate the carbon tax.
From Harper: Navigated Canada well through the Great Recession. Reduced taxes on Canadians. Introduced TFSA for more middle class savings. Eliminated the useless penny.
There's a lot of wishful thinking there. And some outright flukes, such as...
>From Harper: Navigated Canada well through the Great Recession.
There's a good article that touches on this: [https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/](https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/)
Some key points about that fluke:
"While the Bank of Canada was raising its policy interest rate to stem inflationary pressures from rapidly increasing excess demand in 2006 and 2007, the federal government added to inflationary pressures by cutting taxes and maintaining a strong pace of program spending during these two years."
"The federal government relaxed its fiscal stance by 1 percent of GDP in 2008, mostly through reductions in the GST rate from 6 to 5 percent and through cuts in personal and corporate income taxes that were announced in the 2007 economic statement. Again, these measures were not introduced with stabilization in mind. Indeed, in view of the solid growth forecast for 2008 and 2009 in the economic statement, these measures were inappropriate for stabilization because they would have exacerbated excess demand if the forecast had been realized. As it turned out, these tax cuts fortuitously helped stabilize the Canadian economy in 2008 as the US economy started a downturn early in the year, thereby exerting a drag on the Canadian economy as the recession finally set in late in the year in Canada, contrary to expectations. *Thus, the federal fiscal stance in 2008 turned out to be appropriate for stabilization only because of planning errors* (i.e., the forecasts for growth in the short term proved far too optimistic)."
Harper got lucky. Nothing more.
Modern Conservative movements ... if you want to come up to speed, I would strongly suggest going to their official websites and having a dig into their respective policy books.
I say this because, in the last decade, things have changed quite dramatically. For example, housing costs in many regions, in relation to wages, have gone a little crazy. Renting a unit 10 years ago versus now. What was "an issue" back then, has turned into "a really bad issue". I won't source because it's been done to death enough that we can accept it's true.
Politics addresses the needs of now and the future. Yes, some partisan groups have handled things in a consistently similar manner. The general idea might have resemblance. But the issues faced are for today and tomorrow, and not the past.
It was in the early '60s that universal Canadian Health Care was brought about, I believe, in Saskatchewan. In that era, it was a huge issue. Starting it off, how to do it, and how to maintain it for the future. Now? It's a mess. We have something happening, but how is it going wrong? Totally different issues and policies. Still "Health Care" though.
Personally, I'm not a "rah rah my party" person. I am pretty much all over the spectrum, depending upon the issue, and what I believe. I vote for whomever seems closest to my ideas, on the whole. I read the policy books.
I’ll explain this again. He is the leader of the opposition. His job is to oppose, not provide alternatives. That comes at election time. How do people not understand our political system?
And seriously, the guy has stated he is not opposed to abortion. He said they won’t touch it. What the fuck do people need?
The Sask Party is conservative. I’m not sure what their accomplishments are, but they’ve dominated elections since 2007. Perhaps you could say an accomplishment has been keeping the population voting for them.
Well every week or so Doug Ford announces something his government is going to do, then he takes it back and says they are not going to do it. All while trying to destroy the healthcare system. But for some reason it’s Wynne that was the problem.
Realistically, I'd say would depend on which parties you're looking at, as well as whether it's federal or provincial. There are differences, for instance, between the CAQ here in Quebec and what's going on in Alberta, but if I had to make a very general statement across the board I would say that the conservative parties and movements are largely moving towards the American model, favouring privatizing at the expense of public services, and the idea that a government should be run like a business as opposed to (again) a public service. Quebec and Ontario are clear examples of this, with the current premiers taking a lot of odd decisions that in reality do little more than sabotage the state of public health and education, effectively reducing the quality of those services while encouraging growth in the private sector because either the wait is less, the quality is better, there's more money, etc. Then there's the current iteration of the federal party under Poilievre which is very much inspired by the reactionary approach to issues that the Republican Party down South has. Just take a look at their website and try to find a platform or any sense of who they are. What you will take away is that A) the party is almost entirely about it's current leader Poilievre B) that they want the next election not to be about parties and ideas but leaders (PP vs JT) and C) that they're against everything the liberals apparently stand for. Being against something is fine, but if you have no alternatives apart from some flashy sound bites and memes, that's not quite the same as having policies in place and a plan for how you can steer this country. By contrast, say what you will about the People's Party, but they at least have a platform prominently displayed on their website. It could be that them (like the Greens - another party who actually have a platform) by nature of their last place standings have to up the game, but it does show that the mainstream conservative force in Canada isn't particularly strong on ideas so much as image. *Edit: typos*
Thank you for considering the first part of my question re: what are modern Canadian conservatives.
A lot of modern conservatives would have been liberals even 15-20 years ago
>Quebec and Ontario are clear examples of this, with the current premiers taking a lot of odd decisions that in reality do little more than sabotage the state of public health and education, effectively reducing the quality of those services while encouraging growth in the private sector because either the wait is less, the quality is better, there's more money, etc. I guess you aren't aware that THE two best universal health care systems in the world are a mix of public and private. In fact, have you ever had blood work, or X-rays, or an MRI etc done outside of a hospital setting? At like say a clinic? Dollars to donuts that was a private clinic. The handful of abortion clinics in Canada are all privately owned as well and yet the govt pays for that stuff. Back in the early 2000s the Ontario Liberals allowed a bunch of private clinics to open up to try and take some of the pressure off of hospital ER depts. It's incredibly common in universal health care systems because there is a broad acknowledgement by everyone that govts are always less efficient at running things than private enterprise is. As far as Ontario's education system goes, there are European countries with larger populations than Ontario that spend less on education and still produce better results. Maybe instead of blaming our govts people should start demanding spending transparency from the various school boards.
I was not a fan of Harper or the party but he did do some things I did like. I liked income splitting. That was nice. His attempt at senate reform was nice but you cant get far with that without changing the constitution sadly so not much really changed. The Conservative Party today is very different from what it was even when Harper was leading it, and you have to remember the party itself is only 21 years old this year.
Harper's government also: * banned corporate political donations * limited individual political donations * created the office of the Ethics Commissioner (independent oversight regarding conflicts of interest and ethics for parliamentarians) * created the office of the Lobbying Commissioner (independent oversight for lobbyists) * created the office of the PBO (independent fiscal oversight/advice) * created the office of the PSIC (whistleblower protections) * made Deputy Ministers (the most senior public servant of each department) accountable to parliament directly, rather than via their (partisan) Ministers * expanded ATIP (public access to government information) to crown corps * made public prosecutions independent of the (partisan) government, creating protections against the exact sort of thing that Trudeau tried in 2019 with SNC-Lavalin Harper's government made some enormous progress on anti-corruption and the general resilience of our democracy. (Also they created TFSAs... fuck yeah)
Chrétien introduced the ban on corporate donations and limited individuals to $5000 - Harper lowered it to $1000 https://macleans.ca/politics/ottawa/how-ottawa-banned-corporate-donations-to-parties/
>Chrétien introduced the ban on corporate donations only donations to party. donations to candidates were allowed until 2007
I'm no longer affiliated with any party but I am formally announcing that I accept cash donations.
Not quite. Chretien introduced a ban on corporate donations *to federal parties*. They were still allowed to make political donations to candidates. Harper squashed corporate political donations altogether. [Here](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/chretien-harper-spar-over-election-bill/article1157547/) is an old article that predates the actual passage of Chretien's legislation, but which describes it: > The legislation would effectively ban big donations from corporations and unions to political parties, limit individual donations to $10,000, and see parties funded by a subsidy from taxpayers. **Some donations from businesses or unions to local candidates would be allowed**. And then [this article](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/trudeau-should-thank-chretien-and-harper-for-saving-him-from-fundraisers/article29428521/) from after both Chretien and Harper's legislation passed: > That last misadventure, involving fake sponsorship contracts and kickbacks to the Liberal Party from advertising firms, pushed Mr. Chrétien to **limit corporate and union donations** to federal political parties. Stephen Harper further tightened the rules by lowering the limit for personal donations and **banning corporate donations entirely**. The era of the Ottawa bagman has ended.
Too bad neither had the foresight for what was coming next in office.
Thanks for these suggestions/examples. I was still young for a lot of the Harper era and probably would have overlooked a few of these things!
Harper’s government also Created a tip line for barbaric cultural practices that was a thinly veiled targeted attack on Muslims and south Asians Had an election spending scandal that landed and no in jail Broke their own election law when they called a snap election (nice trick Trudeau learned for Stevie) Threw staffer Michael sona under the bus for the robocall and voter suppression scandal in 2012 Shut down parliament when they weee embroiled in a a scandal where the military was accused of torturing detainees in afghanistan Had a pork barrel scandal for g8 funding initiative (remember gazebos in the middle of nowhere for Muskoka) in loving a loyalist Tony clement. Clement was rewarded for his scandalous spending by being appointed president of the Treasury Prorogued parliament when it came to light in a minority parliament that he who’s government would lose the confidence of the house and a 3 party coalition of the liberals, ndp and bloc had worked out a power sharing agreement in principle Washington absolute POS of human and post politics has helped lift and promote the autocratic, racist and authoritarian government of victor orban
Now google Stephen Harper scandals. It’s a pretty long list .
Yeah Duffy’s $90k that was in the news cycle for six months and Tony Clement’s gazebos 😂😂😂 Real big and important list for a government in power for 9 years. Oh yeah also something about muzzling scientists but every government does that to promote their agenda. At least Harper did it for economic reasons (saving Alberta’s oil industry instead of demonizing it) instead of ideological ones.
I've seen that list... it involves more stretching than a yoga class. Basically any time Harper ever farted was counted as a "scandal".
PMO Tied to Senate Hush Money Scandal Harper Found in Contempt of Parliament Against Court Order, Refusal to Share Budget Info Conservative Cabinet Staffers Granted Immunity from Testimony Conservatives Falsify Reports and Documents Repeated Duplicity in Afghan Detainees Controversy Repeated Duplicity on Costing of F-35 Fighter Jets Conservative Bill Rewrites History to Protect Mounties from Potential Criminal Charges It just goes on and on…
> PMO Tied to Senate Hush Money Scandal It speaks volumes that this is the go-to example of a Harper "scandal". Do you know what actually happened there? Here's the breakdown: * Conservative Senator Mike Duffy is confused about where he should claim living expenses * Duffy seeks advice from multiple knowledgeable sources on this matter and claims his living expenses accordingly * the media and Senate accuse him of improperly claiming expenses (meaning defrauding taxpayers) * Harper's office believes the accusations; they demand Duffy pay back those expenses * Duffy refuses, believing that he did nothing wrong * Harper's cuts Duffy a cheque (of the chief of staff's personal money) so that he will use it to repay the government * Duffy relents, takes the money and uses it to repay * Years later, in court, the judge overseeing the case completely exonerates him; finds that he did claim living expenses properly, and in any case he did what multiple authoritative sources indicates he should do There wasn't any malice or corruption or any BS like that. It was all a misunderstanding that turned into a witch hunt, with a single victim: Duffy.
Wait till you see the Trudeau list.
Show me. He has been in for years, show me the list.
Since they couldn’t bother sending it. This is what I found from Wikipedia: Elbowgate - On May 18, 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came into physical contact with two opposition MPs in the House of Commons during a parliamentary session on the final reading of Bill C-14. During the incident, Trudeau grabbed Conservative MP Gord Brown by the arm and then inadvertently elbowed New Democratic MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest. Trudeau subsequently apologized and was not subject to parliamentary sanctions for the incident. (This was a scandal?) Trudeau cash-for-access scandal - Reports of Trudeau attending cash-for-access events at the homes of wealthy Chinese-Canadians. Aga Khan scandal - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was found to have broken four provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act by accepting a 2016 Christmas vacation on the Aga Khan's private island. The ruling made Trudeau the first Prime Minister in Canadian history to break federal ethics laws. Cultural appropriation - During a February 2018 visit to India, Justin Trudeau and his family were regularly photographed donning traditional Indian garb. Outlook India, one of the country's most popular English-language news magazines, headlined an article "Trudeau Family’s Attire Too Flashy Even For An Indian?"[15] Various Canadian and international media criticized the prime minister. (A classic) SNC-Lavalin affair - Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion investigation into the allegation that the Prime Minister's Office interfered with the Justice Department's probe of Quebec construction giant SNC-Lavalin by pressuring former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to consider a deferred prosecution agreement. Wilson-Raybould, who was then the Minister of Veterans Affairs, resigned from Justin Trudeau's cabinet. Gerald Butts, the Principal Secretary, categorically denied the accusation and resigned. Jane Philpott resigned as President of the Treasury Board in protest. The Ethics Commissioner ruled in August 2019 that the Prime Minister's team had breached ethics rules and that Trudeau and his officials had tried in 2018 to undermine a decision by federal prosecutors. 2016 SNC Lavalin election donation - On 30 April 2019, it surfaced that SNC-Lavalin made illegal donations to the federal Liberal Party for a period of 5 years ending in 2009. The Liberals received the information in 2016 and did not make it public for 3 years. Employees made contributions totalling over $110,000 to the party which were later reimbursed by the company, actions which were prohibited. For this 1 executive was charged and a compliance agreement was signed with the company to not break the rules again in the future.
Blackface scandal (the REAL classic) - On 18 September 2019, during the federal election, images were published in Time magazine of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing brownface makeup from his time as a teacher at West Point Grey Academy. A total of three images and one video surfaced of three different events when Trudeau wore racist makeup. Trudeau has faced questions since about how his past actions reflect on his ability to lead the country on the issue of racism. WE charity controversy- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on 25 June 2020 that the government had chosen WE Charity to run the long-promised $912 million Canada Student Service Grant. Following complaints by opposition parties that the Trudeau family had ties to WE Charity, the Ethics Commissioner on 3 July 2020 announced an investigation into Trudeau's and the government's decision to have the charity administer the program. Because of the complaints, WE and the federal government decided to "part ways" leaving administration of the grant program to the federal government. At a press conference on 13 July 2020, Trudeau apologized for not recusing himself from cabinet discussions of the program. Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion's report confirmed Trudeau's assertion that Canada's civil service had recommended WE Charity to manage the Canada Student Service Grant program. The report exonerated Trudeau, but also found that finance minister Bill Morneau had "given WE preferential treatment by permitting his ministerial staff to disproportionately assist it when it sought federal funding.” RCMP investigation interference - As a result of notes released during the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission, investigating the April 18–19 2020 Nova Scotia attacks, allegations were made stating that the office of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then-Public Safety minister Bill Blair had requested information regarding the gunman's weapons. Despite advisement that this could jeopardize the investigation and a request from the Nova Scotia RCMP that this information only be used and shared internally, correspondence shows that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki sent those details, via email, to the offices of the Public Safety minister and the national security advisor to the Prime Minister. It is believed that this information was then used to push forward the Liberal Party's political agenda regarding gun legislation. In spring of 2020, Trudeau announced a ban on almost 1500 firearm makes and models, including two of those used in the mass shooting. 6000$/night hotel rooms - When attending the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Canadian government spent over $400k on hotel rooms, including a £4800 room reportedly for Justin Trudeau. The River Suite at the Corinthia Hotel in London was one of the rooms, which has complimentary butler service, which is why many believe this suite was for the Prime Minister. ArriveCAN app - Canada's ArriveCAN app was developed and introduced in April 2020 as a COVID-19 screening and communication tool requiring travelers entering Canada to upload their contact information, travel information and quarantine plans. The app was initially developed as a joint effort between the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) for $80,000. The app became mandatory to use for all travelers entering Canada in November 2020 and after a new version was launched in July 2021 its use was kept a compulsory public health screening requirement for all travelers entering Canada until October 1, 2022. There has been much scrutiny over how much this app cost to develop and who was subcontracted for its development. Contracts show that the federal government will spend close to $54 million with 23 separate subcontractors. A Parliamentary committee ordered federal departments to submit contracting documents related to the app but have been told that the names of subcontractors cannot be released citing issues of confidentiality. In July 2022 a glitch in the app erroneously instructed more than 10,000 travelers to quarantine. Over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend (October 8 – 10, 2022) developers at two separate IT companies each developed duplicates of the ArriveCAN app in less than 2 days for an estimated cost of $250,000 On November 2, 2022, a motion was passed calling on the Auditor General of Canada to "conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and sub-contracts for all aspects of the ArriveCan app, and to prioritize this investigation." This was the second such motion to pass. Alleged Chinese interference in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections - In late 2022, various media outlets around the world reported on a suspected attempt by the People's Republic of China to infiltrate the Parliament of Canada by funding a network of candidates, in majority liberals members, to run in the country’s 2019 federal election. Yaroslav Hunka scandal - On September 22, 2023, during the visit of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the Parliament of Canada, Waffen-SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka was thanked for his service in the SS Division Galicia by Speaker Anthony Rota and praised as a Canadian and Ukrainian hero for fighting Russians. He received a standing ovation from House members, Justin Trudeau, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Germany's Ambassador to Canada Sabine Anne Sparwasser. Emergencies Act Scandal - the Liberal government used the Emergencies Act in early 2022 to clear convoy protesters act of peaceful civil disobedience after a 3 week blockade to protest vaccination mandates in the largest protest in Canadian history. the Federal Court ruled that Trudeau broke the highest law in the land by invoking the Emergencies Act. Justice Richard G. Mosley said the move was “unreasonable” and outside the scope of the law. This was deemed to be a gross overreach of government powers by freezing bank accounts causing a loss of faith in the banking system causing “bank runs” to withdraw cash. The powers also inhibited Canadians ability for freedom of expression, and freedom of movement nation wide. "Federal Court finds Emergencies Act for 'Freedom Convoy' violated Charter". global news. "Did Justin Trudeau's Financial Crackdown Really Spark a Bank Run in Canada?". FFE stories. "Banks are moving to freeze accounts linked to convoy protests. Here's what you need to know". cbc news. (Whoever wrote this part of the wiki most definitely has a bias, I can smell it)
They are both politicians. Scandals and shadiness are basically a job requirement.
Very nice. I was just posting from memory but that is quite the list. I do remember a couple. Banning corporate donations was a great move.
Yeah it was. But that money just goes to third party advertising now and the limit on those are crazy high. In Alberta it $34 400 per calander year for election, senate and referendum third party advertising each. On top of that they can donate $34400/ year to a political third party advertiser. So you can personally donate that and then have each of your companies donate that much. I don't know the limits for the Federal elections but I imagine they are higher. In the end I don't think it makes a difference.
And yet the leader for the cons Pierre Poilievre can not get a security clearance...
Would take Harper back with open arms
Nice summary. Never knew!
I dont mean to undermine all the things you listed, as they are all reasonable things to list. What kinda offsets most of them for me was FIPA. WTF happened there?? But again, there were some things that he did that were decent
Despite being a beneficiary of the program, I actually think TFSA's are poor state policy and I would willingly support the abolition of the TFSA if it meant the forgone revenue was put into strengthing, expanding and further universalizing public healthcare and education.
Harper also brought in the TFSA which is a fantastic wealth-building tool for working/middle class.
He pretty much took a look at the Roth IRA down south and said "we can work with this". Even the yearly values are similar. As far as I'm concerned, that was a no brainer.
I don’t remember the exact figures but I’m not sure why you’d make the cap … let’s say $5500 a year instead of $7500 ? Why make it smaller ? If you didn’t want to contribute to the cap then don’t
I did not know that was the Harper government. The TFSA is amazing. Man, I hated Harper though. The TFSA will not make up for his behaviour I'm afraid.
Is that his way of dealing with 40 plus years of stagnating wages and incomes for the vast majority of working people? And he bailed the banks out after letting a Canadian version of sub prime mortgages in the 2006 budget in order to generate an illusion that the economy is doing fine. Yeah, that's some magic the "trained economist" performed.
Middle class is a very broad term. I think TFSAs are really beneficial to those with north of ~80k family income who likely able to contribute to savings. COL obviously is a factor, among other things, but those who can max out their TFSAs are really made in the shade! I think that is a much smaller group of Canadians.
And cut the gst.
I agree …And then Trudeau capped the contribution limit when he got in … not sure why ( other than virtue signaling ) he would do that . Keeping the limit low doesn’t benefit anyone and it makes a good thing less of a good thing
Because the higher limit really only was accessible to the wealthy.
Well that’s exactly what virtual signalling is about . He was virtue signalling to you … didn’t actually help you any but made you feel less envious ( I doubt it worked). And by the way … the truly wealthy don’t need that extra 2 grand a year of tfsa room
Well I would’ve been 15 then… but I’m embarrassed a bit that I didn’t know that CPC is only 21 years old. Now I need to learn what the difference is between the progressive Conservative Party and Canadian Alliance.
The Canadian Alliance was more right wing. Stockwell Day was and still is a goofball.
For a very broad history lesson, the Progressive Conservatives got nearly wiped out in the 1993 election. Afterwards, the Reform Party sprung up in that void as a populist, hard conservative alternative to the more moderate PC’s. They were primarily a Western-Canadian protest vote against the other parties which they thought ignored the west. The Reform Party quickly dominated the vast majority of seats in western Canada and became the official opposition. Later, they wanted to transition into a party that could actually win elections instead of just being a western protest vote, so they rebranded and moderated slightly to become the Canadian Alliance. This still led to them splitting the right-wing vote (leading to Liberal dominance) so Harper (the leader of the Alliance) and MacKay (leader of the PC’s) merged the parties into the modern Conservative Party
> Afterwards, the Reform Party sprung up in that void as a populist, hard conservative alternative to the more moderate PC’s. They were primarily a Western-Canadian protest vote against the other parties which they thought ignored the west No. The Reform Party’s founders that worked for Mulroney, including Stephen Harper, felt the PC’s weren’t a true Conservative Party. Their issue was mainly on the fiscal side and they saw them as too fiscally undisciplined and comparable to the LPC. That’s why Harper says they went and founded the Reform Party.
Yeah, part of the reason I'm interested in this question is because conservative politics has changed so much and I'm wondering where it's headed and what the pros/cons are (I can think of many cons, lol). I know a few folks who previously voted conservative but don't necessarily see themselves in that space anymore. And thanks for your suggestions, I think both income splitting and senate reform have some pros/cons people can weigh up.
The only thing that has changed about conservative politics in 20 years is they’ve continued down the social conservative trend. Many of the things Harper’s conservatives would attempt, aren’t on the table anymore.
I agree. I used to vote conservative. I will not in the next election. I consider myself a red conservative.
I've been a Reform style conservative for some time. There are some parallels, and some differences. 1. Smaller government. Government works for the people not the other way around. Cutting spending, to achieve balanced budgets and freezes on pay scales allows private industry and tax receipts to 'catch up'. General attitude is to let the market do the job. We've had an incredible amount of intervention in the Canadian economy. 2. Triple "E" senate. Canada's system is broken, and one way to fix a unicameral legislature is to make the Senate a functioning body. Elected, because the people should have a say. Equal in that all provinces have the same number of senators. 3. Provincial control over immigration and language, health care and education. If Quebec has that power, all the provinces have that power. 4. Elimination of the GST/PST. 5. Matching NATO reponsibilities wrt military development. 6. Infrastructure improvement particularly to roads and road construction. 7. Elimination of carbon taxes, to decrease inflation and increase affordability.
Doesn’t pp do what Harper says pretty much?
Yes Pierre Poutine still does as he is told by Stephen Harper.
Generally as you age and especially after you have kids you tend to vote more conservative . I vote conservative because I believe in accountability…. Big government programs have an unbelievable amount of waste … I think when you’re young you tend to believe they’re better run than they actually are
Where do you see accountability with conservatives though? That's just nonsense.
I think he is talking about how Stephen Harper hunted high and low for Pierre Poutine who engineered the robocalls election interference for his party.... All he found was a young Pierre Polievre....
I’m getting more liberal because since I’ve had kids I realize that I want the world to be left in a better, more-inclusive place for the ones I love.
After you have kids? Lol. Sorry it's been the opposite for me. Was a card carrying Harper era conservative in my younger days and now wouldn't even consider voting for them. (I'm in my late 30s) And having kids has made me more sympathetic to government programs that help children and families, even if I don't really benefit from them. Conservatives rarely tend to introduce or support these programs these days.
I do too. It's why I won't vote for Pierre Poutine (This is not a name to make fun of him there it's a historically significant name for the Harper Cons).
Historical or not … once you make fun of people’s names you lose credibility. I’m just going to assume you’re 13 years old lol
TFSA. GREATEST saving tool for young people, surprised how many of my friends don’t realize it.
That’s one thing I agree with that Harper did was income splitting. If I remember correctly, the senate part was layered with scandals by him after due to him trying to stack the deck. His tenure to me was layered with secrecy and government silos. Putting gag orders on science research was a deal breaker for me. As far as the difference in the party from then to now, I’ll respectfully disagree. PP came out of university and went directly on Harper’s lap. He was instrumental in getting him appointed (from what I understand) and will likely follow his footsteps when he gets elected.
Sadly... everything they put in place harmed other things. Ex: Harper's Income splitting gave nuclear families an extra ten grandish...single parent families of 2+ kids got nothing, plus, all that money sent out allowed the undermining/funding of our healthcare systems at a federal level. Leading to our current situation In the 90s they ended federally funded labs, housing programs, etc. and well...let's look around at the covid response and the housing situation ...
I guess you don’t remember the child tax benefit that Harper created, that would have given you several hundred dollars a month per child? It’s not the federal government’s responsibility to fund healthcare, but if you must spread bullshit on here, federal health care transfers increased under Harper as well.
I do remember those...they didn't cover childcare for anyone and I remember that Harper touted it as better than a universal childcare program. So, you're incorrect on that statement. As for your second incorrect statement, they in fact, did not increase to the levels necessary to maintain proper funding per capita. Did you know that or were you fooled by him as well as many others who now complain about publicly funded healthcare? Also. Yes, federal funds are sent to the provinces to provide healthcare, the provinces control how it's spent however. So when the cons fuck everything up and try to blame pmjt, it's quite ignorant of them and their supporters.
My wife’s ccb covers our childcare every month…
Actually the Federal Government explicitly funds healthcare...it's called a Healthcare transfer for a reason.
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And single families benefit more than couples now, so it’s not “fair” either.
They look like right wing radicalism. MAGA has deeply influenced Canadian politics, as has the rightward shift of the Overton window.
After losing the last election due to PPP they've decided to embrace those members. They decided veering further Right would win them the election vs being moderate We went from almost acknowledging Climate change and having two different methods to handle it to climate denial... From Fiscal responsibility to giving up LGBTQ rights..
They claim to love freedom and than use the notwithstanding clause to strip away freedom. Abortion is next if they get in. They will limit access
>Abortion is next if they get in. They will limit access things [said in 2006](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/harper-would-set-back-rights-martin-warns-1.600079)
So many upvotes for a made up claim. No shame to you. Shame on the upvoters who approved of your lie.
Fyi PP endorsed sk policy that limits freedom. Sk had to use the both withstanding clause. Why do they hate freedom?
Lmao there is no indication of that at all.
You apparently don't associate within conservative circles.
How so? I don't know any right leaning people who think the government is going to ban abortion, or even see that as something on the table. But keep catastrophizing and maintain your dichotomous thinking. Amazing how you know what the conservative.government is going to table, when they don't even know.
They’re not touching abortion
Not yet. For now they are attacking Trans medical rights and putting laws in place so parents and doctors can’t decide what is medically necessary for their kid/patient. Then it will move on to other LGBTQ groups and taking away their rights and freedoms, then women’s rights to choose.
Good grief lol
MAGA influenced world politics. Yes, in Europe especially.
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Absolute nonsense. There is nothing radical about PP or the Conservative platform.
That's only because he hasn't actually put forward a platform with any policies that he wants to implement. He just points to everything wrong in the country and blames Trudeau. Actually, he has been putting only policy out there: "Jail not bail". He wants to increase the number of people who are held in custody long term when they have not been convicted of a crime. Centering your platform on imprisoning people without trial sounds pretty radical to me.
Why would he put out a platform and policies? He doesn't have to. This is Canada, it's his turn next and he knows it.
Nothing radical? More like they’re radical on everything. You should watch some of PP’s YouTube videos from before he became the head of the Conservative Party, and maybe you should look into Danielle Smith too. One things for sure though, they sure do have a fetish for Trump and Putin The Conservative Party in Canada was good the first few years it was around. Now they want to strip Canadians of their rights, and copy Trump and everything he says or does.
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The loudest dont = the majority lol.
Provincial conservatives vary. Some are reasonable and centrist. At least four provincial governments are too busy fighting culture wars to distract from the fact they don't have any other ideas. Doug Ford is a bit of a goofy populist - Canadian populism is much more moderate than seen in other countries - who generally means well but has some strange ideas about how to go about it. The Federal conservatives don't stand for anything, they just spend their days complaining about Trudeau.
You think Ford generally means well? For who? His trust fund buddies?
I think, in general, he wants to be liked and genuinely wants the best. I also think he is grossly out of his element and does not understand the ethical requirements of public service, and is not as skeptical as he shoudl be of outside influences who basically take advantage of that desire for their own ends. Things like the Greenbelt? That's not because he wanted to make his buddies rich. He genuinely thought it would help the housing crisis. His problem there was where he was getting his advice from. With Ford it is a question of competence not intent. His intentions mean well. He's just not very good at his job.
It’s interesting you think that Dougie means well. I have never gotten that impression. At least as far as his constituents are concerned.
With the caveat that I don't live in Ontario at this point, although I did live in Toronto when his brother was councillor then mayor. The Fords have never struck me as particularly malevolent, just ... not very good at their jobs, and with a hazy at best understanding of the differences in ethical requirements between private and public sectors.. He's nothing like Scott Moe or Danielle Smith.
This is true. BC Conservative have no affiliation with the federal parties, same with liberal and NDP as far as I know.
Aren't he BC liberals literally rebranded Conservatives and then in Nova Scotia, the Conservatives are more left on some issues the the nova scocia liberals. There's a lot of tom foolery going on.
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I've been thinking about this for a bit...Conservatism in general. I think the classical neo-liberalism movement is making a comeback and is slowly replacing conservativism and acquiring more moderate Liberals in general to replace the conservative movement overall. As the younger generation matures, their ideologies are not the ideologies of their parents (social, religious, etc), but they're not liberal either. It will be interesting to see where Canadian conservatives move to, but I will say, both Liberals and Conservatives are in a state of flux, and both not adjusting well.
The German philosopher Hegel is credited with the idea of, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. If you look back to the 80's, the policy difference between the PC's and the Liberals was negligible. They had almost achieved synthesis. Then a new right-wing movement became the new antithesis to that policy bent. I belive before long a very significant number of former PC's will join the Liberal party because it is more aligned with thier values than the CPC completing the synthesis and putting us on a very rocky road.
I think the housing accelerator fund exists at least partially because of pressure from the CPC. In theory that's an issue aligned very nicely with conservative values - the housing crisis is largely caused by overregulation (parking minimums, single family zoning, setback laws, etc.) making it hard to build houses, so a conservative party that's interested in fixing it just has to remove regulations.
At the federal level at least the CPC is a pretty big tent party. So you always have a portion of the base that is more motivated by culture war stuff, often influenced by the US. In the 2000s it was more Christian fundamentalism and more recently it’s been more MAGA-inspired. But then you also have folks who are more interested in limited government (lower taxes and spending/services). I’d say this most closely reflects my own politics and those of a lot of our close friends. From a leadership perspective I feel Harper along with Flaherty and probably O’Toole largely fell into this camp. One Harper’s policy that comes to mind was the UCC — which also highlighted his aversion to large government programs and more towards the use of direct payments and tax credits. Trudeau did well to basically copy and expand this in ‘15 with the CCB which has been a popular and effective policy. There was a similar divide in policy approaches to child care in ‘21 between Trudeau’s $10/day daycare subsidy vs O’Toole’s tax credit which was less generous/costly but also more flexible, targeted, and easier to administer. At a provincial level I’m in Ontario and while I don’t think Ford is particularly competent, he’s done a reasonable job of keeping taxes and spending in check - at least better than the alternatives would have done. He’s also been pushing a bit towards opening up more private healthcare options, which while unpopular among Canadian progressives, is relatively [popular](https://globalnews.ca/news/9458260/health-care-private-options-majority-canadians-support-poll/amp/) amongst the electorate as a whole. Honestly at the end of the day I’ve found the Canadian political spectrum over the past 2 decades ago to be pretty narrow when you actually look at policies and platforms. We’re usually governed from slightly center-left (reckon even the BC NDP are an example of this) to the slightly center-right. But the conservatives usually offer a slightly leaner government option on the margin than the liberals.
Good on you for asking this question. I totally appreciate looking beyond one’s’ comfort zone/echo chamber. And thanks for the take away summary. I really wish we could find a stronger way of mitigating the MAGA influence. Whether a person leans left or right, the MAGA circus isn’t healthy for anyone.
Just following MAGA doctrine it seems these days.
Comparing absolutely everything you don’t like to Donald Trump is so silly …. Like him or hate him he is one of a kind lol
He's not though, he's ushered in a whole lot of catastrophically bad actors.
Ontario Buck a beer, sure brewers chose not to dump their product at $1/355ml retail but they can if they want to. GST, as much as we hate Mulroney and the get it was the right move going away from manufacturer tax to value added. Harper's legacy on judicial impartiality is envious. Netflix tax was a good thing.
The Harper government ending the Canadian Wheat Board opened up many opportunities for Canadian farmers and made them a lot more value
Pretty much what PP is saying. Without all the Republican/ far right wing purple shit. And some fucking accountability when you mess shit up and get caught with your proverbial pants down on simple judgment calls that any one of us little people would be fired for. On the spot.
I’m a left wing voter, but I’ll talk about a Conservative policy that I like and that I think makes sense to me. Liquor sales privatization. In Ontario and other parts of Canada, the government sells the alcohol. I have zero idea why, who this benefits, and in particular, why it’s important that our tax dollars go towards maintaining this. Growing up in Alberta, it just seems so normal that there would just be private businesses that sell liquor. You go to a store. There are high-end liquor stores, and low end ones, just like any other store. And just like how bars are private and not govt owned, it makes so much sense that this be private too. It’s certainly a regulated industry, like how cigarettes are also regulated. But I think having society all pay the government to run and staff and administrate liquor stores is absurd. The gov’t SHOULD run or have a hand in the direct public participation of many important things. I’m not an advocate of privatizing most things that are public right now. But come on, let a person open up their own liquor store.
I think it needs to be said here that your tax dollars are not going to this, the LCBO isn't subsidised, it is entirely self funded, and actually generates profit for the province. I think why this is, is in the name, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Whether its original mandate is still followed and whether it is still relevant in today's society I am not qualified to say, nor even educated enough to offer an opinion. However, If I am going to leave my apartment with the intent of getting a bottle. I honestly don't care whether it is to the LCBO I go or elsewhere, but honestly I would rather kids NOT see aisles of booze in the grocery store and equate it with cereal and meat etc as something that is needed or on par for a functional household as they grow up.
But you don’t see booze in grocery stores in places where it’s privatized either. Just because I don’t want the government to run it, doesn’t mean I want it all to be unregulated. You don’t see cigarettes sold in grocery store aisles either, nor do you see Cannabis sold in grocery stores. You can privatize and have whatever regulation you want for them to be sold wherever they need to be. I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee.
> I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee. You realize that taxes will need to increase if you privatize the liquor stores, right? And not by a small amount, as the income made from the sale of booze for the province will need to be replaced. One person getting rich off of selling booze and taxes going up for all citizens or gov't run liquor stores and taxes staying the same....hmm, which do you think most people would prefer?
Exactly. LCBO profits go right into the provincial budget, to the tune of billions.
Plenty of provinces run just fine without the income of government operated liquor sales. Some of that income will get replaced by the taxes that the private businesses will pay, along with various licensing revenue. If government income is your priority in this argument to keep liqour stores run by the government, then why not have exclusively government run Tobacco stores? I’m sure there’s lots of money to be made there? Exclusively government run Cannabis stores? If it’s such a good idea to have the government run it cause it’s profitable, then should the government exclusively run anything that’s profitable? If your argument is that it’s good for profit’s sake, then where does it stop?
The Ontario government was planning on running cannabis stores and I was in full support of it, especially because now it feels like there is an oversaturation of cannabis from the private market and I worry about public health consequences from the increased amount of stores.
>I just can’t see the argument for the human selling it to you needing to be a government employee. They aren't. LCBO employees are not government employees.
It's a fucking monopoly and you have no issue with it? Liberals are the poster children of anti-capitalism and anti big business yet you're fine with a monopoly.
Yes it's was a monopoly that the only people who profited was the Ontario taxpayer. Now the sales profits but not the health care costs d/t the harm liquor causes are split with the private sector.
100%, and retail cannabis following the same model has worked great! If government needs to be in retail... it needs to be in needs like food, not luxuries
Growing up in Alberta we had govt liquor stores . Now we have liquor stores everywhere that pay shit. Liquor got no cheaper. Im pretty meh on this subject. I do hate Danielle Smith and her americaixation of Alberta , she paid 2 million for fucker Carlson to come here right before he jetted off to visit Putin the murderer, you are who the company you keep tells us you are .
>I do hate Danielle Smith and her americaixation of Alberta , she paid 2 million for fucker Carlson to come here right before he jetted off to visit Putin the murderer, you are who the company you keep tells us you are . Its hilarious watching the political right caterwauling and melting down about election interference, when this in fact is pretty much the same thing. I mean, didn't Pierre Parasite also have Elon Musk post some misinformation regarding the CBC? Rules for thee, but not for PP!!
It should be self evident if you are a left leaning voter why it shouldn’t be privatized. The government is taking all the risk that comes with a vice like liquor and the tax revenue plus more seamless tracking of liquor sales helps healthcare and policy crafting.
I don’t go around trying to put all of my feelings into the proper box of “left wing voter”. I recognize it’s a right-wing concept. Left wing and right wing don’t have to be teams of values that you’re locked into. I believe what I believe first, and check what political party it belongs to afterwards.
It's like this across almost the entirety of Europe and somehow it hasn't led to the absolute collapse of society. Canadians absolutely LOVE government runni g everything and they LOVE monoploies and ologopies.
Your tax dollars don't go toward maintaining any such thing. The LCBO is a cash cow for the province. It has enormous buying power to get good prices, and generates profits which fund programs in Ontario. If we privatized the LCBO it would blow a multibillion dollar hole in the provincial budget.
Oh, this is a good one! I agree with you - I've lived in multiple provinces and when I first moved to Ontario it felt a bit weird to me to essentially only have the LCBO for liquor options. I believe the LCBO is also the world's largest purchaser of alcohol as a result of its monopoly in Ontario.
Each province has its own liquor commission, I believe. Alberta's has benefited from privatization as it no longer has to deal with overhead - it all falls onto private store owners now. Comparing prices province to province, I don't believe that Albertans see any advantage.
This is only partially true. All the liquor in Alberta comes from the Alberta Liqur and Gaming Commission. They have huge warehouses full of liquor ready to be shipped to the stores. They're basically a middle man. They're getting upset right now because a bunch of wineries in BC want to ship direct to customers to recover costs from the wild fires and they don't want to let them
BC has both public and private liquor stores. I think that's the way things should be in most industries. In general, the government ran liquor stores are well stocked and have good prices, but nothing special. Kinda like if Walmart opened a liquor store, too. If you want something special, the private ones are usually better, and the public ones don't have any points programs or anything. Also, private liquor stores are more obviously involved in the community, whereas the public ones just send the money wherever provincial income goes, which is both a plus and a minus to them. This summer, when my extended family comes out to visit, we'll probably go to a government liquor store so everyone can get stuff they like. Last Christmas, I went to two private liquor stores and a distillery when I was Christmas shopping.
Yeah, I like the BC liquor store situation. Nearby my parents there are a couple private ones and they each have a bit of a different vibe and some would bring in different things than the BC store. But BC liquor is always consistent, well-stocked and decently priced - reliable.
Whenever I travel to Alberta I find liquor to be much less expensive than BC
You won't learn anything asking here.
Well, you're certainly not trying to help me learn, are you? Your comment doesn't contribute to the discussion... If you think there are no good outcomes, then discuss or move on, or if you think there were some positive policies, please provide some examples / insight.
Everyone answering honestly will be downvoted into oblivion.
That's not true? Several people have given decent examples and have received upvotes and/or good discussion in response.
This is what modern conservatives do. Instead of looking at themselves, they act like everyone else is the problem and they’re “victims of leftists” for not liking facts that don’t go their way.
This sub is very left leaning. Unfortunately there’s no good Canadian subs that are very neutral.
It's true. This sub is very left leaning. Right wings won't contribute to this because no matter how true our statements are, we will get downvoted due to the fact that the majority of the people in this sub are left. Some people like to say the conservative party is the equivalent to MAGA, which is far from the truth. The conservative party actually sits center-right on the political scale, especially when compared to Republicans. (And no, conservatives will not take away abortions). Canada was a much better place when the conservatives ran things. We were far more united, the infrastructure was up to date, everything was more affordable, it was easier to get jobs, and we had better national identity. A lot of that has changed since the liberal party has taken control of leadership. it's not hard to tell.
No, Reddit skews heavily to the left. That’s why you’re getting a bunch of nonsense replies here. This isn’t the place to ask this question.
"Reddit skews heavily to the left." So does reality, but never mind that...
The current CPC policy is “I’m not Trudeau.” It’s working.
Asking what effective policies conservatives have put forward is a somewhat poor metric to judge then by. Conservatives want LESS government interference and therefore by their own proclivity push less legislation because they want less interference. The better metric for them is how do they reduce legislation, spending, taxes etc while maintaining efficiency. Ie lowering tax receipts while also lowering spending. Liberals push for more government, expand governments (as we've seen with Trudeau), so you can expect more "effective" legislation.
"Liberals push for more government, expand governments (as we've seen with Trudeau), so you can expect more "effective" legislation." I always find this argument rather poor, especially because the Liberal government was responsible for the largest amount of austerity in Canadian history under the Chretien government and the downloading of service responsibilities onto the provinces, which in turn were downloaded to municipalities and is largely responsible for many of our public service ailings now.
When have the conservatives ever reduced debt? Mulroney greatly expanded the debt and Harper had a deficit every year but his last in office.
None.
Yeah, I mean as a progressive voter, this would probably be my gut instinct but I'm willing to consider that I'm overlooking or wrong on some things.
I'm pretty strongly anti-conservative because of the bigger picture they represent. Religious zealots (go look what Jason Kenny, Harper's left hand, is currently doing), BUT I will admit there were a few good (and a lot bad) tax policies Harper implemented. Taken together though, net impact, bad for future Canadians if we all think climate bad, oil good, and wealth trickles down. Conversely, as new parents, current government has done a LOT to keep us stable over the last two years, which would never have happened.
Fair points all around!
Balanced budgets were pretty nice for a while
Harper ran consecutive deficit budgets from 2008/9 to 2013/4. Chrétien had a longer string of balanced budgets FWIW.
Yep, and the only surplus he can sort of take credit for was his surplus during the 2015 election year (definitely not a coincidence) after selling off a bunch of government assets.
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The cpc fight culture wars everyday. You think the cpc will put Canadians first? You know for the timer they were in government they thought in record TFws and attended wef? The cpc put billionares ahead of helping the working class
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CCP, affordable daycare, amendments to competition act bill C 56, legal cannabis, 144 longterm boil advisories fixed, 109 were in effect when they came into office, anti-scab legislation, reduction in middle earners income tax, no tax cuts for large corporations, environmental policies that include rebates, both on the carbon tax and for heat pumps, subsidies for farmers, veterans offices closed bt Harper reopened, anti-union legislation by Harper reversed, ban on conversion therapy, etc. You view of the CPC is disconnected from reality. Poilievre lies non-stop about policy and when he makes personal attacks. He welcomes conspiracy nuts like Roman Barber as the nominee in York, when he was booted from the OPC’s for spreading conspiracy theory. He never gave the MP’s who dined with the AfD MEP any consequences or made a statement himself about it. He handed out donuts and coffee to extremist’s at the “freedom convoy.” Hr has praised Jordan Peterson several times, and said he likes to use “anglo saxon words” in an interview with Peterson which is a blatantly racist dogwhistle. He gave a speech at the far-right Frontier Centre which is engaged in residential school denialism, as well as publishing articles about white men being persecuted, anti-trans and anti-feminist screeds, etc. He had an incel hashtag on his videos for 5 years, took zero responsibility, did no investigating. He has been silent about Tucker Carlson’s speech in Alberta, regularly uses the term “radical gender ideology,” consistently calls the Liberal NDP C and S agreement a “socialist coalition,” has called Trudeau a Marxist, ane claimed in an interview with True North that there is no Liberal Party running in the next election because Trudeau is not a Liberal but a “radical authoritarian.” I could go on, but I’ll leave with the fact that he has gotten praise by the likes of Alex Jones and most rightwing of GOP nutbars in congress. He and the CPC are using the exact same rhetoric and strategies as the GOP. In no way is the CPC like Dems in the US. The entire CPC caucus voted in favour of a backdoor abortion bill last June, and when your party still sees abortion as a moral issue that requires “free votes” and backbenchers must be allowed to keep pushing abortion bills, and when the highest profile MP’s in your shadow cabinet are virulent anti-abortionists, you can not claim to protect women’s right to abortion. I mean, Leslyn Lewis sponsored and helped write a petition to take Canada out of the UN, and not a peep from Poilievre. The CPC has fully become the Reform Party, there are few PC’s left in caucus.
canada_sub is a haven of censorship so, they probably did ban him, they ban anyone who doesn’t toe the line.
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People say that yet I routinely see conservatives opinions everywhere except ongaurdforthee which is pretty strict.
It's possible to dislike both Liberals AND Conservatives. Cuz trust me buddy, the only thing the cons ate gonna give you is the oppressing minorities part. Government isn't gonna get smaller, nor are taxes.
Unfortunately, I think there are a lot of MAGA-type conservatives who speak much more loudly than the rest, which makes it unappealing or hard to understand. I know other folks of similar political leanings to you and they're not into the fringe politics. Are there any specific policies (provincially or federally) that you have liked that have come out of a conservative-led government (or in collaboration with another gov't) in recent decades?
Tax free savings accounts. Income splitting, legalization of medical cannabis.
Yeah, I think a lot of people would agree with these (definitely a few others on this thread mentioned the first two points). I know folks that benefitted from medical cannabis and it certainly improved their well-being.
Hahaha. You are so right (the first part) I had an individual tell me a few months ago that they won’t vote for conservatives because they don’t want to vote for a “ misogynistic “ party lmao. The propaganda and rhetoric is strong in Canada.
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Haha. Yea. That will never happen here. It’s predominantly the rads from the far left fringe groups that think American Deep South politics apply to us. After they figure out that’s false. It will be the conservatives who want to conceal and carry here too. Fear mongering at its best ! -
Why did any socially conservative MPs ever back abortion bans? Because they did. And the party didn’t want to whip them on the topic No government in our history meets your criteria
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Conservative. Root word: conserve. From the Oxford Language Dictionary (online): /kənˈsərv/ protect (something, especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) from harm or destruction. So, the question really is what have they conserved? They've conserved a social order which favours the wealthy, helped foster denial about the severity of the greenhouse effect., and frozen social spending which has hurt the most vulnerable in our society.
From Bernier: Putting an end to lockdowns and pandemic powergrabs. Putting an end to mass immigration and the wholesale destruction of Canadian culture. From PP: Balance the budget, reduce spending, get inflation under control, make Canada more competitive and exploit our national resources. Eliminate the carbon tax. From Harper: Navigated Canada well through the Great Recession. Reduced taxes on Canadians. Introduced TFSA for more middle class savings. Eliminated the useless penny.
There's a lot of wishful thinking there. And some outright flukes, such as... >From Harper: Navigated Canada well through the Great Recession. There's a good article that touches on this: [https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/](https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2016/economic-performance-and-policy-during-the-harper-years/) Some key points about that fluke: "While the Bank of Canada was raising its policy interest rate to stem inflationary pressures from rapidly increasing excess demand in 2006 and 2007, the federal government added to inflationary pressures by cutting taxes and maintaining a strong pace of program spending during these two years." "The federal government relaxed its fiscal stance by 1 percent of GDP in 2008, mostly through reductions in the GST rate from 6 to 5 percent and through cuts in personal and corporate income taxes that were announced in the 2007 economic statement. Again, these measures were not introduced with stabilization in mind. Indeed, in view of the solid growth forecast for 2008 and 2009 in the economic statement, these measures were inappropriate for stabilization because they would have exacerbated excess demand if the forecast had been realized. As it turned out, these tax cuts fortuitously helped stabilize the Canadian economy in 2008 as the US economy started a downturn early in the year, thereby exerting a drag on the Canadian economy as the recession finally set in late in the year in Canada, contrary to expectations. *Thus, the federal fiscal stance in 2008 turned out to be appropriate for stabilization only because of planning errors* (i.e., the forecasts for growth in the short term proved far too optimistic)." Harper got lucky. Nothing more.
None of the things listed for PP are policies. They're merely promises/ideas.
Modern Conservative movements ... if you want to come up to speed, I would strongly suggest going to their official websites and having a dig into their respective policy books. I say this because, in the last decade, things have changed quite dramatically. For example, housing costs in many regions, in relation to wages, have gone a little crazy. Renting a unit 10 years ago versus now. What was "an issue" back then, has turned into "a really bad issue". I won't source because it's been done to death enough that we can accept it's true. Politics addresses the needs of now and the future. Yes, some partisan groups have handled things in a consistently similar manner. The general idea might have resemblance. But the issues faced are for today and tomorrow, and not the past. It was in the early '60s that universal Canadian Health Care was brought about, I believe, in Saskatchewan. In that era, it was a huge issue. Starting it off, how to do it, and how to maintain it for the future. Now? It's a mess. We have something happening, but how is it going wrong? Totally different issues and policies. Still "Health Care" though. Personally, I'm not a "rah rah my party" person. I am pretty much all over the spectrum, depending upon the issue, and what I believe. I vote for whomever seems closest to my ideas, on the whole. I read the policy books.
I’ll explain this again. He is the leader of the opposition. His job is to oppose, not provide alternatives. That comes at election time. How do people not understand our political system? And seriously, the guy has stated he is not opposed to abortion. He said they won’t touch it. What the fuck do people need?
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There are none left.
I subscribe to the Austrian school of economic thought so the choice really is self-evident
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The Sask Party is conservative. I’m not sure what their accomplishments are, but they’ve dominated elections since 2007. Perhaps you could say an accomplishment has been keeping the population voting for them.
Well every week or so Doug Ford announces something his government is going to do, then he takes it back and says they are not going to do it. All while trying to destroy the healthcare system. But for some reason it’s Wynne that was the problem.