"This social climate – our very social license – has changed, but not because Canada’s wayward left suddenly found its character and competency of old."
I’m not sure. Polls are nothing but AstroTurfed leftwing influence ops. So is the media. Focusing on an external threat is the oldest trick in the book for failed demagogues. Problem is everything here is terrible. At some point even the most pliable Canadian will vote for change out of desperation. Even civil servants have kids that can’t afford a home.
Some might believe the sudden call to “harness our natural resources” though it was only yesterday we were going to leave them all in the ground??? Or that road trips were going to doom us all. Whiplash on the left.
Well said, and that's very much true. There is also a baked-in response bias, a quiet conservative who doesn't take these calls or broadcast their vote, and an entire generation that presently goes under-sampled. The under-40s are so clearly and remarkably screwed they shouldn't prove to be too fickle, and NDP support can't collapse much further.
That whiplash sure is vertigo-inducing. Nauseating.
DJT's breaking balls have Canada's political elites swinging wildly. Few talking heads north of the border seem to appreciate that the pitcher has been given a mandate to improve America's society, strengthen its autonomy, grow its economy and solve its massive debt dilemma. This may well require significantly lower expenditures on non-essentials, reduced tax rates (see Laffer curve) and increased tariffs on imports.
It has been suggested that a 5% tariff on imports (from all nations) would be adequate. It would be the price any foreign producer would have to pay for access to the huge U.S. market - almost like a club membership. In the meantime, it is nice to see an increased interest in reducing interprovincial trade barriers and renewed interest in an east/west pipeline. It remains to be seen how Canadian some Canadiens are, when it comes to approving such an energy transmission project. A pity that we've seen and heard some "ugly Canadian" behaviour of late, including the booing of The Star-Spangled Banner. The self-righteous attitude of CBC addicts has become even more tiresome and churlish.
Well said, Ted. As ever, I expect this to stall out in Quebec, and Carney still won't even utter the word "pipeline." He just says "build." Frightening (and cowardly), to be sure.
May this moment of self-righteousness be as short-lived as possible, for all of our sakes. That 'Team Canada' sure looks a lot like the team that sat in translucent bubbles outside of restaurants, called for the endless shutdowns of churches, gyms, and restaurants, and attempted to turf unvaccinated and perfectly healthy kids from public life for 2.5 years...
They couldn't fight a flu. How would they ever fight our neighbours to the south?
Good column Alex. As an Albertan I find this Team Canada spiel nauseating at best. Oil at $20/bbl, too bad, energy workers should have learned to code. Automobile industry in Ontario and the aluminum industry in Quebec are threatened, everybody wrap themselves in the Canadian flag. The pickup I drive was made in the USA and I am totally fine with it.
Well said, Glenn. It would be funny if it weren't so insulting. I'd never fully understood any lingering 'Wexit' sentiments until moving out West. Even on the left coast, I find myself looking back at Ontario, its on-life-support subsidized EV boondoggle, those wrapping themselves in a flag they kicked around in the mud for a decade, and the Laurentians who blocked every energy project imaginable, and I'm surprised we didn't have a Convoy sooner.
"Buy Canadian" should be a normal, patriotic approach where appropriate and applicable. Instead, this is another temporary 'Current Thing' trinket for the gang with flags and pronouns in their bios.
Well, Alex, you hint at a problem the left has always had; belief in the Polls. In some ways, Canadians are more like Americans than they would care to admit.
In the recent U.S. election, MSM and their polls measured a neck-and-neck race. But, the 'average' American, as it turned out, was fed up with the woke socialist B.S. and majoritively voted for Trump.
In my opinion, Main Street Canadians will be like our southern cousins; they will overwhelmingly vote for Poilievre and the Conservatives. They are fed up with the woke socialist B.S.
To quote Teddy Roosevelt... "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
Thank you for this Peter. I agree. There is absolutely an issue of sampling, and that sudden "enthusiasm" can't be glimpsed out in the great wide world. I have caught a bit of it. Myself and a colleague were talking to energy folks at this conference, and you heard a few, "Well, now that Trudeau is gone"... change, even performative, can be satiating, and enough of a coping mechanism for the ill-informed or those on the gov't take.
"Anyone but Trudeau" does appear to be a factor to some extent, but we should see these numbers start to settle and make more plausible sense. The ordinary folk and the conservative base certainly aren't budging, and there is only so much further the NDP can fall.
I am so frigging annoyed and frosted off it is MY demographic that watches the cbc and believes all their lies and liked JT’s hair and socks so voted for him and now likes Mark Carney’s face!🤮🤮🤮
I’m 1st generation Canadian with European immigrant parents who came here post ww2 must be the difference.
That would explain it. Your inherent Socialist Dictator Detector must be pinging off the charts once again. There's a reason so many of the protesters I spoke with during lockdowns were Eastern European immigrants.
I’m not sure. Polls are nothing but AstroTurfed leftwing influence ops. So is the media. Focusing on an external threat is the oldest trick in the book for failed demagogues. Problem is everything here is terrible. At some point even the most pliable Canadian will vote for change out of desperation. Even civil servants have kids that can’t afford a home.
Some might believe the sudden call to “harness our natural resources” though it was only yesterday we were going to leave them all in the ground??? Or that road trips were going to doom us all. Whiplash on the left.
Well said, and that's very much true. There is also a baked-in response bias, a quiet conservative who doesn't take these calls or broadcast their vote, and an entire generation that presently goes under-sampled. The under-40s are so clearly and remarkably screwed they shouldn't prove to be too fickle, and NDP support can't collapse much further.
That whiplash sure is vertigo-inducing. Nauseating.
DJT's breaking balls have Canada's political elites swinging wildly. Few talking heads north of the border seem to appreciate that the pitcher has been given a mandate to improve America's society, strengthen its autonomy, grow its economy and solve its massive debt dilemma. This may well require significantly lower expenditures on non-essentials, reduced tax rates (see Laffer curve) and increased tariffs on imports.
It has been suggested that a 5% tariff on imports (from all nations) would be adequate. It would be the price any foreign producer would have to pay for access to the huge U.S. market - almost like a club membership. In the meantime, it is nice to see an increased interest in reducing interprovincial trade barriers and renewed interest in an east/west pipeline. It remains to be seen how Canadian some Canadiens are, when it comes to approving such an energy transmission project. A pity that we've seen and heard some "ugly Canadian" behaviour of late, including the booing of The Star-Spangled Banner. The self-righteous attitude of CBC addicts has become even more tiresome and churlish.
Well said, Ted. As ever, I expect this to stall out in Quebec, and Carney still won't even utter the word "pipeline." He just says "build." Frightening (and cowardly), to be sure.
May this moment of self-righteousness be as short-lived as possible, for all of our sakes. That 'Team Canada' sure looks a lot like the team that sat in translucent bubbles outside of restaurants, called for the endless shutdowns of churches, gyms, and restaurants, and attempted to turf unvaccinated and perfectly healthy kids from public life for 2.5 years...
They couldn't fight a flu. How would they ever fight our neighbours to the south?
Interprovincial trade barriers will run right into the usual Quebec wall. Nothing will change, it’s not in Canada’s DNA.
Love it Alex! Keep the faith. A Conservative Majority is our nation’s only hope.
It sure is! "Resist the black pill," he says, also to himself.
And worst case, well, we all move to Alberta lol.
Good column Alex. As an Albertan I find this Team Canada spiel nauseating at best. Oil at $20/bbl, too bad, energy workers should have learned to code. Automobile industry in Ontario and the aluminum industry in Quebec are threatened, everybody wrap themselves in the Canadian flag. The pickup I drive was made in the USA and I am totally fine with it.
Well said, Glenn. It would be funny if it weren't so insulting. I'd never fully understood any lingering 'Wexit' sentiments until moving out West. Even on the left coast, I find myself looking back at Ontario, its on-life-support subsidized EV boondoggle, those wrapping themselves in a flag they kicked around in the mud for a decade, and the Laurentians who blocked every energy project imaginable, and I'm surprised we didn't have a Convoy sooner.
"Buy Canadian" should be a normal, patriotic approach where appropriate and applicable. Instead, this is another temporary 'Current Thing' trinket for the gang with flags and pronouns in their bios.
Well, Alex, you hint at a problem the left has always had; belief in the Polls. In some ways, Canadians are more like Americans than they would care to admit.
In the recent U.S. election, MSM and their polls measured a neck-and-neck race. But, the 'average' American, as it turned out, was fed up with the woke socialist B.S. and majoritively voted for Trump.
In my opinion, Main Street Canadians will be like our southern cousins; they will overwhelmingly vote for Poilievre and the Conservatives. They are fed up with the woke socialist B.S.
To quote Teddy Roosevelt... "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
Thank you for this Peter. I agree. There is absolutely an issue of sampling, and that sudden "enthusiasm" can't be glimpsed out in the great wide world. I have caught a bit of it. Myself and a colleague were talking to energy folks at this conference, and you heard a few, "Well, now that Trudeau is gone"... change, even performative, can be satiating, and enough of a coping mechanism for the ill-informed or those on the gov't take.
"Anyone but Trudeau" does appear to be a factor to some extent, but we should see these numbers start to settle and make more plausible sense. The ordinary folk and the conservative base certainly aren't budging, and there is only so much further the NDP can fall.
I am so frigging annoyed and frosted off it is MY demographic that watches the cbc and believes all their lies and liked JT’s hair and socks so voted for him and now likes Mark Carney’s face!🤮🤮🤮
I’m 1st generation Canadian with European immigrant parents who came here post ww2 must be the difference.
That would explain it. Your inherent Socialist Dictator Detector must be pinging off the charts once again. There's a reason so many of the protesters I spoke with during lockdowns were Eastern European immigrants.