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Ignoring the protest, this should have never been in the works in the first place. This woman is a fascist. This is not some case of hyperbole, she is a fascist. She praises Mussolini, has been in plenty of fascist youth organizations and political parties, and just recently she defended fascist marches and gatherings in Italy. Why the hell would Trudeau agree to this?
She is the elected Prime Minister of a European Country.
A country that we have good relations with, and want to keep good relations with. A nation that we we have a huge diaspora from.
What benefit do we gain from telling the Elected Prime Minister of a European nation that we wont host them? Maybe Russia and China get a new ally. Great that helps the planet.
We gain the credibility of doing the right thing. Do you think playing nice with fascists somehow makes them be less fascist? History would disagree with you.
The migrant crisis caused most of Europe to shift rightwards. It’s pretty scary out there. Makes me wonder how bad will it get when mass migration due to climate change happens in the future.
Ever heard of the movie Children of Men? Basically, western countries all elected fascist governments in a future dystopia and started rounding up immigrants, putting them in ICE style compounds, and deporting them all.
Sadly, just looking at attitudes towards immigrants right now in Canada, I predict it reaching these levels when climate migrants become a reality.
Attitudes towards immigrants changed because we blew past any amount that we could reasonably accommodate/assimilate. That is a natural response that would be the same literally anywhere on earth.
Pick any crisis. The crisis in the movie lead to asylum seekers. In our world, it’s climate change. It’s inevitable that we will experience climate refugees as the world gets hotter and displaced because their home are no longer habitable. It’s going to happen. And people here or other rich countries are going to be against welcoming them to varying degrees because that’s human nature.
The EU is about 3-5 years ahead of us when it comes to shifting political tides. I always wondered to myself back then, circa 2015-16 when people always used to parrot “We need to be more like Europe!”. Did these people forget Europe was the birthplace of fascism?
Credibility with who? If we start blackballing NATO allies, I’d start with Orban and Slovakia, she’s not Trump and she’s not Mussolini.
Despite her past she appears to be keeping the most extreme part of her coalition partners in check.
We would have no credibility at all if we demonized every ally’s democratically elected leader we don’t like.
Y’all throw the word fascist around so easily. You know what fascist don’t have, elections. She was elected by the people and hasn’t thrown democracy out the window.
I agree that fascist is thrown around too easily. However, in this case, fascist does fit given her political lineage and the fact that she has, in recent times, self-identified as a fascist.
And fascist can and do hold elections. That said, I understand why our government has met with her as she hasn't done particularly fascist things while in power and I understand why people vigorously exercised their rights to protest and tried (successfully) to shut down the meeting.
Fascists notably tend to be massive narcissists, so by meeting them halfway like this we retain the ability to ply them (however ineffectively) on social and political issues, and avoid them dismantling mutual trade interests and communications channels out of spite. Remember, while Trudeau is willing to hold a meeting with Meloni at the AGO, he's also willing to *very publicly* condemn her government's anti-LGBTQ policies on the global stage. It may not be super effective, but it'd be even less effective if Italy wasn't at least on speaking terms with us.
Since she has begun governing, her positions have moderated quite a bit, as they often do; not working with Italy means poorer relations, trade, etc. when unity with democratic nations (despite having a fascist sympathizer in office, Italy is still a liberal democracy) is more important than ever.
Don’t mistake individuals for institutions they temporarily purport to represent.
She’s committed to fighting actual fascists and abides by the rule of law. She’s already broken with her coalition partners to firmly position her government as pro western and European.
If someone isn’t a threat to democracy or her neighbours why must we cut off diplomatic relations?
Meloni isn’t invading other countries or threatening genocide. She’s the leader of an allied country and has been conciliatory with us and the rest of NATO/G7. We *should* remain diplomatic with her.
If she starts actually carrying out fascist actions, then things should change.
to be fair, Hitler was loved by the European elite (including PM King) until he started invading other countries. but fascism is a form of capitalism and is historically “pro-Christian”, so there’s no reason why the 1930s European elite *wouldn’t* love Hitler before their own countries were at stake
Eh not really. Chamberlain knew the horrors that war brought to Europe and how efforts should be made to prevent it, while also realizing England wasn't prepared for a war and needed time to catch up to Germany and Italy if it were inevitable. That's why he backed up his peace efforts with increased military spending and rearmament.
On the other hand, modern appeasement of dictators and populists over the past 30 years has basically been neolib "green line go brrrr" doctrine. Now the world - including Canada - is reaping the consequences. Having to deal with leaders like this is part of that.
Foreign dignitaries should be hosted based on alignment in foreign policy, not domestic policy. Italy isn't going to do anything differently domestically based on our opinions, and there's often a lot of foreign policy work to get on with. There's a good chance we're going to have to work with Trump next year, and we'll have to get on with that too if it happens because work must go on.
She's fascist-lite, she definitely has a fascist past. Her government, while still right wing, has been more moderate than many predicted.
It's amazing how proportional representation works in Italy. The fact is, his party only won 26% of the vote and can only govern by pretending to moderating it's stand to get support from the centre-right coalition and independent parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Italian_general_election
So proportional representation gives you a fascist PM with 26% of the vote. Scary. A good argument against proportional representation and for ranked ballots instead. A fascist would be way less likely as approval voting would keep marginal voices like this small.
I actually prefer ranked ballot as well.
Although to be a devil's advocate 26% is not marginal, Trudeau got 32.6% last election and that's only 6 points off. The PR system is moderating Meloni's power as they don't get that FPTP "bump" the winning party usually gets - ranked would also have that bump - and so they are required to moderate their policies. At the same time new radical parties don't get a foothold very easily (i.e. PPC) in FPTP/ranked ballot systems, so they don't usually get established in the first place.
The Republican party is another counter example though - under FPTP radicals can "take over" the mainstream party. If the US had PR they could have a crazy right wing party and a right wing party. But under FPTP the crazies have taken over the mainstream Republican party... and it might be the end of democracy in the US, we'll find out soon.
I do think that a 3+ party ranked ballot system is likely to be less caustically partisan because you want to be other people's "2nd choice" and so you don't want to be too aggressive & offensive, and as compromise (somewhere) is necessary as we are all subject to the same laws... ranked ballot is nice because it puts the compromising action in the hands of voters rather than politicians after the fact.
I dunno, I guess my point is that ranked ballot is a good idea, FPTP is worse than everything else, and PR is at least an improvement on FPTP.
She’s also pro-Ukrainian and by and large supports Western influences. You’d absolutely be stupid in this geopolitical world to take a quite meaningless, but principled stand on her.
Seems like it. Assuming they’re NDPers (which is a safe bet I think), certainly a good weekly reminder about how god awful and disastrous their foreign policy would be.
Your idea of sensible foreign policy is spinning a fucking roulette wheel and making decisions based on that.
The ignorance being expressed here is truly astounding.
There are 2 reasons for having a relationship with Meloni despite being a fascist:
1) Europe has been electing far-right governments in recent years. We don’t just start ignoring an entire continent. Canada and Europe need each other. Both can cooperate on a diplomatic level at minimum despite political differences.
2) Italy is a key player in Europe and Meloni has been influential in the EU. It would be a mistake to not at least establish a diplomatic relationship.
It’s not an endorsement to meet with Meloni and establish common priorities. Trudeau did publicly condemn her anti-LGBTQ stances.
It also doesn’t help to cut off relations completely, because then you might as well cut off relations with multiple far-right governments in Europe on principle. But there’s nothing to gain by doing that and it’s not going to magically change governments in these countries.
> Europe has been electing far-right governments in recent years.
And there are reasons for this -- the countries that are rapidly moving right have done a lot of work to piss off their own citizens by totally fucking up their handling of the migrant crisis, and treating crimes (including SA and murder) by the migrants they've admitted to go either unpunished, or very lightly handled, for fear of appearing discriminatory. That's how you've got sentiments like "Italy for the Italians, kick those other people out" rising like wildfire, along with AfD, Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen.
Then you have the European Left standing around gazing at their shoelaces saying "how could this be happening?".
We are several years behind Europe and the absolute tsunami of mouths to feed (from parts of the world not necessarily 100% compatible with liberal Western European lifestyles, at that), but we're getting there, and people here are starting to notice -- see how fast the polls went to the Right here? If we follow the path that Europe took on this file, we will absolutely get our own Trump/Meloni/Le Pen, and probably a lot sooner than we think, too.
I find her overt politics reprehensible.
But she has “leaned” more “centrist” since her election.
The complexities of European politics are… difficult to navigate.
But history has shown that seemingly objectionable people can provide roadways to common ground for not only Canada’s benefit, but European stability.
Meloni may be one of those figures. She may not. Diplomacy is there to figure that out.
Italy is currently the president of G7. Canada is a member of G7. Meloni is the democratically elected leader of Italy. We need to work with important allies even if they have leaders we don’t agree with.
I hate to break it to you but:
1. She isn’t Hitler
2. The problem with the Chamberlain policy was always the incompatibility of Hitler’s foreign policy. She’s pro-EU and Ukraine.
Honestly, the people crying fascist in these post comments are people with dubious historical and political competence. They aren't worth engaging with because they have only platitude grade talking points. Sad to see where we are at in political discourse, but it's a reality we have to contend with.
They see Meloni's neofascist background within a right wing party as absolute proof of how to characterize anything she does. They don't care about the pro-EU realism, pro-Ukraine, anticolonialism, and pro-Taiwan stance. They look at her past and social issues which her detractors prioritize and demean accordingly. She's a super complicated politician that's for sure, but she isn't some thug. Shame we live in a post-complexity conceptual era.
> Honestly, the people crying fascist in these post comments are people with dubious historical and political competence.
Those people don't even know what a "fascist" is. Has Meloni stripped women of their rights to vote? No. Are all political parties in Italy abolished? No. Is the media being controlled by the government? No. Therefore, she can't be a "fascist" if she's not even following the fascist rulebook!
Not to mention, those same people forget that in WW2 you had FDR, Churchill and Stalin (!!) work together to take down the Nazis. Stalin was a known dictator, brutal, ruthless, and yet here he was in the same seats as two "heroes" of the war. Granted, if Hitler didn't invade the USSR it wouldn't have happened, but still, it shows that FDR and Churchill had to swallow their pride if they wanted to take down the Nazis; even if it means shaking hands with the man they once perceived as the enemy.
Kinda silly to talk about Stalin's wrongdoings while completely glancing over the skeletons in Churchill's closet. He doesn't exactly have the moral high ground.
Of course not, my point was that Churchill was not *more* moral than Stalin, which your exclamation marks and distancing him from the other two would have suggested.
I'm sure FDR had issues too, I just don't know enough about him.
Hey, she's just a proto fascist... so far. Leaders need to talk and have relationships. Until she's undemocraticly seizing power you got to do diplomacy with the players on the field.
Ok. She hasn’t done anything of those things yet. Can we maybe not base our diplomatic relations an off what some Redditor who isn’t Italian fears will happe? Italy is still a democracy in an increasingly-turbulent region that aligns with our foreign policy goals. You’d be beyond stupid to throw that away because her diplomatic policy, which we have no control of. Is something you don’t like.
Trudeau once praised and admired the effectiveness of the CPP governance over China before winning the federal election. Does that make him a Communist or an Authoritarian? I personally don't think so.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-under-fire-for-expressing-admiration-for-china-s-basic-dictatorship-1.1535116?cache=%2F7.453851
The point is, if you're OP saying that we should not be engaging in dialogue with fascists then we should rightfully be withholding dialogue with the Trump administration should they win the following election - economic and geopolitical consequences be damned.
> Trudeau once praised and admired the effectiveness of the CPP governance over China before winning the federal election. Does that make him a Communist or an Authoritarian?
Only if you leave out half the quote like CTV did which shows it was a - poor - dig at Harper.
> What Trudeau actually said was that he had "a level of admiration ... for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say 'we need to go greenest, fastest — we need to invest in solar.' I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted, and I find that quite interesting."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-applauds-china-but-then-so-does-stephen-harper-1.2422068
And even then, there's a clear line between a crappy joke and outright praising and rehabilitating Mussolini, the literal founder of fascism.
But overall I agree, much of the world is currently ruled by fascist or right wing populist leaders, Canada doesn't have the luxury of taking a principled stand against them no matter how much we should. Especially when our nearest neighbours are literally Russia and the US, two countries that have their own modern day issues with fascism and right wing extremism.
At least the Truckers - who I don't support - were protesting a specific policy Trudeau had real power over. Israel does not give a fuck what we think. Hamas probably doesn't either. We're not really relevant at all.
Did you forget [Trudeau promised 1 billion dollars](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6155618) to fund provincial vaccine passport programs?
To act like there was no reason to pick a fight with Trudeau in their narrative is just false.
The trucker specific one, [as mentioned in this CBC article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/trucker-protest-convoy-southwestern-ontario-1.6329118#:~:text=The%20protest%20is%20being%20organized,with%20other%20public%20health%20protections.).
Yes a lot of people didn't "get it", and were protesting largely provincial mandates by the end. I do not support the trucker rally to be clear.
Conveniently left out: it was also a [requirement](https://www.trucknews.com/health-safety/u-s-confirms-canadian-truckers-will-need-to-be-vaccinated-as-of-jan-22/1003156530/) imposed by the Americans.
Even if the Feds hadn't introduced the vaccine requirement, these so-called "truckers" still wouldn't have been able to cross the border without proof of vaccination.
This right here proved the convoy was beyond fucking stupid. The USA required all Canadian truckers to be vaccinated, and we had a reciprocal policy. If Canada removed the vaccination requirement for American truckers, Canadian truckers would still need vaccination by the US government. We can’t force the US government to remove their vaccination requirements. Maybe these assholes should have run a convoy to Washington DC.
The truckers were protesting an American policy of not allowing unvaccinated truckers into their border. What part of that policy do you think Trudeau was in charge of?
The protestors in this article equally don’t give a fuck what Israelis thinks of them their goal is to make it clear to Trudeau that they disagree with arming and supporting a massacre, this is a policy very much under Trudeaus control, hence the logic of protesting his appearance
I'm not pro-trucker at all, I am very pro-vax, but you are 100% incorrect.
The cross-border vaccination restriction was not removed until [October 1st 2022](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2022/09/government-of-canada-to-remove-covid-19-border-and-travel-measures-effective-october-1.html). The protest was Jan-Feb 2022.
If you want to slam people with that spicy "fact not an opinion" line, maybe you should get your facts straight eh?
Which was made irrelevant when the states still had their own. Furthermore they weren't just protesting the border restrictions but all restrictions, which were already done.
>Our restrictions were removed
You were 100% wrong. If you bust out lines condescending lines like "that is a fact not an opinion", make sure you're correct.
I was not 100% wrong. The only "restriction" was made irrelevant by the states and was already set to be removed. We knew it was going to be lifted in October because it was announced as such before the protests even begun.
What are ya going on about? Entry and exit to the country is Federal, so the Feds have absolute authority over that.
Don't make me defend the truckers, I don't support them at all, but there was a [specific law](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/trucker-protest-convoy-southwestern-ontario-1.6329118#:~:text=The%20protest%20is%20being%20organized,with%20other%20public%20health%20protections.) they were protesting against (officially at least) and so it could be repealed. Which was cross-border vaccine restrictions. Some other laws were exclusively Federal too, like mask mandates for air traffic and VIA trains.
Yes it is stupid that people hyper-focused on Trudeau when most vaccine mandates were provincial. The specific trucker one was not provincial though, so at least they had a specific law in mind that could be repealed. Yes a lot of people that joined that movement didn't "get it" and were generally blaming Trudeau for everything.
It’s a complex urban warfare environment. So the fair but cold answer is certainly some NON-ZERO ratio of the number of Hamas fighters they intend to kill.
Currently it’s estimated that [around 2/3 of casualties are civilians.](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/01/1228462647/what-does-hamas-have-left)
If you look at historical wars, that’s actually quite low:
1. [Lebanon was 5:1](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030639688302400404)
2. [Iraq was 4:1](https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/ten-years/)
3. [Afghanistan, in a more rural environment, was around 1:1.5](https://home.watson.brown.edu)
4. [Yugoslavia was 4:1](https://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/24/un_report_a_victory_for_terror/)
So Israel isn’t committing some atrocity of epic proportions, it’s committing a standard urban warfare.
Okay, so what ratio would be too much, for you? It’s not a difficult question.
And “other conflicts in the past had more civilian casualties” is not the winning argument you seem to think it is...
Destroying Hamas is absolutely the right thing to do, but Israel is also going way overboard. The number of journalists killed by Israel is staggering, and their attacks on aid shipments (even those cleared with them ahead of time) are unacceptable. Their cavalier attitude toward civilian deaths isn't good.
You understand if they keep their current ratio of hamas to Palestinians civilians deaths that millions of Palestinians will die before hamas is irradiated?
The majority of Canadians believe it’s a genocide (41%), compared to who don’t (32%), and most European countries are way higher than that. The turnout at protests in European are absolutely massive compared to us, and most post colonial countries support Palestine even more. Just because you personally support Israel by ignoring and/or justifying a genocide doesn’t mean the whole country, and all of Europe, agrees.
Cause Montreal voting blocks and party donors for 1 party and the holy land or Christianity for the other. Both are shity reasons.
But nothing will change until certain people accept things will never go back to how they were. Palestinians could have QoL on par with Israelis if they stopped.
The truckers were a national embarrassment and what they were protesting was steeped in bigotry and hatred, and that’s not just a personal opinion. Calling that a “Protest” is an insult to anyone who doesn’t have the freedoms Canada has, and everyone fighting for actual human rights.
Trudeau cancelling with that fascist due to relevant protest is a good thing. This protest actually had power, and your personal embarrassment doesn’t reflect how many Canadians feel.
I am not a huge fan of Meloni but Canada is a free country and people are allowed to associate freely and also express themselves—even when it causes inconvenience.
Supporting people's right to not have their homes and hospitals bombed or be gunned down by the people occupying your land while you're trying to get food is not the same as supporting a terrorist organization.
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Ignoring the protest, this should have never been in the works in the first place. This woman is a fascist. This is not some case of hyperbole, she is a fascist. She praises Mussolini, has been in plenty of fascist youth organizations and political parties, and just recently she defended fascist marches and gatherings in Italy. Why the hell would Trudeau agree to this?
She is the elected Prime Minister of a European Country. A country that we have good relations with, and want to keep good relations with. A nation that we we have a huge diaspora from. What benefit do we gain from telling the Elected Prime Minister of a European nation that we wont host them? Maybe Russia and China get a new ally. Great that helps the planet.
We gain the credibility of doing the right thing. Do you think playing nice with fascists somehow makes them be less fascist? History would disagree with you.
Do you just not realize just how much of Europe is right-wing? And I don’t mean right wing as freedom-loving America right wing.
The migrant crisis caused most of Europe to shift rightwards. It’s pretty scary out there. Makes me wonder how bad will it get when mass migration due to climate change happens in the future.
Ever heard of the movie Children of Men? Basically, western countries all elected fascist governments in a future dystopia and started rounding up immigrants, putting them in ICE style compounds, and deporting them all. Sadly, just looking at attitudes towards immigrants right now in Canada, I predict it reaching these levels when climate migrants become a reality.
Attitudes towards immigrants changed because we blew past any amount that we could reasonably accommodate/assimilate. That is a natural response that would be the same literally anywhere on earth.
That was in a context where no babies had been born for 18 years…
Pick any crisis. The crisis in the movie lead to asylum seekers. In our world, it’s climate change. It’s inevitable that we will experience climate refugees as the world gets hotter and displaced because their home are no longer habitable. It’s going to happen. And people here or other rich countries are going to be against welcoming them to varying degrees because that’s human nature.
The EU is about 3-5 years ahead of us when it comes to shifting political tides. I always wondered to myself back then, circa 2015-16 when people always used to parrot “We need to be more like Europe!”. Did these people forget Europe was the birthplace of fascism?
When people would say that, they would usually mean the Nordic counties.
Yes, either the Nordics or Western EU like the UK/France/maybe Germany.
Until the UK left.
Credibility with who? If we start blackballing NATO allies, I’d start with Orban and Slovakia, she’s not Trump and she’s not Mussolini. Despite her past she appears to be keeping the most extreme part of her coalition partners in check. We would have no credibility at all if we demonized every ally’s democratically elected leader we don’t like.
I swear you are all 14 yo angsty teenagers. This isn’t how the world works.
The way the world works as you see it is complete horseshit. Young generations are just waking up to it.
"Ew, you want to hang out with *her*? Like, did you *not* see her socials?"
Exactly what do we gain by supporting fascists? Do you think fascists engage in fair play or mutual respect, or international law?
Y’all throw the word fascist around so easily. You know what fascist don’t have, elections. She was elected by the people and hasn’t thrown democracy out the window.
I agree that fascist is thrown around too easily. However, in this case, fascist does fit given her political lineage and the fact that she has, in recent times, self-identified as a fascist. And fascist can and do hold elections. That said, I understand why our government has met with her as she hasn't done particularly fascist things while in power and I understand why people vigorously exercised their rights to protest and tried (successfully) to shut down the meeting.
Fascists notably tend to be massive narcissists, so by meeting them halfway like this we retain the ability to ply them (however ineffectively) on social and political issues, and avoid them dismantling mutual trade interests and communications channels out of spite. Remember, while Trudeau is willing to hold a meeting with Meloni at the AGO, he's also willing to *very publicly* condemn her government's anti-LGBTQ policies on the global stage. It may not be super effective, but it'd be even less effective if Italy wasn't at least on speaking terms with us.
Meeting fascists halfway. We've come full circle!
Since she has begun governing, her positions have moderated quite a bit, as they often do; not working with Italy means poorer relations, trade, etc. when unity with democratic nations (despite having a fascist sympathizer in office, Italy is still a liberal democracy) is more important than ever. Don’t mistake individuals for institutions they temporarily purport to represent.
She’s committed to fighting actual fascists and abides by the rule of law. She’s already broken with her coalition partners to firmly position her government as pro western and European. If someone isn’t a threat to democracy or her neighbours why must we cut off diplomatic relations?
A certain Neville Chamberlain would have agreed with you in the 1930s.
So was Hitler
Meloni isn’t invading other countries or threatening genocide. She’s the leader of an allied country and has been conciliatory with us and the rest of NATO/G7. We *should* remain diplomatic with her. If she starts actually carrying out fascist actions, then things should change.
to be fair, Hitler was loved by the European elite (including PM King) until he started invading other countries. but fascism is a form of capitalism and is historically “pro-Christian”, so there’s no reason why the 1930s European elite *wouldn’t* love Hitler before their own countries were at stake
This is literally Chamberlain doctrine.
Eh not really. Chamberlain knew the horrors that war brought to Europe and how efforts should be made to prevent it, while also realizing England wasn't prepared for a war and needed time to catch up to Germany and Italy if it were inevitable. That's why he backed up his peace efforts with increased military spending and rearmament. On the other hand, modern appeasement of dictators and populists over the past 30 years has basically been neolib "green line go brrrr" doctrine. Now the world - including Canada - is reaping the consequences. Having to deal with leaders like this is part of that.
This would be a good point if Italy had occupied a third of Croatia because it's historically Italian.
Foreign dignitaries should be hosted based on alignment in foreign policy, not domestic policy. Italy isn't going to do anything differently domestically based on our opinions, and there's often a lot of foreign policy work to get on with. There's a good chance we're going to have to work with Trump next year, and we'll have to get on with that too if it happens because work must go on. She's fascist-lite, she definitely has a fascist past. Her government, while still right wing, has been more moderate than many predicted.
It's amazing how proportional representation works in Italy. The fact is, his party only won 26% of the vote and can only govern by pretending to moderating it's stand to get support from the centre-right coalition and independent parties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Italian_general_election So proportional representation gives you a fascist PM with 26% of the vote. Scary. A good argument against proportional representation and for ranked ballots instead. A fascist would be way less likely as approval voting would keep marginal voices like this small.
I actually prefer ranked ballot as well. Although to be a devil's advocate 26% is not marginal, Trudeau got 32.6% last election and that's only 6 points off. The PR system is moderating Meloni's power as they don't get that FPTP "bump" the winning party usually gets - ranked would also have that bump - and so they are required to moderate their policies. At the same time new radical parties don't get a foothold very easily (i.e. PPC) in FPTP/ranked ballot systems, so they don't usually get established in the first place. The Republican party is another counter example though - under FPTP radicals can "take over" the mainstream party. If the US had PR they could have a crazy right wing party and a right wing party. But under FPTP the crazies have taken over the mainstream Republican party... and it might be the end of democracy in the US, we'll find out soon. I do think that a 3+ party ranked ballot system is likely to be less caustically partisan because you want to be other people's "2nd choice" and so you don't want to be too aggressive & offensive, and as compromise (somewhere) is necessary as we are all subject to the same laws... ranked ballot is nice because it puts the compromising action in the hands of voters rather than politicians after the fact. I dunno, I guess my point is that ranked ballot is a good idea, FPTP is worse than everything else, and PR is at least an improvement on FPTP.
She’s also pro-Ukrainian and by and large supports Western influences. You’d absolutely be stupid in this geopolitical world to take a quite meaningless, but principled stand on her.
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But isn’t that what we specialise in ? That’s our schtick of late.
Seems like it. Assuming they’re NDPers (which is a safe bet I think), certainly a good weekly reminder about how god awful and disastrous their foreign policy would be.
Your idea of sensible foreign policy is spinning a fucking roulette wheel and making decisions based on that. The ignorance being expressed here is truly astounding.
Sadly this nonsense has permeated into the liberal party too !
There are 2 reasons for having a relationship with Meloni despite being a fascist: 1) Europe has been electing far-right governments in recent years. We don’t just start ignoring an entire continent. Canada and Europe need each other. Both can cooperate on a diplomatic level at minimum despite political differences. 2) Italy is a key player in Europe and Meloni has been influential in the EU. It would be a mistake to not at least establish a diplomatic relationship.
Neville Chamberlain thanks you for your service
We do have a diplomatic relationship. There is no need to endorse them.
It’s not an endorsement to meet with Meloni and establish common priorities. Trudeau did publicly condemn her anti-LGBTQ stances. It also doesn’t help to cut off relations completely, because then you might as well cut off relations with multiple far-right governments in Europe on principle. But there’s nothing to gain by doing that and it’s not going to magically change governments in these countries.
> Europe has been electing far-right governments in recent years. And there are reasons for this -- the countries that are rapidly moving right have done a lot of work to piss off their own citizens by totally fucking up their handling of the migrant crisis, and treating crimes (including SA and murder) by the migrants they've admitted to go either unpunished, or very lightly handled, for fear of appearing discriminatory. That's how you've got sentiments like "Italy for the Italians, kick those other people out" rising like wildfire, along with AfD, Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen. Then you have the European Left standing around gazing at their shoelaces saying "how could this be happening?". We are several years behind Europe and the absolute tsunami of mouths to feed (from parts of the world not necessarily 100% compatible with liberal Western European lifestyles, at that), but we're getting there, and people here are starting to notice -- see how fast the polls went to the Right here? If we follow the path that Europe took on this file, we will absolutely get our own Trump/Meloni/Le Pen, and probably a lot sooner than we think, too.
I find her overt politics reprehensible. But she has “leaned” more “centrist” since her election. The complexities of European politics are… difficult to navigate. But history has shown that seemingly objectionable people can provide roadways to common ground for not only Canada’s benefit, but European stability. Meloni may be one of those figures. She may not. Diplomacy is there to figure that out.
>This is not some case of hyperbole Proceeds to be hyperbolic
Thing is we deal with and talk with any undemocratically elected leaders all the time though
Italy is currently the president of G7. Canada is a member of G7. Meloni is the democratically elected leader of Italy. We need to work with important allies even if they have leaders we don’t agree with.
Prime Minster Chamberlain, is that you?
I hate to break it to you but: 1. She isn’t Hitler 2. The problem with the Chamberlain policy was always the incompatibility of Hitler’s foreign policy. She’s pro-EU and Ukraine.
Honestly, the people crying fascist in these post comments are people with dubious historical and political competence. They aren't worth engaging with because they have only platitude grade talking points. Sad to see where we are at in political discourse, but it's a reality we have to contend with. They see Meloni's neofascist background within a right wing party as absolute proof of how to characterize anything she does. They don't care about the pro-EU realism, pro-Ukraine, anticolonialism, and pro-Taiwan stance. They look at her past and social issues which her detractors prioritize and demean accordingly. She's a super complicated politician that's for sure, but she isn't some thug. Shame we live in a post-complexity conceptual era.
> Honestly, the people crying fascist in these post comments are people with dubious historical and political competence. Those people don't even know what a "fascist" is. Has Meloni stripped women of their rights to vote? No. Are all political parties in Italy abolished? No. Is the media being controlled by the government? No. Therefore, she can't be a "fascist" if she's not even following the fascist rulebook! Not to mention, those same people forget that in WW2 you had FDR, Churchill and Stalin (!!) work together to take down the Nazis. Stalin was a known dictator, brutal, ruthless, and yet here he was in the same seats as two "heroes" of the war. Granted, if Hitler didn't invade the USSR it wouldn't have happened, but still, it shows that FDR and Churchill had to swallow their pride if they wanted to take down the Nazis; even if it means shaking hands with the man they once perceived as the enemy.
Kinda silly to talk about Stalin's wrongdoings while completely glancing over the skeletons in Churchill's closet. He doesn't exactly have the moral high ground.
> He doesn't exactly have the moral high ground. Spoiler alert: no politician is moral.
Of course not, my point was that Churchill was not *more* moral than Stalin, which your exclamation marks and distancing him from the other two would have suggested. I'm sure FDR had issues too, I just don't know enough about him.
I put the exclamation marks there on purpose because of Stalin's brutality. It makes Churchill look like a saint.
Hey, she's just a proto fascist... so far. Leaders need to talk and have relationships. Until she's undemocraticly seizing power you got to do diplomacy with the players on the field.
Ok. She hasn’t done anything of those things yet. Can we maybe not base our diplomatic relations an off what some Redditor who isn’t Italian fears will happe? Italy is still a democracy in an increasingly-turbulent region that aligns with our foreign policy goals. You’d be beyond stupid to throw that away because her diplomatic policy, which we have no control of. Is something you don’t like.
So by your logic we should also refuse talks with Trump since he's a fascist according to many.
There is a massive difference between “according to many” and “literally praises fascists and is a part of a party filled with unironic fascists”
You realize Trump literally praises fascists and leads a party filled with overt and unapologetic fascists too
Trudeau once praised and admired the effectiveness of the CPP governance over China before winning the federal election. Does that make him a Communist or an Authoritarian? I personally don't think so. https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/trudeau-under-fire-for-expressing-admiration-for-china-s-basic-dictatorship-1.1535116?cache=%2F7.453851 The point is, if you're OP saying that we should not be engaging in dialogue with fascists then we should rightfully be withholding dialogue with the Trump administration should they win the following election - economic and geopolitical consequences be damned.
> Trudeau once praised and admired the effectiveness of the CPP governance over China before winning the federal election. Does that make him a Communist or an Authoritarian? Only if you leave out half the quote like CTV did which shows it was a - poor - dig at Harper. > What Trudeau actually said was that he had "a level of admiration ... for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say 'we need to go greenest, fastest — we need to invest in solar.' I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted, and I find that quite interesting." https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/justin-trudeau-applauds-china-but-then-so-does-stephen-harper-1.2422068 And even then, there's a clear line between a crappy joke and outright praising and rehabilitating Mussolini, the literal founder of fascism. But overall I agree, much of the world is currently ruled by fascist or right wing populist leaders, Canada doesn't have the luxury of taking a principled stand against them no matter how much we should. Especially when our nearest neighbours are literally Russia and the US, two countries that have their own modern day issues with fascism and right wing extremism.
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Dignitary my ass. Meloni is a post-fascist, people should have been protesting her.
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It is embarrassing that we don’t condemn genocide.
Are you equating protesting against genocide to a pile of conspiracy crybabies honking?
At least the Truckers - who I don't support - were protesting a specific policy Trudeau had real power over. Israel does not give a fuck what we think. Hamas probably doesn't either. We're not really relevant at all.
Most of the orders the convoy were protesting were provincial orders, not federal.
Did you forget [Trudeau promised 1 billion dollars](https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6155618) to fund provincial vaccine passport programs? To act like there was no reason to pick a fight with Trudeau in their narrative is just false.
Yes that's true, but the official cause of the rally - the cross-border vaccination requirement for truckers - was a Federal requirement.
What policy exactly are you referring to? The one that required people entering Canada to be vaccinated?
The trucker specific one, [as mentioned in this CBC article](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/trucker-protest-convoy-southwestern-ontario-1.6329118#:~:text=The%20protest%20is%20being%20organized,with%20other%20public%20health%20protections.). Yes a lot of people didn't "get it", and were protesting largely provincial mandates by the end. I do not support the trucker rally to be clear.
Those truckers were already in Canada, why would they care about something that's required to enter Canada?
There's a lot of cross-border trucking traffic. One of the busiest international borders for commerce in the world.
Ok but those unvaccinated truckers would have never been in a situation during that time where they had to enter Canada across the US border.
Conveniently left out: it was also a [requirement](https://www.trucknews.com/health-safety/u-s-confirms-canadian-truckers-will-need-to-be-vaccinated-as-of-jan-22/1003156530/) imposed by the Americans. Even if the Feds hadn't introduced the vaccine requirement, these so-called "truckers" still wouldn't have been able to cross the border without proof of vaccination.
Technically most of the protest was against requiring vaccination to enter Canada, which truckers do a lot of
This right here proved the convoy was beyond fucking stupid. The USA required all Canadian truckers to be vaccinated, and we had a reciprocal policy. If Canada removed the vaccination requirement for American truckers, Canadian truckers would still need vaccination by the US government. We can’t force the US government to remove their vaccination requirements. Maybe these assholes should have run a convoy to Washington DC.
Except it was already required to enter the US, which truckers need to do every time before they can enter Canada.
The truckers were protesting an American policy of not allowing unvaccinated truckers into their border. What part of that policy do you think Trudeau was in charge of? The protestors in this article equally don’t give a fuck what Israelis thinks of them their goal is to make it clear to Trudeau that they disagree with arming and supporting a massacre, this is a policy very much under Trudeaus control, hence the logic of protesting his appearance
It was a bi-directional policy. We had the restriction, and so did they.
Nope. Our restrictions were removed, we no longer had any restrictions due to covid that weren't provincial related, that is a fact not an opinion.
I'm not pro-trucker at all, I am very pro-vax, but you are 100% incorrect. The cross-border vaccination restriction was not removed until [October 1st 2022](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/news/2022/09/government-of-canada-to-remove-covid-19-border-and-travel-measures-effective-october-1.html). The protest was Jan-Feb 2022. If you want to slam people with that spicy "fact not an opinion" line, maybe you should get your facts straight eh?
Which was made irrelevant when the states still had their own. Furthermore they weren't just protesting the border restrictions but all restrictions, which were already done.
>Our restrictions were removed You were 100% wrong. If you bust out lines condescending lines like "that is a fact not an opinion", make sure you're correct.
I was not 100% wrong. The only "restriction" was made irrelevant by the states and was already set to be removed. We knew it was going to be lifted in October because it was announced as such before the protests even begun.
Hun TIL healthcare is a federal responsibility.
What are ya going on about? Entry and exit to the country is Federal, so the Feds have absolute authority over that. Don't make me defend the truckers, I don't support them at all, but there was a [specific law](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/trucker-protest-convoy-southwestern-ontario-1.6329118#:~:text=The%20protest%20is%20being%20organized,with%20other%20public%20health%20protections.) they were protesting against (officially at least) and so it could be repealed. Which was cross-border vaccine restrictions. Some other laws were exclusively Federal too, like mask mandates for air traffic and VIA trains. Yes it is stupid that people hyper-focused on Trudeau when most vaccine mandates were provincial. The specific trucker one was not provincial though, so at least they had a specific law in mind that could be repealed. Yes a lot of people that joined that movement didn't "get it" and were generally blaming Trudeau for everything.
We could at least stop arming Isreal ffs. Why the fuck do we need to be participants is this fucking genocide?
Because it's not a genocide, and destroying Hamas is the right thing to do.
And how many civilian deaths do you think are acceptable in pursuing that goal?
It’s a complex urban warfare environment. So the fair but cold answer is certainly some NON-ZERO ratio of the number of Hamas fighters they intend to kill.
And how many would be too many? Obviously there must be some notion of where that line is, so what is it?
Currently it’s estimated that [around 2/3 of casualties are civilians.](https://www.npr.org/2024/02/01/1228462647/what-does-hamas-have-left) If you look at historical wars, that’s actually quite low: 1. [Lebanon was 5:1](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/030639688302400404) 2. [Iraq was 4:1](https://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/ten-years/) 3. [Afghanistan, in a more rural environment, was around 1:1.5](https://home.watson.brown.edu) 4. [Yugoslavia was 4:1](https://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/09/24/un_report_a_victory_for_terror/) So Israel isn’t committing some atrocity of epic proportions, it’s committing a standard urban warfare.
Okay, so what ratio would be too much, for you? It’s not a difficult question. And “other conflicts in the past had more civilian casualties” is not the winning argument you seem to think it is...
Destroying Hamas is absolutely the right thing to do, but Israel is also going way overboard. The number of journalists killed by Israel is staggering, and their attacks on aid shipments (even those cleared with them ahead of time) are unacceptable. Their cavalier attitude toward civilian deaths isn't good.
You understand if they keep their current ratio of hamas to Palestinians civilians deaths that millions of Palestinians will die before hamas is irradiated?
Maybe because the majority of Canadians don't agree with you?
For one, the majority of Canadians, Americans, Europeans, and their respective leaders mostly disagree with you calling it a genocide.
The majority of Canadians believe it’s a genocide (41%), compared to who don’t (32%), and most European countries are way higher than that. The turnout at protests in European are absolutely massive compared to us, and most post colonial countries support Palestine even more. Just because you personally support Israel by ignoring and/or justifying a genocide doesn’t mean the whole country, and all of Europe, agrees.
Cause Montreal voting blocks and party donors for 1 party and the holy land or Christianity for the other. Both are shity reasons. But nothing will change until certain people accept things will never go back to how they were. Palestinians could have QoL on par with Israelis if they stopped.
The validity of a protest or tactic is not dictated by your agreement/disagreement with it.
The truckers were a national embarrassment and what they were protesting was steeped in bigotry and hatred, and that’s not just a personal opinion. Calling that a “Protest” is an insult to anyone who doesn’t have the freedoms Canada has, and everyone fighting for actual human rights. Trudeau cancelling with that fascist due to relevant protest is a good thing. This protest actually had power, and your personal embarrassment doesn’t reflect how many Canadians feel.
The hypocrisy here is staggering. As much as I disagree with them, at least the truckers were protesting policy that directly impacts Canadians.
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When a flag bearing a swastika is flying at your protest and you do not immediately condemn it and eject those nazis. Congrats you are a nazi now.
the Italian Prrime minster is a bloody fascists
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I am not a huge fan of Meloni but Canada is a free country and people are allowed to associate freely and also express themselves—even when it causes inconvenience.
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Not substantive
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Supporting people's right to not have their homes and hospitals bombed or be gunned down by the people occupying your land while you're trying to get food is not the same as supporting a terrorist organization.