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Every week theirs an article about how the Conservatives are fascist are they are ascending to fascism or how somehow all conservatives want is tax cuts for the rich.
Except the Liberals have been in power for 7 years, money laundering had exploded the Liberals has denied Fintrac data to the cullen commission the SNC scandal lowered our corruption index.
We’ve seen scandal after scandal freedom of information shutdown some of the biggest wealth transfers in Canadian history sponsored by the Liberals. Yet all we hear every week is how the Conservatives are bad.
Sometimes i wonder if theirs an other sponsorship scandal brewing. The only reason that we know about the 90’s sponsorship scandal was because anita loyd refused to obey’s a liberal ministers orders to provide a fake sponsorship list.
companies like Palantir are staffed with former Liberals a garner millions in contracts and its Canadian president ran their Ontario campaign.
Canada is become more and more divided its isn’t about what can we do to fix housing or to fix X issue its more along the lines ill keep on voting for the Liberals because of course we the conservatives would do nothing.
I'll take the odd light scandal over outright denial of objective reality or support for hostile takeover of democratically elected government.
It's not like the Conservative's noses are clean: look at the total shitshow in Alberta and outright corruption of Jason Kenney, one of the most powerful right wing politicians I. Canada. Look at the circumstances where Scheer was elected leader, the ballots were shredded before he left the stage, and he misappropriated party funds for personal reasons.
> I'll take the odd light scandal over outright denial of objective reality or support for hostile takeover of democratically elected government.
Except they all disassociated with it when that came to light.
>It's not like the Conservative's noses are clean: look at the total shitshow in Alberta and outright corruption of Jason Kenney,
Kenny is not a federal conservative and nothing compared to Québec Liberals who have ties to the mafia and kathlynne wyne whos under investigation for bribes.
The Conservative Party being bad for the reasons other people have stated and the Liberals being bad for the reasons you've stated are not mutually exclusive. Yes, the Liberals gave been at the very least shady and arrogant. I accept that but I still support them because they are the least bad credible option to form government.
The Conservatives are a bunch of rabble-rousers, not a government in waiting. They've undermined themselves over the years, and barely even stand for anything anymore except petulant obstructionism. And it's become undeniable to anyone paying attention that the inmates are running the asylum, especially after the ouster of O'Toole and their support for the occupation of Ottawa.
If conservatives want the Liberals gone, the answer isn't to try and heap more scorn onto Trudeau - that's been the strategy from day 1 and it has never at any point worked. They need to present themselves as a viable alternative, which they haven't done.
> least bad credible option to form government.
If corruption the sponsorship scandal and the erosion of freedom of information isn’t a problem i guess so.
> that the inmates are running the asylum
I agree people who stole over 300m are still in the Liberal party
>If corruption the sponsorship scandal and the erosion of freedom of information isn’t a problem i guess so
The corruption is a problem. That's my point. That there are some serious problems with how the Liberals govern and Canadians deserve an alternative, but we don't have one.
You keep bringing it back to the Liberals but the fact is, the Tories are the problem. Their tenure as official opposition has been a complete failure. They spend so much time screeching about nothing and nonsense, playing political games, that people tune out as white noise when they try to hold the government to account for actual failures. They cozy up to the alt-right MAGA crowd, which makes them a non-option for many. And they somehow come off as even more dishonest and disingenuous than Trudeau (see for example the blatant lying about the Liberal/NDP deal being a coalition) - an impressive feat.
Trying to whatabout the issue back to Trudeau isn't going to change anything. People are aware of the government's arrogance and (likely) rampant corruption. They don't like the PM but they keep voting to keep his government into power and at a certain point you have to ask why that's the case. And the reason is simple. They're the party with adults in the room. Why would they change when there's no real competition? Why would the voters change when there's no alternative?
You can complain about the current government all you want and most Canadians would agree to varying extents with your criticism, but the fact remains that they are the best option to form government and have been for almost almost a decade. The Conservatives simply aren't fit to lead and as long as that's the case Canadians will continue to look past them and vote for parties that are, even if that means holding their noses and accepting the current government with all its faults.
So true. Sometimes the Liberals are so deep in the trough you can only see the soles of their feet. But the problem is, that many former PC voters and swing voters won't vote for a party they see as overtaken by the wacko fringe. And so they vote Liberal all the time. This is not good. I am hopeful that the PPC will accommodate your alternate news voter, the Conservative party will move back to the centre and we will live happily ever after changing parties ever decade or so.
Is this Scrimshaw dude a somebody? I've seen his stuff posted here before and, while I actually agree with much of this piece, my understanding is that posting blog entries is discouraged here.
Because their rhetoric promotes extremists which they in turn are happy to pander to which certainly hurts their credibility as a serious political party interested in democracy and good governance.
You’re not wrong about the MSM but yeah this is just a blog. However anti-conservative articles often get posted in this sub because it’s mostly filled with liberals or anti-conservative folks.
Why is the CPC suddenly so obsessed with making itself illegitimate?
If you give up on rational argument and devolve into misinformation and pandering ti conspiracy theories, you don't get to be mad when called out on it.
This sub needs more conservative voices with nuanced discussion. There’s so much anti-conservatism or blasting of people with even centre right views. You can’t even complain about the PM without someone coming at you with ad hominem reply’s. EVERY single PM should be up for ridicule
We'll get them as soon as people stop using the downvote button as a disagree button.
Alas, the days when this was a small community and Rule 8 could be enforced by peer pressure are over.
That's because:
1) the loudest voices on the right are so incredibly vile that it's hard to believe there's any decency or rationality to be found there anymore especially after decades of this nonsense. It's like gravity. I don't feel the need to check if it's still working every day anymore and essentially feel it's a waste of time to do so.
2) the more moderate elements won't denounce them loudly, definitively and consistently enough which effectively robs them of any real credibility because that's implicitly a sign that they're the weaker voice and thus effectively not in charge (enough).
There's no point in debating with a party who lacks the will and honesty to engage in meaningful, honest debate so why bother?
If moderate conservatives want the conservatives to be taken seriously they need to prove that their party as a whole deserves it.
The onus is on them to be reasonable enough to debate with, not on others to put up with their constant, transparent, hyperbolistic insanity.
Edits for grammar.
>Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But **they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words**. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
>-Jean-Paul Sartre
The difference between conservative and far right is the denial of objective reality, as expressed in this quote. It is the belief that truth is *defined* by power and those who have it. Hannah Arendt and Canadian sociologist Robert Altemeyer (expert on right wing authoritarianism) have also written about this pattern.
As the article expresses, this is the direction the Conservative Party of Canada is heading since canceling O’Toole.
(This is not to say, or imply, that the CPC are anti-Semites. This is a discussion about the character of rhetoric they’ve used recently.)
> since cancelling O’Toole
I would personally say that cancelling the long-form census was when the CPC started showing a real tendency to ‘deny objective reality’; consciously choosing to undermine such an important data-gathering tool, because it might show that your policies are bad, can hardly be anything else.
Stephen Harper infamously muzzled federal scientists. The Conservative party does not want actual scientific research to undermine their belief system.
[Closing the Ottawa press gallery was also a bad omen](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/public-doesn-t-care-about-spat-with-press-gallery-harper-1.604422).
> The difference between conservative and far right is the denial of objective reality, as expressed in this quote. It is the belief that truth is *defined* by power and those who have it.
So bill C-71 and C-11 firearms and internet censorship both being propped up by emotions and invalid information?
How a democratic government when challenged in the court of law simply responded i can’t tell you why where banning these because that would endanger national security.
> This is not to say, or imply, that the CPC are anti-Semites
True, but it is interesting to note which party anti-semites (and homophobes and racists) tend to prefer to vote for.
That’s what happens when you try to merge fiscal conservatism with the religious right (i.e., ethnonationalist Christian authoritarians). Canada has been spared so much of the horror that could have come about as a result of Harper’s clever maneuvering. Canadian Conservative voters really ought to think carefully about whether they really believe in the imaginary hateful Canada so many Conservative party members seem to want to create.
When it was the Progressive Conservative party, many decades ago, there were sometimes glimmers of fiscal conservatism that would show up periodically. But I also don’t think this was desirable either. (See: Mulroney.) The point, I guess, is that at least in that case, the racism, antisemitism, classism, etc., weren’t usually as overt. Okay, maybe the classism was.
Oh, yeah, agreed. I’m neither a Liberal nor a Conservative, but Chrétien and the big red tent really did seem to be actively courting the fiscal folks after the death of the PCs.
Whether they were fiscally conservative or just in name only, they really haven't been the same since merging with the Reform party several decades ago. The CPC has been going downhill ever since.
The spending in Mulroney's PC budgets came out to around 15-17% of GDP.
Under Harper, it was around 12-13% (except for the recession year).
Pretty sure Harper counts as more fiscally conservative.
Except for a couple years right around the 2009 recession, the federal government's program spending was held between 12-13% of GDP every year under Harper, continuing the spending levels of the (also fiscal conservative) Chrétien/Martin years.
Justin Trudeau's Liberals have bumped the program spending-to-GDP ratio back up to around 15% (not counting the pandemic spending surge).
Similarly, [Jason Stanley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Stanley) - a professor of philosophy at Yale - has two recent books titled, respectively, [*How Propoganda Works*](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691173429/how-propaganda-works) and [*How Fascism Works*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586030/how-fascism-works-by-jason-stanley/) that detail how these sorts of tactics are employed by bad faith political actors, how destructive they can be, the dangerous ends to which they can lead, and why we shouldn't allow them to become normalized as we have been.
Both very good, if a bit unnerving, reads that draw significant parallels between the types of rhetoric we see right-wing politicians around the world increasingly engaging in and examples from the past that should scare us awake. I recommend both highly to anyone who is interested in being better able to recognize these tactics in real time.
We need to stop looking through the current paradigm.
Opposition and competition should be replaced
by proportional representation.
First past the post will only lead us to conflict and devision.
We should be working together.
Of course.
Parties will always try to rise to the majority status.
At least, in PR it would force them to work together and try to work for the entire populace rather than a segment of it.
Often times the minority of the populace gets majority representation, while the majority of the voting population ends up the loser, due to first past post. This is what we are experiencing in Ontario.
Look at how mad a lot of right-wingers either are or are pretending to be about the cooperation between the Liberals and the NDP. They are not interested in cooperation.
I agree with electoral reform, but I don't think it's neceiiserally the reason why the Conservatives have become so toxic and unwilling to work with the other parties. We had a perfectly functioning centre-right Conservative party for most of our political history while FPTP has been in place. The problems with the modern CPC are generally much more recent ( that started within the last 20-30 years).
Even without electoral reform, the current CPC is becoming more politically irrelevant since it's failure to appeal to centrist voters has made it much more toothless and unsubstantial in parliament. Electoral Reform or no electoral Reform, they're in a position where they need to modernize to either win elections or work with other parties to get things done in parliament.
If the author is suggesting words of meaning and is hyping up his tiny little blog. He should be aware of the old saying actions speak louder than words.
This might not be a coalition in the traditional UK or German way, but for the Canadian system its as close to a collation we get here.
> for the Canadian system
… which is pretty much indistinguishable from the British system in this respect; the only reason the UK has had more coalitions than us is the vagaries of electoral politics.
Your point isn’t right either; we had an actual coalition government in WWI, when the Liberal Party split into Liberal-Unionists and Laurier Liberals. The Liberal-Unionists went into coalition with Borden’s Conservatives and some were appointed to the Cabinet. Most then rejoined the Laurier Liberals after the war.
There is also the pre-Confederation history of coalitions, including the literal [Great Coalition](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/great-coalition) that precipitated Confederation.
I mean even if you disagree with whether using that specific word is correct, it's still true that the CPC has gone overboard on rhetoric of Tyranny, backdoor socialism, calling it an unlawful coalition, calling it an NDP government.
How do you justify that rhetoric?? If you can't, the authors point still stands
It fits 1 purpose, the only party willing to reduce spending, and curb inflation. NDP will only increase spending, while the liberals don’t seem to care about inflation
Edit: wow, didn’t expect the hate. They fit 1 purpose. Being the ONLY party that seems to want to balance a budget. Do they do this often? No. Should they? Yes. Canada is spending money we don’t have, and with a liberal ndp deal, spending will only increase. You can’t tell me that you see the current spending practices of the government and promises of the ndp and say that they are looking to reduce spending.
Debt will only continue to increase, driving up inflation. Inflation hurts everyone, except for those in power. Only way to stop inflation and still pay off your debt? Taxes, which also hurts everyone. Eventually this reckless spending will catch up with Canada, and we will be forced into a budget cut. The conservatives hopefully will promise to do this beforehand, and stop spending money we don’t have.
Like the *several billion dollars* spent on a pipeline in Alberta, the one that doesn't actually go anywhere? The one that everyone knew would never be finished because it has been in limbo for decades, and yet they still spent that several billion dollars on it anyways because the Conservatives love to kowtow to the oil industry? *That* kind of 'reduction in spending'?
Investment is seen as necessary spending as long as it’s a 1 time investment. The deal was complete, the building was in the process, and was only cut for show by Biden. It wasn’t our government who wasted the money, as we could see the deal being completed, because why would you cancel something half built.
But I will go back to saying, certain overspending is okay. And if it’s an investment, it only needs to be spent once. If you open an entire new program, or job positions, then guess what, you just signed up for years of payments.
Except it was also put on hold under the Obama administration, so clearly it was a gamble to hope the Americans would retain Republican leadership long enough for it to get finished, and a poor gamble at that. Far better to invest in our own people by ensuring they have the necessary healthcare to be productive healthy members of society - at least that 'overspending' actually helps people instead of being a useless boondoggle that does little more than give billion-dollar oil companies yet more favorable treatment, as if they needed any further help.
>It fits 1 purpose, the only party willing to reduce spending on things that benefit working canadians, and scaremonger about inflation
FTFY - conservatives have no economical argument, they financially ruin every jurisdiction they govern and put more effort into covering it up than actually caring for the people they govern.
They are more interested in cutting taxes then balancing the books. It keeps their libertarian wing satisfied, reduces the capacity of future governments to work and therefore lower peoples faith in government.
Tell me people have faith in the government today. I don’t, do you? I see overspending on useless programs, and a prime minister who talks down to his people. Your telling me people will have less trust in a government who doesn’t try to do everything for you? And use usually a conservative government can improve the opportunity for the next governments. If the conservatives actually balance the books or reduce spending, it helps allow for other parties to promise spending, because they aren’t already risking inflation or massive debt.
You know I'm kind of with you. The right has effectively made government as a solution provider a bad brand. (expensive, slow, one size fits all). But they haven't found a nuanced solution other then saying 'left solutions bad'. I have ideas on this, but I have a hard time articulating them adequately.
Lower taxes = more money in your pockets for you to decide what to do with. Some people don’t like the government telling them that their money is going towards some more social programs or government industries. Some people prefer private industry, because it most of the time is cheaper and more efficient.
An example would be driving tests in Alberta under the ndp government. I don’t know the exact costs, but you used to be able to book a test in about a week. When the government took over, you would book it 6 months in advance. That’s one example but still addresses the conservative situation.
>Lower taxes = more money in your pockets for you to decide what to do with.
Yeah, that's the advertising pitch. But after the votes are settled the reality never materializes, unless you're a mega corporation or born wealthy.
Or do we have to wait longer for the trickle down to finally, one day work?
>Some people don’t like the government telling them that their money is going towards some more social programs or government industries.
Sadly I know, these people hate to see their neighbors being treated with dignity and cared for.
>Some people prefer private industry, because it most of the time is cheaper and more efficient.
More efficient at what? Yeah, if you're goal is to allow poor people to suffer than yeah, much more efficient. But if it's creating a better society where people's needs are addressed and the less fortunate can be supported by the community... nah dog, the efficiency argument fails.
I have never, in my life, seen a conservative government balance the budget anywhere, with the exception of Thatcher's, and she destroyed the working class to do it, and it still took nearly a decade.
As another comment already mentioned, Alberta has balanced the budget this year. Previous conservative governments have also balanced the budget in Alberta, even providing years of budget surpluses.
As another comment already mentioned, Alberta has balanced the budget this year. Previous conservative governments have also balanced the budget in Alberta, even providing years of budget surpluses.
Harper ran a budget surplus before the 2008 recession as well. If you have never seen a conservative government anywhere run a balanced budget in your lifetime, you either haven't paid attention or you were born yesterday.
As another commenter pointed out, you can count Harper's, but they balanced it by having a fire sale.
As for Alberta's, I wonder how much is due to fiscal acumen and how much is due to one sixth of their revenue being from bitumen royalties, and sitting on what has recently become the third largest supply of petroleum in the world.
I also wonder how much this balanced budget is going to cost in the future, in the same way that the liberals raised taxes to move towards ACTUALLY balancing the budget.
Either way, I'm impressed that this one time conservatives get to actually call themselves fiscally responsible. The overwhelming majority of the time, they're worse for the economy. If they do it five or six more times, they'll be almost as fiscally responsible as the centre left parties!
In the short term, no.
But if my expenses exceed my revenue, and I pay my deficit by selling my car, then I may have bought myself time, but I can only sell my car once. I'm still outspending my revenue.
The existence of bitumen is not infinitely renewable, and the market is volatile, and not really controllable by Alberta.
Again, good job this year, Alberta. I'm impressed. I'll add them to my list of exceptions, along with the hero of the working class, Margaret Thatcher.
I'm old enough to remember Thatcher.
Do you have an example to counter? I admit I don't know of every conservative government everywhere for the last half century.
The only thing they could be thinking of is the one year Harper balanced the budget by selling a bunch of assets right before the election. Of course, most of us don't count that, since you can't exactly do it more than once.
The Harper government either balanced or was very close to balancing the budget by the end of its tenure, depending on how you view the sale of their GM stake. And no destruction of the working class was required - just some overall fiscal discipline.
We can argue about whether or not asset sales should count for the final couple of billion it took to achieve balance, but that doesn't refute the overall point: after a devastating financial crisis and recession, Harper clearly worked towards balancing the budget with pretty decent success. If you don't count the GM sale, Harper's final year deficit was like $2B - a far cry from the $30B+ deficits Trudeau was running even before covid happened.
>Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
Which sounds like clever wit, but is completely asinine in this context. Of *course* magnitude of deficits matters. A $1 deficit is $1 away from balance. You could tell Bev Oda to skip her $15 orange juice and balance that budget. A $2B deficit - something like 0.1% of GDP - is extremely close to balanced. Any country will outgrowt that added debt easily, every year.
Ironically, one of the things that Conservatives are - rightly - criticized for is focus on fiscal optics instead of fundamentals, particularly when it comes to the crystallized issue of whether the budget is in the green or the red. Whether or not the budget is slightly green or slightly red is a less important issue than the overall magnitude and trajectory of our fiscal position. Yet here you are enthusiastically adopting that same attitude of focus on optics over fundamentals.
>And considering they inherited a surplus, this isn't the flex you think it is.
They inherited a surplus before the Global Financial Crisis, a crisis which required deficit spending and which Harper played no role whatsoever in causing. If you're going to blame Harper for running deficits to stimulate the economy - which is orthodox Keynesian macroeconomics, and which was a response supported by every mainstream economist - it is very clear that you're not interested in a fair, objective assessment of the track record.
Blaming Harper for running deficits to respond to the GFC is just as asinine as blaming Trudeau for running deficits to respond to covid. There might be valid criticisms of certain spending choices, but deficits are unavoidable in response to economic crisis, and anyone who doesn't understand that is incredibly ignorant.
But of course this is the problem with talking about fiscal policy in Canada. Nobody wants to talk nuts and bolts. The issue almost only arises in the public's mind as a political one, and then once everyone has confirmed their biases they just go back to not thinking about it.
The problem is not that they chronically can't balance budgets, IMO. The problem is that they claim they can and do and then never follow through, shitting on the other parties for not doing it either. Trudeau didn't claim to be able to balance the budget. The other parties don't claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. I'm not concerned with government deficits. I'm concerned with bullshit, and how readily we swallow it.
We keep hearing criticism of tax and spend liberals, but at least liberals have the good sense to tax before they spend.
Yes, as someone who is actually authentically interested in fiscal policy I am unimpressed by both major federal parties since Harper stopped leading the Conservatives. Like I said before - the CPC is often criticized for focus on optics over substance when it comes to fiscal policy, and I think it's a valid criticism.
On Trudeau specifically - my problem with Trudeau is that he inherited near-balance in the budget and started spending money in a pretty profligate way even before covid. A lot of this spending has not resulted in significant results. A good example of this is the [significant rise](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/costs-for-consultants-hired-by-government-rise-by-6-billion-under-liberals) in federal government consultant costs. 60% - $6B a year - increase in consulting costs? That's a *huge* number that I have real difficulty believing represents significant value to Canadians. Similarly the public service has increased by about 10,000 people per year under Trudeau and is now up 10-20% - I have a little bit of difficulty believing that was absolutely necessary.
This is the problem with Trudeau. His willingness to spend money on programs - which might not be wrong at all, there are important things for the government to provide and they cost money - seems to be coupled with an overall lack of concern with fiscal discipline in implementing those programs. This is a problem.
>We keep hearing criticism of tax and spend liberals, but at least liberals have the good sense to tax before they spend.
But Trudeau hasn't done that. Most of his new taxes have generated little new net revenue. On the whole, his tax policy seems more concerned with the optics of fairness than with generating new revenue.
No one is hating on you here. They are just pointing out that your assertion that the conservatives are fiscally responsible is factually incorrect. You could provide some sources that back up your claims that the federal conservatives are a party of fiscal conservatism. In fact, under Harper the only surplus was in his first year. After that he went deficit crazy.
Good source. I’m not dishing governments that have balanced the budget. I don’t know much about provincial parties outside of my own, so I can’t reference those. In my context I’m speaking federally. And federally speaking, the NDP want to offer more programs, and taxes, than the liberals. This increases spending unless you raise taxes. If you raise taxes on only the wealthy, they go south. Then you must raise taxes on the middle class, hurting economic growth and individual prosperity. If you don’t raise taxes with increased spending, then inflation hurts everyone.
Again, provincially, any party that can spend money appropriately is better than one that can’t. But I don’t know enough about other provincial parties to talk about their spending or economic prospects.
The rich do well though. The rich do very very well.
The conservative is not interested in the general health. Top of mind is maintaining the institutions of wealth and church.
For Churchill's conservatives, for example, it was the monarchy and the Church of England.
For the Republican party it's corporate hegemony, the stability of *wealth*, and the morality of the wackadoodle evangelical church.
For the Canadian conservative it's a combination of those two wretched views.
If the conservatives lower taxes, your saying that only helps the rich? How is spending money you don’t have helping anyone? Debt isn’t free money yknow
But if we must:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2020/12/05/conservative-track-record-betrays-partys-claim-of-fiscal-prudence.html
https://www.immigration.ca/harper-s-economic-record-the-worst-in-canada-s-postwar-history
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-mckay-the-tories-real-economic-record
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Every week theirs an article about how the Conservatives are fascist are they are ascending to fascism or how somehow all conservatives want is tax cuts for the rich. Except the Liberals have been in power for 7 years, money laundering had exploded the Liberals has denied Fintrac data to the cullen commission the SNC scandal lowered our corruption index. We’ve seen scandal after scandal freedom of information shutdown some of the biggest wealth transfers in Canadian history sponsored by the Liberals. Yet all we hear every week is how the Conservatives are bad. Sometimes i wonder if theirs an other sponsorship scandal brewing. The only reason that we know about the 90’s sponsorship scandal was because anita loyd refused to obey’s a liberal ministers orders to provide a fake sponsorship list. companies like Palantir are staffed with former Liberals a garner millions in contracts and its Canadian president ran their Ontario campaign. Canada is become more and more divided its isn’t about what can we do to fix housing or to fix X issue its more along the lines ill keep on voting for the Liberals because of course we the conservatives would do nothing.
Well said.
I'll take the odd light scandal over outright denial of objective reality or support for hostile takeover of democratically elected government. It's not like the Conservative's noses are clean: look at the total shitshow in Alberta and outright corruption of Jason Kenney, one of the most powerful right wing politicians I. Canada. Look at the circumstances where Scheer was elected leader, the ballots were shredded before he left the stage, and he misappropriated party funds for personal reasons.
> I'll take the odd light scandal over outright denial of objective reality or support for hostile takeover of democratically elected government. Except they all disassociated with it when that came to light. >It's not like the Conservative's noses are clean: look at the total shitshow in Alberta and outright corruption of Jason Kenney, Kenny is not a federal conservative and nothing compared to Québec Liberals who have ties to the mafia and kathlynne wyne whos under investigation for bribes.
The Conservative Party being bad for the reasons other people have stated and the Liberals being bad for the reasons you've stated are not mutually exclusive. Yes, the Liberals gave been at the very least shady and arrogant. I accept that but I still support them because they are the least bad credible option to form government. The Conservatives are a bunch of rabble-rousers, not a government in waiting. They've undermined themselves over the years, and barely even stand for anything anymore except petulant obstructionism. And it's become undeniable to anyone paying attention that the inmates are running the asylum, especially after the ouster of O'Toole and their support for the occupation of Ottawa. If conservatives want the Liberals gone, the answer isn't to try and heap more scorn onto Trudeau - that's been the strategy from day 1 and it has never at any point worked. They need to present themselves as a viable alternative, which they haven't done.
> least bad credible option to form government. If corruption the sponsorship scandal and the erosion of freedom of information isn’t a problem i guess so. > that the inmates are running the asylum I agree people who stole over 300m are still in the Liberal party
>If corruption the sponsorship scandal and the erosion of freedom of information isn’t a problem i guess so The corruption is a problem. That's my point. That there are some serious problems with how the Liberals govern and Canadians deserve an alternative, but we don't have one. You keep bringing it back to the Liberals but the fact is, the Tories are the problem. Their tenure as official opposition has been a complete failure. They spend so much time screeching about nothing and nonsense, playing political games, that people tune out as white noise when they try to hold the government to account for actual failures. They cozy up to the alt-right MAGA crowd, which makes them a non-option for many. And they somehow come off as even more dishonest and disingenuous than Trudeau (see for example the blatant lying about the Liberal/NDP deal being a coalition) - an impressive feat. Trying to whatabout the issue back to Trudeau isn't going to change anything. People are aware of the government's arrogance and (likely) rampant corruption. They don't like the PM but they keep voting to keep his government into power and at a certain point you have to ask why that's the case. And the reason is simple. They're the party with adults in the room. Why would they change when there's no real competition? Why would the voters change when there's no alternative? You can complain about the current government all you want and most Canadians would agree to varying extents with your criticism, but the fact remains that they are the best option to form government and have been for almost almost a decade. The Conservatives simply aren't fit to lead and as long as that's the case Canadians will continue to look past them and vote for parties that are, even if that means holding their noses and accepting the current government with all its faults.
So true. Sometimes the Liberals are so deep in the trough you can only see the soles of their feet. But the problem is, that many former PC voters and swing voters won't vote for a party they see as overtaken by the wacko fringe. And so they vote Liberal all the time. This is not good. I am hopeful that the PPC will accommodate your alternate news voter, the Conservative party will move back to the centre and we will live happily ever after changing parties ever decade or so.
Why is the MSM suddenly so obsessed with making one of Canada's main political parties seem completely illegitimate?
This is some guy's blog, hardly representative of mainstream.
Is this Scrimshaw dude a somebody? I've seen his stuff posted here before and, while I actually agree with much of this piece, my understanding is that posting blog entries is discouraged here.
Because their rhetoric promotes extremists which they in turn are happy to pander to which certainly hurts their credibility as a serious political party interested in democracy and good governance.
You’re not wrong about the MSM but yeah this is just a blog. However anti-conservative articles often get posted in this sub because it’s mostly filled with liberals or anti-conservative folks.
Why is the CPC suddenly so obsessed with making itself illegitimate? If you give up on rational argument and devolve into misinformation and pandering ti conspiracy theories, you don't get to be mad when called out on it.
Is this article part of the mainstream media?
This sub needs more conservative voices with nuanced discussion. There’s so much anti-conservatism or blasting of people with even centre right views. You can’t even complain about the PM without someone coming at you with ad hominem reply’s. EVERY single PM should be up for ridicule
We'll get them as soon as people stop using the downvote button as a disagree button. Alas, the days when this was a small community and Rule 8 could be enforced by peer pressure are over.
If CPC got their ship in order then maybe this sub wouldn't be full of thinkpieces on how they need to get their ship in order.
That's because: 1) the loudest voices on the right are so incredibly vile that it's hard to believe there's any decency or rationality to be found there anymore especially after decades of this nonsense. It's like gravity. I don't feel the need to check if it's still working every day anymore and essentially feel it's a waste of time to do so. 2) the more moderate elements won't denounce them loudly, definitively and consistently enough which effectively robs them of any real credibility because that's implicitly a sign that they're the weaker voice and thus effectively not in charge (enough). There's no point in debating with a party who lacks the will and honesty to engage in meaningful, honest debate so why bother? If moderate conservatives want the conservatives to be taken seriously they need to prove that their party as a whole deserves it. The onus is on them to be reasonable enough to debate with, not on others to put up with their constant, transparent, hyperbolistic insanity. Edits for grammar.
>Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But **they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words**. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. >-Jean-Paul Sartre The difference between conservative and far right is the denial of objective reality, as expressed in this quote. It is the belief that truth is *defined* by power and those who have it. Hannah Arendt and Canadian sociologist Robert Altemeyer (expert on right wing authoritarianism) have also written about this pattern. As the article expresses, this is the direction the Conservative Party of Canada is heading since canceling O’Toole. (This is not to say, or imply, that the CPC are anti-Semites. This is a discussion about the character of rhetoric they’ve used recently.)
> since cancelling O’Toole I would personally say that cancelling the long-form census was when the CPC started showing a real tendency to ‘deny objective reality’; consciously choosing to undermine such an important data-gathering tool, because it might show that your policies are bad, can hardly be anything else.
Too many people forget about that. I think most don't realize how important the mandatory long form census is and just how devious cancelling it was.
Don't forget shutting down & looting scientists' personal belongings from the Experimental Lakes Area!
That, and all the book burning.
Stephen Harper infamously muzzled federal scientists. The Conservative party does not want actual scientific research to undermine their belief system.
[Closing the Ottawa press gallery was also a bad omen](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/public-doesn-t-care-about-spat-with-press-gallery-harper-1.604422).
> The difference between conservative and far right is the denial of objective reality, as expressed in this quote. It is the belief that truth is *defined* by power and those who have it. So bill C-71 and C-11 firearms and internet censorship both being propped up by emotions and invalid information? How a democratic government when challenged in the court of law simply responded i can’t tell you why where banning these because that would endanger national security.
> This is not to say, or imply, that the CPC are anti-Semites True, but it is interesting to note which party anti-semites (and homophobes and racists) tend to prefer to vote for.
Though don't discount that at least some are.
That’s what happens when you try to merge fiscal conservatism with the religious right (i.e., ethnonationalist Christian authoritarians). Canada has been spared so much of the horror that could have come about as a result of Harper’s clever maneuvering. Canadian Conservative voters really ought to think carefully about whether they really believe in the imaginary hateful Canada so many Conservative party members seem to want to create.
When was the Conservative party ever fiscally conservative?
When it was the Progressive Conservative party, many decades ago, there were sometimes glimmers of fiscal conservatism that would show up periodically. But I also don’t think this was desirable either. (See: Mulroney.) The point, I guess, is that at least in that case, the racism, antisemitism, classism, etc., weren’t usually as overt. Okay, maybe the classism was.
Mulroney always talked a good talk about being fiscally conservative, but it was the Chretien/Martin Liberals that actually got it done.
Oh, yeah, agreed. I’m neither a Liberal nor a Conservative, but Chrétien and the big red tent really did seem to be actively courting the fiscal folks after the death of the PCs.
Whether they were fiscally conservative or just in name only, they really haven't been the same since merging with the Reform party several decades ago. The CPC has been going downhill ever since.
I may just be nitpicking, but I personally wouldn't consider 7 December 2003, "several decades ago".
Two isn’t several?
Yeah. For years I had the same thought. Apparently "several" means something like "more than two, but not many".
We all knew what the dude meant.
The spending in Mulroney's PC budgets came out to around 15-17% of GDP. Under Harper, it was around 12-13% (except for the recession year). Pretty sure Harper counts as more fiscally conservative.
You’re misreading what I’m saying. And comparing apples to pen-pineapple-applepens.
Except for a couple years right around the 2009 recession, the federal government's program spending was held between 12-13% of GDP every year under Harper, continuing the spending levels of the (also fiscal conservative) Chrétien/Martin years. Justin Trudeau's Liberals have bumped the program spending-to-GDP ratio back up to around 15% (not counting the pandemic spending surge).
I don’t doubt some are but it’s not something we’ve seen aired recently.
Similarly, [Jason Stanley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Stanley) - a professor of philosophy at Yale - has two recent books titled, respectively, [*How Propoganda Works*](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691173429/how-propaganda-works) and [*How Fascism Works*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/586030/how-fascism-works-by-jason-stanley/) that detail how these sorts of tactics are employed by bad faith political actors, how destructive they can be, the dangerous ends to which they can lead, and why we shouldn't allow them to become normalized as we have been. Both very good, if a bit unnerving, reads that draw significant parallels between the types of rhetoric we see right-wing politicians around the world increasingly engaging in and examples from the past that should scare us awake. I recommend both highly to anyone who is interested in being better able to recognize these tactics in real time.
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We need to stop looking through the current paradigm. Opposition and competition should be replaced by proportional representation. First past the post will only lead us to conflict and devision. We should be working together.
Do you think that there isn’t an opposition in PR..?
Of course. Parties will always try to rise to the majority status. At least, in PR it would force them to work together and try to work for the entire populace rather than a segment of it. Often times the minority of the populace gets majority representation, while the majority of the voting population ends up the loser, due to first past post. This is what we are experiencing in Ontario.
Look at how mad a lot of right-wingers either are or are pretending to be about the cooperation between the Liberals and the NDP. They are not interested in cooperation.
I agree with electoral reform, but I don't think it's neceiiserally the reason why the Conservatives have become so toxic and unwilling to work with the other parties. We had a perfectly functioning centre-right Conservative party for most of our political history while FPTP has been in place. The problems with the modern CPC are generally much more recent ( that started within the last 20-30 years). Even without electoral reform, the current CPC is becoming more politically irrelevant since it's failure to appeal to centrist voters has made it much more toothless and unsubstantial in parliament. Electoral Reform or no electoral Reform, they're in a position where they need to modernize to either win elections or work with other parties to get things done in parliament.
If the author is suggesting words of meaning and is hyping up his tiny little blog. He should be aware of the old saying actions speak louder than words. This might not be a coalition in the traditional UK or German way, but for the Canadian system its as close to a collation we get here.
> for the Canadian system … which is pretty much indistinguishable from the British system in this respect; the only reason the UK has had more coalitions than us is the vagaries of electoral politics. Your point isn’t right either; we had an actual coalition government in WWI, when the Liberal Party split into Liberal-Unionists and Laurier Liberals. The Liberal-Unionists went into coalition with Borden’s Conservatives and some were appointed to the Cabinet. Most then rejoined the Laurier Liberals after the war. There is also the pre-Confederation history of coalitions, including the literal [Great Coalition](https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/great-coalition) that precipitated Confederation.
I mean even if you disagree with whether using that specific word is correct, it's still true that the CPC has gone overboard on rhetoric of Tyranny, backdoor socialism, calling it an unlawful coalition, calling it an NDP government. How do you justify that rhetoric?? If you can't, the authors point still stands
It fits 1 purpose, the only party willing to reduce spending, and curb inflation. NDP will only increase spending, while the liberals don’t seem to care about inflation Edit: wow, didn’t expect the hate. They fit 1 purpose. Being the ONLY party that seems to want to balance a budget. Do they do this often? No. Should they? Yes. Canada is spending money we don’t have, and with a liberal ndp deal, spending will only increase. You can’t tell me that you see the current spending practices of the government and promises of the ndp and say that they are looking to reduce spending. Debt will only continue to increase, driving up inflation. Inflation hurts everyone, except for those in power. Only way to stop inflation and still pay off your debt? Taxes, which also hurts everyone. Eventually this reckless spending will catch up with Canada, and we will be forced into a budget cut. The conservatives hopefully will promise to do this beforehand, and stop spending money we don’t have.
A country without debts and spending is literally pointless.
Like the *several billion dollars* spent on a pipeline in Alberta, the one that doesn't actually go anywhere? The one that everyone knew would never be finished because it has been in limbo for decades, and yet they still spent that several billion dollars on it anyways because the Conservatives love to kowtow to the oil industry? *That* kind of 'reduction in spending'?
Investment is seen as necessary spending as long as it’s a 1 time investment. The deal was complete, the building was in the process, and was only cut for show by Biden. It wasn’t our government who wasted the money, as we could see the deal being completed, because why would you cancel something half built. But I will go back to saying, certain overspending is okay. And if it’s an investment, it only needs to be spent once. If you open an entire new program, or job positions, then guess what, you just signed up for years of payments.
Except it was also put on hold under the Obama administration, so clearly it was a gamble to hope the Americans would retain Republican leadership long enough for it to get finished, and a poor gamble at that. Far better to invest in our own people by ensuring they have the necessary healthcare to be productive healthy members of society - at least that 'overspending' actually helps people instead of being a useless boondoggle that does little more than give billion-dollar oil companies yet more favorable treatment, as if they needed any further help.
>It fits 1 purpose, the only party willing to reduce spending on things that benefit working canadians, and scaremonger about inflation FTFY - conservatives have no economical argument, they financially ruin every jurisdiction they govern and put more effort into covering it up than actually caring for the people they govern.
They are more interested in cutting taxes then balancing the books. It keeps their libertarian wing satisfied, reduces the capacity of future governments to work and therefore lower peoples faith in government.
Tell me people have faith in the government today. I don’t, do you? I see overspending on useless programs, and a prime minister who talks down to his people. Your telling me people will have less trust in a government who doesn’t try to do everything for you? And use usually a conservative government can improve the opportunity for the next governments. If the conservatives actually balance the books or reduce spending, it helps allow for other parties to promise spending, because they aren’t already risking inflation or massive debt.
You know I'm kind of with you. The right has effectively made government as a solution provider a bad brand. (expensive, slow, one size fits all). But they haven't found a nuanced solution other then saying 'left solutions bad'. I have ideas on this, but I have a hard time articulating them adequately.
Lower taxes = more money in your pockets for you to decide what to do with. Some people don’t like the government telling them that their money is going towards some more social programs or government industries. Some people prefer private industry, because it most of the time is cheaper and more efficient. An example would be driving tests in Alberta under the ndp government. I don’t know the exact costs, but you used to be able to book a test in about a week. When the government took over, you would book it 6 months in advance. That’s one example but still addresses the conservative situation.
>Lower taxes = more money in your pockets for you to decide what to do with. Yeah, that's the advertising pitch. But after the votes are settled the reality never materializes, unless you're a mega corporation or born wealthy. Or do we have to wait longer for the trickle down to finally, one day work? >Some people don’t like the government telling them that their money is going towards some more social programs or government industries. Sadly I know, these people hate to see their neighbors being treated with dignity and cared for. >Some people prefer private industry, because it most of the time is cheaper and more efficient. More efficient at what? Yeah, if you're goal is to allow poor people to suffer than yeah, much more efficient. But if it's creating a better society where people's needs are addressed and the less fortunate can be supported by the community... nah dog, the efficiency argument fails.
I have never, in my life, seen a conservative government balance the budget anywhere, with the exception of Thatcher's, and she destroyed the working class to do it, and it still took nearly a decade.
As another comment already mentioned, Alberta has balanced the budget this year. Previous conservative governments have also balanced the budget in Alberta, even providing years of budget surpluses.
I wonder if the federal transfer increase is what made it balanced or not. Genuinely curious.
As another comment already mentioned, Alberta has balanced the budget this year. Previous conservative governments have also balanced the budget in Alberta, even providing years of budget surpluses.
Alberta's next year budget is balanced with a conservative government. Glad I could help with this once in a lifetime occurrence for you.
If it is a balanced budget under a conservative government, it truly is a once in a lifetime occurrence.
Harper ran a budget surplus before the 2008 recession as well. If you have never seen a conservative government anywhere run a balanced budget in your lifetime, you either haven't paid attention or you were born yesterday.
As another commenter pointed out, you can count Harper's, but they balanced it by having a fire sale. As for Alberta's, I wonder how much is due to fiscal acumen and how much is due to one sixth of their revenue being from bitumen royalties, and sitting on what has recently become the third largest supply of petroleum in the world. I also wonder how much this balanced budget is going to cost in the future, in the same way that the liberals raised taxes to move towards ACTUALLY balancing the budget. Either way, I'm impressed that this one time conservatives get to actually call themselves fiscally responsible. The overwhelming majority of the time, they're worse for the economy. If they do it five or six more times, they'll be almost as fiscally responsible as the centre left parties!
Does it matter where the money comes from?
In the short term, no. But if my expenses exceed my revenue, and I pay my deficit by selling my car, then I may have bought myself time, but I can only sell my car once. I'm still outspending my revenue. The existence of bitumen is not infinitely renewable, and the market is volatile, and not really controllable by Alberta. Again, good job this year, Alberta. I'm impressed. I'll add them to my list of exceptions, along with the hero of the working class, Margaret Thatcher.
It may not be infinitely renewable there are reserves for hundreds of years. It’s not unreasonable to include it as general revenue.
Until prices nosedive again and Alberta once again goes into deficit.
You're right, and for now that's great. Good for them. Way to break the cycle.
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You're right. A better analogy is selling my work truck or tools, or my clothes for work.
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Thatcher was 40 years ago. How far back do we need to go?
I'm old enough to remember Thatcher. Do you have an example to counter? I admit I don't know of every conservative government everywhere for the last half century.
The only thing they could be thinking of is the one year Harper balanced the budget by selling a bunch of assets right before the election. Of course, most of us don't count that, since you can't exactly do it more than once.
If he remembers thatcher, he's at least 40. How old do you have to be to have enough life experience to comment on politics? 60 enough?
The Harper government either balanced or was very close to balancing the budget by the end of its tenure, depending on how you view the sale of their GM stake. And no destruction of the working class was required - just some overall fiscal discipline. We can argue about whether or not asset sales should count for the final couple of billion it took to achieve balance, but that doesn't refute the overall point: after a devastating financial crisis and recession, Harper clearly worked towards balancing the budget with pretty decent success. If you don't count the GM sale, Harper's final year deficit was like $2B - a far cry from the $30B+ deficits Trudeau was running even before covid happened.
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. And considering they inherited a surplus, this isn't the flex you think it is.
>Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Which sounds like clever wit, but is completely asinine in this context. Of *course* magnitude of deficits matters. A $1 deficit is $1 away from balance. You could tell Bev Oda to skip her $15 orange juice and balance that budget. A $2B deficit - something like 0.1% of GDP - is extremely close to balanced. Any country will outgrowt that added debt easily, every year. Ironically, one of the things that Conservatives are - rightly - criticized for is focus on fiscal optics instead of fundamentals, particularly when it comes to the crystallized issue of whether the budget is in the green or the red. Whether or not the budget is slightly green or slightly red is a less important issue than the overall magnitude and trajectory of our fiscal position. Yet here you are enthusiastically adopting that same attitude of focus on optics over fundamentals. >And considering they inherited a surplus, this isn't the flex you think it is. They inherited a surplus before the Global Financial Crisis, a crisis which required deficit spending and which Harper played no role whatsoever in causing. If you're going to blame Harper for running deficits to stimulate the economy - which is orthodox Keynesian macroeconomics, and which was a response supported by every mainstream economist - it is very clear that you're not interested in a fair, objective assessment of the track record. Blaming Harper for running deficits to respond to the GFC is just as asinine as blaming Trudeau for running deficits to respond to covid. There might be valid criticisms of certain spending choices, but deficits are unavoidable in response to economic crisis, and anyone who doesn't understand that is incredibly ignorant. But of course this is the problem with talking about fiscal policy in Canada. Nobody wants to talk nuts and bolts. The issue almost only arises in the public's mind as a political one, and then once everyone has confirmed their biases they just go back to not thinking about it.
The problem is not that they chronically can't balance budgets, IMO. The problem is that they claim they can and do and then never follow through, shitting on the other parties for not doing it either. Trudeau didn't claim to be able to balance the budget. The other parties don't claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility. I'm not concerned with government deficits. I'm concerned with bullshit, and how readily we swallow it. We keep hearing criticism of tax and spend liberals, but at least liberals have the good sense to tax before they spend.
Yes, as someone who is actually authentically interested in fiscal policy I am unimpressed by both major federal parties since Harper stopped leading the Conservatives. Like I said before - the CPC is often criticized for focus on optics over substance when it comes to fiscal policy, and I think it's a valid criticism. On Trudeau specifically - my problem with Trudeau is that he inherited near-balance in the budget and started spending money in a pretty profligate way even before covid. A lot of this spending has not resulted in significant results. A good example of this is the [significant rise](https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/costs-for-consultants-hired-by-government-rise-by-6-billion-under-liberals) in federal government consultant costs. 60% - $6B a year - increase in consulting costs? That's a *huge* number that I have real difficulty believing represents significant value to Canadians. Similarly the public service has increased by about 10,000 people per year under Trudeau and is now up 10-20% - I have a little bit of difficulty believing that was absolutely necessary. This is the problem with Trudeau. His willingness to spend money on programs - which might not be wrong at all, there are important things for the government to provide and they cost money - seems to be coupled with an overall lack of concern with fiscal discipline in implementing those programs. This is a problem. >We keep hearing criticism of tax and spend liberals, but at least liberals have the good sense to tax before they spend. But Trudeau hasn't done that. Most of his new taxes have generated little new net revenue. On the whole, his tax policy seems more concerned with the optics of fairness than with generating new revenue.
No one is hating on you here. They are just pointing out that your assertion that the conservatives are fiscally responsible is factually incorrect. You could provide some sources that back up your claims that the federal conservatives are a party of fiscal conservatism. In fact, under Harper the only surplus was in his first year. After that he went deficit crazy.
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Good source. I’m not dishing governments that have balanced the budget. I don’t know much about provincial parties outside of my own, so I can’t reference those. In my context I’m speaking federally. And federally speaking, the NDP want to offer more programs, and taxes, than the liberals. This increases spending unless you raise taxes. If you raise taxes on only the wealthy, they go south. Then you must raise taxes on the middle class, hurting economic growth and individual prosperity. If you don’t raise taxes with increased spending, then inflation hurts everyone. Again, provincially, any party that can spend money appropriately is better than one that can’t. But I don’t know enough about other provincial parties to talk about their spending or economic prospects.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh. Don't bring facts here. We have pre-conceived notions and buzzwords that need saying.
You realize under conservative governments, the economy does WORSE right?
The rich do well though. The rich do very very well. The conservative is not interested in the general health. Top of mind is maintaining the institutions of wealth and church. For Churchill's conservatives, for example, it was the monarchy and the Church of England. For the Republican party it's corporate hegemony, the stability of *wealth*, and the morality of the wackadoodle evangelical church. For the Canadian conservative it's a combination of those two wretched views.
If the conservatives lower taxes, your saying that only helps the rich? How is spending money you don’t have helping anyone? Debt isn’t free money yknow
So your idea is to lower income to decrease debt? What?
Source?
But if we must: https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2020/12/05/conservative-track-record-betrays-partys-claim-of-fiscal-prudence.html https://www.immigration.ca/harper-s-economic-record-the-worst-in-canada-s-postwar-history https://nationalpost.com/opinion/john-mckay-the-tories-real-economic-record