By Ray Rivers
September 7th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
The national polls show that, were the election held today, a majority Conservative government with Pierre Poilievre as PM would be the result. Mr, Poilievre really only had one job for virtually all his working life, working for the Conservatives, regardless what they called themselves. That distinguishes him from the previous Tory leader, Erin O’Toole, who came to the job with a bag full of real-life experience as a former military officer and successful lawyer.
Pierre Poilievre
Poilievre’s misunderstanding of the causes of Canada’s inflation, his attack on the Bank of Canada and its governor and his promotion of crypto currencies as an alternative/complement to Canada’s official currency is concerning for anyone who has studied even basic economics. Mr. Poilievre voted against, what is becoming, a very successful national dental care program and will not commit to maintain either that program, the still embryonic pharmacare program, or the established national child care program.
Perhaps most concerning is his mis-characterization of carbon pricing. For a party leader to ignore the integral carbon credit which makes the program a net benefit to most Canadians is more than an error of omission – it’s a big fat lie. And though feigning concern for climate change, Poilievre is an advocate and champion of the oil industry which is major contributor to climate warming, after all.
Still, come the next election, according to today’s polls he is the only realistic alternative to Justin Trudeau. And most Canadians clearly are ready to change the channel as those polls would have you believe. Trudeau has fallen out of favour for a number of reasons. Some have called him an elite, the son of former PM who at times was a divisive leader. Social media abounds with posts about Trudeau and almost none of them are kind to the man. The so-called freedom truck convoy that shut down Ottawa in February made it clear how they felt – F*** Trudeau.
Jagmeet Singh
His minority governing NDP partner Jagmeet Singh recently held a press conference to announce that he had ripped up their 2022 cooperative governing agreement. Singh was uncharitable about the man with whom he had shared government for the previous two years. He didn’t use expletives to damn him, but what he said was worse. Justin Trudeau was weak. Some call it compassionate, understanding, compromising or tolerant – but Mr. Singh saw it as weak. And perhaps that is why so many Canadians also are casting doubt on this PM they re-elected to office twice.
For example, when Scott Moe, the premier of Saskatchewan, openly refused to turn over the federal carbon taxes it had collected, Trudeau left it to someone else to confront the premier. When Alberta’s premier Smith passed a sovereignty act – disturbingly similar to what Quebec separatists would like – Trudeau avoided facing her down. Pierre would never have put up with this kind of rebellion. He would have imposed a new national energy program for Alberta and sent in the mounties to place Scott Moe behind bars.
That may be part of the reason why people dislike him. As Donald Trump would say – sometimes we need strong leaders. But sometimes it’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Imposing the Emergency Measures Act as a last ditch effort to break the 2022 Ottawa occupation of Ottawa’s streets was a bold move. And yet many people seem to hate him even more after that. Pierre Poilievre championed the insurrectionists, disturbingly much as Mr. Trump had done with that mob that stormed the US Capitol building only a year earlier..
Justin Trudeau
Much like the Greens and other third parties, the NDP keeps it loyal membership turning out on election day if only for the promise of influencing national policy their way. And since Mr. Singh found the courage to partner with Mr. Trudeau back in 2022, he can take credit for a national $10 a day child care program; a school meals program; the creation of national dental care and pharmacare programs; and a number of other progressive initiatives.
At his press conference PM Singh was unequivocal in his belief that once Mr. Poilievre is crowned as PM he will end all those programs. So the question is why he has jumped ship at this time – a year before his agreement was to end? Does he really think he can become the next PM? Or has he just shot himself in the foot with his own membership?
This is not the first time the NDP would have helped end the very programs which they keep telling their loyal supporters they are fighting for. Jack Layton, in 2006, pulled the plug on the Martin minority government, thus leaving a universal national child care program to die under a Stephen Harper government.
It was simply politics over policy. Pure and simple opportunism. And as a result, Mr. Trudeau may not be the only Canadian party leader headed for a lonely walk in the snow if an early election is forced and the polls are right.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Polls – Hatred Losing His Grip Why People Hate Trudeau Singh Rips It Up
Once again River’s mischaracterizes Poilievre’s statements on inflation. Firstly, let’s get grounded in what causes inflation, its government spending that increases the money supply ie. printing money, plain and simple.
This is well documented by one of the most highly regarded economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=milton+freedman+on+inflation&mid=F36C1520BFB13B46A197F36C1520BFB13B46A197&FORM=VIRE
This has happened to many currencies over the years, the Mexican Pesos and Argentine peso are classic recent examples.
In January of 2016 1.39 Trillion Canadian dollars were in circulation, as a result of Trudeau’s massive spending, there are now 2.55 Trillion Canadian dollars in circulation – almost doubling the amount of money in circulation under Trudeau!
This is what Poilievre is talking about when he speaks on inflation. He has a nice simple documentary on this. More dollars chasing the same amount of goods, or in economic terms the money supply growth rate far exceeding the GDP growth rate.
Wage earners suffer because their wages don’t keep up, yet those that own assets do well, because the value of those assets increase with the money supply. As Poilievre puts it “the have nots and the have yachts and Trudeau supports the have yachts”.
Regarding the BOC, Poilievre’s issue is that Tiff Macklen was complicit with the Trudeau government through extensive bond issuance to fund Trudeau’s spending (Quantative Easing or QE), rather than being independent and non-partisan as the Bank of Canada should be. If you look up the history of Poilievre questioning Macklen as he was running the printing presses for Trudeau, Poilievre called out that this money printing was going to lead to massive inflation, which it did.
The other issue Poilievre has with Macklen was that he was far to late in raising interest rates to curb inflation. Which now we know in hindsight, and admitted by the BOC. Macklen keeping interest rates lower, for too long enabled Trudeau to borrow money cheaply knowing that interest rates would need to spike at some point in the future.
I could go on about the many issues with carbon pricing and how economically damaging it is while not making any difference with carbon emissions, but this one simple example illustrates how this article has taken one issue, that is arguably complex, completely out of context and hence misleading.
Folks don’t let Rivers trigger you with his endless diatribes on Poilievre.
Make no mistake millions of Canadians will rejoice at the sight of Singh & Trudeau arm in arm leaving Canadian politics for good & perhaps even the country that they have together sold down the “river”.
Thanks for your comments – Here is some fact checking…. so we don’t inadvertently mislead other readers….
Gary – “After graduating from law school (1968), Biden returned to Delaware to work as an attorney before quickly turning to politics, serving on the New Castle county council from 1970 to 1972.” (Britannica) – 4 years legal and municipal work experience.
Canadian National Dental Program – “One of the largest social programs in Canadian history, the CDCP, once fully implemented, will provide oral health care for up to nine million eligible Canadians. The national dental plan has already approved more than 2.1 million Canadians, and approximately 250,000 members have already received care under the plan…. Dr. Jabeen is one of close to 12,000 providers who have signed up with the CDCP. While some providers have preferred not to sign on to the program formally, they can still help CDCP patients. Beginning July 8, eligible providers began providing services on a claim-by-claim basis without formally signing up.” – https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/new-canadian-dental-plan-long-time-coming-for-seniors-dentists-say-9483598
Every initiative Trudeau has unveiled in the past nine years has been an utter disaster. The Dental Program is extremely limited in scope to be even remotely impactful, and the pharmacare program has been poorly costed and badly planned from the outset. The armed forces are a mess, and in addition to chronic underfunding and understaffing munitions and supplies are at an all-time low. Canada’s reputation on the international stage is in tatters, thanks to Trudeau’s hapless, silly WOKE agenda which is as naive as it is superficial. The economy is sluggish, with inflation and unemployment too high, and productivity at an all-time low. We have spent billions to build battery plants and electric car assembly lines, but the damn things are so expensive only Liberals on the boards of directors of major corporations can afford them.
Hopefully, the Liberals will get crushed in the two by-elections on September 16th in LaSalle-Emard-Verdun and Elmwood-Transcona. If Trudeau has an ounce of common sense and regard for his party and his country he’ll do the honourable thing and resign. However, that assumes the man possesses even a modicum of self-awareness, and that’s not likely to happen anytime soon.
Incidentally, Ray, Joe Biden is a career politician.
What happens when we lose not only the CBC but their 250 local-affiliate stations across the country as well? They are not “profitable”, so bye-bye, farewell to those community pillars. Will there only be US-based FOX TV stations and Sun newspapers singing the same old hymn about “God & Trump & Guns & Oil & Corporations?” It will be, to paraphrase Peter Gzowski’s old show: This Country In The Mourning. But, it doesn’t have to be that way; it’s our choice.
The first sentence in the second paragraph about Poilievre’s complete lack of simple economic knowledge and the third paragraph about the same lack of understanding of carbon pricing and carbon credits and his unconcern about climate change send chills up my spine.
He mimics the man south of our border who just might be President again. While I hold no allegiances to political parties nor religions, I can’t help but utter that common go to phrase “God help North America” if both get elected. Because no one else will.
Unfortunately, there are too many “professional” politicians of all political stripes at all levels of government in Canada – we need term limits!
The programs that are touted ” a very successful national dental care program and will not commit to maintain either that program, the still embryonic pharmacare program, or the established national child care program.” are a long way from being success stories.
The dental care program is quite limited in scope and there are co-payments after the examination and cleaning. A start but it is definitely not FREE.
The pharmacare program provides medication for birth control and diabetes only. While as you say this is “still embryonic” there are other medications, for example high blood pressure or antibiotics that are used by many more people that should be included in this “embryonic stage” but aren’t.
The Universal child care program is not as successful as you make it out to be. Child care providers are leaving the program because it is not sustainable to be able to run a business with the money provided for by the government for this plan.
Justin Trudeau saying when hearing about the NDP no longer being in coalition with the Liberals ” We are not looking at politics but are focusing on helping Canadians” is a joke, how stupid does he think Canadians are?
Everything in politics is about politics.
As for Jagmeet Singh it is foolish for Canadians to think for one minute that the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals had to do with helping the average Canadian and everything to do about power.
“Power Corrupts; Absolute Power Corrupts absolutely”.
Trudeau had hardly any work experience other than a substitute teacher.In my view his only skill was as an actor playing the role of politician.People are tired of his ACT.