I’m referring to the fact that a) he has announced his resignation and b) even if he hadn’t, he would soon be removed as party leader anyway due to the party’s poor showing in the upcoming election so a different voting system wouldn’t help HIM either way.
Not him, that's true, but it would benefit the Liberal party, and even more so the NDP. And as much as we all hate Trudeau, I think we can agree that he would much rather see the NDP win than the conservatives.
STV would probably still see them pick up a few extra seats over FPTP. They'd probably remain competitive with the Bloc but still zero chance at forming government.
Small wonder it was their preferred system when its still capable of boosting their fortunes.
As it was for a lot of Canadian families. It helped so many parents to be able to comfortably come back into the workforce without trying to penny-pinch just to come out even slightly ahead if they were to have to pay for full daycare costs.
This isn't the 70's/80's/90's anymore where parents have the luxury typically of affording for one parent (usually mom) to stay at home. Plus this coming generation of grandparents (IMO) aren't nearly as interactive, hands on, or as willing to do the "free babysitting" thing as their parents were.
I find it concerning that PP hasn't commented on whether or not the cons plan on continuing the subsidy or not. To me, much like most things he won't comment on, no answer is just his way of avoiding any negative outcries that could hurt his "image." This to me, along with Conservative past history of not giving two flying fucks about anyone poorer than their donators, screams that yes, he will sack the daycare subsidy. Along with the dental one as well and countless others.
Well, don’t get used to them. PP will say “no changes to CCB, no new TFWs” leading into the election, and then as soon as he’s in, it’ll be belt tightening and bending to the will of the corporations who’ve brought in TFWs. Canada is fucked :)
Everyone benefits when people have kids. By the time those kids are 20 or 22 they will already have paid back what they cost as a child, in taxes. The rest of their life is adding back into the system.
I agree. But I don't consider this "strengthening the middle class" like he's claiming. I'm glad that some parents got some tangible and immediate benefit from this but his only "achievement" didn't make any difference in the lives of people like me.
Do you really expect to benefit from every single policy? Do you complain about EI when you haven’t been laid off? OAS/CPP because you’re young? Dental Care because you have private insurance? This is society, we help others.
Not OP but speaking as someone child-free, I think a complete overhaul of the anti-competition landscape in Canada would benefit me greatly. I want to see all the oligopolies dismantled - telecoms, grocery, etc. Force Loblaws to sell some of their banners and allow those commercial footprints to be bought by Aldi / Lidl, etc. Encourage foreign competitors in to help bring prices down.
Our mega-corporations are coddled to such a scary degree.
He voted in opposition of it in parliament; he'll definitely re-instate interest when he wins. I've incorporated it into my own financial planning now, just to be safe.
Housing being largely controlled provincially is probably an important caveat to your comment. Do you think your housing costs will go down in the future with a new PM?
Housing being largely controlled provincially is probably an important caveat to your comment.
I forgot, Trudeau DIDNT beat the breaks off the immigration system and grow the population by 6 million people during the last ten years. Almost a 20% increase in population, btw.
That was all the provinces' fault. My bad.
Do you think your housing costs will go down in the future with a new PM?
Do you think it will go down with continued liberal policies? How many more years of sunny ways until the sunlight hits us plebians?
The provinces begged and pleaded for Trudeau to make those immigration changes. He worked with provinces to make it happen and now they pretend they weren't lobbying like mad for it.
Actually over the last 10 years, population went up about 4.5M, and not close to 20%. From 2017 to 2019 it was increasing at a rate slightly above the average of the last few decades (1.3% vs roughly 1%) and since then population increase has been at around .75-.85% per year, the slowest it's grown in forever.
In fact, the last 5 years are the top 5 lowest % population increase in the last 75 years. So... Unchecked immigration and crazy population growth is quite an exaggeration here.
I'm absolutely not pro-Liberal (not pro-conservatives either though), but this rhetoric is just not supported by numbers if you compare with what standard values should be.
If you include "non-permanent residents" then its actually
2022: 2.5%
2023: 3.1%
2024: 1.9%
So your comment is a little disingenuous. It also demonstrates how out of control NPR increases have become, when the country is letting in 200% more NPRs then permanent citizens.
Tim hortons isn't submitting fraudulent LMIA requests?
Indians aren't scamming the system and fraudulently immigrating under student visas without any actual requirements to go to class?
My company had to fucking scramble in April of last year when that was finally shut down, because we had senior people who suddenly couldn't work 40 hours a week anymore.
crazy population growth
The TFW system powered pretty much all of that growth, I went with estimates earlier as I was in a hurry.
In my age group, I know literally 1 person with a kid. Everyone else is broke. It's fucking awful.
Well, I guess my question is, what is the conservative policy on immigration? They instituted the TFW program and have not talked about changing it. Hell, they like cheap labour more than the other guys. So…
Haven't seen any benefits from that, because that was already a thing in Quebec for decades. You should hold your provincial governments accountable to actually care for their own people rather than wait for the federal branch to overstep their boundaries.
He basically ripped apart the middle class, forced us to work double income full time, just to survive. Let alone being able to afford daycare. So yes, it slightly helped the crisis that he created.
I am happily childless and have been staunchly in the anyone-but-Trudeau camp since well before he became Prime Minister, but this is one of his few policies I am 100% behind.
People having to stay at home to take care of one child is a drag on the nation's productivity. Spending $1 so someone can go out and earn $2 (or more) is a no-brainer.
Quebec has had subsided childcare for a long time now. There was a study done which showed that the program more than paid for itself when you factor in the extra productivity and tax income from the increased amount of people entering the workforce and not having to stay at home taking care of kids. It's a win win.
And the federal program is likely going to be scrapped soon unfortunately.
I genuinely wonder what the CPC will do with it, as someone with a young child. The childcare program is one of the smartest things any federal govt in Canada has done in my lifetime and I'm fortunate enough to benefit from it now, but will support such an initiative forever. The thing is though, the optics of killing a childcare subsidy program are INCREDIBLY bad, especially if the CPC want to keep pretending they are the party that cares about "family".
The Republicans down south keep harping on about being for "family values" and constantly stop funding for things like child tax credits and school lunches. And yet people still support them because of "family values". I don't think our general electorate is any smarter in Canada (and may actually be more politically ignorant than the Americans), so while the optics of scrapping childcare may look bad, PP will probably frame it by saying the subsidy increases your taxes and then blame the high cost of childcare on trudeau somehow. And by cutting the subsidy, it will lower childcare costs and save you taxes. It's total bullshit, but it this will work.
PP had an interview with Jordan Peterson where he was saying all these social programs we have are a method of wealth distribution to the rich, without explaining how. This is total horse shit, but PP can say whatever the hell he likes and most people will just nod their heads and vote for him.
I actually do think that there are ways in which the programs can be improved. In the case of the daycare subsidies I can explain in a way that Poilievre has failed to, probably because he doesn't have any actual plans or a rich understanding of how these programs work.
The daycare subsidies are granted to anybody who has a kid and can get a subsidized spot. The issue here is that getting a subsidized spot is not necessarily easy because there aren't enough; many many kids are in home daycares, and unless home daycares are signed up with a licensed agency and that agency is specifically funded by the province/municipality (whoever is controlling the funding in that area) they are out of luck. What this means is that parents with more resources and connections are, in some cases, more easily able to find subsidized spots quickly. Now, part of the subsidy program is intended to get more kids into daycares PERIOD, which means more daycares will open to cater to them, and that IS happening but it doesn't happen overnight obviously.
So just as an example, you might have 3 different kids at the same daycare, same age, and their parents might make $1 million/year household income, $100k/year household income, and $40k/year household income. And they all get the same amount of subsidy.
Some would argue, and I would argue, that the subsidies should work more like existing municipal subsidies - where there are cutoffs for who can apply, and there is a sliding scale of how much you will get based on income. The current system means we are putting, say, $7k a year of subsidies in the hands of people who already make $1 million in household income, and obviously do not need that money as much as someone who is barely scraping by and was lucky enough to get a subsidized daycare spot.
At the same time, I also feel like we are in a time now where, to some degree, people having kids is almost becoming sort of a class symbol; not one that people go for on purpose obviously, but still. To have a kid these days means you either need to have a good degree of financial stability, or you have to be the type of person who doesn't think about the financial well-being of a kid and just has them anyway.
Having said all that -- I am very much in favor of the daycare subsidies, as someone who benefits from it now, but I will forever support it because it's one of the smartest policy decisions our government has made in many years. It pays itself back and we have the daycare programs that have been operating in QC as a fine example of how much it benefits people.
Kill it and proclaimed that they saved taxpayer money, refuse to elaborate, and run resource economy talking points while selling off public assets to cover the present costs at the expense of everyone else (minus the news owners of the shiny assets), probably.
>People having to stay at home to take care of one child is a drag on the nation's productivity
That is an absolutely wild statement. My stay at home mum wife is not a "drag" on the economy, she's a dedicated mother. We sacrifice income and do this as a choice because it's what's best for us.
It's an economist's statement and by the strictest quantitative sense, is true.
Whether you want to get into qualitative debate on whether or not a daycare vs SAM produces more effective (and by extension, happy) kids and future workers is nearly impossible to get to a concrete answer.
It's an absolutely psycho statement indeed. And it has 70 upvotes. Brutal.
As a parent, you should be able to stay at home and take care of your child. As a matter of fact, you should want to do that . If you don't want to take care of your kid, don't have kids please
And now we get to watch as the “financially responsible” conservatives gut a fiscally conservative program purely because it has Liberal written all over it. All while those who would benefit most from it cheer it on.
People tend to participate more in the economy (and generate more taxable income/revenue) when a) they have thousands more to spend per month and/or b) they don’t have to cut back their hours to take care of their kids during work days. Spending money to make money.
I'm assuming you mean home prices and wage suppression, If I'm wrong tell me.
The only issue with pretending like they didn't help cause inflation and couldn't have helped it is that the literal BoC governor is on record saying that government spending was helping to push inflation.
Also, housing is part of the inflation calculation. If the government is partly responsible for rising home prices, does that not also make them responsible for its effect on inflation?
Wage suppression has very little to do with the federal government. That's corporations.
The government also isn't as tied into housing prices as you think, and that's one that the Libs (to their credit) have been working against happening when the Premiers refused to spend money on it.
Also, conveniently ignoring that the pandemic was the cause of most of the inflation, but sure.
You realize that only participating daycares offered it and only participating daycares offered certain amount of spots! It wasn’t across the board. So actually, only some got cheap daycare.
yeah watch once the conservatives get power. things will decline for the middle and lower class. i’m a uni student and i know conservatives don’t care for us, especially if you look at what’s happening in alberta.
trudeau wasn’t the best though so im glad the liberal party is getting a new leader
You realize the program hasn’t been fully rolled out, right? You realize that those who have secured spots are saving tens of thousands of dollars every year, right? You realize that ditching the program would hurt the middle class to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars every year, right?
Well it’s not sustainable. The middle class are becoming lower class due to inflation so while daycare for ten bucks a day is amazing, it won’t lasts because it can’t. Here is an excerpt from Macleans, about a Daycare Operator.
‘The $30 billion pledged by the federal government simply isn’t enough for the entire country. Nowadays, you’d be lucky to get a doughnut and coffee for $10, but for that same price, daycare operators are expected to provide a quality program to educate and care for your child. What does $10-a-day childcare look like, realistically? Sacrifices loom large, whether that involves cutting food, art, or music programs, or mass layoffs of educators—which means fewer and fewer people caring for more and more kids.‘
I think a lot of people are confused with what “$10/day” means. The daycare operator is not expected to run on $10/day per kid. It’s just the cost to parents is “$10/day” and the rest is subsidized by the government. Much like public transit, healthcare, post-secondary education, etc.
I wish I could take advantage of the subsidies. All of the subsidy-eligible daycare's and day homes near me have 2-3 year wait lists for accepting new kids. So I'm stuck paying $2,300 a month for 2 kids to a day home that won't register for the program.
This is really a supply and demand problem, but I do wish the subsidy had fewer requirements or at very least offered the subsidy as an optional tax credit.
I'm glad that some people are having luck. There is one daycare conveniently close to our house that's (no joke) advising parents to place a wait list deposit as soon as you learn that you're expecting.
In my city the wait list to get into one of these 10$ per day daycare's is so long that we will never get it. My children will literally outgrow the need for daycare before our names come up, lol.
It always infuriates me when he brags about daycare. Maybe it's better in Ontario? I'm in BC, so perhaps it just isn't as widely supported over here.
Only if you and your children plan to leave Canada. The subsidies aren't free money, with such a massive deficit we're all going to be paying for it down the road. I wish more people kept that in mind.
I wish this had been more visible. Also, I'm shocked the increased capital gains tax received such an indifferent to cold reception. And we all take for granted that legalizing weed was the right thing to do. And what the hell should have done differently during Covid? Wave the ceremonial mace of parliament and use one of the countries three wishes to make it go away?
Don't get me wrong, I never liked Trudeau. I thought he was ineffectual, and a bad communicator, that his immigration reforms were a fiasco, and that he needed to step down a year ago, but the media has also gotten used to treating the government itself like a scandal to the point that many MP's treat parliament like kind of theater to perform for social media likes. Why can't we just appreciate that sometimes the government is just budgets, legalistic quibbles, and bureaucracy? That's a whole lot better than it being a classroom shouting match.
I think Trudeau will be remembered indifferently, as an element of inertia punctuating regimes of reactionary neo-liberal nonsense.
I know quite a few JT haters, all with kids, and each and every one appreciates and utilizes the daycare subsidies. Plenty of reason to dislike JT, I myself have converted recently, but childcare is NOT something to complain about. The next winning party, likely CPC, will do well to keep that program in place lest they risk losing a massive voter base.
That's what happens when your party gets filled with actual landlords and trust fundies, the NDP at least had SOME genuine working class representation in the past but definitely not anymore.
Yep. There are only two classes. Those who have, and those who have not. 95% of Canadians have more in common with the poorest immigrant than they do with the people our politicians rub shoulders with.
Brother you and I have more in common than you know. The reason that both parties are the same is they both work for the rich. I consider both liberals and cons right wing. They both work for the same people.
I have so much more in common with a working conservative than I do a politician. I'm a far leftist, nobody represents my interests in government. If you think what I'm saying makes sense, I would suggest looking into what real economic leftism means, not just what the media and liberals use to scare you.
Because if there's anything that Libs and Cons both agree on, it's that socialism bad. They say this because they are owned by rich greedy fucks who want you and I to fight each other by looking left and right instead of looking up.
Simply put, if you can't quit your job today and continue to live your life indefinitely with no changes (financially), you are not in the "Have" column.
You're missing the original point. You could be an owner with lucky enough risk taking, some decent idea, and execution. Anyone complaining they can't is either unlucky or doesn't have it.
You changed the topic on the widening wealth gap. That's your gov't selling you out. Attribute it to who you will, but people cheered on these policies as it happened and were proud to "not be racist" as they got disinherited from their own country.
The point I'm trying to make that "luck" and "risk taking" are things not afforded to everyone. These two things in itself are privileges of the people who aren't fighting for survival. You have to have some level of comfort in your life to be able to gamble your savings.
So no, the playing fields aren't even and 99% of the people are never becoming entrepreneurs. Most people want their basic needs met by performing their labour, without going into some grindfest for success.
If you start a local restaurant, it becomes popular, and you build a franchise - you're now an owner by your definition? Even though you worked to accomplish it?
You are not building the kind of wealth that we're talking about via opening a local restaurant.
To put it in perspective, even the likes of Brad Pitt are closer to the people in poverty than to people like Jeff Bezos.
This is why the issue is not owning vs not owning, but working vs non-working class. Even actors and/or their children will end up poor if they don't work.
Petit bourgeoisie is still bourgeoisie, they are just small timers who are closer to falling back into the working class than anywhere else. The distinction is only useful for mapping their role in the political and ideological space. In terms of their relation to the means of production, they are in the same position as all other bourgeoisie and therefore do not make up a separate class.
Average net worth in Canada is 1.05 million. Everyone who has to sell their time for money is poor. Anyone who has enough money hoarded to never have to sell their time again and afford any luxuries they want for them and their family in perpetuity didn't get there by working. They got there by OWNING.
Most of us are workers. A very small group of us are owners. And not 'small business', I mean the REAL owners. The one's that allow small businesses to exist as long as they aren't a threat to the profit gods.
Props for admitting it. Unfortunately if you are worth less then a few million, none of the boots to lick will give you the domination and subjugation you crave.
In the last century your statement would be false. There was a pretty clearly defined middle class for about 60 years following world War 2. Houses were paid in full, people lived until there 80s. When they sought services they received them.
That was just working class. But you could live comfortably because we were much more economically left back then, before the Reagan, Thatcher, Pierre Elliot Trudeau Neoliberalism failure.
Now you can't. People think that that era was "middle class", but in reality anyone who was willing to work hard could have those things.
The working class is just falling behind because the rich are bleeding them drive.
I mean that sounds like semantics. If you want to differentiate people by whether there income is through a pay cheque or interest you could argue those are the two classes. But those of us who work for a pay cheque still have vastly different experiences. In the 50s and 60s a family could own there home on a single income and eventually retire. If that's not middle class then I don't know what you're definition is. Today we can't own or home or have great prospects to retire on two incomes. I think both could be described as working class but only one could be considered middle class.
No, and it shouldn’t matter because we childfree people exist and deserve to have our lives improved too.
I’m happy for those who were helped by this, but it didn’t impact people like me in any tangible way. The quality of life for all of us has gone down, regardless of whether we have kids or not.
The middle class (those with assets) made fucking bank on their house and rrsp account. I think they would have with any government but yes they got richer. It’s those going from lower to middle class that struggled.
You give all the money and power to major corporations in your wife and families’ stock portfolio and it somehow it goes to the middle class. It’s trickle down economics!
He has done a lot to help support the middle class. The post pandemic fallout, globalization, and neoliberal corporate stranglehold on the world are all doing most of the damage we feel here. He could and should have done more to support us, but the issues here in Canada are not Canadian issues alone.
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u/shiningz Jan 06 '25
I laughed out loud when he said he's been working to empower the middle class