2022 CPC Leadership Discussion: Et tu Redeux

[Edward Campbell]

Latest from Angus Reid:

46% are “fearful of CPC forming govt” (their words, not mine), 35% are hopeful, 54% say CPC has a hidden agenda.

More details in the link.

CPC policy hypotheticals: Canadians see a balanced budget, longer jail time as ‘good’; defunding CBC as ‘bad’ - Angus Reid Institute

Majority believe CPC has ‘hidden agenda’ it won’t reveal until the party is in office September 18, 2024 – The House of Commons returns from its summer break this week in a more precarious situation than it left, as the minority Liberals govern without the firm backstop of a supply and...

angusreid.org

I highlight that this question highlights the difference on voting against the current govt, versus voting for the current party in the lead. So while a majority of people want the LPC out, it doesn’t necessarily mean they want the CPC in.

That's consistent with my views on "bases" of the various parties: BQ: 7% Green: 4% Liberal: 23% NDP: 12% then you have solid Conservative: 25% plus "afraid of Poilievre but even more sick and tired" of Prime Minister Trudeau:" 10%.

 

[Good2Golf]

Latest from Angus Reid:

46% are “fearful of CPC forming govt” (their words, not mine), 35% are hopeful, 54% say CPC has a hidden agenda.

More details in the link.

…article linked…

I highlight that this question highlights the difference on voting against the current govt, versus voting for the current party in the lead. So while a majority of people want the LPC out, it doesn’t necessarily mean they want the CPC in.

No, not “their words.” Their answers to chose one of five phrases that Angus Reid provided them:

• Very hopeful
• More hopeful than fearful
• More fearful than hopeful
• Very fearful
• Not sure

As opposed to giving respondents the opportunity to provide an adjective themselves, then statistically tallying and ranking the top responses.

The question was formulated as though the only choices are to be hopeful, fearful or neither of those two…

Then it’s easy for pundits to say, “a large portion of Canadians are fearful of Poilievre!” See! The surveys prove it.

 

[dimsum]

No, not “their words.” Their answers to chose one of five phrases that Angus Reid provided them:

• Very hopeful
• More hopeful than fearful
• More fearful than hopeful
• Very fearful
• Not sure

As opposed to giving respondents the opportunity to provide an adjective themselves, then statistically tallying and ranking the top responses.

The question was formulated as though the only choices are to be hopeful, fearful or neither of those two…

Then it’s easy for pundits to say, “a large portion of Canadians are fearful of Poilievre!” See! The surveys prove it.

I agree that there should have been a “neither hopeful nor fearful” between the “mores”, but in terms of creating the survey, if they’re going to let people write their own responses, it would be X number of other responses (“wait and see”, “love it”, etc) they would have to sift through and rack/stack.

I mean, “they’re all morons” should be a choice but that doesn’t really translate to how they would (or not) vote.

 

[Good2Golf]

The limited choice to fearful and hopeful themselves are deliberately polarizing adjectives. It wouldn’t be at all difficult to form a more objective survey…provide a range of say 20 adjectives that could reasonably be assessed to represent of spectrum of sentiment, then allow respondent to rate their top three choice in a manner that would weight the choices, then creat a word cloud from the consolidated responses. It was either lazy or deliberate on the part of ARI.

 

[Quirky]

, 54% say CPC has a hidden agenda.

Given the known agenda of the LPC/NDP incompetence, I’ll take anything different at this point.

 

[Remius]

Given the known agenda of the LPC/NDP incompetence, I’ll take anything different at this point.

That is likely a common sentiment.

 

[Remius]

'Going behind his back': Tory MPs support federal housing program that Poilievre vowed to cancel

Five Conservative MPs have written letters to the Liberal housing minister asking him to grant their communities funding from a program that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week called disastrous and promised to cancel.

www.ctvnews.ca

Not all party rebellions are about getting rid of the leader.

 

[ArmyRick]

'Going behind his back': Tory MPs support federal housing program that Poilievre vowed to cancel

Five Conservative MPs have written letters to the Liberal housing minister asking him to grant their communities funding from a program that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week called disastrous and promised to cancel.

www.ctvnews.ca

Not all party rebellions are about getting rid of the leader.

Haha ho ho hee hee, yeah sure. I don't buy it. At all.

 

[The Bread Guy]

'Going behind his back': Tory MPs support federal housing program that Poilievre vowed to cancel

Five Conservative MPs have written letters to the Liberal housing minister asking him to grant their communities funding from a program that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre this week called disastrous and promised to cancel.

www.ctvnews.ca

Not all party rebellions are about getting rid of the leader.

But is this a rebellion, though? It's one of the MP's duties to get their constituents the best deal they can from Club Fed, no matter the MP's affiliation or the colour of the team jerseys in power.

I have my worries about PP & Co., but I can also see "Team x MP asking Team y Minister for $ for group/municipality in their riding" =/= "what the #$%^&*( are you doing, Team X Leader?!?!?!" Fraser may be stretching things a bit toooooooo far on this, barring other information we're not privy to.

One man's "didn't know what the MPs were doing" is another man's "they're doing their job in routine ways where they don't have to get signoff from the boss or his team."

If multiple Blue MPs are writing to the boss/telling him & his political team, "hey, ya know, taking away money from x to give to way is leading to representatives from x to bitch mightily to me as of right now," maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe the start of a disagreement, but putsch it ain't.

All that said, it'll lead to interesting caucus chat from The Boss telling MPs what to say when group x starts to complain about their wells drying up if/when PP becomes PMPP

OP late edit to add: some of the group x reps (municipal in this case) are complaining already about the potential to lose cash through the proposed scheme ...

Boshcoff: Poilievre's pledge to cut housing fund could mean hit to city

Read the full story and comment on Tbnewswatch.com

www.tbnewswatch.com

 

[dimsum]

Haha ho ho hee hee, yeah sure. I don't buy it. At all.

That would be pretty easy to prove - the Canadian Press has copies of the letters, or so they say.

 

[The Bread Guy]

That would be pretty easy to prove - the Canadian Press has copies of the letters, or so they say.

And the bits quoted sound pretty much like any "MP supports community/group x to get funding from program y" boilerplate letter. If someone had the time/resources, it wouldn't be impossible to check municipal records to see if municipal councils have shared such letters of support via their council meeting information packages.

 

[IKnowNothing]

But is this a rebellion, though? It's one of the MP's duties to get their constituents the best deal they can from Club Fed, no matter the MP's affiliation or the colour of the team jerseys in power.

Yeah, I don't think there's any mileage to the "rebellion" angle to this at all.

The real story is:

PP: the Liberals have failed on the housing file. If I were in charge I would use strings attached Federal dollars to incentivize the municipalities to reduce red tape, relax zonings, and hit permit/start targets

Liberals: shamelessly copy his homework and put a decent piece of policy together to do the above (a broken clock is right twice a day)

PP: THATS STUPID I VOW TO STOP IT

The only question is why: is his urge to oppose so strong that overcomes his own policy ideas? Is the donor base/party membership so staunchly against densification?

 

[The Bread Guy]

... The only question is why: is his urge to oppose so strong that overcomes his own policy ideas? Is the donor base/party membership so staunchly against densification?

Possible pulled out of my ... assumption bag of rationales:

• Philosophical reason: Better to have more money in an individual's pocket & letting them spend it, with the market adjusting to deal with the aggregate effects of more home buyers having a bit more money available.
• Political reason: Anything the other side does is anathema, therefore must be opposed at all costs for the sake of opposing them (as seen in voting against a UKR trade deal Ukraine wanted because of carbon pricing mentions, and voting for an OAS increase even though it's not something Team Blue would even consider on its own).

Could be a combination of these and others I can't even begin to guess about.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Possible pulled out of my ... assumption bag of rationales:

• Philosophical reason: Better to have more money in an individual's pocket & letting them spend it, with the market adjusting to deal with the aggregate effects of more home buyers having a bit more money available.
• Political reason: Anything the other side does is anathema, therefore must be opposed at all costs for the sake of opposing them (as seen in voting against a UKR trade deal Ukraine wanted because of carbon pricing mentions, and voting for an OAS increase even though it's not something Team Blue would even consider on its own).

Could be a combination of these and others I can't even begin to guess about.

#1 is much more likely. Poilievre has a very well-established reputation for free-market thinking, and a well-established reputation for putting his mind to these matters. Always expect him to take the Hayekian view.

 

[The Bread Guy]

... Poilievre has a very well-established reputation for free-market thinking, and a well-established reputation for putting his mind to these matters. Always expect him to take the Hayekian view.

Short of full libertarian, for sure. Still, his housing plan isn't without at least some biggish government hammers ....

(...)

• Require big, unaffordable cities to build more homes and speed up the rate at which they build homes every year to meet our housing targets. Cities must increase the number of homes built by 15% each year and then 15% on top of the previous target every single year (it compounds). If targets are missed, cities will have to catch up in the following years and build even more homes, or a percentage of their federal funding will be withheld, equivalent to the percentage they missed their target by. Municipalities can be added if the region that they are a part of meets these criteria.
• Reward big cities that are removing gatekeepers and getting homes built by providing a building bonus for municipalities that exceed a 15% increase in housing completions, proportional to the degree to which they exceed this target.
• Withhold transit and infrastructure funding from cities until sufficient high-density housing around transit stations is built and occupied. Cities will not receive money for transit until there are keys-in-doors.
• Impose a NIMBY penalty on big city gatekeepers for egregious cases of NIMBYism. We will empower Canadians to file complaints about NIMBYism with the federal infrastructure department. When complaints are legitimate, we will withhold infrastructure and transit dollars until cities allow homes to be built.
  
  (...)

... which is part, I think, of what makes him a Canadian conservative.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Short of full libertarian, for sure. Still, his housing plan isn't without at least some biggish government hammers ....

... which is part, I think, of what makes him a Canadian conservative.

I never take promises or plans aspirational statements at face value. Stuff that doesn't pass a common-sense back-of-the-envelope sanity check is worthless. Not much money will have to go out the door because not many of those criteria will be met. Cities will not meet the targets, will not receive the funding, and will tell voters it's all the feds' fault. The governing party in the House will still end up taking the heat.

It should be obvious that what someone intends those bullet points to achieve will not be what happens when millions of independent minds start following their own thoughts. Any federal politician wanting to be seen dealing with housing usefully would be better off taking unconditional steps. That would mean taking risks.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Yeah, I don't think there's any mileage to the "rebellion" angle to this at all.

The real story is:

PP: the Liberals have failed on the housing file. If I were in charge I would use strings attached Federal dollars to incentivize the municipalities to reduce red tape, relax zonings, and hit permit/start targets

Liberals: shamelessly copy his homework and put a decent piece of policy together to do the above (a broken clock is right twice a day)

PP: THATS STUPID I VOW TO STOP IT

The only question is why: is his urge to oppose so strong that overcomes his own policy ideas? Is the donor base/party membership so staunchly against densification?

If they worked together like functional adults are required to do, instead of shamelessly copying it they would have implemented it cooperatively.

I think it's a good policy generally, and his dogmatic opposition to anything Liberal is really stupid and counter productive. They may as well steal some of his key policies now and suggest them in Parliament to see if he self sabotages his own platform.

 

[IKnowNothing]

If they worked together like functional adults are required to do, instead of shamelessly copying it they would have implemented it cooperatively.

I think it's a good policy generally, and his dogmatic opposition to anything Liberal is really stupid and counter productive. They may as well steal some of his key policies now and suggest them in Parliament to see if he self sabotages his own platform.

Mike Moffat captures the situation really well. Focused narrowly on housing (ignoring the inflationary aspect, and the moral/ideological one of effectively cutting 40k cheques to people that can afford 800k homes) the GST cut idea is a good one. But it would be much more effective in concert with an improved/fixed version of the HAF that continues to build on fixing zoning/infrastructure issues

Mike Moffatt: Poilievre’s new housing plan isn’t flawless—but it’s close

thehub.ca

 

[Navy_Pete]

Mike Moffat captures the situation really well. Focused narrowly on housing (ignoring the inflationary aspect, and the moral/ideological one of effectively cutting 40k cheques to people that can afford 800k mortgages) the GST cut idea is a good one. But it would be much more effective in concert with an improved/fixed version of the HAF that continues to build on fixing zoning/infrastructure issues

Mike Moffatt: Poilievre’s new housing plan isn’t flawless—but it’s close

thehub.ca

I don't see why he would want to get rid of the HAF and replace it with the GST cut; the HAF would help get new homes built (and help pay for all the infra upgrades that need done to create new neighbourhoods), the GST cut would help people afford them.

Having said that, there is still a lot of existing housing that will continue to come on the market as boomers (and now gen X) downsize so the interest rates coming down will generally help make that more affordable as well.

 

[IKnowNothing]

I don't see why he would want to get rid of the HAF and replace it with the GST cut; the HAF would help get new homes built (and help pay for all the infra upgrades that need done to create new neighbourhoods), the GST cut would help people afford them.

That the GST cut will actually save people money is a polite fiction, realistically it will do a combination of two things
-allow people to get more house for their max affordability
-allow homebuilders to capture more of a given home's purchase price as profit

I'm leaning towards more of column B- which is how it will get more homes built.

That being said- to give Pierre credit as a political operator, this might be a "have your cake and eat it too" play. I'm curious as to what percentage of the municipalities that have signed on to the HAF have already made the attached zoning and approval process changes, have the projects underway etc. What will that number be by next October? How binding are the agreements? It's quite possible that by replacing the "failed" HAF with the GST cut he gets to reap the functional benefits of both, while distancing himself from the elements of the HAF that are unpopular with the NIMBY portion of his base.