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Trudeau Popularity - or not (various polling, etc.)

The Tories better do better than the Tories, their attempt to “fix” the PS pay system fiasco led to billions lost. Boondoggles are just as likely with what is coming as I think that PP is going to try rush some quick wins that will inevitably lead to more broken things.
I won’t lay that one hard at either Harper or Trudeau’s feet, it certainly had /has roots in both administrations mandates, but I do think that a very large factor at how things headed south with Phoenix can be attributed to the senior bureaucrats of the day…I’m talking ADM and DM level, the ones whom the ministers are aupposed to trust as having the expertise and professionalism to translate the Government’s policy(it’s) into action.

When you have an ADM so keen in bypassing Alpha- and Beta-testing for a key software effort across the whole of federal government, so she can still get her full at-risk salary and her performance pay package (which she got for 2015/2016 by the way), vice take the time for a controlled testing and roll-out like a private industry or commercial industry would with IT programs, something is broken amongst the elite senior civil servant and their conduct.

I and some others here, were part of CAF’s “thanks, but no thanks PWGSC, Phoenix is not for us at the moment until its performance has been confirmed and the cost stabilized and presented as a substantive costing, not a ROM estimate.” DND/CAF dodged a bullet on that one. Interestingly, all the GAC foreign officers were also spared from an implementation to Phoenix for a number of very valid reasons. I have little faith that yesterdays (and still todays, I’d argue) senior bureaucrats are any less self-interested and group-thinly than they were in 2015-2016 when many on the sidelines could see Phoenix going for shit in a hurry.
 
you just summarized exactly my view of what comes after this election.

My view is I just want to stop the current bunch of planners continuing.

The world before central planning.

It’s time to correct the foundational lie of the NHS​

Britain had an effective healthcare system long before Nye Bevan came along - it just wasn’t socialist, which is why Labour destroyed it

JAMES BARTHOLOMEW 31 March 2024 • 10:00am


Admiration of the NHS is not as universal as it once was. Yet, even though more than seven million people are waiting for treatment – many of them in pain and some in mortal danger – the British public is reluctant to give up on the concept.

One reason is that they have been sold a lie. In the popular mind, there was no healthcare prior to the NHS. It is as if 1948 was Year Zero. Perhaps, they might imagine, the rich managed to get to see a doctor but the working class, let alone the poor, were left to suffer and die at home or in the gutter. Then along came the NHS. Hospitals sprung up and everyone was cared for.

The textbooks in our schools don’t attempt to tell any other story. Every development in the welfare state is treated as progress and the NHS above all the rest.

The truth is very different. The first British hospital, St Bartholomew’s in London, was founded in 1123. St Thomas’s was founded at an uncertain date in the twelfth century. The eighteenth century brought a rush of hospital-building. In less than three decades, starting in 1720, five new general hospitals were created in London: the Westminster, St George’s, The London Hospital, the Middlesex Infirmary and Guy’s.

Also founded before 1750 were Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, the Bristol Infirmary and hospitals in Edinburgh, Winchester, York, Exeter, Northampton, Shropshire, Liverpool, Worcester and Aberdeen. This development was as nothing, however, to the boom in hospital building in the 19th century. Moorfields Eye Hospital was founded in 1805 when soldiers came home from the Napoleonic wars infected with trachoma. The New Cross Hospital in London was founded in 1877 “for pauper patients afflicted with smallpox”. Far from being created by the NHS, New Cross was closed by it. The Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead, was founded in 1854. More than 400 hospitals for infectious diseases were founded in the provinces between 1850 and 1906.

There were thousands of hospitals in Britain by 1948. Aneurin Bevan, Labour’s Health Minister, did not create them. He expropriated them. And then, later on, the NHS sold off hundreds – notably in the late 1970s.
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What sort of hospitals were they? The majority of acute care cases were handled by charitable hospitals. They treated those who could not afford it for free. But most people paid for treatment either in cash or by making a regular subscription to the hospital so that they would be covered for treatment if needed. Municipal hospitals were run by local authorities and tended to look after those with long-term needs. They had almoners who would determine how much, if anything, a patient could afford. The picture for general practitioners was similar in that there was a mixture of charity, regular contributions to Friendly Societies for access to a GP and direct payment.

Of course, the pre-NHS system was not perfect. No healthcare system is. But it was no Year Zero. In 1943, the Labour Party produced a pamphlet advocating a new system. What did it argue was wrong with the old? Was there a waiting list of millions? No. Did it complain that the poor could not get treatment? No. So what failings did it mention? In a footnote, “a great shortage of beds for the treatment of rheumatic diseases”. That was it. The fact this was a footnote indicates this was not Labour’s prime motivation. Labour’s biggest complaint was that the existing system was a “medley of public and voluntary institutions”. It was not “planned”. Bevan, a dogmatic socialist, hated this. So the Labour Party imposed a ”planned” system.

And now, quite simply, we have one of the worst performing healthcare systems in the advanced world.

James Bartholomew is the author of ‘The Welfare State We’re In’

National Health Services established in England, Wales and Scotland in 1948.

The Canadian version was introduced by that well known eugenicist, St. Tommy.

Douglas graduated from Brandon College in 1930 and completed his Master of Arts degree in sociology at McMaster University in 1933. His thesis, "The Problems of the Subnormal Family", endorsed eugenics.[15] The thesis proposed a system that would have required couples seeking to marry to be certified as mentally and morally fit. Those deemed to be "subnormal", because of low intelligence, moral laxity, or venereal disease would be sent to state farms or camps, while those judged to be mentally defective or incurably diseased would be sterilized.[16]


I expect nothing from anybody except feet of clay.
 
I won’t lay that one hard at either Harper or Trudeau’s feet, it certainly had /has roots in both administrations mandates, but I do think that a very large factor at how things headed south with Phoenix can be attributed to the senior bureaucrats of the day…I’m talking ADM and DM level, the ones whom the ministers are aupposed to trust as having the expertise and professionalism to translate the Government’s policy(it’s) into action.
Except that there was political pressure to get it done fast. Too fast. The CPC was in a hurry to balance the books with by 2015. It was election cycle planning and delivery and not long term planning. not to mention the awesome idea of ditching all pay specialists as well before implementation as well that fit nicely into DRAP.
When you have an ADM so keen in bypassing Alpha- and Beta-testing for a key software effort across the whole of federal government, so she can still get her full at-risk salary and her performance pay package (which she got for 2015/2016 by the way), vice take the time for a controlled testing and roll-out like a private industry or commercial industry would with IT programs, something is broken amongst the elite senior civil servant and their conduct.
Don’t forget the GG award that Harper nominated her for…
 
My apologies, ya the constitution is a foundational Canadian document. I thought you were calling transfer payments what makes Canada, Canada. Lets take that part out of the constitution ?

I see almost 8B in foreign aide.

As for the Ukraine, like I said we need to get our house in order first. Canada needs to work for Canadians before a penny goes overseas. I also think we've donated enough treasure and ordinance, of which we have/had very little. It's time we start to cut regulation and red tape and rebuild our own military. I would probably allow the CAF to keep participating in training the UAF folks, but that's about it. Like the US we should be doing a Pacific pivot.
My apologies, ya the constitution is a foundational Canadian document. I thought you were calling transfer payments what makes Canada, Canada. Lets take that part out of the constitution ?
Again, the process to do so is next to impossible. As I said. Good luck.
I see almost 8B in foreign aide.

As for the Ukraine, like I said we need to get our house in order first.
We hear this down south as well. I think some of this has crept up here in the discourse and it would seem that we see early signs of the CPC testing the traction here. A theory for now.

But ok, how long? 4 years? Two terms? Will Ukraine still be Ukraine in that time?

Given our crap situation internationally that sort of plan would only make climbing back even harder on the international scene.

Isolationism is not a good idea in my mind.
Canada needs to work for Canadians before a penny goes overseas. I also think we've donated enough treasure and ordinance, of which we have/had very little. It's time we start to cut regulation and red tape and rebuild our own military. I would probably allow the CAF to keep participating in training the UAF folks, but that's about it. Like the US we should be doing a Pacific pivot.
Someone mentioned it somewhere else. We’ll be spending a lot more ordinance and Treasure if we let Russia win against Ukraine.
 
Again, the process to do so is next to impossible. As I said. Good luck.

We hear this down south as well. I think some of this has crept up here in the discourse and it would seem that we see early signs of the CPC testing the traction here. A theory for now.

But ok, how long? 4 years? Two terms? Will Ukraine still be Ukraine in that time?

Given our crap situation internationally that sort of plan would only make climbing back even harder on the international scene.

Isolationism is not a good idea in my mind.

Someone mentioned it somewhere else. We’ll be spending a lot more ordinance and Treasure if we let Russia win against Ukraine.

As I said in the Ukraine thread there comes a point where we can't just keep throwing money and swords at the Ukraine war.

We have issues here that need to be solved.
 
Glass half full: the PM is top of mind for many Canadians today ;)

N.L.'s Liberal premier calls for emergency meeting with PM as anti-carbon tax protests snarl highways​


Protests erupted across the country against the federal carbon tax on Monday — the same day it rose by 23 per cent — while Canada's only Liberal provincial leader pressed for an emergency meeting to discuss alternative ways to cut emissions.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey called for an emergency meeting of leaders throughout Canada, arguing the program is too costly for his province and doesn't work as intended.

 
The usual discussion.

"We need to cut some things."

"OK, what?"

"Well, how about this, that, and the other?"

"Oh, no, those are critical/impracticably difficult".

Either you manage change, or change manages you. But there will be change, unless we've happily stumbled across the discovery of the fiscal and foreign affairs (and security) equivalent of perpetual motion. And the longer pressure builds, the more explosive change will be, especially if change has the initiative.
 
….nothwistanding the 100+ economists who were somehow paid to agree with Trudeau that the consumer carbon tax is a good thing…
Well, one of the so called "economist" is Chris Ragan who is an Academic THEORIST on economy. So technically an "economist" but does not make a living where he has to get it right predicting economic actions.
I have a funny feeling the more I dig through this list, its going to show some either questionable views or slanted views
 
Well, one of the so called "economist" is Chris Ragan who is an Academic THEORIST on economy. So technically an "economist" but does not make a living where he has to get it right predicting economic actions.
I have a funny feeling the more I dig through this list, its going to show some either questionable views or slanted views

Well I mean in 2024 you can self identify as just about anything, so why not economists ?
 
Well, one of the so called "economist" is Chris Ragan who is an Academic THEORIST on economy. So technically an "economist" but does not make a living where he has to get it right predicting economic actions.
I have a funny feeling the more I dig through this list, its going to show some either questionable views or slanted views
The fact that they spent a lot of time harrumphing and didn’t even break down the difference between industrial and consumer carbon taxes twigged my spidery-sense. The Conservatives do plan on a measure of industrial carbon taxation, just not as structured in the Liberal plan.

As an aside, one has to wonder at the Liberal argumentation that “you get a rebate equal to the tax…” So if that were actually true, how would it be that consumers’ green habits were changed? ie. So if I don’t change anything, I get a rebate to cover the carbon tax? 🤔 That fails the ‘making any sense’ test.
 
Good thing MP Han Dong’s wife’s conversation ‘helped him remember’ bussing mainland Chinese high school students to vote for his nomination in his riding…and also why he forget to mention that to the Foreign Interference Commission 6-weeks earlier…

 
Well, I'm glad it's not being wasted on health care or anything like that ;)


The two are not necessarily exclusive of each other. For instance, there’s plenty of evidence that women, and in particularly women who aren’t white, see divergent outcomes in some healthcare situations. This includes complaints of physical ailments taking much longer to be taken seriously, and beliefs my doctors that self-reported pain is more exaggerated than if, say, you or I were to present to hospital complaining of the same symptoms. It’s particularly bad for black wonen.

There’s lots of room for research to explore these things and to try to figure out what measures need to be taken to achieve the same standards of care in such things.
 
So if I don’t change anything, I get a rebate to cover the carbon tax? 🤔 That fails the ‘making any sense’ test.
Yes. If you change nothing in your consumption habits, the rebate (theoretically, approximately) compensates you for the carbon tax you paid. But if you change your habits, you make a profit. That's the incentive for individuals to change behaviour.
 
The two are not necessarily exclusive of each other. For instance, there’s plenty of evidence that women, and in particularly women who aren’t white, see divergent outcomes in some healthcare situations. This includes complaints of physical ailments taking much longer to be taken seriously, and beliefs my doctors that self-reported pain is more exaggerated than if, say, you or I were to present to hospital complaining of the same symptoms. It’s particularly bad for black wonen.

There’s lots of room for research to explore these things and to try to figure out what measures need to be taken to achieve the same standards of care in such things.
Most days I'm so close to the coal face that I'm only missing the hammer an chisel. My experience is that average folks don't care about this stuff. They care about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. The current government has lost sight of this.
 
Most days I'm so close to the coal face that I'm only missing the hammer a chisel. My experience is that average folks don't care about this stuff. They care about putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads. The current government has lost sight of this.
This why the LPC is screwing up its messaging. And why PP generally fumbles when he deviates from what you just mentioned.

The CPC just needs to stay on message and the LPC desperately has to change its message assuming it can connect. No easy task. The CPC has already carved out its space on the bread and butter issues. I’m not sure the LPC can eat into that.
 
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