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

rmc_wannabe said:
You know just as well as I do that toxic, narcissistic leaders don't "listen" to anyone that advise them; they only look to hear their own thoughts and opinions coming out of their own mouths.

Most of my eldest kids peer group have zero hope, and are dreading graduating next year because everything is now unattainable for them: affordable schooling, housing, or being able to afford food.
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We are hiring, pay big bucks!!! I have a 19 year old that works for me who made $120k last year. Gotta want to work though!!!! The biggest issues the young ones have is the discipline and being able to handle criticism.
 
Father de Souza gets things about right, as usual.

The bit that struck me though was this -

“It really sucks right now. Like, everything sucks for people, even in Canada. We’re supposed to be polite and nice, but, man, people are mad,” Trudeau complained to the NYT. In 2023, sunny ways have given way to storm clouds.

“People are mad at governments because things aren’t going all that well and people are worried. So, yeah, it’s a tough time. People are anxious because that promise of progress no longer seems to hold. …
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It gives me hope.

Trudeau might be teachable. He should devote his retirement to his studies.

Must be rough being a progressive and not seeing progress.

Raymond J. de Souza: Liberal casualties keep piling up​

Is there anyone left to drive the bus? Can the bus even be driven with so many bodies underneath it?
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Author of the article:
Father Raymond J. de Souza
Published Sep 28, 2023 • Last updated 5 hours ago • 4 minute read

126 Comments
House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota leaves Parliament Hill after announcing his resignation on Sept. 26, 2023. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Pity the columnist who lingers while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau lurches from crisis to catastrophe.

Last week, fresh off his second disastrous trip to India, the prime minister dropped by The New York Times to chat up his old chums after his visit to the UN. The interview was noteworthy, but no one could properly note it as the implosion of the Speaker of the House of Commons was rising on the horizon.

It’s time to update the list of Trudeau casualties. He lost an attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from cabinet after she was punished for properly resisting political pressure in prosecutorial decisions. The president of the treasury board, Jane Philpott, resigned in solidarity, shocked at the shabby treatment of Canada’s first Indigenous justice minister.

The same abuse of power for the benefit of Montreal’s SNC-Lavalin cost Trudeau his principal secretary, Gerald Butts, and Michael Wernick, the country’s most senior civil servant as Clerk of the Privy Council. It was previously thought impossible to botch things so badly as to lose a clerk.

SNC-Lavalin, by the way, changed its name this month to wash off the stench that clings to the company for the kind of behaviour Trudeau interfered to excuse.

Then Trudeau lost his finance minister, Bill Morneau, in a conflict of interest scandal which, as collateral damage, led to the WE charity effectively ceasing operations in Canada.

Could it possibly get worse? Trudeau then lost a governor general, Julie Payette, who was allegedly cruel and venomous to her workplace subordinates, something already known before Trudeau recommended her appointment.

Surely a highly respected, octogenarian former governor general would be safe in retirement? Trudeau called him back into service to put a black mark on that long career. Another resignation.

All the while, over in the military, there was unprecedented turmoil in the most senior ranks, all presided over by a defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, who falsely bragged that he was the “architect” of Canada’s biggest military operation in Afghanistan. He belatedly apologized and survived a vote of non-confidence in the House. Trudeau shuffled him out in 2021.

And don’t forget our ambassador to China, John McCallum, who was cut loose for taking China’s side in the case of Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei executive who was detained by Canada, an action for which Beijing retaliated by kidnapping the Two Michaels.

The tally is: attorney general, president of the treasury board, principal secretary, clerk of the privy council, finance minister, two chiefs of defence staff, ambassador to China, a current governor general, a former governor general.

Who’s left? The Speaker of the House of Commons.

Out went Anthony Rota on Tuesday. Is there anyone left to drive the bus? Can the bus even be driven with so many bodies underneath it?

Where does a Trudeau in such travail go? Last week to The New York Times. The prime minister fondly remembers the long love letter the NYT published just days after his swearing-in in 2015, back in the heady days when the most pressing issue was to make time for the photographer from Vogue.

The NYT styled Trudeau’s election in 2015 as “nothing less than an existential struggle over what it means to be Canadian.” It turned out that the actual existential struggles would be for those who would rise to prominent office under him.

Trudeau’s remarks last week were startling and would have commanded national attention had he not been hiding from the fallout over the unspeakable embarrassment of the Speaker.

“It really sucks right now. Like, everything sucks for people, even in Canada. We’re supposed to be polite and nice, but, man, people are mad,” Trudeau complained to the NYT. In 2023, sunny ways have given way to storm clouds.

Article content
“People are mad at governments because things aren’t going all that well and people are worried. So, yeah, it’s a tough time. People are anxious because that promise of progress no longer seems to hold. … (which is) undermining our sense that our institutions, that our democracies are actually functioning well.”

Undermining “our sense”? Is it not plain to see that our institutions — the justice department, our charitable sector, the military, the PMO, Rideau Hall, the House of Commons — are not functioning well?

“It sucks,” is not the mellifluous phrasing for which the NYT swooned eight years back. The sentiment brings to mind the July 1979 “malaise” speech of president Jimmy Carter. He never actually said “malaise;” he spoke of a “crisis of confidence,” which is similar to Trudeau saying that the “promise of progress no longer seems to hold.”

Carter’s 1979 speech is one of the most extraordinary in the history of presidential oratory. He crafted it after days of meetings with ordinary citizens, who spoke of a “moral and spiritual crisis” in the land, of which the energy crisis was a symptom. Carter offered much pastoral wisdom and prophetic analysis in the speech, even if it turned out to be politically costly.

Trudeau is not Carter’s measure in wisdom, prophecy or spiritual gravitas, but his “malaise” interview belongs to that category. It’s the TikTok version, suitable for people who like the pretty pictures in Vogue.

Crises abound, institutions seem inadequate to the task, and leadership is lacking. In Canada, actual leaders, too, as they keeping getting pushed out the door.

“It sucks,” declared Trudeau in the caput mundi. It does, and not only in the world at large, but particularly for those unfortunate souls who come close to him.

National Post
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Trudeau is a unifier.

He has managed to unify the Catholics, Evangelicals and the Muslims. A first since the Battle of the Masts in 655.

Rahim Mohamed: Trudeau doubles down on disparaging Muslim Canadians​

Muslim voters helped the prime minister get elected. He shouldn't expect it to happen again

Author of the article:
Rahim Mohamed
Published Sep 28, 2023 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 3 minute read

Things somehow managed to go from bad to worse for the flailing Justin Trudeau on Monday when he was slapped with a stinging rebuke from the Muslim Association of Canada.

In a sharply worded statement, the 55,000-member faith-based organization condemned the prime minister (among other politicians and groups) for making statements that it claimed mischaracterized last week’s 1 Million March 4 Children and, implicitly, the involvement of members of the Muslim community in the protests. (Muslim organizers like Calgary’s Mahmood Mourra were highly visible in the protest’s leadership).
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nationalpost.com

Rahim Mohamed: Trudeau doubles down on disparaging Muslim Canadians

Muslim voters helped the prime minister get elected. He shouldn't expect it to happen again
nationalpost.com nationalpost.com
 

Most Canadians want carbon tax reduced or killed: poll​

The survey also gauged Canadian reactions to the federal government’s stated plan to make Canada 'net zero' by 2050
Author of the article:
Tristin Hopper
Published Sep 28, 2023 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 4 minute read
A new Leger poll finds that a clear majority of Canadians want the carbon tax reduced or eliminated entirely — and that nearly everyone thinks that federal plans for “net zero” are unrealistic.

Of respondents, 55 per cent wanted the carbon tax reduced (18 per cent) or abolished (37 per cent), while 27 per cent were fine to keep it as-is. A mere 18 per cent said they agreed with the current strategy of raising carbon levies each year.

While Alberta typically charts as the most anti-carbon tax jurisdiction in Canada, this time it was Atlantic Canada, where 48 per cent of respondents favoured total abolition of carbon pricing. The region first became subject to federal carbon levies on July 1, leading to a noticeable rise in fuel prices that spawned blanket opposition from all four Atlantic Canadian provincial governments.

The Leger results are in line with a polling trend that’s often shown itself among Western populations: Citizens support action on climate change, but mostly don’t want to pay for it.

“When you just ask people, ‘Hey do you support all these great things?’ they’re tripping over themselves to say yes,” said Andrew Enns, executive vice-president with Leger.

With this latest poll, said Enns, the idea was to steer clear of vagaries on climate change and gauge opinion on “a very specific policy that has a very specific economic consequence.”

“And on that it’s a very clear, ‘I don’t want to pay more,’” he said.

The average Canadian is currently paying about 14 cents of carbon tax on every litre of gasoline, and 17 cents for every litre of diesel. That rate rises automatically every April 1, adding roughly another three cents per litre each year.

And that’s in addition to a battery of other fuel taxes, including federal excise tax, GST, municipal transit taxes and provincial fuel levies. In the Vancouver area, for instance, the local carbon levy of 14.31 cents per litre is dwarfed by the 27 cents tacked on by the province and municipal authorities.

But it all adds up to Canadians paying the highest sustained prices for fuel in our history, with knock-on effects throughout the entire economy.

A March report by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer determined that even after federal carbon tax rebates are factored in, by 2030 most Canadian households will be experiencing a net loss from carbon taxes.

In higher-income jurisdictions such as Alberta (where fewer households qualify for rebates), the net cost per household of carbon levies is already estimated at around $507.

The whole purpose of carbon taxes is to disincentivize the use of fossil fuels by making them more expensive.

But the Leger poll found that even as most Canadians balked at higher prices, they largely didn’t seem to be changing their consumption patterns.

Just 31 per cent of Canadians said they were now travelling less because of the carbon tax, and 30 per cent said they were driving less.

“We’re changing some behaviours, but I’m not sure we’re changing a lot,” said Enns. Even after a summer that saw gas prices nearing $2 per litre across the country, he noted that there was still no shortage of V8-engined trucks pulling fifth-wheel campers.

Enns says these results don’t necessarily signal a death knell for the continuance of carbon pricing in Canada, but they are a sign that policies to raise fuel prices can’t be pursued with the assurance that they’ll be accepted without question.

“Part of the issue for the government is that they probably have to be a little more aggressive about explaining these things,” he said. (Edit: Better communication - that's the ticket! :ROFLMAO: )

The survey also gauged Canadian reactions to the federal government’s stated plan to make Canada “net zero” by 2050. While the country is currently one of the world’s largest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases, the idea is to purge fossil fuels from the economy so aggressively that in 27 years Canada’s overall emissions will be effectively nil.

Just 52 per cent of respondents had heard of the plan, and when its basic details were explained, a mere 15 per cent thought net-zero was realistic.

Respondents were about as skeptical about the first stage of the net-zero plan; a federal proposal to completely decarbonize Canadian electrical generation by 2035.

Given the disproportionately large share of Canadian electricity that is already produced by nuclear or hydroelectric dams, this isn’t too big of an ask for Canada — as compared to far more abstract plans to completely remove internal combustion engines from Canadian transportation networks.

Even still, just 19 per cent thought it was realistic.

The poll was based on an online survey of 1,564 Canadians, weighted by factors such as age, gender, mother tongue, region and education to provide a representative sample of the population. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size yields a margin of error no greater than plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20, for the Canadian sample.
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nationalpost.com

Most Canadians want carbon tax reduced or killed: poll

The survey also gauged Canadian reactions to the federal government’s stated plan to make Canada 'net zero' by 2050
nationalpost.com nationalpost.com
 
Colin Parkinson said:
The gas taxes hit rural communities the most as the cost of everything goes up and fewer people travel to recreational sites reducing the amount of money spent in those communities.
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Why don't they cancel their Disney+ and ride the subway like the Finance Minister? I guess some people just like to complain...
 
Part of the problem with the 2050 plan is that is ignores 2 major issues most Canadians face that politicians/intelligentsia often ignore:

1. Geography
2. Climate... the current one.

Geography means until we have electric powered rapid transit meshed from coast to coast to coast... there will be a need to move people and freight from one end to the other using carbon based fossil fuels. Ask anyone who has lived outside of a major urban centre how long it takes for a bus to show up (hint: they don't exist). The fact that one can drive 18 hours and still remain inside the geographical borders of Ontario should give a good enough idea that the solutions of the Netherlands or Japan don't translate well to Canada.

Climate ...in that we live in some of the coldest climates on earth, means we need cheap and reliable heating so that people don't freeze to death. Our electrical grid, especially outside major urban centres is not reliable enough for electric heating and the monopoly exercised by most power companies means its cost prohibitive to use electric heating, even if it's generated more cleanly. Hell I installed a wood stove to heat the house because the tree I cut down on my property was free and it isn't subject to carbon tax (yet).

Until you look at the problem through a proper Canadian lense, your European solutions aren't going to sit well with a populace that wants to be mobile and warm on the 2nd largest country on earth...
 
Last edited:
rmc_wannabe said:
Part of the problem with the 2050 plan is that is ignores 2 major issues most Canadians face that politicians/intelligentsia often ignore:

1. Geography
2. Climate... the current one.

Geography means until we have electric powered rapid transit meshed from coast to coast to coast... there will be a need to move people and freight from one end to the other using carbon based fossil fuels. Ask anyone who has lived outside of a major urban centre how long it takes for a bus to show up (hint: they don't exist). The fact that one can drive 18 hours and still remain inside the geographical borders of Ontario should give a good enough idea that the solutions of the Netherlands or Japan don't translate well to Canada.

Climate ...in that we live in some of the coldest climates on earth, means we need cheap and reliable heating so that people don't freeze to death. Our electrical grid, especially outside major urban centres is not reliable enough for electric heating and the monopoly exercised by most power companies means its cost prohibitive to use electric heating, even if it's generated more cleanly. Hell I installed a wood stove to heat the house because the tree I cut down on my property was free and it isn't subject to carbon tax (yet).

Until you look at the problem through a proper Canadian lense, your European solutions aren't going to sit well with a populace that wants to be mobile and warm on the 2nd largest country on earth...
Click to expand...
electric really doesn't work well for trains in our climate. BBC News - Steam train's snow rescue 'glory'
 
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