Ray hired me for my first real journalism job, so I take careful note of "a little disappointed." And it's true, I often don't push back. I had a paragraph ready, in my interview notes, of Carney quotes in case Poilievre pulled out the "strategic partnership with China for a new world order" line, which is stitched together from some other Carney quotes. I was ready with "Well, Carney has also said this other stuff" and Poilievre would have said something like "Well, he said this stuff." The result would have read like the Danielle Smith interview, where I did push back more. Maybe a draw.
Increasingly, I take interviews as mostly a chance to get the subject talking. I've been pre-butting for four years; I can rebut later. This often makes my interviews frustrating, especially for people who hear the rebuttals in their head and hope I'll say them out loud.
Not quite the same thing: The last time I interviewed Trudeau, when he was just starting to get really unpopular, I didn't push back hard, and Ezra Levant fundraised off it, doormat, stooge, etc. I got Trudeau talking, in ways I wouldn't have done if I'd gone three rounds with him on some ephemera. I figure that's my job too. I get that other colleagues make other choices.
It was definitely a good conversation. I'm not used to hearing Poilievre speaking reasonably and not just spouting slogans and curated sound bites. I would love a thorough point by point fact checking of what he said though.
Liked the civil tone, but never got the sense PP felt tested or challenged. Nary a sharp edge. My takeaway is that he’s perfectly happy to occupy Stornoway for the foreseeable future as long as he can swan with prominent neocons and yank Carney’s chain every so often to remind the Libs there is an official opposition leader.
Well, well, finally interviewed by Paul Wells. All I want to say is that everyone who is interested in Canada and it's future should read this to see which version of Mr. Poilievre is real, after his pivot recently. It's good to have a choice in leadership, and good that we know what the choices are.
I so wish Canadians would get their heads out of the sand and pay attention instead of listening to Rosie Barton and David Cochrane. Canada would be in a much better place.
I despair for this country if common sense doesn’t come back soon. Liberal promises only fill ballot boxes, not bank accounts or stomachs, at least not those of regular Canadians.
The Poilievre pivot is complete: he’s talking to mainstream media, refraining from alliterative insults, and traveling outside Canada. But as long as the main or one of the main ballot questions remains dealing with the Trump Administration, Poilievre seems naive and out of touch with most voters in thinking, despite all evidence to the contrary, that if he shoots for the tariff-free moon, then Washington will strike a good deal with Ottawa.
Good to see Poilievre go beyond jargons. I wish there was more discussion on ignoring environmental protections, inter-provincial infrastructure development challenges, on his stated position of ignoring Treaty rights (which is guaranteed to slow down any developmental projects due to court challenges), etc.
Great content. I'm struck by how Poilievre essentially stayed on-message, despite the target audience being quite different from those who attend his stump speeches.
That message is worrying however. It's a borderline rant about the ills of the world, with solutions proposed that are simplistic and untested, presented as so common-sensical that it implies a conspiracy of the intelligentsia or bourgeoisie to suppress them, and so the workers with whom they compete for scarce resources.
We've heard this before, and it's never ended well, certainly not since the Bolshevik revolution. And sooner or later, there's a scapegoat. Jews used to be the popular choice for the authoritarian and political right, but nowadays enough have co-opted or been co-opted by the political right that a new target has needed to be found, and that's apparently the "woke". In many ways this is worse, because it's a label that's imposed, rather than one self-ascribed. Trump's ICE brigade, rather than narrowly targeting "illegals", has instead more broadly targeted those they imagine "look like illegals", whether they have citizenship, green cards, or other rights to residency.
Maybe Poilievre, with all his talk of an iron fist in a steel glove to force other levels of government, industry, and people in general to do his bidding, means to be a benevolent leader, but we've seen this before as well. Once there is pushback, the fist doesnt relax to an open palm of dialogue, it tightens further to crush dissent.
His message essentially is regressive; a return to an anachronistic style of government we thought we had passed long ago in Canada. It can't end well.
"solutions proposed that are simplistic and untested, presented as so common-sensical that it implies a conspiracy of the intelligentsia or bourgeoisie to suppress them"
I know it's not the most substantive thing he said in the interview, or, in many ways, the most concerning, but this is exactly why I keep coming back to his "not ten MPs understand" line. For decades, he's been telling us that all of our problems are all extremely easy to understand and easy to fix, if only those dastardly Liberals would do it. Here he's said, whoops, at least 94% of my MPs do not understand this thing that's so easy to understand. I wish him luck with that approach to caucus management.
It has obviously been a life lesson for Pierre Poilievre that if he wants to get his message out, he must connect with as many Canadians as possible, and the includes reaching those listeners and readers via what is frequently referred to as the "legacy media". Not that Paul or Peter Mansbridge are today's legacy media, but that was certainly their milieu before their independent ventures. Thanks Paul for persevering, as a Poilievre supporter I am glad you again asked and I am glad this time Pierre made himself available.
When I heard Poilievre talk about "printing money" during the election campaign I wondered whether he was just trying to keep things simple or whether he really didn't understand. His discussion of the topic in this interview suggests he doesn't understand. (Quantitative easing policies have kept the world safe through crises.)
It'd be fun to see him discuss this with a twice-central banker.
So you find fault with his phrase “printing money” being used as a short hand for a number of actions few people would understand and want him to explain all the steps exactly? So give us a preview of that would be.
Thanks very much for this, Paul. I know your usual approach is to be pretty gentle in interviews, so I appreciate that you didn't shy away from asking him some tough questions about some of his stances. Like Mr. Brassard, I'd have loved to see some equally tough followup questions to some of the answers*, but I respect that that's not your style and that you're catching more flies with honey---it's good you asked him the questions in the first place
*This is the first I've heard him make the "anti-woke = anti-anti-Semitism" pivot, and I think it's an interesting pivot coming from a guy who used to talk an awful lot about "globalists".
I also think that it takes a certain chutzpah for a guy leading a caucus of 141 (at the moment) to start a sentence with "I don’t think there are 10 Members of Parliament who even understand...", but we know the guy's never been lacking in chutzpah, and it's not your job to say, "Hey, that thing where you just insulted at least 132 of your caucus members, do you think that might be why they keep bailing on you?"
All of that said, I thought significant sections of this sounded fairly reasonable, and I think it's good for Canada when leading political figures sound fairly reasonable. So thanks again for giving him the space to do this.
When politicians bring up housing, there is no mention of affordable rental accommodations OR subsidized / low-cost housing to get people off the streets. This begs the question:
The problem is housing for the middle and working classes. If one solves the problem for the middle and working classes, one mostly solves the problem of housing for the poor.
Affordability for the poor becomes a manageable problem if life is affordable for the working and middle classes. If life is unaffordable for the working and middle classes, there is no solution to the problem of affordability for the poor.
The problem with "progressives" is they focus on the poor instead of focusing on sustaining and growing the working and middle classes.
Add that to your list of "problems with progressives" Gerry.
But, to your point, please tell us how this works. Firstly, please define your distinction between "middle and working classes". It's typically a subjective anachronism. What used to be considered the "working classes" are already earning the "six-figure incomes" that Poilievre claims is denied them. But aren't they really part of the middle class though?
And how does "Affordability for the poor become a manageable problem if life is affordable for the working and middle classes."? The poor have always been with us.
I won’t go into the distinction between middle and working class because I think that debate is useless. I will just say that when there is more housing supply everyone benefits, even if the new housing is “luxury”. This is because new housing enables the relatively better off to move to a nicer accommodation, and in turn they can sell or vacate their old house to someone worse off. This is proven in some recent economic studies, if you want them I can share.
This is because the majority of people don’t live in government housing. We have allowed the housing crisis to progress to such an extent that problem is not just with low income people being unable to afford a home, middle income people are also priced out. This is because of a decision by policymakers to defend the small group of loud people who oppose all housing, and increase taxes on new residents because it’s easier than raising property tax. Just look at Gregor Robertson, who talks all the time about building government housing, and yet he has no results! This is because government construction is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, so in the end we end up building a couple houses and nothing changes for 99%.
Excellent Q&A. It’s intelligent exchanges like this that allow us to know the man more than HOC finger pointing. Haven’t we become the AS THE WORLD TURNS soap opera of the globe. Good on ya Paul for respecting our right to choose in pursuing the other guy for so long.
Thank you for printing the interview in its entirety.
Pierre Poilievre is one of the most glibly articulate people I've ever listened to. His shift from "all attack, all the time" is a welcome change.
I just wish that he and the other politicians would answer questions, rather than spewing "the party line", even if it has been made more palatable.
- - -
One thing in particular that I wish Canadian political leaders would be more forthcoming about is the HST (and taxation more generally).
For example, I believe that we must consider an increase in the GST portion of the HST (from five percent of purchase price to seven percent) in the context of broader tax reforms designed to simplify the code, and ensure that EVERYONE pays their fair share.
More to the point, surely Canadians need to "get real" about paying for the enormous costs of new initiatives?
For the record, these include the hundreds-of-billions needed over the next decade to rebuild our military, and similar amounts of new spending to expedite the building of public infrastructure to ensure the development of new resources, bolster our educational institutions and, maybe, repair the public health care system.
- - -
That politicians in Canada are frightened to discuss this, and many on social media jump down their throats when it is suggested, indicates that Canadians have lost the ability to have serious and grown-up public debates about such issues.
In my view?
It is lunatic to believe that we can "just do it" without properly funding "it".
We are already over-taxed. Government need to reduce spending. Too many useless programs, too much waste and mismanagement, too many subsidies and rebates, too much bureaucracy and too many consultants.
They spend too much time meddling in private business and not enough time spent providing the basic governance, and government services, they are supposed to. Because they won a popularity contest politicians think they are smarter than your average businessman and they aren't.
They don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.
There isn't enough room here for me to provide a line by line review of federal spending, nor do I care to spend the time. Suffice it to say that socialism has been a dismal failure in every jurisdiction it has been tried and as we slide into the socialist world our results are no better. Just more debt and higher interest payments being downloaded onto future generations.
During the Trudeau years many new programs were introduced which we cannot afford, and the Liberals knew it but they were happy to make a deal with the NDP to stay in power. It was all about votes. Carney has promised to reduce bureaucracy but has subsequently introduced more programs to supposedly improve the existing bureaucratic processes, but hasn't eliminated the existing bureaucracy. Once again it's all about votes and power.
As soon as conservatives talk about reducing existing programs they are portrayed as heartless bastards, but the whole story about the elimination of programs (that waste taxpayer money) that could lead to a reduction in taxes which would give taxpayers the freedom to pay for the services they personally want is too complicated a subject for the media to explain so they stick with the heartless bastards narrative.
This comment clearly defines the position we find ourselves in:
“So there you have it,” economic journalist Henry Hazlitt replied sarcastically in his 1959 book, The Failure of the ‘New Economics’. “The people who have earned money are too shortsighted, hysterical, rapacious and idiotic to be trusted to invest it themselves. The money must be seized from them by politicians, who will invest it with almost perfect foresight and complete disinterestedness (as illustrated, for example, by the economic planners of Soviet Russia). For people who are risking their own money will of course risk it foolishly and recklessly, whereas politicians and bureaucrats who are risking other people’s money will do so only with the greatest care and after long and profound study.”
I think there is a good debate waiting to be had about government spending (both federal and provincial) in Canada.
Who among our politicians wants to have that debate?
Where in Parliament are the serious discussions about what makes sense and what doesn't?
In the past (many decades ago now), Canadians believed that Parliament was the place where the people's representatives went to debate policy and pass legislation to improve our lives and to ensure that governance in this country was not about enriching the well-connected at everyone else's expense.
Does anyone believe that today?
And why?
I chalk it up to dysfunctional political parties that do their best to suppress democratic discussion and debate amongst their representatives in Parliament. All for the sake of "message control" and holding on to power.
- - -
It is difficult to imagine that mess leading to serious discussions about our governance.
For the record, I'd be inclined to reconsider how Old Age Pension is managed (when people can start drawing it). Right now, payments to the elderly are a big line item in the federal budget (over CAD 80bn annually).
We might also want to rethink how provincial transfers work, and remove in particular all industrial subsidies.
I'll bet, though, that those kinds of proposals would ignite a fire storm of opposition.
Agreed. I would also chalk it up to media who sensationalize issues and, because of their left wing bias, denunciate conservatives who have a common sense approach to dealing with some of the dysfunction you allude to.
It's interesting you brought up OAS payments, or "welfare for seniors" as I like to call it (much to the chagrin of my socialist relatives). PM Harper had a plan to slowly implement over ten years a change that would have delayed citizens from receiving it until they were 67. At the time, his plan would have affected those born in my birth year the most, and I was fine with his proposal. It made perfect sense. Of course Justin the hero immediately called it "simplistic" and cancelled the change, all for votes and power. Trudeau did the same with Harpers proposed changes to Canada Post which would have made the corporation more viable, and with the purchase of F-35's. Of course Trudeau hypocritically reversed the F-35 purchase decision, once again for votes and power.
Had to laugh that he does sound practically Marxist when he talks about elites using their money to ensure they get even richer at working-class expense. (He literally said "working class", wow.)
Then you realize we never mentioned public sector salaries, or supporting unions, and you think of Doug Ford the successful Conservative, and know what the working-class support would really be.
Notably, he's putting out the same housing strategy as in his (in)famous video, when housing prices are in fact dropping, particularly here in Vancouver, with the existing efforts at zoning and immigration limitations. He should be responding to that, shifting the message with the times.
Way more shifting is going to be needed in a year or so, on the lets-sell-max-carbon strategy. Every pipeline discussion should be started with a question about whether there is investment money for a tar sands expansion needed to fill such a pipeline, without comfort that prices will exceed $65/bbl through 2040. Has the interviewee heard from investors that are eager to start, the only thing holding them back being government? There are analysts saying "no". And spiking oil prices, again, drive away customers - who now have alternatives.
Same with German LNG - he says "they want to buy", but the question has to be "will they commit?" We'd need 10 years of guaranteed sales to pay off his proposed investments, and Europe won't commit.
I wish I was naive enough to believe “it’s as simple as that.”
I give credit to PP for doing a good job of identifying and communicating what are significant challenges facing Canadians today, including the horrendous affordability challenges for younger generations. I agree with much of what he says. But when the conversation turns to his proposed solutions I am left aghast at how poorly thought out they are.
Great interview. Thank you
Good questions, Paul. A bit disappointed, though, that none of his answered were challenged. But he must be happy with the platform he was offered.
Ray hired me for my first real journalism job, so I take careful note of "a little disappointed." And it's true, I often don't push back. I had a paragraph ready, in my interview notes, of Carney quotes in case Poilievre pulled out the "strategic partnership with China for a new world order" line, which is stitched together from some other Carney quotes. I was ready with "Well, Carney has also said this other stuff" and Poilievre would have said something like "Well, he said this stuff." The result would have read like the Danielle Smith interview, where I did push back more. Maybe a draw.
Increasingly, I take interviews as mostly a chance to get the subject talking. I've been pre-butting for four years; I can rebut later. This often makes my interviews frustrating, especially for people who hear the rebuttals in their head and hope I'll say them out loud.
Not quite the same thing: The last time I interviewed Trudeau, when he was just starting to get really unpopular, I didn't push back hard, and Ezra Levant fundraised off it, doormat, stooge, etc. I got Trudeau talking, in ways I wouldn't have done if I'd gone three rounds with him on some ephemera. I figure that's my job too. I get that other colleagues make other choices.
It was definitely a good conversation. I'm not used to hearing Poilievre speaking reasonably and not just spouting slogans and curated sound bites. I would love a thorough point by point fact checking of what he said though.
Liked the civil tone, but never got the sense PP felt tested or challenged. Nary a sharp edge. My takeaway is that he’s perfectly happy to occupy Stornoway for the foreseeable future as long as he can swan with prominent neocons and yank Carney’s chain every so often to remind the Libs there is an official opposition leader.
Well, well, finally interviewed by Paul Wells. All I want to say is that everyone who is interested in Canada and it's future should read this to see which version of Mr. Poilievre is real, after his pivot recently. It's good to have a choice in leadership, and good that we know what the choices are.
Désolé Paul, même quand c'est toi qui l'interview je ne suis pas capable de l'écouter passer sa cassette populiste.
I so wish Canadians would get their heads out of the sand and pay attention instead of listening to Rosie Barton and David Cochrane. Canada would be in a much better place.
I don't think they are listening to CBC. Would be interesting to see what the ratings are for programming.
I despair for this country if common sense doesn’t come back soon. Liberal promises only fill ballot boxes, not bank accounts or stomachs, at least not those of regular Canadians.
I fear that common sense has been lost in the age of social media and smart phones.
The Poilievre pivot is complete: he’s talking to mainstream media, refraining from alliterative insults, and traveling outside Canada. But as long as the main or one of the main ballot questions remains dealing with the Trump Administration, Poilievre seems naive and out of touch with most voters in thinking, despite all evidence to the contrary, that if he shoots for the tariff-free moon, then Washington will strike a good deal with Ottawa.
Good to see Poilievre go beyond jargons. I wish there was more discussion on ignoring environmental protections, inter-provincial infrastructure development challenges, on his stated position of ignoring Treaty rights (which is guaranteed to slow down any developmental projects due to court challenges), etc.
Maybe next time!
Great content. I'm struck by how Poilievre essentially stayed on-message, despite the target audience being quite different from those who attend his stump speeches.
That message is worrying however. It's a borderline rant about the ills of the world, with solutions proposed that are simplistic and untested, presented as so common-sensical that it implies a conspiracy of the intelligentsia or bourgeoisie to suppress them, and so the workers with whom they compete for scarce resources.
We've heard this before, and it's never ended well, certainly not since the Bolshevik revolution. And sooner or later, there's a scapegoat. Jews used to be the popular choice for the authoritarian and political right, but nowadays enough have co-opted or been co-opted by the political right that a new target has needed to be found, and that's apparently the "woke". In many ways this is worse, because it's a label that's imposed, rather than one self-ascribed. Trump's ICE brigade, rather than narrowly targeting "illegals", has instead more broadly targeted those they imagine "look like illegals", whether they have citizenship, green cards, or other rights to residency.
Maybe Poilievre, with all his talk of an iron fist in a steel glove to force other levels of government, industry, and people in general to do his bidding, means to be a benevolent leader, but we've seen this before as well. Once there is pushback, the fist doesnt relax to an open palm of dialogue, it tightens further to crush dissent.
His message essentially is regressive; a return to an anachronistic style of government we thought we had passed long ago in Canada. It can't end well.
"solutions proposed that are simplistic and untested, presented as so common-sensical that it implies a conspiracy of the intelligentsia or bourgeoisie to suppress them"
I know it's not the most substantive thing he said in the interview, or, in many ways, the most concerning, but this is exactly why I keep coming back to his "not ten MPs understand" line. For decades, he's been telling us that all of our problems are all extremely easy to understand and easy to fix, if only those dastardly Liberals would do it. Here he's said, whoops, at least 94% of my MPs do not understand this thing that's so easy to understand. I wish him luck with that approach to caucus management.
It has obviously been a life lesson for Pierre Poilievre that if he wants to get his message out, he must connect with as many Canadians as possible, and the includes reaching those listeners and readers via what is frequently referred to as the "legacy media". Not that Paul or Peter Mansbridge are today's legacy media, but that was certainly their milieu before their independent ventures. Thanks Paul for persevering, as a Poilievre supporter I am glad you again asked and I am glad this time Pierre made himself available.
When I heard Poilievre talk about "printing money" during the election campaign I wondered whether he was just trying to keep things simple or whether he really didn't understand. His discussion of the topic in this interview suggests he doesn't understand. (Quantitative easing policies have kept the world safe through crises.)
It'd be fun to see him discuss this with a twice-central banker.
So you find fault with his phrase “printing money” being used as a short hand for a number of actions few people would understand and want him to explain all the steps exactly? So give us a preview of that would be.
My point is that in this interview he appears to understand "printing money" in the literal sense.
Thanks very much for this, Paul. I know your usual approach is to be pretty gentle in interviews, so I appreciate that you didn't shy away from asking him some tough questions about some of his stances. Like Mr. Brassard, I'd have loved to see some equally tough followup questions to some of the answers*, but I respect that that's not your style and that you're catching more flies with honey---it's good you asked him the questions in the first place
*This is the first I've heard him make the "anti-woke = anti-anti-Semitism" pivot, and I think it's an interesting pivot coming from a guy who used to talk an awful lot about "globalists".
I also think that it takes a certain chutzpah for a guy leading a caucus of 141 (at the moment) to start a sentence with "I don’t think there are 10 Members of Parliament who even understand...", but we know the guy's never been lacking in chutzpah, and it's not your job to say, "Hey, that thing where you just insulted at least 132 of your caucus members, do you think that might be why they keep bailing on you?"
All of that said, I thought significant sections of this sounded fairly reasonable, and I think it's good for Canada when leading political figures sound fairly reasonable. So thanks again for giving him the space to do this.
When politicians bring up housing, there is no mention of affordable rental accommodations OR subsidized / low-cost housing to get people off the streets. This begs the question:
What is "low-cost" housing in today's terms?
The problem is housing for the middle and working classes. If one solves the problem for the middle and working classes, one mostly solves the problem of housing for the poor.
Affordability for the poor becomes a manageable problem if life is affordable for the working and middle classes. If life is unaffordable for the working and middle classes, there is no solution to the problem of affordability for the poor.
The problem with "progressives" is they focus on the poor instead of focusing on sustaining and growing the working and middle classes.
Add that to your list of "problems with progressives" Gerry.
But, to your point, please tell us how this works. Firstly, please define your distinction between "middle and working classes". It's typically a subjective anachronism. What used to be considered the "working classes" are already earning the "six-figure incomes" that Poilievre claims is denied them. But aren't they really part of the middle class though?
And how does "Affordability for the poor become a manageable problem if life is affordable for the working and middle classes."? The poor have always been with us.
I won’t go into the distinction between middle and working class because I think that debate is useless. I will just say that when there is more housing supply everyone benefits, even if the new housing is “luxury”. This is because new housing enables the relatively better off to move to a nicer accommodation, and in turn they can sell or vacate their old house to someone worse off. This is proven in some recent economic studies, if you want them I can share.
Totally agree that these two approaches are complementary. Any dichotomy is a false one.
This is because the majority of people don’t live in government housing. We have allowed the housing crisis to progress to such an extent that problem is not just with low income people being unable to afford a home, middle income people are also priced out. This is because of a decision by policymakers to defend the small group of loud people who oppose all housing, and increase taxes on new residents because it’s easier than raising property tax. Just look at Gregor Robertson, who talks all the time about building government housing, and yet he has no results! This is because government construction is EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, so in the end we end up building a couple houses and nothing changes for 99%.
Excellent Q&A. It’s intelligent exchanges like this that allow us to know the man more than HOC finger pointing. Haven’t we become the AS THE WORLD TURNS soap opera of the globe. Good on ya Paul for respecting our right to choose in pursuing the other guy for so long.
Thank you for printing the interview in its entirety.
Pierre Poilievre is one of the most glibly articulate people I've ever listened to. His shift from "all attack, all the time" is a welcome change.
I just wish that he and the other politicians would answer questions, rather than spewing "the party line", even if it has been made more palatable.
- - -
One thing in particular that I wish Canadian political leaders would be more forthcoming about is the HST (and taxation more generally).
For example, I believe that we must consider an increase in the GST portion of the HST (from five percent of purchase price to seven percent) in the context of broader tax reforms designed to simplify the code, and ensure that EVERYONE pays their fair share.
More to the point, surely Canadians need to "get real" about paying for the enormous costs of new initiatives?
For the record, these include the hundreds-of-billions needed over the next decade to rebuild our military, and similar amounts of new spending to expedite the building of public infrastructure to ensure the development of new resources, bolster our educational institutions and, maybe, repair the public health care system.
- - -
That politicians in Canada are frightened to discuss this, and many on social media jump down their throats when it is suggested, indicates that Canadians have lost the ability to have serious and grown-up public debates about such issues.
In my view?
It is lunatic to believe that we can "just do it" without properly funding "it".
We are already over-taxed. Government need to reduce spending. Too many useless programs, too much waste and mismanagement, too many subsidies and rebates, too much bureaucracy and too many consultants.
They spend too much time meddling in private business and not enough time spent providing the basic governance, and government services, they are supposed to. Because they won a popularity contest politicians think they are smarter than your average businessman and they aren't.
They don't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem.
Which programs would you cut?
There isn't enough room here for me to provide a line by line review of federal spending, nor do I care to spend the time. Suffice it to say that socialism has been a dismal failure in every jurisdiction it has been tried and as we slide into the socialist world our results are no better. Just more debt and higher interest payments being downloaded onto future generations.
During the Trudeau years many new programs were introduced which we cannot afford, and the Liberals knew it but they were happy to make a deal with the NDP to stay in power. It was all about votes. Carney has promised to reduce bureaucracy but has subsequently introduced more programs to supposedly improve the existing bureaucratic processes, but hasn't eliminated the existing bureaucracy. Once again it's all about votes and power.
As soon as conservatives talk about reducing existing programs they are portrayed as heartless bastards, but the whole story about the elimination of programs (that waste taxpayer money) that could lead to a reduction in taxes which would give taxpayers the freedom to pay for the services they personally want is too complicated a subject for the media to explain so they stick with the heartless bastards narrative.
This comment clearly defines the position we find ourselves in:
“So there you have it,” economic journalist Henry Hazlitt replied sarcastically in his 1959 book, The Failure of the ‘New Economics’. “The people who have earned money are too shortsighted, hysterical, rapacious and idiotic to be trusted to invest it themselves. The money must be seized from them by politicians, who will invest it with almost perfect foresight and complete disinterestedness (as illustrated, for example, by the economic planners of Soviet Russia). For people who are risking their own money will of course risk it foolishly and recklessly, whereas politicians and bureaucrats who are risking other people’s money will do so only with the greatest care and after long and profound study.”
I think there is a good debate waiting to be had about government spending (both federal and provincial) in Canada.
Who among our politicians wants to have that debate?
Where in Parliament are the serious discussions about what makes sense and what doesn't?
In the past (many decades ago now), Canadians believed that Parliament was the place where the people's representatives went to debate policy and pass legislation to improve our lives and to ensure that governance in this country was not about enriching the well-connected at everyone else's expense.
Does anyone believe that today?
And why?
I chalk it up to dysfunctional political parties that do their best to suppress democratic discussion and debate amongst their representatives in Parliament. All for the sake of "message control" and holding on to power.
- - -
It is difficult to imagine that mess leading to serious discussions about our governance.
For the record, I'd be inclined to reconsider how Old Age Pension is managed (when people can start drawing it). Right now, payments to the elderly are a big line item in the federal budget (over CAD 80bn annually).
We might also want to rethink how provincial transfers work, and remove in particular all industrial subsidies.
I'll bet, though, that those kinds of proposals would ignite a fire storm of opposition.
Agreed. I would also chalk it up to media who sensationalize issues and, because of their left wing bias, denunciate conservatives who have a common sense approach to dealing with some of the dysfunction you allude to.
It's interesting you brought up OAS payments, or "welfare for seniors" as I like to call it (much to the chagrin of my socialist relatives). PM Harper had a plan to slowly implement over ten years a change that would have delayed citizens from receiving it until they were 67. At the time, his plan would have affected those born in my birth year the most, and I was fine with his proposal. It made perfect sense. Of course Justin the hero immediately called it "simplistic" and cancelled the change, all for votes and power. Trudeau did the same with Harpers proposed changes to Canada Post which would have made the corporation more viable, and with the purchase of F-35's. Of course Trudeau hypocritically reversed the F-35 purchase decision, once again for votes and power.
Had to laugh that he does sound practically Marxist when he talks about elites using their money to ensure they get even richer at working-class expense. (He literally said "working class", wow.)
Then you realize we never mentioned public sector salaries, or supporting unions, and you think of Doug Ford the successful Conservative, and know what the working-class support would really be.
Notably, he's putting out the same housing strategy as in his (in)famous video, when housing prices are in fact dropping, particularly here in Vancouver, with the existing efforts at zoning and immigration limitations. He should be responding to that, shifting the message with the times.
Way more shifting is going to be needed in a year or so, on the lets-sell-max-carbon strategy. Every pipeline discussion should be started with a question about whether there is investment money for a tar sands expansion needed to fill such a pipeline, without comfort that prices will exceed $65/bbl through 2040. Has the interviewee heard from investors that are eager to start, the only thing holding them back being government? There are analysts saying "no". And spiking oil prices, again, drive away customers - who now have alternatives.
Same with German LNG - he says "they want to buy", but the question has to be "will they commit?" We'd need 10 years of guaranteed sales to pay off his proposed investments, and Europe won't commit.
Very good points.
I wish I was naive enough to believe “it’s as simple as that.”
I give credit to PP for doing a good job of identifying and communicating what are significant challenges facing Canadians today, including the horrendous affordability challenges for younger generations. I agree with much of what he says. But when the conversation turns to his proposed solutions I am left aghast at how poorly thought out they are.