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Canada PoliERA |OT| Two Years of Sunny Days? That’s Scheer Madness!
- Thread starter Caz
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NDP, or at least their supporters, seem to have a penchant for painting with broad strokes. It's hard to imagine a lot of the NDP supporting youth want things like student debt forgiveness, etc. for reasons that aren't "selfish".
What is considered as middle class in Canada? Earning at least $40,000/year for a single person? How about for household? $80,000?
Probably. But those fat cats earning 80k/household are so selfish /s.
Look at Scheer's election plan:
People who already have jobs, a house(lol) but "aren't getting ahead".
Targeting the people who already have a lot but aren't getting more.
Classic target audience for conservatives.
Future NDP voters right?
Their top concern is they're not any closer to getting that Mercedes since Trudeau got elected.
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Give me a break. It's not all about Mercedes' and lavish luxuries. It's about "not getting ahead" when you have a mortgage, car payment, and two kids, etc.
I'm not looking into the CPC election platform because I already know it will be a steaming pile of shit but including the middle class in with all the "selfish" rich folk is a sure fire way for the NDP to deny themselves water to out the fire at their HQ.
I'm not looking into the CPC election platform because I already know it will be a steaming pile of shit but including the middle class in with all the "selfish" rich folk is a sure fire way for the NDP to deny themselves water to out the fire at their HQ.
I'm in the same boat.
Selfish is probably the wrong word to use.
I'm just saying when that's people's top concern, an NDP platform isn't going to get much traction, as it's not seen as doing anything for people struggling with the cost of living.
Ah, gotcha. Maybe I misread the tone of your post then because we seem to be in agreement. The NDP really need to hone their messaging into something that seems more inclusive rather than condescending. I'm all for paying more taxes for services for everyone, but the vast majority of my coworkers wouldn't be. We live the majority of the year hundreds of km away from our friends and families working 70-100+ hours a week. The money is great, but it certainly isn't all rainbows and unicorns so a more compelling talking point than "they can afford to pay more" is obviously pretty important.
It's also a somewhat difficult topic because each party seems to have a different idea of who the middle class is. NDP realize they aren't that well off, Liberals play it off like the middle class is 80% of people, and CPC tries to cast a wide net with the term but if you read between the lines are consistently talking about fairly affluent families (the type who max their TFSA and RRSP without making any real sacrifices while simultaneously feeling like they "aren't getting ahead").
Most folks benefit from NDP policies unless they're making big 6 figures.
From the platform:
Even your typical upper middle class 6 figure earning family isn't going to be negatively impacted by that. The most significant impact would be the cap gains tax changes, but most middle class people will have the bulk of their investments in RRSPs and TFSAs which are shielded from cap gains taxes.
Meanwhile most of the social benefits the NDP are proposing benefit upper middle class 6 figure earning Canadians just as much as they benefit the poorest.
Eg (having a glance at https://www.ndp.ca/affordability) .
From the platform:
Even your typical upper middle class 6 figure earning family isn't going to be negatively impacted by that. The most significant impact would be the cap gains tax changes, but most middle class people will have the bulk of their investments in RRSPs and TFSAs which are shielded from cap gains taxes.
Meanwhile most of the social benefits the NDP are proposing benefit upper middle class 6 figure earning Canadians just as much as they benefit the poorest.
Eg (having a glance at https://www.ndp.ca/affordability) .
- Prescription drug care for everyone (yes many currently have this through their company, but universal pharmacare would reduce costs on companies too. Ask for a bonus.)
- Eliminating interest rates on student loans
- Childcare investment
- Cheap cell phone plans (lmao)
You're absolutely correct.
But the conservatives and the media act like everyone will only pay more taxes and only poor freeloaders in welfare will benefit.
And NDP does little to fight that narrative.
LOL, I mean, I make 90K per year cause I'm selfish. Not because I worked had to get a graduate degree off of my mom's hair dresser income.
It's funny how quick we turn on each other when we finally achieve the modicum of success we're trying to give to each other. Maybe one day I'll get my Mercedez instead of my rusting shitbox of a Ford I got on sale.
I say again, what kind of a politcal party does the NDP want to be, or the supporters for that matter? And who are they trying to attract?
Until someone solves crab mentality we are doomed.
The right wing divides society, making it impossible to pass policy that's beneficial to many if not all.
Dog whistles like "old stock Canadians" take it a step further.
They don't have to divide society. They just have to divide the left.
Exactly. And when people lump the middle class in with the "selfish people who don't pull their weight" they're really just insulting people who are barely more successful than they are, and far and away from being the 1%. The average Canadian family is pretty fucking broke from my point of view and I would never raise children on the median income in this country.
My partner has a white collar job in finance and she does fairly well. I currently work O&G. I drive a ten year old vehicle. My only debt is a mortgage. We make conscious decisions to be frugal and to invest. We live apart for a large chunk of the year, and we are making sacrifices like that now with the intent of having life easier later (not to mention to weather my inevitable career change, which shouldn't be difficult because of the way we plan and save).
As I said before, I'm willing to pay higher taxes, but I can't agree with the notion that I don't currently carry my own weight. I don't have any complicated tax shelter techniques; I contribute to an RRSP annually, and make charitable donations. That's it.
If the NDP want to learn how to get a message out and can broaden their support instead of continually plunging I'm all for it, but maybe they should take a page out of the Liberal campaign playbook because working hard for the middle class and those working hard to join it sounds a lot better to most people than the (unfair) spin that gets put on anything orange that lazy jobless people and university kids feel entitled to everything and that working people will have to pay for it. I realize that isn't the case for what the NDP goal is but they're tarred and feathered pretty heavily. The current political climate makes me pretty worried about what society will be like when automation is far more prevalent and climate refugees inevitably make their way north.
The NDP needs to get good at messaging (lmao releasing their platform on Fathers Day) but we gotta recognize the reality that the entire media and business apparatus is against them and actively tries to hold them down. We saw this in play for decades in BC provincial politics, where incredible media concentration (both major papers Vancouver Sun and tabloid Province owned by the National Post) was leveraged to constantly raise the spectre of the 'terrible 90s era NDP' which would 'destroy the economy' 'fast ferries etc'. Of course once the BC NDP squeaked into power none of this foreseen awful events occurred and BC remains the shining star of the best economy in Canada.
This is a difficult place to be in and a challenge to work against. IMO the only way the NDP will ever succeed is by getting their message out through a mass movement that bypasses the typical mainstream media. Unfortunately in this election just as the last the NDP seem to be sleep walking through the motions, with some sad notion that if they simply put out a really, really good platform and do everything right, the media will surely give them a fair shake and people will suddenly start listening to them this time around.
It's not gonna happen!
The "middle class and those working hard to join it" framing by the Liberals is a sort of masterstroke in that it absolves the Liberal party from ever having to have any discussion about class at all. The phrase creates this illusion that all Canadians are basically in the same lot. Those that are struggling are simply temporarily embarrassed middle classers. There's certainly no structural inequalities that divide us no sir.
In reality I'm pretty sure that the folks in poverty camping out in Oppenheimer Park in Vancouver are not 'working hard to join the middle class' but rather struggling for their next meal and any basic decency of living at all. The young professional class in Vancouver that now finds themselves spending more than a third on their income on simply renting in Vancouver and which have been priced out of any ownership at all whatsoever, are not 'working hard to join the middle class' they've been kicked down a notch out of the middle class and had to accept a dramatically worse lifestyle than their parents had due to choices the current and previous Liberal and Conservative governments have made. Throwing everyone in the mushy middle class bin allows all these hard topics to be evaded and not discussed.
What about the upper class with enormous wealth? Hm well let's not talk about them either....
Well that's on the NDP to an extent. They need to do whatever it takes to take power and then do good once they've achieved that. Other parties aren't afraid to lie their asses off.
The vast majority of the country doesn't give even half a shit about housing costs in Vancouver or homeless people in general. East of Vancouver nobody will vote specifically for anything that alleviates house pricing pressure outside of maybe the Golden Horseshoe (maybe?). I'm confident a large amount of people would say "pack your shit and move because you aren't entitled to live in Vancouver anymore than anyone is entitled to live in Manhattan".
As for homeless people; they are a marginalized community that won't get people to the ballot box. Sadly, I'm sure there are those (CPC) that actively vote against "handouts". It's hard enough to find ways to convince people to care about Indigenous issues it seems like, and a not-insignificant voting block is against any sort of ongoing reparations and improvements in their QoL period.
Elections are dirty things and it's not time to tell plainspoken truth when the writ drops, because the Liberals and CPC won't. Provincial politics has shown recently that the less you say the better; people can project their own ideas onto a blank canvas.
The vast majority of the country doesn't give even half a shit about housing costs in Vancouver or homeless people in general. East of Vancouver nobody will vote specifically for anything that alleviates house pricing pressure outside of maybe the Golden Horseshoe (maybe?). I'm confident a large amount of people would say "pack your shit and move because you aren't entitled to live in Vancouver anymore than anyone is entitled to live in Manhattan".
As for homeless people; they are a marginalized community that won't get people to the ballot box. Sadly, I'm sure there are those (CPC) that actively vote against "handouts". It's hard enough to find ways to convince people to care about Indigenous issues it seems like, and a not-insignificant voting block is against any sort of ongoing reparations and improvements in their QoL period.
Elections are dirty things and it's not time to tell plainspoken truth when the writ drops, because the Liberals and CPC won't. Provincial politics has shown recently that the less you say the better; people can project their own ideas onto a blank canvas.
NDP need to speak directly to the people and bypass media.
Sanders does it.
Even FDR did this back in the day.
Singh doesn't have it in him to connect with people directly.
He's just sort of there
Sanders is doing it by dragging the party left, like the "squad". They have no real power otherwise. I'd be fine with the NDP dissolving and the party membership infecting the Liberals at this point and dragging them left, but I don't see that happening.
The left doesn't have the luxury of being able to sell believable lies though. That's the big issue. As we are increasingly facing cuts at different levels coast to coast it's really difficult to sell ideas requiring huge amount of funding while pretending there won't be fiscal consequences for the "middle class". As soon as you start to announce your ideas your opponents will label them as more or less a tax increase which is a stigma for the public or at the very least will be seen as a burden to the economy.
With an ever approaching recession be ready for quite a different campaign this fall.
As for Singh it seems like a lost cause. He isn't charismatic and he seems out of the loop on major issues. His reveal interview where he boasted about his love for luxury and his million dollar home in Toronto was quite the misfire for the leader of a socialist party. The whole debacle about him showing up at radical Sikh's rallies and requiring an ungodly amount of time to explain was just another issues that shouldn't have been if they had vetted him up properly or got rid of the issue upfront.
The NDP will be faced with another issue when he crash and burn though. Who will want to take over the party's ruins?
With an ever approaching recession be ready for quite a different campaign this fall.
As for Singh it seems like a lost cause. He isn't charismatic and he seems out of the loop on major issues. His reveal interview where he boasted about his love for luxury and his million dollar home in Toronto was quite the misfire for the leader of a socialist party. The whole debacle about him showing up at radical Sikh's rallies and requiring an ungodly amount of time to explain was just another issues that shouldn't have been if they had vetted him up properly or got rid of the issue upfront.
The NDP will be faced with another issue when he crash and burn though. Who will want to take over the party's ruins?
To be fair, he's right in that there is racism in the media because everyone seems to have forgiven Scheer for being friends white nationalists and Nazis.
This is an example of the media bias in a nutshell. How did the Liberal party pay for its promises? It didn't of course. This current government simply went into massive deficit and the media didn't bat an eye.
Only the NDP is ever held to the standard of have any sort of viable long term fiscal plan, and when they present one, which of course necessarily includes some form of new revenue, they're accordingly attacked for the audacity of the idea of new taxes, as if the middle class would ever pay them (they wouldn't).
I would always be admonished on the old site for thinking that the third party is irrelevant by a former mod (lol), but I just think the NDP is at best an interesting protest party.
The problem is that the Liberals can just steal their socialist message to win elections and then go on to enact Conservative policies, and voters are happy to buy that message, so it is what it is.
For example, I would honestly be shocked if Canada had a national pharmacare policy if the Liberals win another mandate, despite the fact that they stole it from the NDP to take away one of their bigger potential election planks.
He's dragging the party left but he was running rallies and explaining socialist policies to the voters.
He'd never have anywhere near the amount of support if he let the MSM do the talking for him.
If Singh really believed in this, he'd be engaging the voterbase directly.
The problem is that I don't think there's anywhere for the NDP to grow. The fact that Quebec was just an artificial protest vote proved that (and trying to be a "federalist-sovereigntist" party under Mulcair did them no favours).
Maybe the NDP can win back some Toronto ridings, like Jack's and Olivia's old ridings, but that doesn't really do anything to the electoral math. There's no path to government since there is a natural ceiling to left-wing support in Canada.
Well if you want to discuss the NDP ceiling in Canada that's another issue but consider:
- How many people vote Liberal because they're ABC voters (like me)
- How many people think NDP would just raise taxes and inflate the deficit and be fiscally irresponsible?
I'd say the ceiling is fairly low right now but NDP should have been playing the long game and working to expand it. Layton did better.
The entire capitalist system will work together to destroy any uptick in socialism, you have to fight against that which is hard but your ceiling is artificially low.
The only other scenario is a massive collapse like the Great Depression which is how FDR got in.
Either capitalism collapses or you educate the people on how rigged the system is against them. You can't just go out every 4 years and run a lukewarm campaign and shrug your shoulders when you get 15% of the vote.
Of course if/when the system collapses the right will go full fascist(which is where the USA is at).
Repeating myself from the last page here but the popularity of Sanders and AOC shows there's heaps of room for them to grow because the fundamental message is appealing. Their individual policies (eg. wealth tax) poll insanely well.
If we're literally just looking at this upcoming election then the growth areas that will be focused on are definitely the GTA and urban areas in Atlantic Canada. It's basically inconceivable that a progressive city like old Toronto would not throw a few seats of support toward a Social Democratic Party like the NDP and so that has to change.
There's also support to be grown in areas of rural Canada where indigenous peoples have been under served by previous governments.
Quebec support is not likely to expand in the near future or at least not via the route that the NDP under Layton lucked into. If NPD support increases it will be by leveraging the growing Quebec Solidaire base.
I don't think there's a near term path to a majority, which would require securing significant in roads in suburban Canada, but the NDP could make an impact in forcing a minority government that requires their support.
If we're literally just looking at this upcoming election then the growth areas that will be focused on are definitely the GTA and urban areas in Atlantic Canada. It's basically inconceivable that a progressive city like old Toronto would not throw a few seats of support toward a Social Democratic Party like the NDP and so that has to change.
There's also support to be grown in areas of rural Canada where indigenous peoples have been under served by previous governments.
Quebec support is not likely to expand in the near future or at least not via the route that the NDP under Layton lucked into. If NPD support increases it will be by leveraging the growing Quebec Solidaire base.
I don't think there's a near term path to a majority, which would require securing significant in roads in suburban Canada, but the NDP could make an impact in forcing a minority government that requires their support.
Given where the world is right now, this is basically how the world is adapting to the slow failure of neoliberal economic policy and capitalism. The message isn't that the system is failing the people, it's that external influences are dragging down our middle class way of life and we need to "protect ourselves" in order to maintain our white picket fences and two SUV lifestyles.
Like if the UK does have a general election before the Brexit deadline and the choice is between BoJo screaming RULE BRITANNIA and Commie Corbyn, all signs point to another Conservative win (albeit likely a minority).
It's going to come down between socialism and fascism eventually.
Left wingers let the right wing define the narrative. You need people like AOC and Sanders who can cut through the bullshit. Capitalists own the media and set the narrative.
I think you'd need a left wing populist at this point to expand your voters and break through the right wing think tank propaganda and media BS.
Singh is no champion of the cause unfortunately.
I don't think it's all that surprising that Toronto is mostly an orange Liberal town in aggregate, particularly given how people are being priced out. I mean we're about to give Google a big part of the waterfront to let them do with as they wish, so... yeah. lol
There might be something here because I do remember that CBC story where support for Trudeau and the Liberals has dropped significantly, but they end up more like me - completely disaffected and thinking that the system as a whole is a failure rather than seeing an alternative to vote form. Here's where I think a new leader would definitely be a win.
I don't know enough about Quebec to know if there's a socialist base there that is also federalist and will resist things like the ban on religious symbols. I just assume there isn't based on the provincial politics of parties like QS (who I guess I would align with the most if I lived in Quebec and didn't care if Quebec stayed in Canada or not lol).
Our system is so weird that at the moment, even if there was a strong socialist voice that garnered support, both parties could effectively govern without listening to them. You basically have to pray for a BC situation where it's so close that they would effectively need a coalition government.
It's interesting, as far as I can tell, NB's government is effectively governing Harper-style, standing alone despite not having a majority and not working directly with any other party (I assume they can't work with the PAP because they are anti-bilingualism). I have no idea how long that government will last, but I assume if the next federal government is a minority, that is how they will govern for at least 2 years.
Boutique tax credits lol.
I saw a truck today covered in PPC shit and became unusually angry. I honestly felt sick looking at it.
John Tory wanted to use government money to fund private religious schools and it was one of the reasons he lost to McGuinty in 2007
Tax credits is just as stupid
Tax credits is just as stupid
The LPC lead in Ontario is getting large enough at this point that PP and raitt will likely lose their seats on election night.Also I think graves has the CPC at around 115-125 seats at the moment nationally.
No joke. The thought of PP losing his seat floats my boat.
Edit: get ready for the "rigged" word to get thrown around if the EKOS poll holds out. Mind you it's one poll and should be taking in consideration other polls.
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Doubtful. Steven Harper was one of the largest proponents of Proportional Representation... Before he got elected. The Conservative track record on this is as bad, if not worse than the Liberals
If that rat fuck weasel bastard loses his seat I'll cry tears of joy. Raitt being gone would be the icing on the cake.
Yep, I know the reality of the situation but I'll keep my fingers crossed.
They'll do the same as the Liberals, make a big deal of it then shut up once they win a majority in another election.
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