Northern disappointments

What's to be done #2 - Canada

I may have mentioned here and there my problem with Justine Trudeau: any time I look at him, but especially when he opens his mouth, I want to puke. Not too many people can do that to me. When finally, some opposition showed up in the person of Pierre Poilievre, I felt relieved for a short time.

He is articulate and can fully understand the incredible harm Trudeau visited on the country, but it did not take me long to realize, that he is not what Canada needs.

It started with a disturbing feeling that he wants the job a little too much, that becoming the prime minister is more important to him then the things that he will have to do and he will be all too ready to compromise to keep the job. That was the problem with Stephen Harper as well, except for the fact that I believed that Harper wanted to keep the job for the benefit of the country, not for his ego.
Then came the apple munching video that went viral. People liked it, I didn’t. I don’t find insolence and arrogance attractive. When he started campaigning, I found his cheap, condescending sloganeering just as irritating as I find Trudeau’s phony, sappy, virtue-signaling word-salads nauseating.

Still, Trudeau was so unpopular that Poilievre’s conservatives had an unprecedented lead in the polls and the betting markets.
Until Mark Carney showed up on the scene:

“This may be one of the most embarrassing electoral reversals of Canadian history. Poilievre was being handed the Prime Minister’s Office on a silver platter, but has already blown a massive lead out of sheer milquetoast cowardice, and so is on track to hand that silver platter back to the Liberals.”
(Source Ukrainada - by John Carter - Postcards From Barsoom)

Canadian Conservatives have a propensity and a history of “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”

Mark Carney is a scary option for Canada, potentially even more harmful than Trudeau was.
Electing him would mean replacing Trudeau’s sentimental, virtue signaling narcissism with Carney’s ruthless ideological dogmatism.

And what is our only option? The milquetoast cockiness of Pierre Poilievre. YES, I am fully aware of the oxymoron, but just think about it.
Carney and Poilievre are in a serious competition yelping at Donald Trump. Like two chihuahuas taking on a big Dane while trying to hide behind their master.

Carney I can understand, as he only wants to continue Trudeau’s destruction of Canada, but seeing Poilievre striking an attitude was a moment of total shock for me. Canada cannot WIN against the US! We can bargain with them. Trump is a deal maker and he can listen to reason. This could have been a golden opportunity for Poilievre even before an election was called. He squandered the opportunity and jeopardized his chances to get elected. Possibly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
Not particularly stateman’s like.

Besides, what can be more pathetic than not getting a joke? The only proper answer to a trash-talk provocation is answering back in kind. He, Poilievre, could have made a joke about helping them, the American rebels, reconcile with their King and rejoin the British Commonwealth. Or just say: yeah, yeah, let’s talk.

Addressing real problems with a good-humored and self-confident attitude, showing readiness to act like the inevitable next leader of Canada would have done wonders to his ratings. Pandering to Canadian insecurities with cocky and bellicose attitude did the opposite.
The biggest miss is that Trump’s economic populism could be the best natural ally to Canadian conservatism. The last person a Canadian Conservative should pick a fight with is Donald Trump.

The only thing Canadian conservatives have is a bunch of tired clichés and empty promises. All of it drenched in a sad sauce of endless whining about the liberals and garnished with sloganeering. No vision. No plans. No real change. The only argument Canadian Conservatives seem to have is that they are NOT liberals.

What makes Trump stand apart is his straightforward honesty and his obvious desire to fix America. However big his ego is, he wanted the job to get the job done. However erratic he may seem to be, he has a vision. Very specific goals, policies and implementation plans.
Better still, he has a team to do it with. A team that is on-board with the vision and the plan.

Poilievre is running alone. I see no sign of team-play. I cannot name a single person that is around him, let alone supporting him and loyal to him. Trump have the X-men team, Poilievre does not even have a Robin to slap around. What am I saying??? He doesn’t even have a Beavis to his Butthead.

Trump understands the culture wars. Poilievre may do too, but I doubt that he has the balls to act on that understanding. Just like with anything else.

Cost of living, affordability, housing shortage, public and private debt crisis, are not problems, they are just symptoms of underlying causes, which are:
Too much immigration, too much regulation, too much borrowing, too much government spending, bloated bureaucracies, dysfunctional politics and we could go on.

These problems cannot be solved without some sacrifice and pain. They cannot be addressed without some honest talk about them.
Change is not impossible, but it requires a leader with a vision, a plan and determination.

• What Canada needs is a radical reform to limit spending

• What Canada needs is radical reduction (~50%) of government jobs

• What Canada needs is its own version of DOGE to rout-out corruption

• What Canada needs is a serious decentralization of power

• Like Russia, Canada is, and should be a resource economy.
  What Canada needs is to set that economic Godzilla finally free.

What Canada really needs is:

• A proper constitution and legal system.
  The Canadian Charter of rights is worse than a joke. It’s not funny.
  Canada has several legal systems working in parallel: a mishmash of provincial and federal laws, British-style common law in the English provinces, Civil Code in Quebec, Charter law, Indigenous legal Traditions, Human rights tribunals (a.k.a. kangaroo courts), municipal bylaws and a gazillion legally enforceable regulations.
  It needs to be sorted out.

• A new framework for federalism
  A rethinking of the relationship between the provinces and the federal government that minimizes the corrosive influence of the federal government on the provinces.
  The provinces should have absolute freedom over everything under their jurisdiction such as social security, healthcare, welfare and education. That should obviously mean no federal money and no federal regulation for any of them. Private options should be allowed for each.

• Equalization payments are distorting the economy with big winners like Quebec and losers like Alberta. The transfers must end, which leads to a most important need:

• A velvet divorce from Quebec.
  Its outsized influence is a drag on federal politics and they want to leave anyway. Having all institutions duplicated, they are perfectly prepped for it.
  Let them keep their French style civil laws and their corrupt, dysfunctional socialism.
  Let them also learn what it’s like to pay for it. The referendum over the divorce should be national, not just in Quebec.

• Settling once and for all our relationship with Canadian natives.
  Settling all land-claims with a clear understanding that they have to chose between the land and welfare.

• A Senate reform
  … to create a system similar to the (original) American idea of Senators elected by state/provincial/territorial legislatures, a set number from each province (and territory?)

• Simplifying the Income tax laws, or better yet, eliminate it entirely. (Replacing it with tariffs, royalties and/or a higher sales tax.)

• Cancellation of ANY kind, but especially agricultural of subsidies.

• The building of a proper energy transport infrastructure.

• There is talk about the possibility, depending on the outcome of the next federal election, of a referendum in Alberta about seceding from Canada and possibly even joining the United States. If that happens, the rest of Canada will fall apart. Avoiding such outcome would require the kind of politicians we don’t have.

What Canada also needs is a complete rethinking of Canada’s place on the globe.

• Full separation from the British empire. No king, no governor.

• Leaving NATO and suggesting a new North American Treaty Organization with Canada, USA Mexico and Greenland.

• In the same way, instead of becoming the 51^st state, suggesting an EU like customs union with the US and possibly Mexico and even post-communist Cuba; meaning the free movements of all goods and labor. It’s not simple, but would provide enormous benefits. The dealmaker-in-chief may even like the idea.

• It would also help cutting ties with most of the International organizations like the WHO, WTO, UN, etc.

We could come up with a few other ideas, but the point is that substantial changes are never part of the political discourse. None of it is difficult to understand, but all I can see is a political class that is sleepwalking into the abyss. The world is changing……..

I was not born in Canada but for a long time I argued that I am more Canadian than most, because I am Canadian by choice, not by the accident of birth. I grew up reading and re-reading the five books of James Fenimore Cooper, the short stories of Stephen Leacock and the wilderness adventures of Grey Owl; all the while listening to Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. Somehow, I found the Canadian wilderness frontier spirit more appealing than the gun-slinging American Wild-West bravado.

The Canada that I wanted to be part of is gone. Proud self reliance is gone.
Freedom has been replaced by the free lunch. As I am writing this, the election has been called and every candidate is promising just more free lunch. Canadians do not want to be great; they want to be comfortable.
They don’t want freedom; they want free stuff.

The things Canada is doing to its citizens today is far worse than what communism did to me and my family. If Canada keeps going in the same direction, it will only get worse.

There are only two Canadian politicians I know of that I can consider authentic:
Daniel Smith and Maxim Bernier. The first is not running, the second has no chance to be heard as he is completely shunned by the establishment parties.

For now, I will vote Bernier because he is the most authentic and trustworthy.
(if I can, as I am not sure that he has a full roster).
I also hope that Poilievre will win and prove me wrong.

But I am not holding my breath.
I feel betrayed by the Canadian culture I came here to embrace.
I feel trapped with no acceptable options. I am bitterly disappointed.
I blame the Canadian electorate. They voted the virtue signaling narcissist idiot into office THREE TIMES!!!

America’s greatest conman, the Yellow kid Joseph Weil said:

“I never cheated an honest man. They wanted something for nothing, I gave them nothing for something”

That is the essence of the free lunch, that is the essence of politics.

In the end, Canada will deserve what it gets, but what did I do to deserve it?
Politics is personal.

More from here

The real liars

More from elsewhere

Both of these are essential reads.

Ukrainada

Canada Is A Failed State and Mark Carney is BlackRock's Bankruptcy Trustee

References

Jordan Peterson: Mark Carney doesn't value a prosperous and free Canada | National Post
This is also an essential read to understand the dangers Mark Carney represents to the future of Canada. If you follow any link from this post, this is the one you must pick.

Justin Trudeau’s legacy—record-high spending and massive debt | Fraser Institute

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Another liberal government could destroy Canada