wampus

Programs like OAS are given to the rich, because they're old. Questioning the legitimacy of 'old' and/or 'married' as being qualifiers for targeted aid, and instead implying that benefits should be given to 'poor people' no matter their age or marital status as per the charter's tenants, fits with your rebuttal. A rebuttal which didn't address the questions.

Silly question, but can someone explain how things like OAS and other 'age' defined benefits fit with the Charter's protection against discrimination due to age? Likewise tax benefits given to married folks, as the charter supposedly protects against discrimination there?

I mean, it's listed as a protected characteristic just like race. So wouldn't something like saying "Let's give old retired people a bunch of money" be similar in terms of violated charter rights, as saying "Let's give white people a bunch of money"? ie.... wrong and against supposedly 'protected' charter rights? Even how CPP tiers the amounts you get depending on if you take it at 60, 65, or 70 seems like it'd run counter to charter rights... ?

*just an edit to clarify protection against discrimination based on marital status is seemingly in the human rights act, not charter, but still a protected area...

Yeah, it all seems really wobbly. Like one of their notes related to using public lands for building initiatives, though it wasn't clear if that just means .... like selling off the parks in Vancouver to developers, or government-subsidized planned neighbourhoods around smaller towns to try and spread our population out (praying that jobs would somehow follow), or what.

I admit, if I could find a way to move to a more remote location, that still had necessities like medical services, and I'd get a functional, easy to maintain, eco friendly / eco resilient type of detached property, I'd be interested.... the costs on that sort of thing are really quite high though. And shaving like $50k off the top of that cost isn't really gonna do much to help with affordability, when you're talking about housing costing millions.

Well, the liberal plan is already including a chunk of red tape removal -- the criticism is more about having a large public institution overtly shifting market trends, especially as the intention appears to have it be both lender, and builder. They're right to note that there's potential conflicts, and that govt programs typically aren't about 'efficiency' in terms of service delivery.

My napkin math is terrible, and the different amounts noted for different programs is a bit unclear to me in terms of what amounts the govt intends to invest directly by building housing vs how much its just going to try and subsidize builders.

Canada's already got a Trump-negotiated trade agreement. CUSMA / Nafta v2. So we know how reliable a Trump trade agreement is.

The Ontario auto sector folks are milking this a ton, and our Govt seems to not be registering what they're explicitly saying -- and are eating it up. The govt is busy putting tariffs on the viable EVs of today because the Auto industry floated a piece of total vapourware, that they openly admit even in this article is not a prototype for production, but rather a "platform" to show off the sub-component manufacturers and what they can do.

You can't put any weight in the $35k 2029 type claims, as there's no intention to make this car from any manufacturer / business / the project leads. They aren't even trying to sell the whole car, but just the individual bits that go into it, in business to business interactions -- not business to consumer. If there were an actual business case that showed you could mass produce these cars in Canada at a profit, it'd get picked up and done. But it's not.

This project being used to get our govt to block things like BYD, is looking more and more like how Musk used a vapour project like Hyperloop to derail high speed mass transit options in the USA, which would've competed with Tesla for eco friendly transport options. Using the Arrow, the niche auto manufacturer companies in Ontario, who are all intimately tied to US company interests, is able to block non-US companies from competing fairly in Canada's market.

Albertans should use the lowered threshold to get referendums to get a referendum on exiling Danielle Smith.

When the Nazi's came to power in Germany, they had less support amongst the public than the republicans do today.

If you think it fair to hold all of Nazi germany accountable for the atrocities that went on, there's no reason to pretend America is some "special" exception. Germans take responsibility for their past, with things like banning AFD -- even if a German can legit say "It wasn't me gassing those jews", they still recognise they were responsible for what occurred as a result of their inaction and apathy. In the US, like 30% of them didn't even bother to show up and vote. Apathy is no excuse, and not worthy of absolution. They literally elected a felon and a rapist.

Regardless, I still stick by the reduction in visits and the on going boycotts aren't about making them "realise our value" or whatever. It's a visceral recoil experienced on an aggregate scale, to the vitriolic bile being spewed by the people they elected, targeted quite literally at all of us here in Canada. If someone vomits on you constantly, you move the fuck away -- and it isn't about "wanting to make them miss you". It's about the vomit.

I agree with a chunk of this, but your note about 'reminding them at large of our value' is off. Most people I talk to here in Canada look at the issues in the states as basically untenable in terms of stability / trade / geopolitical unity. Supporting Russia, attacking their allies/threatening to militarily annex peaceful democratic areas like greenland, putting up BS reasons for trade tariffs (fent). The USA is a schizo trade partner at best, where for 4 years with the dems it may be 'normal', but when it flips repub its suddenly xenophobic dictator land, with less stability in its agreements than a third world military dictatorship -- at least those deals tend to last until the next coup, whereas Trumps agreements change based on his dementia; his administration has become comfortable with making up totally fake numbers even, which can change based on how they want to present the fake narrative about why they're doing whatever stupid crap they're doing. And there's no assurance it'll go back to a 'stable' dem setup for four years next time around -- the way it's trending, the dems will be locked up, with all their funding methods declared unamerican by EO, similar to the shakedown of the law firms that's happened recently as reported by 60 minutes.

If you live next to a family in a mansion, and they suddenly start flying a Nazi flag, beating/deporting their own maintenance staff (sometimes their own family too, by mistake), and screaming about how they're gonna take your house, you don't pull back on visiting as a way to 'remind them' of your value. You pull back because WTF, no. And if you can't move, and they were your main contact locally, you start lookin for other friends / buying guns and protection. Again, not to remind them of your value, but because fuck no.

As a non US person seeing this clip, all I can think is.... this isn't a surprise at all, the tariff stuff is basically blatant violation of existing trade agreements, being done based on Trumps whims without real justification. Him doing the same 'locally' is just more of the same.

Western alienation has been around for decades and decades.

It's difficult to consider something a threat, when it's become the status quo.

While I think they should decouple from Microsoft / US tech giants, I don't think there's a realistic hope in hell of it happening. This is why they have that 'easily or affordably' caveat in the announcement. They say they'll leave it to govt agencies to figure out if its easy / affordable to do.

So somewhere like BC's Financial Services Authority (the gov agency that oversees provincial credit unions, realtors, insurance companies), which stuck all of their stuff into Microsoft's Cloud, and retains a skeleton crew in terms of IT support staff (part of their public RFP for sticking things in the cloud, was admitting that fact).... will simply say it's too difficult and/or costly to decouple from their perspective. And they'll leave all that government regulatory stuff exposed to the US and the risk of services being cut off summarily as part of trade deterioration / extortion. It's grimly entertaining to acknowledge that our own government regulators are so dependant on the USA's services, that they can't function without them: it lends credence to the crap Trump says, frankly. He could practically 'turn off' our financial regulators by forcing Microsoft to deny service.

I'm pretty confident the government isn't "that" serious about any of this stuff. I've written to both my provincial and federal reps asking specifically about whether Microsoft / Tech-giant type subscriptions would be on the cutting board, and none of them want to commit to anything. They'll openly rip up any Elon contract though, because those are in fashion / a more obvious supporter of the stuff goin on down south -- and its a lot simpler to 'not build' something, than it is to alter existing stuff.