Art, Writing, and Learning: The Clerisy Quarter > Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza

Canadian Politics 2023

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dubsartur:
Just some notes:

The BC forestry industry is in crisis after 150 years of management by people whose only disagreement was how much of the money from cutting down all the trees should go to the workers, and how much to the bosses. The crisis was hurried by climate change which allowed the Mountain Pine Beetle to spread north and eat the pine plantations laid out after clear cutting.  Climate change is also killing the local and imported cedars which need cool summers with some rain not a month or two of no rain. CBC on structural issues CBC on a speech Tyee

The BC salmon fisheries are in trouble too, some people blame parasites spreading from open-tank fish farms, climate change is probably a factor too

A few homeless people in BC are dying because they take shelter in dumpsters and the garbage trucks don't check that anyone is in there before dumping the dumpsters into the compactor

The police have released a bit more information about the twin brothers with semiautomatic rifles who robbed a bank and shot six police officers before dying CBC

Alberta PM Danielle Smith is throwing a temper tantrum that the federal government is preparing a Just Transition Act to help oilfield workers change industries as those jobs go ("what do you mean we can't extract more and more fossil fuels forever?")

And the federal health minister is saying louder and louder "provinces, it would be a really good idea to require people to wear N95 or better masks on public transit and in public indoor spaces" (the PM and co rarely let themselves be seen in a mask any more though; but at events such as Davos there are rigorous infection control measures to keep powerful people safe)

Canadian companies are getting caught up in the fashion for layoffs

Former Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has a book out which says the same things that anyone else who left the Trudeau government unhappily says (that Trudeau does not care about the details of policy just about how something will look or how voters will react).  Moreau was implicated in the We Charity scandal and spent five years as Trudeau's Minister of Finance so give me a policy wonk, lord, but not yet!

And there will be a provincial election in Alberta which will probably end the United Conservative Party government after one term

Edit 2023-01-22: Oh, and a second Liberal cabinet minister got caught hiring a close relative (or a senior advisor's close relative) to do "communications". In this case, its not obvious that the relative provided any services for the money.  The names are Mary Ng and Ahmed Hussen and both are still in Cabinet and in parliament.  If this sounds like the We Charity scandal, where Trudeau gave a large sole-source contract to a scam charity which had paid members of the Trudeau family generous speaking fees, you have a good memory. Global News summary, the figures involved are about $93,000

Edit: and the government of Canada has reached a 3 billion dollar settlement with 325 First Nations over the destruction of lives, language, and culture at the residential schools https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/residential-school-band-class-action-settlement-1.6722014

dubsartur:
A Liberal MP, the former Sport Minister, is criticizing the government for neglecting her push for more protection for athletes against abuse within sports https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/kirsty-duncan-abuse-sport-trudeau-1.6727658 (here is one example of a current scandal, cw: child abuse)

The latest trouble between Daniel Smith and the old media is a report that she tried to interfere with the prosecutor's office during and after the blockade at the border crossing at Coutts which ended in a number of heavily armed individuals being arrested and charged with conspiring to kill police officers https://www.cbc.ca/news/editorsblog/cbc-stands-by-coutts-story-1.6728100

dubsartur:
The federal government has had to withdraw its proposed bill banning new handgun sales after making a series of amendments which broadened it to include a wide range of rifles.  There was pretty wide support for a handgun ban in Parliament (you could debate its merits as a policy) but quite a few Canadians own long guns which can hold more than 5 rounds.  Unfortunately, we are probably not going to follow up on this by collecting and sharing more data about the firearms used in crimes, because nudging the federal bureaucracy into motion is hard and proving how many firearms used in crimes come from the USA could create political difficulties.

Needles to say, Pierre Polievre and the usual suspects in Alberta are gloating.

dubsartur:
John Tory the mayor of Toronto will resign after a newspaper learned that he had an affair with a staffer.  He decided to get ahead of the story by calling a press conference, saying what he had done, and saying that he planned to resign.

Jubal:
Kind of interesting that someone with a conservative political background, as Tory seems to have, was still winning over 60% of the vote in a city as big as Toronto last year: that feels impressive/unusual?

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