Senate The Canadian Politics Thread

That's very understandable, and I can't imagine how badly not being able to see her mother in the midst of all this must feel for her. However, I'm assuming your mom is likely in her 40s-60s-, with your grandmother in her 60s-90s. That puts both of them at greater risk from COVID, particularly your grandmother. That risk should be taken into account. End of the day, we're just people on a forum offering our opinions. This will have to be a frank conversation between you and your family, one where you should all seriously consider and discuss the risks involved, and weigh the pros/cons of going.

I apologize if I'm overstepping in any way here. If you choose to go, as Empress said, I'm sure you'll do so responsibly.

 

Oh I agree and I have told her as such. She won’t listen. I think it’s because my grandmother’s cancer diagnosis spooked my mother even though the doctors said she won’t be killed by the cancer as it is very slow moving. I don’t think there is a way to stop her now. So I might as well go to make sure no one does anything stupid or rash. Like hugging people.

 

The anti-federal-COVID alert stance was ridiculous in my opinion. Quebec's provincial government was planning to create its own app, but then decided to ask the population's opinion, through an online survey, on the app before creating one, wasting a lot of time, until they decided to make a 180 degrees turn and ask the population to install the federal app on their phones last week. I've already installed the app on my phone. I can understand the concerns regarding breaching people's personal lives, but according to what I've understood, the app doesn't work like a GPS tracker, but rather uses Bluetooth signals between phones. Asian countries as Taiwan, Japan and South Korea didn't waste any time asking their people to install their own apps, as early as February and March, I believe, which helped a lot in containing the spread of the virus there.

And to show how harmful this pandemic and the lockdowns can be on people on other levels, combined with the governement's confusing messages, a recent study by the University of Sherbrooke, in Quebec, has been made showing the deep impacts on people's psychology and mental health: in Montreal, around 20% of people suffer from anxiety, depression and other mental health issues since the beginning of the pandemic, and 37% of young people (between 18 and 35 years old) are having those issues, especially when those young people are losing their jobs, especially their part-time jobs when they still have to pay for their rent when studying (despite the government's aid), can no longer meet their friends and families and only have to stay online for university classes or working... These were results that have never been seen before in the province of Quebec, with such a large amount of people facing mental health issues... I also felt the same anxiety and stress for a while as well, when starting to lose motivation and easily losing my patience towards any issues around me...

 

This app is probably safer than Facebook when it comes to personal infodata. I do not understand the current fear-mongering by QS and PQ on this one. I think it stems from a "federal=bad" equation in their heads, frankly.

The confinement has affected people badly. Always having to be careful when you go out, getting used to all of these restrictions, work and personal lives on hold for many. I also got irritated like crazy during the confinement in NB. I'm a clear introvert, but not being to go out for a coffee really effed with my system.

 

Happy Thanksgiving // Bonne Action de grâce

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Bonne Action de Grâce!

On other news, a consular team from the Canadian embassy in mainland China has finally got the authorization to contact Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor after many months: https://hongkongfp.com/2020/10/12/c...lieved-by-virtual-visit-in-chinese-detention/

 

So, it seems that Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor won't be the only hostages. On a news conference this Thursday, Chinese ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, appeared to threaten the well-being of Canadian citizens who are currently living in Hong-Kong, after Canada's decision to offer asylum to Hong-Kong people who are trying to flee the city after the implementation of the new national security law by Beijing.

Those comments from the Chinese ambassador angered Canada's foreign minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Erin O’Toole, who asked the ambassador to apologize or being expelled from Canada.

All of this turmoil and further deterioration of diplomatic relations between the two countries come at the same moment as this year marks the 50 years anniversary since Canada established diplomatic ties with the People's Republic of China on the mainland under former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father.

Very disturbing way to celebrate an anniversary...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...es-veiled-threat-to-hong-kong-based-canadians

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-china-after-threat-to-canadians-in-hong-kong

 

This is another example showing how Canada's treatment of its indigenous population is just as ****** as its neighbor and another reminder that Canada is not and has never been the symbol of tolerance it claims to be. So much for reconciliation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/world/canada/nova-scotia-lobster-war.html

 

I just got across the Canadian border. Thought things would be harder at the border. Took us 3 minutes. They didn’t even ask us about our quarantine plan.

Just thought you guys might be interested to hear what it was like to cross the border during Covid

 

That’s vaguely alarming. A writer for I believe The Atlantic crossed back in July, and in his article on the experience he said that they asked him. It’s unfortunate that after 3.5 months that seems to have changed.

Regardless, I hope you and your family stay safe.

 

I think most people who don’t care about quarantine are scared into place by the possibility of prison if they break it. Or the 750k fine. We are heading up a bit north of Toronto. Hopefully I don’t go insane in the next two weeks.

 

Incident at Québec city. Blade-wielding man dressed in medieval clothing -samurai- killed 2 people and injured others. Police stationed near the Québec parliamentary Assembly. Victims appear to be spread out. Suspect in mid twenties and in hypothermia state. Nothing else is known at this stage.

 

Just an update for my quarantine in Canada. The government called us to make sure we got to our destination and have been following the rules.

However I don’t think anyone will come check on us from the government, they probably have way more pressing people than us especially because we are at a property with a bit of land plus we are in a town with nearly no people.

My guess is that they are more concerned with people stating closer to the cities

But this is definitely the longest I will ever stay on a single property without leaving. Even though we have some land to walk around on it still is extremely boring. At least I am not stuck in an apartment or house in Toronto. I think I would have gone insane.

 

@Ancient Whills it's appalling what happened, and not shocking givin we went through this twenty years ago at Burnt Church when the Mi'kmaq were trying to assert their treaty rights.

And of course the RCMP has done **** all.

Much like the Wet'suwet'en pipeline protests from the before-Corona times there's a feeling of inevitability to this. The Supreme Court made a ruling (Marshall I and Marshall II on the East Coast and Delgamuukw in BC) and the government spent decades not truly dealing with the ramifications of what those decisions mean until something bubbles over into violence.

 

Anyone else here wants Biden to win just so Trudeau can stop using Trump as a useful political comparison to make himself look better? I'm looking forward to a diminished Trudeau, a one-term Biden presidency, a crushed Republican party, and saner politics.

 

I don't really dislike Trudeau, but I do not love him either. I would like to see his policies reflect his promises more often than not, and I would like to see fewer idiotic gaffs and scandals, but I don't want to see him diminished if it results in a CPC power grab. I don't trust Erin O'Toole to not do a decent amount of damage to the country, and I don't think we'll get saner politics out of a government led by him.

I would however like to see the NDP and Green Party gain more influence in the trajectory of the federal government, and would give my left arm for the Republican Party to collapse under its own weight. My single biggest fear right now is the aftermath of Trump losing leading to an even more hostile and unhinged Republican Party and conservative American electorate, and that alt-right toxicity continuing to seep over the northern border. More people like Jason Kenney are not needed.

 

I started out being "meh" about Trudeau but I've grown to dislike him over the years. Especially for his inaction/butchering of the Indigenous, climate & international files. I've grown pretty tired of his symbolism over action tendency. But after his recent gaffe regarding the events in France -implying, even if done accidentally, that blasphemy is offensive and anti-pluralistic- I'm ready to claim hatred. I no longer trust his judgement on social issues & freedom of speech.

Not that I think O'Toole would be any better. Despite his personal social liberalism, he is still letting the socons run the show in the CPC. And licking the boots of Jason Kenney too...Their strategy seem to be running scores of 90% in the prairie ridings (I'll be nice and exclude Manitoba from that because politics are actually somewhat competitive there) instead of 80%, and giving up on the rest of Canada.

I want MMP more than ever...or any kind of electoral reform, even ranked choice voting. The evangelist wing of the Republicans have spilled over to prairie politics and rural Ontario for decades. They're overrepresented in right-wing caucuses and are running the show by mobilizing for CPC, UCP, etc nominations and leadership races. That's why I was hoping for a Jean Charest-led CPC when he was keen on running; he would have ditched the anti-environmentalism, social conservatism and hard right elements from the party and presented a PC-esque decent option for the population. I might have even voted for a Charest-led CPC just to oust the Trudeau Liberals. But he realized the membership was too hard right for him.

I think I'll be a "Green or bust" voter next election. Still waiting for Annamie Paul to comment on the events in France and about Trudeau's mishap. Why must our political parties all suck?

 

Canada will get its first Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine doses before the end of December, distribution should start next week. We should get 249,000 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine before the end of December. Health Canada will give its authorizations for the use of the vaccine this week.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coron...accine-doses-before-end-of-december-1.5220229

Ontario is starting to identify key groups of people for the distribution of initial Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines: https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/...for-distribution-of-initial-covid-19-vaccines

 

-Somehow, O'Toole has already become a worst leader than Scheer. Claiming that residential schools were meant to educate Indigenous peoples at a conservative campus event and doing whataboutism about Pierre Trudeau just to "own the libs". Then backtracking insincerely after it blew up on social media. Seriously, what a dinosaur party. The tool won't last long after his inevitable defeat in the upcoming 2021 spring election, I'm almost looking forward to see who becomes the next CPC leader.

-As COVID cases surge in the country, looks like we'll have to miss out on holiday celebrations. As someone living in a yellow phase/zone 1 in New Brunswick, I technically could go to family gatherings. But I won't risk it. We got screwed over a few times by essential workers not self-isolating and infecting a bunch of people, the last idiot having gone to a few shops in two cities directly after an Alberta trip. Leading to a burst of the Atlantic bubble. I expect we'll see astronomical numbers in January anyway. The one light at the end of the tunnel is the vaccinations starting off.

 

His entire speech was just outright embarrassing, from the wildly offensive revisionism regarding residential schools to the "lefty radicals are the dumbest people at your university" snipe. Bellegarde's response was far more gracious and composed than O'Toole deserved, half-assed apology or no.

@Empress Shatterpoint I'm sorry to hear that regarding your holidays gatherings, I hope you and your family stay safe.

 

On that subject, here's a good Globe editorial about how they should treat that kind of conservatism: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opi...servatives-need-to-unlearn-from-donald-trump/

Modern tories really need to unlearn their Trumpian habits. Trump just officially lost. Bernier and the PPC went nowhere. Until further notice WEXIT remains a joke. Boris is bumbling away his majority in the UK. Even Kenney is looking like he just might lose next election despite governing in conservative land. There's no logic in alienating an increasing number of moderate tories and swing voters. At just 28% in the last Leger poll, it looks like they'll be getting the NZ Nationals treatment at the ballot box.

O'Toole is not helping his case at all. Putting in all this effort to get...the NDP union votes (lol)...then getting sidetracked into residential school revisionism and portraying the whole left as a caricature of its cringiest aspects...all the while making some of the dumbest right-wing comments ever recorded on tape. The whole thing smells of Jeff Ballingall, the Ontario Proud type that advises him.

Thanks, @PymParticles , hopefully you and everyone on here stay safe too during the holidays.

 

I'm not following the news regarding O'Toole (and honestly I don't care that much), but I'm having doubts that we'll get a spring 2021 Federal election (or maybe I'm hoping we won't have one) since it will most probably take until the end of 2021 to be completely safe from Covid. I don't think that risking to have a Federal election with Covid-19, especially with the economy down in the toilet, will be a good idea.

Meanwhile @Empress Shatterpoint I think you're still lucky to be in a yellow zone in New Brunswick. Here in Montreal we've been in the red zone for almost 3 months, unable to break the second wave with number of people being hospitalized increasing and still having 1500-2000 new daily cases per day in Quebec. But what is even more infuriating and frustrating to me is the fake promises and predictions from Legault's government: they announced at the end of November that they will allow, for 4 days small gatherings of 10 people at most for Christmas time. But then 2-3 weeks later they retract their promise.

Now, I understand why we can't do any gatherings since we still have high numbers of daily cases of Covid. But what is tiring and exhausting is the way they play with people's minds and mental state: when I first heard the news, I told myself that at least I'll have some room to breath and see my parents living in the West Island, since I stayed most of the time in my small apartment for 9 months, avoiding risky trips and gatherings, avoiding to meet my friends, unless if it was for biking, walking or doing my groceries, going to the pharmacy, or seeing a doctor, etc... Many people feel the same frustration and anger, for having seen some hope to have a nice small Christmas in order to forget that awful year, but then seeing it shattered. Some are publicly denouncing on articles Legault's management of the situation and the way they make people's mental state even worse, by giving false hopes. And to add salt to the injury, many people will lose once again their jobs after they've announced the new total lockdown measures from December 25th to January 11th. My brother, who's working part-time on a retail store during his studies, told me that all the employees will be temporally laid off until January 11th. But he thinks it will longer than that since we might not be out of the second wave before January 11th.

But at least, there's a small bright light: 2 days ago, the first people were already vaccinated against Covid in Quebec... They've begun with the most vulnerable people like the elders.

 

Oh, having a federal spring 2021 election is definitely a terrible idea, and one born out of greed, which is why I think they'll do it. I think the Trudeau Liberals never accepted that they got a minority in 2019 and that they stand ready to jump at any opportunity to get their majority back.

And as we've seen in recent NB and BC elections, the incumbent Premiers have been handsomely rewarded for their blatant pandemic power-grab because their handling of the crisis got them nice bumps in popularity. Personally I think calling for unnecessary elections during a pandemic should be disqualifying, but the electorate prefers stability so. But I think it would be a waste of time and give us 2019 2.0 results. Another Liberal minority.

Yeah objectively speaking I recognize my area is well-positioned. We've been like a mini New Zealand here in Atlantic Canada, and that's because our Premiers have mostly closed everything down when there were few cases there, or in PEI's case, when there were none yet. Probably because we are "des provinces de vieux", whose health care would have completely fallen apart with prolonged community outbreaks.

But as recent superspreaders show, it only takes one infected person to worsen things. As a lifelong germaphobe who had hand sanitizer ready in her car before all of this, this is literally me living my worst nightmare. Like, this is what my Harry Potter Boggart would be. I remember watching a Spanish flu documentary years ago and commenting that despite a high tolerance for blood and other disturbing graphics, I could never be a nurse due to germs. Just the possibility of catching normal viruses fills me with dread. Experiencing a year under a deadly pandemic has me constantly in knots.

My heart is with you, SW Saga Fan. Montréal has been hard-hit from the start. Due to the international airports, the proximity to New York, connections from France and early semaine de relâche, it was always going to be hard to avoid highly spread community cases there. Had Trudeau stopped the flights and US-Canada border earlier, had Legault confined earlier in the first wave, maybe you'd be better off now.

But that "we're stealing Christmas away from you after promising a compromise" from Legault has got to be the worst pandemic "Grinch" move yet. I greatly respect Legault & the CAQ, and they've mostly communicated well during COVID. But that move really sucks. The worst part is that had they confined earlier and harder during the second wave and sacrificed summer instead, they could have gotten away with this Christmas compromise. So you basically got a lighter summer and a broken Christmas compromise. You're right to be frustrated. I would be too. Governments all around the world have basically just improvised during COVID, with the exception of a select few (like Taiwan, New Zealand) that have got it right at the start. Now we bear the rotten fruits of that improvisation...

The frustrating thing here is that a lot of Premiers and Prime Ministers have made the call to either sacrifice people/public health for the economy or make compromises that they thought would save or significantly improve the economy. It's why Legault, Horgan and Ford have hesitated to make the call to confine. It's why Kenney threw Alberta Health under the bus to salvage the dying oil & gas industry and other parts of the economy. Turns out they were all wrong to hesitate or to resist confining because places where there's been early hard confinements are seeing their economy rebound after eliminating the virus. Jobs are created or given back after temporary closures. But it's a lot harder to guarantee when community cases are still surging. In the history books for the next generations, the kids will learn how short term economic concerns has screwed long term public health & economic health. That's a shame.

 

So how has Canada been handling the virus? All the common-sense measures that our government, in its infinite stupidity, refuses to implement here...I hope are actually happening north of the border?

 

Trudeau closed the flights & the US-Canada border too late, and the latter unfortunately caused the vast majority of our infections. The government took note of what was happening in Italian hospitals early on so fortunately there's been no shortages there. But long term care homes bear the brunt of COVID, making up more than 80% of our death, a failure on all government levels.

Atlantic Canada provinces and the territories have implemented strict quarantine measures for Canadians living outside their jurisdictions, and have therefore been largely spared from the crisis. The Premiers of BC, the prairies and Central Canada have confined their populations too late and reopened too early and are now seeing the consequences of that mishandling. Cases are skyrocketing everywhere except Atlantic Canada & the territories.