Though I’m certainly more conservative in my thinking, there is no party that exactly represents my political preferences. I see beneficial liberal policies (support for Palestine as an example), and I certainly see problems with some forms of conservatism (the current US brand, or anything that suggests vaccines don’t work), but when it comes to the ideology and culture of our current government, and the trajectory this sets us on (the whole being more important than the parts), I think the choice of who to elect becomes straightforward…
Here are my thoughts on the election, which I have decided to do in Pascal’s Penses style…
On the Liberal Party:
Liberals tend to preach equity and equal opportunity, however, when it came time for the Liberal leadership race, instead of even allowing Ruby Dhalla (a young, ethnic, female candidate) to run (and potentially defeat the party planners’ favoured selection), they disqualified her based on reasons she claims were fabricated (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ruby-dhalla-liberal-leadership-1.7465430), also revoking the nomination for MP Chandra Arya, without any reasons given (https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/liberals-revoke-aryas-nomination-after-removing-him-from-leadership-race/). In other words, the party decided to go with merit (and another rich, white, male), making it a foregone conclusion, possibly because they saw him as better-abled to dance with Trump. Or rightfully so?
An equally shocking betrayal of public decency happened with the liberal decision to eject Jody Wilson-Raybould from the party when she blew the whistle on the corruption occurring in the SNC Lavalin situation. The reason given? “If we don’t do this our political rivals will succeed.” (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-wilson-raybould-philpott-caucus-1.5080880). In other words, instead of cleaning house of the actual corruption, we will eliminate the people trying to get rid of corruption. Imagine the example this gives our young, aspiring politicians in this country. Far from this being Trudeau-only culpability, the liberal MP’s in Parliament, most of whom are still serving, met this decision with a standing ovation (see above article).
Intentionally working against our oil and gas production while we continue to use and import oil and gas, is the height of ideology over care for your people. Make new energy technology, yes (this is essential), but don’t hamstring the economy while doing it. To do so is more than insulting and runs ragged the pride, worth, and identity of a large section of the population.
It is ideology, not Trudeau, that has lead to the state of the economy and serious societal issues we currently have in Canada.
We can’t try the same thing and expect a different result – what’s that the definition of again?..
On the Trump Threat:
Trump is unfit to lead a country if he talks about annexation of other countries, be it a business tactic or a face value threat, either way it is completely inappropriate for a world leader to broach this vile suggestion in any context. Countries must be left to fix their own problems by their own political process, which we have the opportunity to do now in Canada.
It’s true that Trump may just be doing the whole “51st state” thing as a business tactic, but the problem is that people don’t know this. And worse, now there are young people and members among the party faithful whose minds are being influenced to actually believe it is okay to annex countries for economic reasons. This means that if everything blows over with this playbook, and it turns out he was just looking for a 5% better deal in NAFTA or something, Trump 2.0 is rising up somewhere, in only a few short years, ready to play for real. (I sometimes think the only thing holding back Trump/Trump 2.0 is our prayers.)
Carney may be an experienced negotiator, however Poilievre is best suited to meet this threat and protect Canada from a policy perspective – he won’t give in to Trump, and he will strengthen Canada’s economy so we won’t look like a lame duck, and people won’t believe that joining the US can help us.
Trump has said Carney is his favoured choice for PM, however it is far more likely that Trump wants Carney in power so that destructive Liberal policies will further cripple us economically and, create unrest among the population, foster a desire to separate among certain conservatives, and then strengthen his rhetoric that Canada is “communist” and needs to be taken over – or that we vote to join the US (an unfortunately real possibility on the provincial level).
Trump doesn’t care for either Carney or Poilievre – he said Poilievre is “not a MAGA guy”, which is a more honest assessment than what he’s said about Carney. (https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/i-am-not-maga-poilievre-freeland-respond-to-latest-trump-attacks-3/)
On the Environment:
Global temperatures ARE indeed rising due to carbon emissions and therefore new energies clearly must be developed, but it is not the internally-solved crisis that the Liberal party has carefully indoctrinated people into believing. In effect, they have held Canadian minds hostage in this way to keep themselves in power. This is incredibly dangerous because once it becomes seen that you’re manipulating a situation in any way (even a real situation), it fuels the sentiment that everything about a crisis is a hoax, a sentiment which we are already seeing in some fringe groups.
A leader who was not concerned primarily with staying in power, but was only concerned with the good of the people would support maximizing oil and gas FOR THE PURPOSE of increasing economic stature sufficiently so new environmental technologies could be developed.
Canada, who produces a minuscule amount of the world’s carbon, would do far more good to combat global warming if we ramped up oil and gas and then pumped all of our effort and money into producing solar panels, and shipped them to China and India at low cost – this would actually, tangibly affect the world’s carbon emissions. Keeping this liberal government in power for ten years, did nothing to affect world carbon emissions, but it did weaken our economy.
If you believe that the Liberals under Carney are now supportive of oil and gas and will be consistent with this, you might as well get angry they made you believe otherwise for ten years. But it is far more likely that they will keep their environment playbook, and are just playing politics with things like (ending/pausing/revamping) the Carbon Tax.
On Social Programs and the Economy:
Even if there are several social issues that are as-or-more important than economic development, it has always been the case that we can’t make progress on these issues if we don’t have an economic foundation from which to operate out of.
Social good without a healthy economic foundation is a recipe for debt, and ongoing debt is a recipe for owing others that which we cannot repay. If you owe others that which you know you can never repay, it becomes more and more legitimate to say that you must somehow give up your right to keep what you have.
I pray it never happens that Canada breaks up, but the forces which would seek this don’t go away because we put “elbows up” while staying economically vulnerable, rather, the only thing that will help is to have the strength to stand on our own feet.