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Almost half of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque as Tory support grows: poll
(www.winnipegfreepress.com)
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Let's elect the Conservatives so they can cut taxes on the rich, cut services for the poor, neglect our government systems and infrastructure, drive up the deficit and the debt, then blame the Liberals for trying to fix their mess.
Rinse.
Repeat.
Why are people so fucking dumb? The Conservatives do the same thing every time. Then they lie about what the Liberals are doing and people swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
The problem is we're facing a crisis where once in the entire stupid goddamned history of economic crises, this the one time where small-government libertarianism actually really would help. Municipal government overrestriction of housing-construction (also a few federal housing regs like single-stair construction) is a massive chunk of the problem. And both the Liberal and NDP parties have a very tight relationship with municipal governments and so they want to keep their friends there. Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre isn't a "friends" type of person, so he's able to call out the "let them eat cake" politics of municipal governments.
Of course, (a) there's a substantial chance that PP is lying about his plans to strongarm municipal governments, and (b) while he may help solve the crisis with that action, he will also likely help exacerbate it on the other hand by slashing supports for the poorest Canadians, and he'll also create a few new crises related to climate change and LGBTQ rights, and possibly vaccines.
So yeah, no love for him.
But I'm not looking forward to the day when a Conservative federal government is kicking municipal asses and I have to go to bat for an absolute shitheel like Poilievre on the principle that he is right exclusively on this one very specific issue.
Even if he was hypothetically not lying about wanting to address housing in the way he suggests, I still wouldn't be able to support him because eroding our social protections and freedoms is not worth it.
But I also think the likely hood that he upsets his rich suburban supporters and friends by allowing condos to be built next to their nice houses is close to zero. So it's probably one of those bullshit planks like the liberals saying they were going to potentially get rid of first past the post. There are zero consequences for our politicians lying like this.
It would be nice if our elections laws defined a class of promises where if they are broken an election is forcibly triggered.
He might go through with it, but he specifically targets "cities of over a half-million people". Here in Hamilton, most suburbs have fantasies about de-amalgamation, and with Conservative provincial governments in charge I could see that happening to pander to them. I mean, while it's not directly applicable here, note how Ford is accommodating Mississauga's exit of the Peel region -- not directly comparable because it's above the limit and the members of Peel that are below the limit are already their own cities and towns since it's just a regional government and not a municipality. But still, it shows how the door is open for this conversation.
Basically, PP will pander to his base by making urban intensification something he does to the cities on behalf of his suburban supporters. I mean, his biggist threat against these cities is to cut transit funding... do most crappy stand-alone exurbs even have transit?
And as grotesque and craven as that is, it's somehow still a better plan than anything his opponents have offered.
He will never get my vote. I can hear the transphobic dog-whistles and have people I need to protect. But I won't blame others for choosing differently, and I do blame the entire political centre and left for carving out the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy of needs to decorate the top when it comes to housing, which created the policy vacuum that PP stepped into.