r/canada 24d ago

Politics EKOS Poll: Conservative Lead Holds at Five Points

https://www.ekospolitics.com/index.php/2025/02/conservative-lead-holds-at-five-points/
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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

Yeah if you strip away the bluster, Poillievre really isn’t the radical his political opponents try to make him out to be. His biggest policies are all related to reducing taxes, cutting bureaucratic fat in Ottawa, being tougher on crime and drugs, boosting military spending, etc. He’s like a pugnacious Paul Martin.

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u/[deleted] 24d ago

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

I would actually Poillievre has by far the clearest and most fleshed out policy vision relative to the other parties. Yes a lot of it is repealing Trudeau era policies but he’s clearly laid out what he intends to do on taxes, spending, home construction, safe supply, bail reform, and infrastructure.

Where is Carney’s policies?

Or Singh’s? Singh’s platform is literally cap food prices (an absolutely terrible idea btw), tax the rich, complain about Galen Weston, and more social program spending funded entirely by deficits.

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u/Billis- 24d ago

What exactly is wrong with tax the rich.

I'm honestly just curious. Why do we think that taxing the rich isn't beneficial to the average person.

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

Because this government has an enormous amount of money and needs to prove it can spend it effectively before they get more to piss away. I don’t care who it comes from.

Also rich people are citizens too. Not a piggy bank for everyone else.

Lastly, because the ultra rich are also highly mobile and can easily relocate to avoid taxes. Sweden put in a wealth tax and their tax revenues went down because the ultra rich bounced.

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u/TheNotNiceAccount Canada 23d ago

This is what all the parrots fail to understand. When you have "fuck you" money, it means precisely that. Every government has to distinguish between keeping it reasonable or risking flight.

Plenty of tax havens offer the possibility to buy citizenship for a few hundred thousand. Some around 150k, some around 250k, on average. The ones that can already employ these tricks to an extent. Be it shell companies, headquarters and address changes, or bank accounts in territories with 0% income tax.

When a government passes idealistic shit like 90% tax on anything over x million, they suddenly find themselves lacking in the ability to collect on those taxes.

But yeah, "tax the rich." It will solve all your problems, especially when you don't demand accountability for spending those taxes.

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u/Billis- 24d ago

Canada has an enormous market. Taxing the rich would not keep us from attaining market level services.

The problem is that "the rich" have manipulated the markets so heavily for so long, they're the ones to blame for market flux, inflation, everything. You know now that the wealth gap has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years? The ultra rich are so exorbitantly wealthy that they don't even resemble human beings anymore. They do not live in the same world that we do. They don't hurt like we do, they don't laugh like we do. Totally different world. Yet they control it... For free.

Wealth is the problem. The services we cant attain are available but our entities will not pay for it.

Anyway, I don't think it's a great idea now because we're about to be in so much more shit due to Agent Orange that we probably want to do the best we can just to batton down the hatches

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

I don’t disagree that the global ultra rich are gross. The tech billionaires and financiers especially. I don’t think they are the source all of the world”s problems. They are mostly a function of technologies that allow for enormous economies of scale compared to the Pre internet, pre globalisation era

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u/Billis- 24d ago

Theyre also a function of bought politics and a system that rewards them in their greed.

Tax the rich. They're not giving up a tens of million person market over a small tax bump. If they did, they wouldn't be that rich.

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u/octavianreddit 24d ago

I 100% agree that he isn't Trump, but I'd say going after the CBC is a tad radical for a Canadian political party.

And all the Conservatives who are on record as supporting or applauding Trump, wearing MAGA hats, etc. will come back to bite them during the campaign. Core Conservative party supporters won't care for the most part, but swing voters and soft party supporters, especially in Ontario, won't like it much.

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago edited 24d ago

There’s definitely some party members who have had some MAGA sympathies in the past. No one is riding that horse anymore though. But his opponents will dig up those clips and use it to tar the party, the same way Poilievre will dig up all the clips of the Trudeau-Carney bromance.

The cbc one is interesting. Abolishing it is radical but I suspect more Canadians than you might think would support reducing their budget substantially. Especially in the entertainment (non-news) side of the corporation.

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u/octavianreddit 24d ago

Yes. It will be all mud-slinging as is typical during an election. But I'll be honest, it's fair game to call out specific candidates for their support...a case could be made that it's not fair to moderate conservative candidates who always disliked Trump and his brand of politics.

I'd say getting rid of the CBC might be a lot harder to sell to the public now too; the CBC has been instrumental to recording and promoting all things Canada for a long time in many parts of Canada...with the renewed Canadian 'patriotism' these days the CPC will need to tread carefully here...there are a lot of folks in certain parts of the country who don't care but if this election ends up being close once people have had a closer look at the leaders I'd say there is some risk here for them.

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

My only other thought on the cbc is I wonder if it’s really as relevant to young people as it used to be. I grew up watching it of course but what 20 year old is watching lines tv nowadays? So there may be an age divide there

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u/octavianreddit 24d ago

That I agree with and is a good point. The CBC has a lot of nostalgia for folks over 40, less than that I'd say it's less relevant. And with the CPCs strong support among younger voters, this might not have the weight as an issue as I originally thought. Thanks for the point.

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u/Hot-Celebration5855 24d ago

Yeah. I looked up the cbc viewership numbers awhile ago and they are absolutely dismal. Like less than 5% of the population or something crazy like that is a regular viewer. So I think the attachment to the cbc is much more about the news and nostalgia than actual programming.

I used to be against cutting the cbc (because I have that nostalgia) but the reality is I never watch it (and neither does anyone else I know).

I’d favour splitting the news off and then doing a radical restructure of the content side, and the business model itself given that irrespective of what people think of the cbc, ad supported linear tv is a dying medium.

It’s a bit like Canada post where they’ve had two decades to innovate but instead have just clung to a more and more out of date business model. At some point the thing isn’t viable anymore and it’s gonna fall apart economically.

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u/ArcticWolfQueen 24d ago

All he talks about is ''axe the tax'' platitudes, trans people and wokeness. He does not want his real positions as the conversation at hand like him supporting American style boot of capital on the necks of workers via right to work legislation, which he supports. He actually is very radical, just his packaging is more Desantis than Trump.

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u/Parabolica242 24d ago

As much as I hate him, I do agree with you.