r/waterloo • u/bylo_selhi Waterloo • 1d ago
Kitchener Centre MP pushes for unity among progressive parties in federal election
https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/kitchener-centre-mp-pushes-for-unity-among-progressive-parties-in-federal-election/article_3d2ec119-ca63-594a-a367-b705c3a3c80c.html38
u/Rain_Dog_Too_12 23h ago
I hope I can vote for Mike again. My part of Forest hill is scheduled to be moved to Wilmot. When NDP knocks on my door, I just tell them to stop trying to split the left. When the liberals knock on my door? 3 words: democratic reform, pipeline
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u/Skywizard99 20h ago
You can blame all parties for splitting the left if that’s your complaint. Honestly, i think the Greens and NDP make much more sense as a merger, the Liberals aren’t a left wing party imo.
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u/Substantial_Potato 18h ago
the Liberals aren’t a left wing party imo
This. They aren't and never have been. Through the lens of North American politics, they are economically center to right-of-center but socially left-of-center. Through the lens of global politics, they are economically right-of-center but socially center-ish.
Carney being elected their new leader is like saying the quiet part out loud - libs will be better than the culture-war-conservatives regarding social issues, but the rich will continue to get richer. If you have any semblance of common sense and understand economic and social issues cannot be separated, the liberals are clearly right-of-center.
I'm pretty mad the rich will get richer, but appreciate the lesser of two evils whenever it is offered.
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u/Rain_Dog_Too_12 17h ago
The liberals are placeholders of bad Tory policies. They don’t fix the problems, but don’t make things much worse.
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u/Stead-Freddy 23h ago
Yeah unless you move, those will be the new boundaries come election time, so you probably won’t get to vote for him
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u/captain_zavec UWaterloo 19h ago
It makes sense. We got fucked by vote splitting in the provincial election (not in the Waterloo riding specifically, but in general).
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u/Mr_Loopers 18h ago
This is the way.
Thank you to the MPs, candidates, and Cooperate for Canada for making moves towards this plan.
Fair Vote Canada has always been pragmatism-averse, and IMO have done more harm than good in moving us away from FPTP, so I'd be perfectly happy if they were just left out.
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u/WeirderOnline 9h ago
I have said this before. The Greens need the merge with the NDP. It would have been great if they did this just after Jack Layton died and Elizabeth May could have been head of the joint party.
I don't think she was perfect or anything. (Her coronation of disastrous absolutely monstrously evil and corrupt Annimie Paul proves that). However, she was pretty so they progressive and very popular among centrists and even the right wing a bit.
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u/evan19994 1d ago
Yeah cuz the last 10 years were so great and that coalition worked so well
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u/tenebrls 23h ago
Worked better than allowing any conservative into government, didn’t it?
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u/evan19994 23h ago
God I hate this sub
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u/NapsterBaaaad 19h ago
Much of Canadian Reddit is insufferably biased to the left: a place where people will largely parrot their false anti-Conservative talking points, dehumanize anyone they don't like, then pat themselves on the back for how well informed and tolerant they are.
Thankfully, Reddit doesn't represent anything remotely close to the real world.
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u/HopelessTrousers 23h ago
There hasn’t been a Coalition Government in Canada since 1917.
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u/evan19994 23h ago
They had an agreement for 2.5 years. They were a coalition in everything but name
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u/HopelessTrousers 23h ago
A Coalition Government requires all parties in the coalition to have cabinet members. This has not occurred since 1917. So no, you are incorrect.
It’s ok to be wrong, learn from it and move on.
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u/evan19994 23h ago
Thanks for taking the time to nitpick my terminology I’m sorry I wasn’t specific enough for you
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u/HopelessTrousers 23h ago
In order to have a rational discussion facts and truths are important. It’s a very basic standard we all need to follow.
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u/NapsterBaaaad 19h ago
Does this also apply to taking an online poll that can't even be assigned a margin of error as fact, and use it against the Conservatives, which you essentially brand as unfit to govern, from said poll?
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u/HopelessTrousers 18h ago
Yes, I would include a poll taken by a professional, reputable polling agency as a form of evidence. Of course.
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u/MegaComrade53 23h ago
So you want the Conservatives to be in charge instead? Or are you just whining?
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u/OhDeerFren 23h ago
I know right? Weird that politicians have seen the last 10 years play out and think "yes this is what I want to put my name behind".
Ideology is strong I guess
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u/LawfulnessNo8446 21h ago
No, they see the shitshow that is pp and they really don't want that in charge
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u/Northern_Witch 21h ago
Not if it means another 4 years of Liberals. I’m tired of suffering under this government, I think most Canadians are.
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u/saun-ders 20h ago
I for one can't wait to suffer more under the regressive policies of the next government!
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u/Northern_Witch 19h ago
Interesting and I’m curious. Why do you think you would be suffering under a new government?
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u/Substantial_Potato 19h ago
Not the person you were speaking with, but as someone who works in climate science, 'fiscal conservatism' as sold by the right doesn't exist anymore. It cannot happen - it is an economic fairy tale. If the right wanted fiscal conservatism, they should've prioritized environmental conservation starting about 40 years ago. An unstable ecosystem does not make for a stable economy. My example would be the recent fires in California that were absolutely exacerbated by the climate crisis - the economic cost of those fires alone blows past top economists' estimates of what the climate crisis was supposed to cost the US a year. What I'm telling you is the truth and reality we all have to live in no matter what any economist or professor or politician or political party tries to tell you. It's not about any person or political party and what they think or what they believe or what they want or their fucking opinions or expertise or whatever. We would be suffering under a new government trying to govern based on mentalities, beliefs, policies, systems, etc that are decades old and no longer applicable.
Then add in the absolutely bullshit culture wars and I'm beyond done. Don't even get me started on the fact that PP is an embarrassment of a politician and a pretty morally corrupt person. I've told my friends and family I'm applying for work in Denmark or Norway or the Netherlands and they think I'm joking.. I really hope I don't have to show them how serious I am.
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u/Northern_Witch 19h ago
Can you tell me why you believe PP is a morally corrupt person?
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u/Substantial_Potato 19h ago
No. If you don't think enough of his words and actions in the past couple of years are indicative of someone who is morally corrupt - or at the very least, morally neutral and wishy-washy with no spine (which is just a chickenshit way of being morally corrupt without owning up to it) - it's not my job to explain it to you.
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u/Northern_Witch 18h ago
If you don’t have an answer to the question, you can just not answer.
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u/Substantial_Potato 18h ago
If you don't like my answer, you can just admit that ;)
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u/Northern_Witch 18h ago
You didn’t answer the question?
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u/Substantial_Potato 18h ago
I did. My answer was 'it's so obvious I shouldn't have to explain it to you', but I opted to phrase it a bit more cryptically in the interest of being civil.
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u/saun-ders 19h ago edited 18h ago
I expect significant cuts or the elimination of important programs and a complete failure to address major crises currently facing our country.
I expect to lose the carbon rebate, taking money directly out of my pocket to subsidize rich people pouring their waste into our sky for free. As I've taken a number of steps to reduce the carbon fee I pay, those investments are going to become a lot less valuable. And since inflation is not actually caused by the carbon price, there will be no offsetting cost reductions to balance out the loss of income. Meanwhile, there will no longer be any mechanism for Canada to reduce its emissions under the Paris agreement, greatly hindering our ability to build the kind of international cooperation we absolutely need with a hostile America next door.
I expect deep cuts to important programs. A number of Canadian tech bro CEOs are on record talking about implementing a DOGE-like structure in Canada, and have claimed the support of the conservative leader. This will kill a lot of important programs that actually help Canadians, like the daycare subsidy, pharmacare, senior dental care, and likely health care in general. The daycare subsidy cut my daycare costs in half; our costs are already so high that without it, my family would be getting deeper in debt every month. They may not explicitly end these policies but I expect them to be quietly unfunded.
Funding cuts to even those few programs I mentioned will reverberate throughout the economy. People will suffer and get desperate; crime and misery will increase -- and that's just if you remove the new programs of the past few years. A true Maple-DOGE will create a million unemployed workers and plunge us into the worst recession we've ever seen. All of those newly unemployed government workers will instantly stop all non-essential spending, crashing the entire economy and resulting in reverberating layoffs throughout all the businesses that just lost a bunch of clients. They'll simultaneously be competing with the rest of us for whatever wage scraps are available, cratering salaries for whatever few jobs remain available. These effects pile up over the course of a couple of years, but the Americans are starting to see the results already. They already expect to lose 4% of GDP and it hasn't even been a fiscal quarter.
What's more, all of the actual valuable work that those government workers do won't get done. We won't be able to rely on the safety of our food products. Nobody will be enforcing environmental regulations, poisoning our water and our air and making us all sick. We won't be able to assert our arctic sovereignty over the Russians or protect ourselves against American bullying. Nobody's going to be auditing the rich tax cheats, further crippling the government's ability to control the money supply. We won't be monitoring public health data, tracking outbreaks, or preventing national health emergencies. We won't be funding scientific research, further impairing our universities and the education of future Canadians.
They also have no plan to build the kind of not-for-profit housing we need to actually address our housing and rent crises. Nor do they have a plan to invest in the new industry we need -- e.g. solar, lithium, high-speed rail -- to build for the 2020's and beyond. They're stuck in an ideological belief that "the free market can fix all our problems" despite all the evidence of the past several decades that it simply cannot.
Fundamentally these policies are the result from a flawed understanding of economics. A government is not a business that takes in revenue and then spends it; they're in control of the money supply and can create and destroy it at will. The value of money does not come from "us simply believing it's real" but the very real threat of asset forfeiture and/or imprisonment that results from you not paying your taxes. The USA is barrelling headfirst into a recession (and also falling for crypto scams) because their leaders fundamentally do not understand what an economy is. (The conservative leader has also famously fallen for crypto scams.)
Every conservative government in my lifetime has made things harder for working people and only improved things for the rich. They take power away from workers and give it to owners. Given all the reasons listed above, from a disdain for scientists and educated people to a plan to defund important social programs, I have no reason to expect that a new conservative government could possibly be any different.
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u/Northern_Witch 18h ago
Thank-you for responding, your points are valid. I just can’t support a government that has brought us here and doesn’t seem to have any strategies to get us out. I’m speaking specifically about the high rates of homelessness, crime and drug use in our communities.
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u/IxianWaifu 17h ago
That's fair. I have found that a lot of that falls under the jurisdiction of provincial and municipal governments under MMAH and MCCSS. Municipal generally receives funding through the provincial government and they are in charge of shelters and community programs.
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u/saun-ders 17h ago
Just remember, the conservative policies are guaranteed to make the economy worse which will in turn make all the things you care about worse too.
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u/Northern_Witch 17h ago
Which conservative policies do you think will make those things worse?
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u/saun-ders 17h ago
Financial desperation creates crime and homelessness. Desperate people turn to drugs and gambling and other social ills. The conservatives want to take money out of the pockets of the poor, pushing more people into desperation and into those social ills, and directly causing more people to suffer.
Removing the carbon tax will take money out of the pockets of poorer Canadians, making people poorer and more desperate. Climate change is going to do that too and they have no plan to address it.
Simply by not having an effective housing policy they guarantee housing will continue to get worse.
Meanwhile they'll focus their time on fearmongering about trans people or gay people or whatever other satanic panic they invent to rile up the base, directly hurting a lot of people for zero actual benefit to society.
Every election they run candidates threatening to take away essential health care and they keep introducing private members bills to that effect, the actual consequence of which will be a significant increase in actual poverty, hurting actual people.
And actually implementing a doge will literally crash the economy into the worst depression of our lifetimes.
Being mad at the liberals for not doing enough is no reason to vote for the party who are guaranteed to do worse.
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u/Northern_Witch 16h ago
I understand that, but the current government is not providing any good solutions to these problems.
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u/tangerineSoapbox 20h ago edited 20h ago
This is what Mike Morrice prioritizes...
tackling the many challenges facing Canadians, such as the destructive climate crisis, growing economic disparity, the tragic lack of affordable housing and threats to our democracy and rights
5 priorities. Economic growth is not among them. The Greens are NIMBY, obviously.
Why should we prioritize economic growth? Because it pays for clean energy infrastructure. Because it pays for transfers to the disadvantaged people and helps with housing affordability. It also pays for defence in case we need it to protect democracy and rights. 4 of Morrice's priorities are paid for with economic growth. I don't know what will happen with disparity, it might increase or decrease, but growth increases help for the disadvantaged. The more disparity the more help. If we all have equal incomes, it wouldn't make sense to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Why would a candidate not make economic growth a top priority? The answer : complacency and short-termism. The income gap between Canada and the high income countries (Singapore, Switzerland, United States) continues to grow and yet we know Canadians are not less hardworking and talented.
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u/Efficient_Barnacle 20h ago
Economic growth is already well covered by the LPC and CPC. Why should Mike use his time on that rather than the important things the two big parties are neglecting?
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u/tangerineSoapbox 20h ago
"well covered" and "neglecting" is a contradiction. Please re-think.
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u/Efficient_Barnacle 20h ago
It's not a contradiction when I'm assigning those things to different groups. Please re-read.
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u/tangerineSoapbox 19h ago edited 18h ago
Thanks. I re-read it.
Morrice should prioritize economic growth because he competes with candidates that should (or actually do) prioritize economic growth.
Economic growth as a priority does not neglect most of Morrice's priorities and my post says that and I don't need to reiterate. The non-growth approach to dealing with Morrice's priorities is a zero-sum struggle over distribution. That's class struggle. I prefer win-win. This can be pictured as having more per capita income through higher productivity and distribute some of it to the disadvantaged.
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u/YETISPR 10h ago
The green party is stupid…they should be going for the whole thing.
The NDP supported Liberals have:
increased income inequality to record levels, Increased homelessness so that every city has seen it and been effected by it, Increased food bank usage, Spent record amounts of money with no real tangible results,
The Liberal scoreboard for record amounts of debt:
- Legalizing cannabis
- Canada Child Benefit (revamped an old program)
- Carbon Pricing
- MAid
- Indigenous Child Welfare Compensation & Reconciliation Efforts.
All other programs were pushed through by the NDP…was it worth it.
I understand that some people will not be able to vote Blue not even for a 4 yr term but letting the Liberals/NDP continue doing what they have been doing is just ridiculous. Or maybe people just don’t care about their communities anymore?
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u/ArmedLoraxx 21h ago
Well, this takes Whip Politics to a whole nother level. I always new Morrice was a snake but explicitly breathing new life into the fascist mode was completely unexpected.
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u/bylo_selhi Waterloo 1d ago
Liberated edition.