On Wed, 17 Apr 2024 04:30:55 -0400, Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net>
wrote:
Maher argued — during Friday’s broadcast of “Real Time” on HBO — that Canada
should serve as a “cautionary tale” for Americans who wanted the progressive
utopian ideal and thought that they could see it just across the border.
The catch is in many respects there are multiple United States. Sure
you're all Americans but there are many different regions with greatly different perspectives. Canada has the same situation regionally but
to a much lesser scale.
I didn't hear the specific Maher clip you're referring to but have had
heard enough of him that I've got the general idea.
Maher began by saying that he agreed with those who said American liberals >> should learn from progressive countries that were getting things right — but
then he pointed out that it was equally important to recognize and
acknowledge flaws when they were present.
Heck you could even look at Britain. On the other hand I have a cousin
(from WA state) who was doing the tourist thing in Europe and while travelling in France met the Portugese fellow who has been the love of
her life - and they never left Paris.
Giving two examples, Maher noted that unemployment in the United States was >> 3.8% compared to Canada’s 6.1% — and that air quality in Canada was
measurably worse than in the United States.
Which is an incredibly dumb comment since one could never compare
downtown NYC with Wyoming - or any other pair of places one could
name. Ditto Canada - if you compare downtown Toronto (or for that
matter the northern Alberta oil sands) to seaside Vancouver or Halifax
you'd get a totally different perspective. Bottom line is that both
the United States and Canada are huge by international standards.
“They say in politics liberals are the gas pedal and conservatives are the >> brakes. And I’m generally with the gas pedal. But not if we’re driving off a
cliff,” Maher said, adding, “Canada was where every woke White college kid
wearing pajama pants outdoors who had it up to here with America’s racist >> patriarchy dreamt of living someday. I mean, besides Gaza.”
My father was no woke college kid in pajamas - he simply went to
college in Seattle and met a Canadian girl from Vancouver. (They
married between 3rd year and 4th year)
“There’s only one problem with thinking everything’s better in Canada: It’s
not. Not anymore, anyway,” Maher said, arguing that the housing crisis in >> American cities was nothing compared to what was happening to the north. “The
median price of a home here is $346,000. In Canada converted to US dollars, >> it’s 487. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn’t be able to afford her
dream house and Ken would be working at Tim Hortons.”
No question Canada has had a housing problem these past 10 years and a
lot of it has been based on proportionately higher immigration rates
in Canada - particularly in urban cores - 70% of Canadian immigration
settles in Toronto and Vancouver which not surprisingly have the
highest price housing. What is particularly hard on first time buyers
(my children are now the age we were at when we bought for the first
time) are now competing with domestic and foreign REITs (real estate investment trusts) in a way our generation wasn't.
Maher went on to note that the liberal dream of single-payer health care — >> which Canada has — is also not living up to its promise: “Their vaunted >> health care system, which ranks dead last among high income countries, and >> access to primary health care, and the ability to see a doctor in a day or >> two. And it’s not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal >> coverage, Canada spends over 13% of its economy on it, which is a lot of
money for free health care. Look, I’m not saying Canada still isn’t a great
country, it is, but those aren’t paradise numbers.”
Do Americans expect 'paradise'? Canadians don't.
“If Canada was an apartment, the lead feature might be America adjacent. And
if America was a rental car, Canada would be America or similar,” Maher
concluded. “And again, honestly, Canada, I’m not saying any of this because I
enjoy it. I don’t because I’ve always enjoyed you, but I need to cite you as
a cautionary tale to help my country. And the moral of that tale is ‘yes, you
can move too far left, and when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the
middle to the right.’ At its worst. Canada is what American voters think >> happens when there’s no one putting a check on extreme wokeness.”
Which is why people like me (Rhino too I think) are eagerly waiting
for the next election - which must be within the next 18 months.
(Canada doesn't have fixed election dates very much like the Brits)
And Justin DOES currently have approval ratings at 30 year lows which obviously thrills people like me who spent last Saturday at a federal nomination convention for one of the major parties (not Trudeau's) You
can reasonably conlclude from this that I am at least as interested in federal politics as your average state caucus-goer.
On Thu, 18 Apr 2024 12:11:00 -0400, Rhino
<no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:
Actually, we DO have (more-or-less) fixed election dates both
federally and in some provinces, including mine, BUT I saw a story
recently that the feds are developing legislation to delay the next
federal election by approximately a week. (I didn't see a proper >explanation but I strongly suspect it is to ensure that those who
got elected in the 2019 election have just over 6 years in
Parliament so they qualify for those very generous pensions.) I had
not realized that our feds even had the ability to adjust election
dates that way and I'm really not very happy about it.
There's no such things as fixed election dates when there's a minority government (e.g. when there are more than 2 parties and the top party
has a plurality not a majority in the House) as Canada has had since
2019.
Politicians can SAY 'the next election will be on _________' but
unless they actually have a majority there's no guarantee and besides
you're not seriously telling me politicians never have their fingers
crossed when they speak to the public are you <evil grin>
We're in the happy position of having had neither of our past two
members having qualified for one of those obscenely cushy pensions but
our current MP is both a cabinet minister and someone who WILL get a
pension should he gain re-election this time which is by no means
guaranteed.
Obscenely = "gets severance pay (which if memory serves is about a
year's pay for a 2 term MP) BEFORE that pension kicks in"
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