Jagmeet Singh, NDP Leader

progressive17 wrote:

Yes, I am very careful what I buy. All local foods, made in Quebec by identifiable companies which have to abide by workers' standards.

You have weasled your way around your scandalous hypocrisy by trying to accuse me of hypocrisy. Then you justify slavery by saying that if you do not buy from the slavemaster, the slave will suffer. If the slavemaster is made to suffer, the slaves will go free, as has happened for the past 10,000 years.

You are part of the problem, and then you say we should deal 'collectively' with a problem, meaning you get to dictate to the non-existent 'collectivity' without participating in the solution yourself, or setting any kind of an example. This is frankly tyrannical.

Look, "prog", I have my OWN issues with Pondering, but your comments toward her and towards a lot of other folks here are at least edging towards abusive.  Could you please de-personalize this a bit? Jeez!!!

Pondering wrote:

Lets have a conversation about how corporations play countries off against one another. We can add some rules about minimum taxation and taxes being paid in the country in which the profits are generated. Lets start adding inspection of factories for goods headed to Canada. We should have a minimum international standard on child labour and the most basic safety assurances that factories are not in danger of collapsing. We don't have to impose western standards but neither should we be accepting goods created through slave or child labour.  It is our responsibility to ensure that the factories we are buying from are being environmentally responsible within reason. That is, they don't have to adhere to our regulations but they can't be dumping raw sewage into the drinking water either. It's time for minimum world standards linked to trade. 

I think Canada is not in position to dictate to other entities like the US, Mexico, the WTO, the EU, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc....

Pondering wrote:

JKR wrote:

Pondering wrote:

JKR wrote:

 I think Canada is not in position to dictate to other entities like the US, Mexico, the WTO, the EU, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc....

Canada is insisting on the ISDS. We can propose the addition of minimum working standards. It would gain a great deal of support from workers in all countries. Corporations are multi-national. Workers must also operate on the multi-national level so that they can't be played against one another. 

How should trade deals insure that countries don't engage in protectionism? What use are free trade deals that don't protect free trade? What should Canada do if foreign countries have no interest in adding minimum working standards to trade deals? Why would workers from poorer countries support free trade deals that put their pooter countries at a disadvantage? Why would poorer countries not act in the interest of their workers and businesses? Are richer countries willing to give financial aid to poorer countries to help them achieve higher labour and environmental standards? Why have the economies and iving standards in poorer countries improved drastically under international free trade deals? Why have living standards throughout the whole world improved under free trade?

There is no such thing as a free trade deal. All we need for free trade is to agree to drop all tariffs. Voila. Free trade. All trade deals have conditions. You seem to be suggesting that Canada is helpless and must accept whatever terms are dictated by other countries. Ever heard of Canada's supply management of dairy products? Trade sanctions have been applied to countries for all kinds of reasons. 

I'm not willing to allow international corporations to have more power than elected governments or to dictate what can be in trade deals. 

As to improvements in living standards, with fairer trade deals those improvements would be even more dramatic. 

The main point of these deals is not trade, but capital/investment protection.  That it has to be continually pointed out just shows how successful the corporate media brain washing has been. 

JKR wrote:

Pondering wrote:

JKR wrote:

 I think Canada is not in position to dictate to other entities like the US, Mexico, the WTO, the EU, China, India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, etc....

Canada is insisting on the ISDS. We can propose the addition of minimum working standards. It would gain a great deal of support from workers in all countries. Corporations are multi-national. Workers must also operate on the multi-national level so that they can't be played against one another. 

How should trade deals insure that countries don't engage in protectionism? What use are free trade deals that don't protect free trade? What should Canada do if foreign countries have no interest in adding minimum working standards to trade deals? Why would workers from poorer countries support free trade deals that put their pooter countries at a disadvantage? Why would poorer countries not act in the interest of their workers and businesses? Are richer countries willing to give financial aid to poorer countries to help them achieve higher labour and environmental standards? Why have the economies and iving standards in poorer countries improved drastically under international free trade deals? Why have living standards throughout the whole world improved under free trade?

Yes, the race to the bottom has been very successful.  

Except when it comes to capital, of course.

Pondering wrote:

We have courts that can hear such disputes under our own laws. 

If we require it that our domestic courts decide international trade disputes within Canada then we will have to let other countries domestic courts decide trade disputes that our companies have within those countries. Understandably our companies are not comfortable letting biased foreign courts and biased foreign politicians like Donald Trump determine what fair trade is. It seems to me that neutral international arbiters are required to impartially decide international trade cases because domestic courts and politicians naturally favour their own countries' businesses over foreign businesses. I think many Canadian businesses will just move to the US and other countries if they can't count on being fairly treated within those foreign jurisdictions.

Pondering wrote:

As I understood it trade deals were to provide cheaper goods for consumers not force consumers to accept products from other countries. 

...

It's just a bigger agreement with more economy destroying potential because the people who set up these deals did not do it to raise the standard of living of the poorest they did it to generate profits. 

I think the goal of free trade is to increase economic growth and raise living standards for everyone. In economics, "the principle of comparative advantage" shows how free trade increases the economic growth and living standards of countries that trade freely with one another. Here's the wiki page:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage

Quote:

Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the Harvard Economics Department, has said: ″Few propositions command as much consensus among professional economists as that open world trade increases economic growth and raises living standards.″

NDPP wrote:

The goal of free trade or protectionism is not 'to increase economic growth and raise living standards for everyone.' It is to increase profits for capitalists. Period. 

For once, I agree completely with NDPP. Any benefits to workers are an accident, a failure to optimize profits by the capitalists.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

NDPP wrote:

The goal of free trade or protectionism is not 'to increase economic growth and raise living standards for everyone.' It is to increase profits for capitalists. Period. 

For once, I agree completely with NDPP. Any benefits to workers are an accident, a failure to optimize profits by the capitalists.

It seems to me that our economic system is capitalism and without capitalist profits our economic system grinds to a halt and poverty increases for everyone.

NorthReport wrote:

Well said Pondering.

All that is going on here is the usual Liberal, and their supportive groupies, like the CBC media, attacks on the NDP about a year before the next election, combined with a couple of disgruntled ex-NDPers whose candidate did not win the NDP leadership. 

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That is not at all what is going on. Some of us are speaking the blatantly obvious: Singh is a latte socialist. He spends more time on instagram and buying incredibly expensive suits than he does on policy initiatives. His interviews thus far have often looked like a nervous schoolboy who didn't study the night before.

This has nothing to do with background or creed. It has everything to do with substance and electability. Singh was a mistake, and if a new leader isn't chosen before the next election, the NDP has zero chances.

I'm personally on the fence with Trudeau. He has done really stupid things (e.g. giving up on vote reform, making Canada look like a joke in India when he played dress-up on his tour, etc.) But he's also done importantly good things (forged a new health accord, took control of the messy pipeline issue and nationalized it - doing something far beyond my expectations of him).

I thought Trudeau was a latte liberal, but his actions in recent months has proven he at least gets economic nationalism and has learned how to fight over it. He finally decided to fight Trump with some fire instead of smiles, and that gained points from me. The fact he's nationalizing a major oil project finally proved he's more than a latte liberal and might have what it takes to advance big initatives on a major scale. I gained a lot of respect for him this year.

If its an election between Singh and Trudeau, I'm opting Trudeau. And the NDP has a lot to worry about if it can't get votes from left voters like me. I do NOT want to see another Ontario redux on the national stage where we get 60% against conservatives and they pull a 40% majority government. And I do NOT want to see an NDP leader who is more interested in dress and decadance than the roots the NDP is supposed to stand for.

There is a Singh disconnect with everyday workers. It is obvious and you those of us who say this are trying to help the NDP in the long run, not hurt the NDP. If you have this big of a disconnect with the base that built the NDP into the movement that it is, then there is a problem that has to be dealt with. You can't expect the outside to fix it, it has to come from within, and that starts with uncomfortable questions.

Alex Ballingall, “Federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is refusing a salary until party finances significantly improve,” Toronto Star, July 5, 2018

Quote:

OTTAWA—Jagmeet Singh is working for free. 

The federal NDP leader — who isn’t on the public payroll because he remains unelected — has never drawn a salary from his party and doesn’t intend to receive a paycheque until its finances “significantly” improve, his press secretary says.

James Smith disclosed the leader’s lack of compensation when asked about Singh’s donations to the NDP since he made the jump from Queen’s Park to federal politics last year. Financial returns to Elections Canada show Singh donated $10 on Aug. 16, 2017: $5 to his own leadership campaign and $5 to the party. They were the only contributions Singh made to the NDP since the 2015 federal election. 

By contrast, Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer have donated more than $100 per month since at least the beginning of 2017, Elections Canada records show. Because of their positions in Parliament — as prime minister and opposition leader — Trudeau’s salary is $350,000 while Scheer earns about $260,000 per year. An MP will earn about $176,000 this year. 

Singh, however, doesn’t have a seat in the House of Commons and has never committed to running before the 2019 election. The 39-year-old criminal defence lawyer was an Ontario MPP from 2011 to last October, when he resigned his seat after winning the federal leadership.

Discussions were held in the months since on how the party could pay its leader without a seat, and the idea was that he would receive the equivalent of an MP’s salary, Smith explained. 

At least one other party would have considered a similar arrangement: the Conservative party constitution says a leader who doesn’t sit in Parliament can draw an MP-equivalent salary from the party. 

But at some point this spring Singh opted to forgo regular paycheques while the NDP strives for stronger financial footing, Smith said. The party does cover Singh’s expenses, such as when he travels for NDP business, but otherwise Singh lives off his personal finances, Smith said. 

“The leader has decided to not receive a salary until the party is in a significantly improved financial situation,” Smith said.

JKR wrote:

Michael Moriarity wrote:

NDPP wrote:

The goal of free trade or protectionism is not 'to increase economic growth and raise living standards for everyone.' It is to increase profits for capitalists. Period. 

For once, I agree completely with NDPP. Any benefits to workers are an accident, a failure to optimize profits by the capitalists.

It seems to me that our economic system is capitalism and without capitalist profits our economic system grinds to a halt and poverty increases for everyone.

***

Easily you could get people on opposite sides speak to this. I will try to give a somewhat more balanced take on this.

Many accept that capital is good at making capital. It is quite crappy at doing anything else. It certainly does not lead to increases in standards or wealth on its own to anyone other than the capitalists.

In a balanced mixed economy, there are restraints on capital to address both the gross move to concentration of the efforts of humans to capital and there are efforts to distribute some of what capital scoops up to reinvest in the public goods that are consumed by capital and necessary for its success. To that, end government can use some control and considerable regulation as well as considerable social supports to the population -- apart form the transactions of capital.

Capital does generate capital but it does not even do a good job of it without a context of a healthy public good. Capitalists hate regulation but they actually need it in order to prosper themselves. The more they push their interests for profit without restraint, the more they damage what they see is their market -- what we recognize as our society.

Capitalists do better where the population is educated, many are working and make good salaries and where there is social sustainability. They are really crappy at delivering on any of this.

So sure, if you want to recognize the ability of capital to make money, you can do so, but also recognize the role of people to provide the work, labour to organize and protect workers, social services to provide what people need, governments to ensure enough general equity for the system to function, taxes to cover the functions of government etc. None of this is any less important -- despite the propaganda.

This is not a communist system and while there are a few communists here, most here do not require state control over all enterprises that produce what people need. However, they see the gross distortion that attention to capital has over everything else. They see the perversion of the capital system that places the need to generate capital above all other human requirements to the point that life itself has become unsustainable socially and environmentally in the direction we are going. They see that capital is not only fairly rewarded for its risk and imagination but sucks up the efforts of people leaving them a disproportionately low share for their contribution -- those providing the work get next to nothing while capital concentrates. The problem is not that capital is not respected enough or seen as valuable enough -- it is seen as the be all and end all and it is now not only in the way of everything else but even a danger to itself.

I could have posted a sharper less respectful reply but I thought a considered response might be more helpful.

If you want unmitigated bullshit from people who do not have a clue what they are talking about, read it here!