Canada's federal election: Monday, September 20, 2021

NorthReport wrote:

Let's make it happen! https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2021/05/19/pbo-report-finds-that-ndp-p...

Bad timing. Top issues for the next election are climate change, income inequality and economic recovery.

We aren't going to have, 4 billion on student debt, + a national daycare program+pharmacare+dentacare+basic income+address climate change. Leastways you won't convince Canadians that can all be done in 4 years. 

The NDP needs to be razor focused on a few top issues not be the champion of all that is good. 

PS I forgot homelessness

NorthReport wrote:

The Trudeau Formula http://blackrosebooks.net/products/view/The+Trudeau+Formula%3A+Seduction...

Your link didn't work.  Let's hope the one below does.  The book sounds fascinating.

https://blackrosebooks.com/products/lukacs-trudeau-formula?_pos=1&_sid=0...

The Liberal's have also topped out in BC and will do well to hold all the seats they won last time. The NDP needs to have a breakthrough in Ontario if the countries political dynamics are ever going to change. The NDP betrayed its Quebec MP's by muzzling them so I am afraid they are not going to be a force there for at least another election cycle.

Do not vote for any political candidate supportive of Apartheid Israel, no matter how common the practice may have become among 'progressives' here.

The next election will be mainly fought in Ontario because that is the only way to a majority for the Liberals. I predict that Trudeau and all his Ontario MP's will be running extremely hard against Ford.

Fairly weak for sure. 

One of my biggest issues with a lot of 'progressive' messaging is how non-specific it is. 

This was one of the biggest weaknesses of Bernie Sanders. That last debate with Biden was just painful to watch. I'm not a huge fan of Singh but he is definitely a good enough communicator that he should be able to do better.

Singh needs to be very specific about who the Liberals were leaving out and would leave out in a majority government: the younger working class who tend to work multiple jobs, have temporary gig work etc. This is a demographic that helped give Trudeau his first majority and have steadily moved away from him since.

I get that the NDP doesn't want to lose their pitch to middle class families but the reality is a lot of those families will include and empathize with young working class Canadians. Keep the focus on how the Liberals have failed them and be specific.

I would avoid reminding anyone of Trudeau on this issue. All anyone remembers is that he still hasn't delivered.

On this issue Singh had a good answer.

The first election in which I was involved for the NDP was the Ontario election of 1971.

It was Stephen Lewis's first election as leader. He too traveled to Grassy Narrows and decried the lead poisoning in the water.

The situation has not been fixed in 50 years. Stephen Lewis is now terminally ill. It would be good if his warnings were finally taken seriously by the government.

Nicky, the poisoning of Grassy Narrows (Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation) and Whitedog (Wabaseemoong Independent Nations) was mercury from the Dryden pulp and paper mill contamination of the English and Wabgoon Rivers.

I didn't know that Stephen Lewis' cancer was terminal. But I guess inoperable adds up to that. I am hoping he is undergoing treatment that prolongs his quality of life.

Pondering wrote:

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh held a press conference in Grassy Narrows, Ont. on Saturday and when asked if he was just writing a ‘blank cheque’ for all problems faced by indigenous communities, such as lack of clean drinking water, Singh replied by asking if the same question would be raised if big cities of Canada like Toronto or Vancouver had a clean drinking water problem.

Many people will just think that is normal. Big cities have big populations justifying extreme measures. 

I think 'many people' would understand he wasn't comparing the relative size of populations but using recognizable places that the largest number of Canadians can identify with and asking how they would feel if a price cap was put on addressing poisoned water in their communities. 

Pondering wrote:

You aren't going to spend 100 million bringing water to a town of 100 people.

That's a significantly lower number than the population of Grassy Narrows which makes one wonder what the motive would be for significantly lowering that number in an argument about decades of government inaction on the poisoning of an indigenous community's water. I think 'many people' can see through that kind of rhetorical dishonesty and recognize that the government's inaction on the ongoing poisoning of the indigenous community of Grassy Narrows isn't about the 'number' of people being poisoned especially when those 'numbers' are so malleable for the people who say they are so important.

Pondering wrote:

Not a good idea to answer a question with a question. The answer might not be what you assume it will be. 

Which means you learn something about the kind of excuses Canadians are still making and you know more about what you need to fight against. It's not like your original example of Trudeau's campaign line was airtight against dishonest bad faith arugments either. There's only so much you can do to persuade people who don't want to change their perspective.

Pondering wrote:

Unless you are a liberal, why would you want to avoid reminding people of Trudeau's failures?

You misunderstand me. I'm saying just sounding like Trudeau 2.0 isn't going to win over those voters who have become jaded with Trudeau. Of course bring up Trudeau's failures and broken promises but be specific about where the NDP sees those failures both during Trudeau's first majority (what the NDP could have stopped or pushed for) and in what the Liberal minority tried to get away with (or tried to neglect) but couldn't this session.

melovesproles wrote:

   I think 'many people' would understand he wasn't comparing the relative size of populations but using recognizable places that the largest number of Canadians can identify with and asking how they would feel if a price cap was put on addressing poisoned water in their communities.  

They would feel terrible but they still won't spend as much money bringing water to 5K people, or 10K people, as they will on bringing water to millions of people. It doesn't make financial sense. Cheaper to move the people to the water. (Grassy Narrows was moved to where it is now) Morally, Canada should let all climate change refugees come to Canada. We aren't going to do it. Morally, we should give Ottawa back along with all other unceded territories. We aren't going to do it. 

melovesproles wrote:

  You misunderstand me. I'm saying just sounding like Trudeau 2.0 isn't going to win over those voters who have become jaded with Trudeau. Of course bring up Trudeau's failures and broken promises but be specific about where the NDP sees those failures both during Trudeau's first majority (what the NDP could have stopped or pushed for) and in what the Liberal minority tried to get away with (or tried to neglect) but couldn't this session.  

When the election rolls around and swing voters decide who to vote for they will be aware of only one to three issues on which they will vote. Getting water to Grassy Narrows isn't one of them. 

The point of listing as many issues as possible in which Trudeau's words do not match his actions is not to claim that the NDP would address those particular issues differently. It is to show that he can't be trusted to do what he is promising to do. So, say he promises tax breaks for the middle class. How can he be trusted to do it?  He hasn't done pharmacare. He hasn't ended water advisories on reserves, he hasn't addressed national daycare + many more.

melovesproles wrote:

  That's a significantly lower number than the population of Grassy Narrows which makes one wonder what the motive would be for significantly lowering that number in an argument about decades of government inaction on the poisoning of an indigenous community's water.  

Because unless the number is in the millions the number doesn't matter. It's nitpicking. 

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh held a press conference in Grassy Narrows, Ont. on Saturday and when asked if he was just writing a ‘blank cheque’ for all problems faced by indigenous communities, such as lack of clean drinking water, Singh replied by asking if the same question would be raised if big cities of Canada like Toronto or Vancouver had a clean drinking water problem.

The answer to Singh's question is "yes". Blank cheques aren't written for cities either. If moving the city were cheaper than providing water it would be moved. In the case of most cities it would be more expensive to move them. Even so water systems in Montreal have been neglected for so long that we have major roads flooding in the middle of downtown Montreal so bad that people have been knocked down and carried a block before being able to stop themselves. That's in mid-winter with freezing temperatures. Our sewer system is so bad we had to dump sewage directly into the river untreated to fix an emergency problem that would have dumped even more sewage directly in the river. When it gets hot the water smells overwhelmingly of clorine to the point that I can't drink it. 

melovesproles wrote:

 Which means you learn something about the kind of excuses Canadians are still making and you know more about what you need to fight against. It's not like your original example of Trudeau's campaign line was airtight against dishonest bad faith arugments either. There's only so much you can do to persuade people who don't want to change their perspective.   

The problem is that you are trying to convince people based on a moral argument. People will agree with the moral argument yet still not agree with the remedy you propose. 

Indigenous rights only exist because settler society created them. No one has an inherent right to establish a border. We have no right beyond that which we have bestowed on ourselves to prevent any animal including humans from living on what we call Canadian soil. 

You know I have defended indigenous rights and condemned Canada's continued refusal to honor treaties in good faith and do whatever possible to lessen the damage we did through the residential schools and all other less dramatic ways in which we, as a country, did unspeakable violence against indigenous peoples. 

At the same time life is not fair to a lot of people. 

What about a Haitian whose country was destablized by Canada so was forced to flee here. Shouldn't they be entitled to restitution? Instead they have to pay taxes that in part go to indigenous people because they got here first. 

There is a moral argument to be made for equal rights and benefits for all within a country or even within the world. Climate refugees are fleeing conditions created by the developed world including Canada. By what right to we prevent them from coming to Canada? It is most certainly immoral. 

Morally, I don't see why status indigenous people have any more right to land than I do. So they were here first. So what? What other animal on Earth can claim territory by right? None. Because there are no rights in the animal world. I have considerable indigenous blood in my family but I am not status so it doesn't count. 

Indigenous peoples have legal rights because The British Crown made treaties and to become independent Canada had to agree to abide by them. 

"Cheaper to move the people to the water" is perhaps the worst settler idea I have heard on this site in a very long time. The fundamental thing about indigenous people is their connection to THEIR land not just any old place. That is why the displacements done to indigenous communities in many places is rightly seen as part of the ethnic cleansing Canada has been engaged in since its creation and persisting until today.

Boil water advisories on many first nations have nothing to do with the mercury contamination experienced by the people living at Grassy Narrows or Whitedog. The ongoing protest at Shoal Lake is an indicator of how unfair it is that their wateway is used to supply Winnipeg with drinking water while their own reserve lives under a boiled water advisory. These advisories are most often due to contamination caused by inadequate waste water and drinking water distribution systems. It's an infrastructure problem as opposed to an environmental crisis in most cases. Investment in building water treatment plants and sewage lagoons is very hit and miss. Equally important, very little investment goes to training local people to operate all aspects so they are dependent on outside contractors or some hub and spoke model through tribal councils to get maintenance, repairs and upgrades.

However, hydro and mining (and other economic activies like paper mills) in traditional territories of many Indigenous peoples do impact the quality of water that sustains the life giving ecosystem they depend on for harvesting fish and animals. Clearly understanding these issues is important in light of how justifiably pissed off Indigenous people are over continued denial of the evidence of abuses experienced including residential schools as well an environmental destruction on their lands and inadequate investments in health, education and infrastructure.

I think the law, natural law or any other type of law, is the exact opposite of "might is right."

JKR wrote:

I think the law, natural law or any other type of law, is the exact opposite of "might is right."

The laws of nature for animals are be loyal to your pack, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. People are pack animals like wolves because we are mutually dependent. Due to our brains we have figured out more elaborate laws but they are not natural laws. They are deals humans made to divy things up. Notions of property and borders do not exist in nature. 

We have no right, other than that which we have bestowed on ourselves to stop a single person on Earth from deciding to live on what we call Canadian soil or what indigenous people call their soil. 

The only reason we can stop people from coming to Canada is because we have the might to do so. Not because there is some sort of natural law granting us the right. 

Natural law is you can have what you can take. All other laws are man made to suit man including indigenous laws. 

Here is a good article from a couple of years ago that sets out the on reserve water quality problem in detail.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on the actual costs estimated that Ottawa is providing at least 30 percent less than what is needed for capital expenditures. The PBO also estimated that operations and maintenance would cost $360 million a year, yet Ottawa is providing only half of that. A national assessment done in 2011 estimated these costs to be much higher, at $419 million a year. Here lies the crux of the problem: you can’t fix infrastructure incrementally. You can’t build a treatment plant and walk away. You can’t fix one leak and leave the rest unaddressed. If you don’t provide enough funding for staffing, training or repairs, the system will not last.

Imagine if you know that your home needs $1,000 a year in repairs but you budget only $100 a year. When your roof springs a small leak that will cost $800 to repair but you repair only $100 worth, then that water will spread into the ceilings and walls and cause more damage. Over time, the damage to the home will make it cost prohibitive to repair; the home may even become uninhabitable. That is the story of this water crisis — it did not spring up overnight. The crisis is a predictable outcome resulting from conscious choices made by federal officials to underfund critical infrastructure.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/february-2019/first-nations-wat...

While my namesake's writing is a bit dated, being over a hundred years old, his concepts are still relevant and mostly scientifically valid. He studied in the field for years and published Mutual Aid.

INTRODUCTION

Two aspects of animal life impressed me most during the journeys which I made in my youth in Eastern Siberia and Northern Manchuria. One of them was the extreme severity of the struggle for existence which most species of animals have to carry on against an inclement Nature; the enormous destruction of life which periodically results from natural agencies; and the consequent paucity of life over the vast territory which fell under my observation. And the other was, that even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find -- although I was eagerly looking for it -- that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.

https://ecology.iww.org/PDF/Kropotkin/Mutual%20Aid.pdf?bot_test=1

RE: Stephen Lewis

nicky wrote:

I wish the man well.

As do I. Saw hin speak in person once, here in Port Alberni (!). Incredible. I love that man.