In this episode, Sandy and Nora talk about how progressives should orient themselves towards the federal election. Hint: drop the partisanship, get involved in a local campaign if the candidate is worth your time and don’t imagine that voting is the sum total of democratic involvement.
** RE: Nora’s comment about the per vote subsidy clarification: Harper axed it. Trudeau never brought it back.
It was Bill Davis’ PC government who introduced Canada’s first guaranteed income supplement for seniors in the province of Ontario. The federal government eventually adopted GIS as a national program and it has become one of Canada’s most effective policies for reducing poverty. Not all conservatives are assholes. I’m a PCer provincially and I have trouble supporting either the Grits or the Tories federally. That said, I feel I can’t even consider voting for the NDP when I see Nikki Ashton advocating for soft communism, the shitshow surrounding Erin Weir’s firing, and wide support for budgets that create unending deficits. Public debt is not a golden goose. Enriching bankers through interest payments is a crappy strategy, as is ‘printing money’ to pay public debt.
Also, lets not pretend that the white-collared cottage industry of union administration is inherently helpful to average Canadians. Immigrants from foreign countries can’t practice their professions here in-part because unions fight to invalidate their credentials, violent gangs traffic drugs through every major port in-part due to union push-back, many unions have a history of violent xenophobia/racism, and mandatory UNIFOR union dues being used to pay for political ads is sketchy at best. Unions have done a lot of good but it’s time we ditch the balkanization of workers and get to a living minimum wage and decent labor laws for ALL Canadians.