Thoughts haven’t changed too much, If what we’re hearing is true (big if) Then at the last minute the Americans took what was a bad deal and made it absolutely horrible. And carney did the right thing and walked away. I think that’s what pretty much all of the premier’s work and the polls suggest you won’t suffer for it. In the end though it was the only real choice we had. We can’t give away our sovereignty

But the challenge now is going to be whether or not he has a plan to fight the war he just picked to fight the war he just picked. He should have been preparing for this for over a year knowing that it was always a possibility but he really didn’t do much to prepare us like curb spending or the like.

Trump is getting his ass kicked and I ran because he picked a war without realizing or thinking about how he was going to get a win and an exit. If we don’t have a plan the same thing will happen to us

I would hope he has a plan to put as much pressure on trump as possible. I would spend hundreds of millions if I were him in adverts similar to what Ontario did and her ass trump across America before the primaries. I would be very specific about which products I tariffed and I would probably focus on export tariffs. Things like energy and potash etc are going to hurt them the most and drive their inflation up which will embarrass the hell out of trump

If he just sits there and doesn’t do anything besides put a few tariffs in place we’re going to get slaughtered. The Americans can outwait us

Well if that’s the strategy they’re going to run the clock straight into the ground at the straight into the ground at this point. We have been losing on all fronts and although we don’t know the details of this deal yet it’s not sounding terribly promising

We can’t afford to go two years of a bad deal in the hopes that somebody will get in next time that will give us a better deal. I would remind you that it’s usually the democrats that are being anti-canadian trade and the unions that push for that kind of stuff. There’s no reason to believe that a democrat administration would be any nicer about it if the deals are already in place. And no guarantee it won’t be JD Vance or somebody who wins the next election

We are losing this trade war. Final deal is as bad as they’re suggesting then carney will have failed utterly and completely in his promise to handle trump and trump will have won. We can only hope that is better than they’re making it out

We don’t know the details of the deal yet but it certainly doesn’t sound like we won much.

““And the whole point of this is to change Canada’s behaviour,” Vance said. “Which they, you know, not entirely, but they’ve certainly shifted in a Trumpian direction.””

Well that doesn’t sound good

We haven’t got the technology now, never mind in the past

Even if we eliminated every single car and switched to buses and trains and every single one of those buses and trains was electrically driven and there were no fossil fuels, which at this point in time is pretty much impossible, it would still only reduce fossil emissions in the transportation sector by about 40%. The rest would still be there, and that doesn’t address any of the other sources of carbon such as power generation which would be necessary to provide all of that electricity so we’d lose about half the benefit right there.

Right now we couldn’t come close, to be blunt we couldn’t even make a significant difference as near as I can tell. Which is why politicians keep making great promises to make the public happy and then fail to deliver

Which is why we should have been worrying about adoption and that’s where our focus should be today. Absolutely we should also be putting energy and resources into developing the next generations of technology that we will need to eventually eliminate fossil fuels, but that isn’t going to save us in the short term

We need massive advances in battery technology more than anything else. When it becomes as easy, efficient and cheap to store electricity as it is to store oil then this fight is over. And we need for environmental groups to get behind "not perfect’ solutions. For now the latest nuclear tech is amazingly safe and pollution free but many such groups still fight it tooth and nail, even though it could massively cut fossile fuel use.

But while we wait to get there, we need to be doing what is necessary to adapt. Changing laws about making cooling options mandatory in new buildings and homes, having detection and firebomber capacity to deal with wildfires properly, figuring out how to deal with water issues etc etc.

We can’t stop climate change right now. We can’t even substantially slow it down. The day will come but it’s not here

We made was not focusing on mitigation and adoption. We spent decades messing around with fake protocols and accords and targets that politicians used make it seem like they were doing something when they weren’t.

If we had spent the same time and money getting ready for climate change we would be a million times better off. In the future, and they’re not too distant future mind you, the technology will finally advance to the point where we can begin to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. But we’re not there yet and we’re not talking governments and people into giving up their jobs and lifestyle until we can offer them technology but doesn’t require that. That’s just a simple fact

We should have been talking about climate change but we should have been doing something completely different. By now we could easily have deployed forest fire technology to allow us to identify and smother fires effectively and we just don’t have it yet and we’re only now getting serious about making that happen.

Well… at least he’s consistent! And that’s hard to find in this day and age…

LOL sorry, i use voice dictation for several reasons and it does that sometimes and i don’t always catch it. It’s ‘riding’

Well the NDPis always an option. If you kind of like the conservatives but you don’t like the current candidates you should probably get involved with your local writing association and see about helping to pick a candidate that you like. Or if you’ve already got a conservative MP in your writing meet with his or her policy committee or them directly and talk about what you’d like to see different. You’d be amazed at how much of an effect that has and if you feel that way then there’s bound to be others who also feel that way.

Democracy isn’t about just showing up once every four or five years to vote after all 😁

Well, it’s kind of complicated 😁

We signed the original deal a decade and change ago and then built the bridge. The deal was that all revenues would go to canada until the 4.5 billion usd price was paid back, then it would go to income splitting.

Trump said ‘nope’ and Carney and trump agreed to a new deal. But Carney would not let the details be released. However the documents have since been leaked, and we BELIEVE the leaked version is correct. The liberals have not said otherwise.

The new deal is a more of a preliminary deal document which is being finalized, but the terms of the deal are laid out.

Carney said the new deal still included the ‘pay back canada for the bridge’ clause, but its’ pretty clear from the leaked doc that it does not. Carney has subsequently said he "could have explained that better’ and does not deny that will no longer be the case.

There is also a requirement now to pay into a ‘development fund’ for ‘the area’ which is thought to mean it would be spent on the US side, and may even go to maintenance of the competing bridge. The libs refuse to confirm or deny that.

So … the NEW deal is still in place but there are a few elements which SOUND pretty bad but we’re not sure about. It seems certain however that when carney said (two times) that the bridge would include repayment he was not speaking accurately. Some say he lied, some say he may have been “misbriefed,” but either way it looks horrible and hence the pic

There’s nothing disingenuous about it, voters walked away from it every time. That’s entirely a fact and you can do your own research on the various models that were proposed, I’m not here to compile a book for you. It’s a matter of public record, these were voted on. We’ve seen mixed proportional proportional and a few others.

And every flavor that gets proposed gets shot down. British Columbia itself alone had three freaking referendums on it and launched a citizens committee to study it before one of them and it still got shot down

When people take a look at it they don’t like it. It’s a bad idea

And who cares how many other countries use pR? Israel’s one of them and they’ve been constantly criticized as having a horrible government. PR is a crappy system

But it’s an especially crappy system for a country as large and as diverse as ours is. The problems with PR are minimized when you have a smaller more homogeneous population. You have a population like ours it Magnifies all of the problems with PR 100 fold

As for the reasons why Canadians walked away from it it doesn’t really matter. The records are there and you can look it up if you want but the fact is they did walk away from it. Ontario, the Atlantic provinces, british Columbia, all toll groups that represent more than half of our population and they all shot it down some of them multiple times

You sold yourself on the idea that it’s good and you’re not looking at the problems that come along with it. But when people give it serious consideration they see those problems and they say no

The best you would ever sell in Canada is some form of limited proportional representation where the majority of the MPS are elected first pass the post but then a small number of seats are awarded to each party based on their percentage of vote to try and balance things a little bit and even that’s a bad idea. But it’s an idea that at least some people might accept. But it doesn’t actually address any of the issues people who support PR reportedly claim to care about

There are other ways to improve representation in our democracy that would be effective. PR is not one of them

PR is not a good method and as I’ve said every single time it gets a solid look by the people it gets turned down. What has it been, four or five referendums now? 6?

It’s not popular the moment people give it some real thought. And obviously the people of the provinces make up Canada. Even Ontario, our largest province, shot the idea down

As far as your reasoning goes as to why you want it I can understand that and I’m not saying it’s invalid. But there are other ways to achieve that and to be honest proportional representation will achieve the opposite in some of those cases Proportional representation means you have no local representative and you will be totally unrepresented in parliament directly. Furthermore the Idea of pR is to create fewer majorities. Which means that you never have a government that has majority support. It’s a coalition of people who don’t have majority support and didn’t run on a unified platform.

So by it’s very nature it doesn’t do what you want it to do. There are other ways to tackle some of those problems that would be better.

As to the liberals the liberals were plenty weak. The results are often however not what you thought they would be. Very often these coalitions become about personal power and achieve wealth for their members but don’t do much for Canada or the country they serve. Jack meet his pension and a bunch of business contacts, he will be very wealthy. Justin is making tens of millions of dollars with the connections he laid. Both left Canada in a mess. That is proportional representation and it’s core

And I hate to break it to you but it’s actually not that hard to get a majority under PR. It happens less frequently but it does happen and worse you’re thinking that only one party would want to go back to first pass the post. But chances are that’s not true. The liberals and conservatives could easily look at moving back to a first past the post if they don’t like sharing power with people like the NDP. Or did you forget about that?

Even the block might very well be happy to work with a minority government leader to bring back first past the post considering that proportional representation would probably hurt them the most

It would be very easy for it to be rolled back, so you’re not really changing anything

In short PR does not do what you want it to, and people realize that when they’re forced to take a long hard look at it and make a choice. Your concerns are valid but there are other ways to tackle them. PR has been proposed on a provincial level numerous numerous times and is always shot down. It will be wiser to look at reforms that make sense and can be sold to the public

Proportional representation is a bad idea, and in every case where it’s been examined on a provincial level when the voters take a long hard look they walk away from it

Would be better for sure to look at the reasons why you want it and then find other ways to achieve that which would be more acceptable to the public. If the public isn’t on board then you’re going to have a tough time making it happen and there’s been nothing to stop someone in the future from going back to first past the post

And you had a coalition between the liberals and NDP for 4 years, and that didn’t help.

Jagmeet Singh represented the entire party.

And you absolutely have a local representative in Canada. And that can do an awful lot, they can bring forward local issues and you have someone to speak to if you’ve got a problem and you can hold them to account. This happens all the time. And god knows there’s been more than one back bench revolt over the years, that’s the thing that happens in every political party

So you’re mistaken. We definitely have local representation and that’s critical

And it does make sense that you’re representing the population less. You’ve lost your local representative, you can’t hold them accountable, the person who is speaking for you might not even be someone you like or know. You lose massive amounts of accountability and now it’s the party and the internal politics that put people in charge and not the people directly. You are 100% less represented under that system then a system where you pick the local person and they are answerable to you

Even worse by forming a coalition a government would now be pursuing a policy that was never put forward and voted on by the People. They would have no mandate for the things they were doing yet they would be doing them anyway. And we saw that again with the Justin and jagmeet coalition where it was a hodgepodge of ideas that had never been presented to voters during the election. So once again far less representation by the people, politicians feel emboldened to do whatever they like to or whatever they need to in order to stay in power regardless of the people’s wishes

And it’s pretty hard to claim that our system favors majority governments when we had basically two in the last 26 years. Sure carney bought himself one recently but guess what, that can happen under proportional representation even easier than it did for Carney under the current system. And in fact under your system there would be no way for the voters of the writing where the person crossed the floor to hold that person to account next time, they can easily be in the next government

What’s your proposing is an absolutely horrible system that removes accountability and representation.

There are vastly better ways to improve our system and representation and the whole governments to account then proportional representation. I get why a lot of people like it when they first look at it but it’s a horrible idea

A coalition represents the population less. You lose your individual MP so you have no one locally to hold responsible. A coalition has to run on a platform that was never introduced in the election so now they’re operating without even a mandate. And there’s no accountability, one blames the other and nobody gets held to account.

Let’s take the last of government as an example. They formed a coalition and jag meat basically sold out his party and everything he got elected for in exchange for what has amounted to nothing. Now he walked out the door with his pension intact and will make tons of money as a consultant because of his time in government. Meanwhile the liberals went on to win the next election and have now managed to buy themselves a majority. But young Canadians still can’t afford a home, Food inflation is through the roof, and our economy is still tanking and nobody was held to account. Justin Trudeau is off making millions of dollars each year consulting with charity organizations that he gave money to while he was prime minister and doing speaking engagements.

The government to work and be effective people need a local representative, there needs to be one government that people can hold to account and there needs to be one clear vision that this government is working towards instead of a mishmash of ideology and sound bites but look good but do nothing for the people in the long run

It has been said that our democracy is a horrible way to govern people, with its only redeeming quality being that it’s better than all of the others that are available. And this is true

There are other ways to improve our democratic representation, this just isn’t one of them

People voting against it is absolutely evidence that it’s a horrible idea. But I love that you are claiming that the people making a democratic decision about it is terrible because we need more democracy 😂😂😂😂😋

The people took a look at it they looked at the pros and cons they gave it serious consideration and said no. And not just once or twice but many many times now. And while you may not like that it is absolutely evidence that when people actually give it serious consideration they come to the conclusion that it’s a bad idea

And you absolutely need a parliament that’s efficient. Efficiency isn’t measured in bureaucracy, it’s measured in results. We’ve basically had minority governments for most of the last 11 years, And a look at our economic legal and social results suggest that there are serious problems with that and that encouraging it to go on more is not a healthy thing.

And there is absolutely nothing fair about government by committee. Again I would point you to Israel.

And the liberals got to power by buying off members of the opposition until they Cobble together a majority. And essentially that’s what you get by management of committee, that’s what you want more of not less. For now had a majority in his last term impractical terms despite it being technically a minority government. How’d that go for us?

There’s no difference between a party that can impose its will and a cabal or coalition that does as we saw under the liberals ndp coalition last government. Remember that the vast majority of gov’ts this century have been minority gov’ts.

Effective management absolutely requires clear direction and vision. A gov’t should have a clear mandate and be empowered to execute it within the boundaries of it’s constitutional authority. Otherwise parties can throw the blame aorund and you see people stay in power forever. Israel is an example. In situations like that it’s all about posturing and optics and never about good governance. You still get that with first pass to post to a degree but it does give governments the freedom to do unpopular things once in awhile when it’s the right thing to do

There are lots of ways to improve the system and improve representation but proportional representation is probably the worst

Proportional representation is a horrible idea, which is one of the main reasons that every province that’s taken a good look at it has rejected it. Sometimes twice.

And frankly the systems that are in place that do use it are not the same as Canada or are having a lot more trouble than this article would let on

Proportional representation is management by committee. It is the least efficient and least accountable way to run a government.

There are definitely ways where we could substantially improve the representation of smaller parties Within our existing system and make things better but switching to proportional representation would not. If anyone needs any more proof then just watching what happened with the NDP and liberal coalition over the last 4 years should be evidence enough

Unfortunately doing what we want is not really an option. It’s not a question of whether or not we’re going to lose it becomes a question of whether or not we’re going to lose or we’re going to lose horribly and with disastrous consequences.

Trump is unlikely ever put the 50% tariff on us certainly not for anything time but he might very well put tariffs on us that are lower. And we simply couldn’t survive that. We might be able to diversify our economy in the next 20 years or so but not any time in the immediate future,

Future so at the end of the day we’re going to have to give him what he wants and get what we can get which is going to be terrible.

Carney played a strategy of string trump out to the midterms and hope that he loses badly at the midterms and in the meantime give him whatever he wants to drag things out. So we came down every thing from the bridge to the DST etc

But now trump thinks that carney will came on anything and he’s not going to wait till the midterms.

So now we’re in a tough position. We can’t walk away cuz if trump actually does put those tariffs on we’re dead. I mean really dead, like declare bankruptcy and live like Mexico dead

I don’t know how much analysis this needs. He wants to try and get a deal with carney on terms that work for him and he’s threatening a new killer option if carney doesn’t give him what he wants. He wants to take the rest of the Canadian Auto sector and he wants to be able to dump dairy products into Canada. Until carney agrees to that there’s even going to be any negotiations and trump is going to hold this over Canada’s head until he figures he’s got to win

And the problem is every minute that this is in play guarantees no investment in Canada. Nobody’s putting a nickel into Canada until they find out what’s going on