Thanks for sharing! I’m on my last tube of toothpaste and have been looking arouns at bulk options, for some reason just assumed sensodyne was American.

Much appreciated!

I had to double check that Monster cigarettes weren’t actually a thing.

He also started us on the $10 a day daycare. It’s not universal yet but that’s still huge for tens of thousands of families.

I mean, I really like the notion of training more tradespeople. Our lack thereof is a huge impediment to upping new home starts etc. But of course Polievre has to fuck it up and pair it with “and we’ll pay for it by gutting government.”

I hope Carney swipes the trades training thoughts from him and leaves him scrambling again just like the carbon tax.

Products made in Canada would likely keep more money in Canada.

Corporate profits are usually a relatively small percentage of costs. If most of those costs are in Canada (capital for the factory, wages for labour and presumably somewhat more likely to involve Canadian goods) then yeah, operated in Canada should return more here.

I’d also use the Buy Beaver to check, someone may have done the homework and figured out the source for the manufacturing/ingredients.

A couple things that I’ve found: Going through all my apps, even the free ones. Checking whether the company is, at some end of the chain, American and if so, finding an alternative app.

Writing letters to my local stores, asking them either to improve their Canadian signage or about the availability of more Canadian goods.

The next one I’m starting is working out how to host a jellyfin server as I’ve made a deal with some of my non techy friends that if I can figure out how to host whatever they’re streaming, they’ll cancel the relevant American subscriptions.

Finally, trying to make un American or open source projects/environments/alternatives better, e.g., participating on Blue Sky or here.

Regardless, thanks for your efforts and keep up the good fight!

It’s a tough call. In my head,my ideal is obviously Canadian owned and made. After that, as long as one of those two conditions is satisfied, I consider it a medium win and then as long as it’s not American owned/made (any other country) minor win.

What I’ve been pointing out is the mechanism by which extremism manifests differently under different electoral systems.

And that mechanism is leading to moderate parties in FPTP systems like ours and hate groups in PR ones.

You admit that

The rise of the AfD reflects genuine social concerns and tensions

So, why aren’t those tensions which are boiling over repeatedly in PR systems boiling over here? Again, simply put, do you think 1/5 Canadians are angry enough to vote for a far right group?

it’s just hidden until it captures a mainstream party from within. This “stealth extremism” is actually more dangerous because it lacks transparency and accountability. Look at how the Reform Party didn’t vanish – it simply took over the Conservative Party, with Stephen Harper (from Reform) becoming PM

This is exactly the silliness I’m talking about.

Do you literally believe the Canadian conservative party is seriously comparable to the AfD or Brothers of Italy?

Oooof, my bad! Thanks!

Like I said, I take the rise of these parties in Canada as an unacceptable risk to the vulnerable AND that these reflect growing dissatisfaction within the countries you wish for us to emulate.

You may not care about the vulnerable, I do.

I don’t know what else to tell you.

If you recommended a bar that had better drinks but every second night, 20% of the bar were alt right extremists, we’d think you had poor taste. The fact you want a similar government here, ain’t great look.

You can pretend that the groups you dislike under FPTP are similar to the extremist groups under PR but that’s absolute nonsense.

If I were on Carney’s comms team, I’d be giggling, high fiving and writing up attack lines for Carney to crucify him on this. The EU and UK are moving towards essentially having tarrifs for countries without industrial carbon pricing.

With the US being a dumpster fire, making it harder to trade with our actual allies is about as boneheaded a move as you can imagine.

I guess, from his perspective it’s worth it so he can say “ax the tax.”

Edit: Whoops, meant costs on countries without a carbon tax. Thanks Mongostein!

You keep blithely asserting that PR is dealing with extremism well. We disagree on this. You haven’t said anything new. I don’t think forcing a bunch of other parties to try to work around excluding almost a quarter of the seats is particularly good politics.

Look at the UK, where Brexit was pushed through by a Conservative Party captured by its extreme wing, despite most citizens eventually opposing it.

That’s a wildly incorrect misremembering of history, the majority of Britons explicitly voted for Brexit in a referendum about it. I know that despite demanding more representation you hate the results of people being asked things directly, but it’s pretty hard to argue that Brexit was against their will.

Your claim that PR coalitions can’t create “significant legislation” contradicts international evidence.

Honestly, just read to the end of the paragraph where I made this point. I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.

as we’ve seen repeatedly in the UK, US, and increasingly in Canada.

This is a nonsense reading. You compare a country with a fundamentally different set up, one where the extreme party is fairly moderate by the PR standards AND enjoys less support than extreme parties in PR countries and then our Conservative party, which is nowhere near as extreme as the extremist parties sprouting like mushrooms in PR systems. To put these examples in the same basket as the PR extremism is childishly ignorant and demonstrates you either have no clue about the subject matter or that you are willing to ignore reality to make a point poorly. I’m not sure which is worse.

Like I said, I take the rise of these parties in Canada as an unacceptable risk to the vulnerable AND that these reflect growing dissatisfaction within the countries you wish for us to emulate.

You may not care about the vulnerable, I do.

misunderstands how electoral systems interact with extremism.

How you want electoral systems to interact.

In the US, extremist views didn’t disappear

So you’re now cherrypicking a 2 party system as the equivalent of ours? Do you really not understand the structural differences of the American system and ours? For actual comparisons, you could look at the UK where Reform is their Far Right equivalent but is significantly more moderate than its PR peers and enjoys lower support. You might also note that there are no analogs in Canada.

What’s the evidence for this?

Most, if not all, of the changes you describe were set in motion a long time ago. In recent years, maybe it’s the rise of polarization, maybe it’s just the fade of the boom time of the 90s, but modern PR countries have struggled in the last decade+.

The rise of the AfD reflects genuine social concerns and tensions in Germany that would exist under any electoral system.

To be clear, the country rocking your utopian electoral system is going through such bad turmoil that 1/5 of its citizens are turning to a dog whistling neo nazi party, and this is a good thing in your books and has nothing to do with the struggles of Germany to pass significant legislation since Merkel? (I mean, you cited Ukraine, Covid and the climate a few replies ago, missing that 2/3 of those were pretty basic that most of Europe figured out and the other is based EU mandates and on legislation passed years and years ago.)

Basically, if you understand that:

The rise of the AfD reflects genuine social concerns and tensions

and these issues keep popping up over and over in PR countries, probably time to reconsider the merits of that system.

There are two answers to the rise of extremist parties in PR countries:

1. These actually would exist all over and secretly, a huge swathe of Canadians, despite all evidence would likely vote for a similarly extreme party.
2. The rise of these parties, like you say, “reflects genuine social concerns and tensions” that seem to happen increasingly often with PR.

Again, I take the rise of these parties in Canada as an unacceptable risk to the vulnerable AND that these reflect growing dissatisfaction within the countries you wish for us to emulate.

You and I personally are unlikely to be seriously affected by those awful outcomes but I care about those who will be affected. Maybe that’s the difference.

What good is a government that enacts policies that hurt its people?

Did you literally stop reading after the first sentence?

Electoral systems and rules exist so that people can elect a government, the purpose of which is to help the people. The primary goal of a government is the welfare of its people.

What you’re really saying is “I don’t like the representatives some voters choose.”

Here we differ. I will loudly declare that I believe racist, hateful or Nazi adjacent parties are Bad things. I did not think that was a contentious point, but here we are.

The electoral system didn’t create Kickl’s support – it merely reveals it.

What’s the proof? Do you really believe some 30% of Canadians would vote for similar groups and we’re just masking that now? Or just huge percentages of Italians, Austrians, Germans, Dutch, Polish etc are fairly hateful? Rather than say, things have gotten really bad and people are looking for extreme measures?

For every example you cite, there are PR systems producing excellent outcomes.

Maybe this is it. To me, 50/50 is a pretty fucking terrible offer here. Like, hey, we can make your vote marginally better but there’s a 50/50 chance Canada gets a bunch of extreme right politics to deal with going forward.

I think that offer makes Canada a much worse place for many vulnerable people.

Edit: formattings and the grammars

The purpose of an electoral system isn’t to prevent certain ideologies from gaining representation - it’s to ensure accurate representation of how citizens actually vote

That’s one perspective but I disagree. Electoral systems and rules exist so that people can elect a government, the purpose of which is to help the people. The primary goal of a government is the welfare of its people.

If your electoral system consistently produces **bad **outcomes, that’s a **bad **thing.

When we look to peer nations, like our compatriots in the G7 who use PR or all across Europe, you see bad outcomes happening.

It takes a insane reading of the situation to say a system wherein Kickl is polling about where our Canadian Conservative party polls, is producing good outcomes. You know this intrinsically, it’s why you go into histrionics when I point out countries like all the examples already listed.

It’s worked in some places, is producing deeply disturbing outcomes in others. You haven’t outlined why the Nordic countries are doing well under PR vs all the counter examples, you’ve just whined that it’s not fair to use fairly reasonable comparisons bizzarely claimed that 1/5 Germans voting for an acitve neo Nazi party is somehow a good sign.

Pretty simple stuff.

I’m out here campaigning for democracy and Canadians

lol

Not that it’s been demonstrated I’ve been cherry picking in the first place. Both people doing something wrong doesn’t make it ok. Yet another example of lazy intellectual discussion from the FPTP camp.

What on Earth are you trying to say? Again, the question was pretty simple, how are my examples cherry picking? If we want to look at examples of how PR is playing out, the G7, the group to which we commonly compare Canada, seems a good choice. You just don’t like it because they aren’t great for your side. What example countries do you think would make a good comparison and why are they better than our G7 pals who use PR?

your shorter responses are telling me that perhaps you don’t actually don’t “care” enough about the country to defend FPTP.

Your overabundance of free time doesn’t compel me. I recommend going outside, enjoying a pleasant walk, maybe phoning a friend etc. It’ll do you good.

You’ve completely ignored my point

Variations on “more representation is good!” isn’t a new point, no one is arguing about this.

Your Brexit example actually undermines your argument.

I thought you didn’t like direct democracy because it wasn’t practical. Is your position actually you want all peoples voices heard but ONLY filtered through representatives? You demand we listen to all the people but they can’t be trusted enough to answer a question directly? This is a very silly position.

I find it nonsensical how you keep cherrypicking examples while completely missing the point of what an electoral system is supposed to do.

Pray tell, what criteria would you use that somehow excludes our G7 PR system peers but is also not cherry-picking? Like, PR only (but not always!) counts in countries that have an imminent threat of Russian to their East?

Thanks!

Claiming that choosing large swathes of Europe is my cherry picking is pretty silly.

And you are misunderstanding the point of those examples. It is not just dangerous how close some of these hard right groups are to power, the fact these groups are so popular is in itself worrying.

It is not a sign of a healthy democracy when people are so angry and desperate they give Kickl 29% of the vote. It is a deeply worrying sign when some 20% of Germans are voting for dog whistle neo Nazi party (Alice fur Deutschland is about as blatant as it gets, there’s not a German who doesn’t know the Nazi slogan was Alles fur Deutschland.

Yes, those democracies are struggling through and bending into contortions to keep functional, non extremist governments working. But this is a sign of Democratic strength in the same sense that coughing up blood is a sign your body is keeping the blood out of your lungs, it’s true but it is also a sign that something is seriously wrong.

A system can be great in theory or in different circumstances. But the reality of the moment and the real world evidence suggests we are very lucky to have avoided PR and would do well to continue to do so. We don’t have a Wilders, Weidel or Kickl for a reason.

You blithely assume that more voices at the table or more better representation etc leads to better outcomes but what’s the proof? You even mentiom Brexit but either don’t know or comveniently forget that it was passed with a majority support in a referendum. For crazy but very representative outcomes, look South to California which loves ballot referendums, which are as pure a democratic option as possible. If you’ve read about the LA fires, you already know that insurance companies have been unable to accurately price the risk of fores because of a referendum preventing insurance companies from raising rates, popular but insane policy.

FPTP and our elected dictatorship creates a balance between the ability of government to pass significant legislation while also being accountable to voters. The real world examples of PR are horrific. It’s really not that complicated.