Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM • Hacker News Board

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#871

Post by zahlman » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:42 AM UTC

Hilift wrote: post #222

nemo44x wrote: post #54

Is Canada better today then when he started as PM? I struggle to agree that it is. Housing is as bad as it has ever been and the immigration decisions seem to have been so careless that even people that would agree with immigration as a general principal are horrified by it by and large. The Canadian dollar has collapsed VS the USD. I guess it always ends bad if you stick around long enough.

Canada is in approximately the same unfortunate position of being a supplicant state of the US. This was apparent as far back as 2018 or so. The US "Commerce Department" recommended sanctions on Canada for a trade violation in timber. The worst case sanctions add about $9,000 to the cost of a new single family home in the US. "March 2016, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Obama instructed thei…

If anything, tariffs are proof of independence, not of functioning as a "supplicant state".

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#872

Post by zahlman » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

laidoffamazon wrote: post #106

maeil wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a similarly wealthy country that is actually better today than it was on the date he started as a PM? I can't. Seems like something else has been going on. Potentially you could name Ireland, by becoming a tax haven, screwing over everyone else instead.

America is, especially since 2021 but nobody wants to believe it.

Have you ever tried talking to the people who don't believe it, and showing them what their own lives were like in 2021?

Are you successful this way?

Have you considered the possibility that the metrics we use to decide whether "countries are better off" don't match the values of their citizens?

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#873

Post by cmrdporcupine » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:48 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #859

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that it was industry (especially small business) freaking out about that low unemployment rate and the pressure it was putting on wages that led to the bulk of Trudeau's demise. They went crazy with the TFW program, LMIA, and immigration generally in order to reduce inflation. But this is not the kind of inflation that ordinary Canadians think of when we think of inflation -- grocery prices, etc. It's th…

It's almost as if raising the minimum wage is reflected as wage inflation when you're already in a condition where a large fraction of workers are near the wage floor. Adding labour supply isn't going to do anything about that unless it's biased towards higher skill. (But honestly, I'd say a lot of these businesses deserve to fail if they can't afford to pay minimum wage workers.)

This was the cause of the panic, though. In the 2021/2022 time-frame many businesses that would normally only pay the minimum wage, give irregular hours, and treat people pretty woefully were forced to pay well above minimum wage. There was quite a bit of public anxiety from businesses about labour shortage and the result.

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#874

Post by badc0ffee » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:49 AM UTC

dismalaf wrote: post #549

sangnoir wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Genuinely curious whats better under Canadian system for the young and old. The young, old, and those too unhealthy to work full-time. And to answer your question: a better social safety net, IMO. Edit: Because this topic is flamebait, I'm preemptively declaring that I'm not going to argue about my opinion. YMMV.

There is no social safety net. Half my town burned down in a national park , including my own home. You think the Federal government did anything? You think there was any net at all? The Federal government even had the gall to refuse my 2 year old's passport renewal for example because I only paid the renewal fee, and not an additional fee for the passport getting destroyed before expiration date that was buried unde…

Family doctor and ER are not your only two options - you can go to a walk-in clinic. Some of them even take appointments.

I know this is true in Alberta (I assume you lived in Jasper?)

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#875

Post by SoftTalker » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:49 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #856

SoftTalker wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not hand over power immediately to the next person in line? Doesn't preclude the party choosing someone else when they get around to it.

There is no such thing as a "vice-PM" in Canada. There is no "next person in line", and parties choose leaders more or less independently of the election cycle, according to the party's needs.

So what happens if the PM has a heart attack and drops dead? There’s no defined succession?

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#876

Post by zahlman » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:50 AM UTC

adverbly wrote: post #441

ciconia wrote: post #379

Is it just me or is the quality of politicians on a downward spiral? Between retirement-age out-of-touch boomers, clueless good-looking male liberals and corrupt authoritarian plutocrats, it sure feels like there's a shortage of honest hard-working people in leadership positions. I mean it is kinda obvious that the system in western democracies is structurally flawed such that there's a selection bias for crooks and…

Not just you. And to answer your question, I don't think it's politicians but the entire way that society disagrees and discusses important topics. I've been working on a side project over the holidays related to this, but nothing to share yet unfortunately. Suffice to say, I would love it if we could frame discussions around specific policy issues, and focus on listening to one another and prioritizing and agreeing…

>I've been working on a side project over the holidays related to this, but nothing to share yet unfortunately.

What kind of project?

>Interestingly, there is a counter movement where long-form interviews are becoming popular again among niche crowds who actually want to hear and discuss issues

Indeed. Personally, I wish we could have that kind of content, but edited to remove the filler (redundancy, time spent reasoning out a position) while still accurately representing nuanced views and the evidence for them.

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#877

Post by 3vidence » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:52 AM UTC

adrr wrote: post #581

3vidence wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely no way he will be looked at as one of the better Canadian PMs.. By all accounts he will be looked at as one of the worst considering the position Canada was in at the start and end of his government. Inflation, unemployment, housing, homelessness, healthcare, crime, national unity, the overall economy. .. Just all of these things are significantly worse than 2015. With that being said I do think c…

Unemployment during his term besides covid was at record lows and still below the historic average of 7.5%. https://www.statista.com/statistics/808294/unemployment-rate...

Two things.

The link you posted doesn't agree with statcan's website

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/241206/dq241...

Second it's hard to compare unemployment rates to 10 years ago with the rise of the gig economy. "Employment" ain't what it used to be

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#878

Post by I-M-S » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 3:55 AM UTC

hmmm-i-wonder wrote: post #373

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, I hear the top candidates to replace him are Chrystia Freeland or Marc Carney (maybe known to this community since he's on Stripe's board). These top candidates might not accept to play this round though as the chances of winning are slim in the current circumstances. Some people are calling the next leader of the party a "sacrificial lamb".

Its very possible the next candidate inherits the overall sentiment and is indeed a 'sacrificial lamb'. The anti-Trudeau sentiment is high, but if he steps back its an open question if the left wing/ABC crowd and centrists revisit their support for the liberal party. IMO Chrystia Freeland would be a great pick for the country. She was firm and capable during the NAFTA/USMCA renegotiations, and seems to have stood up…

Neither of them can reverse the Liberal fortunes.

Chrystia Freeland was too close to Trudeau for too long (their fallout notwithstanding) to be perceived as anything than Trudeau 2.0

Marc Carney is a (two time!) head of a central bank - he hasn't got a chance in the current anti-elite climate.

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#879

Post by nambamutta » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 4:00 AM UTC

bluecheese452 wrote: post #832

bawolff wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on hn seem weirdly obsessed with trudeau's handling of the trucker protest. Regardless of what you think of it, at this point it is very old news and trudeau's actions were controversial but largely popular. The handling of the trucker protest is not why he resigned. It is not why he is unpopular.

Hacker News is pretty much far right when it comes to politics. Heck the moderators refused to allow any criticism of the monarchy when the queen died but allowed it when Jimmy Carter died.

See, you were not supposed to say the quiet part out loud

Re: Justin Trudeau promises to resign as PM

#880

Post by mlekoszek » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 4:05 AM UTC

blowsand wrote: post #813

a-priori wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a resident of downtown Ottawa during this period. It was bad. We had a young kid and didn't feel even safe walking her to a park, because the route crossed over convoy lines and there were all sorts of stories of harassment and assaults. We didn't even experience the worst of it; lots of people dealt with truck horns blaring 24/7, but at least our street at least was kept clear as an emergency route. We put up…

Not sure which town got the prominent coverage, but here in America a lot of the coverage we saw looked like a peaceful presence, organized to allow emergency passage, and frequently we saw what looked like a fair - lots of families strolling through, eating food, adults and kids dancing, buying random things from vendors. We saw interviews with drivers who told their stories and said they were there to peacefully pr…

A lot of the family-friendly stuff was specifically for the cameras. A few things I can speak to:

* It definitely wasn't peaceful -- activists and Ottawa residents documented numerous incidents of violence, harassment, threats, vandalism, and so on in Ottawa. This document compiles some of it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13-Zg8yjEPYyybbLy70njbWxG...

* Organizers encouraged participants to bring more children when it became clear police action was imminent, presumably to complicate law enforcement efforts. A Facebook post even suggested adding bouncy castles to "contribute to the fun" during these escalations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/17/freedom-conv...

* In the case of Ambassador Bridge, some reportedly put their children in front of the police. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/convoy-protests-total-ar...

* There’s academic discussion suggesting that children and family-friendly elements were intentionally brought in for PR and to slow the police response. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cag.12909?af=R

* Despite claims of peaceful protest, there were reports of ambulances being blocked or even pelted with rocks. https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ambulances-pelted-...

* This is without getting into the hate speech. https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/441/CHPC/Brief/B...