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Alberta Politics

The_Cat said:
I wonder if Danielle Smith will blame the Arctic Ice melting on arson.
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Exactly the sort of thing that makes the rest of the country not take us seriously, but then she will just get more upset and attack Ottawa more.

It will accomplish nothing, but just keep the base permanently riled up.
 
Whattagame said:
That's not the point, though, because it will hit consumers regardless of tax increases - hence my skepticism of the existence of savvy voters who think that the inflation we've seen is tied to taxation.

And your last sentence is unnecessary caping for corporations, as the purpose of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value. It is the fiduciary responsibility of their boards to fulfill that purpose. So, no. I am not free to stop dealing with them, as our society is not constructed to allow that.
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The inflation we've been seeing is a product of multiple factors, which has been made clear to pretty much anyone who's been paying attention over the past couple of years. I haven't seen or heard of anyone who blames taxation ENTIRELY for price increases--many more people claim it's profiteering on the part of corporate business.

Of course the purpose of the corporation is to enhance shareholder value and management boards have a duty to ensure this is taking place. This, however, does NOT mean that you have to deal with a given corporation just because it has a management board overseeing its performance. You have a choice to not shop at, say, Loblaw and Sobeys, which are both public companies. You could easily shop at Freson (family-owned) or North Central Co-op (member-owned). You also have the option of not dealing with the big five banks (all public corporations) and instead deal with a credit union (member-owned) or the ATB (government-owned). Instead of patronizing restaurants that are part of multinational corporations, you could give your business to the many locally-owned places. So no, there is no societal conspiracy to force everyone to deal with big companies. There are plenty of other options in many fields.
 
Mark Carney, who the federal Liberals have been courting for a long time, would be someone I would like to see as PM. This was interview from the weekend.

He comments on Alberta situation with UCP as well as other current issues - inflation/interest rates/climate change.

 
TAS said:
Mark Carney, who the federal Liberals have been courting for a long time, would be someone I would like to see as PM. This was interview from the weekend.

He comments on Alberta situation with UCP as well as other current issues - inflation/interest rates/climate change.

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Carney's a bright guy, he has a long track record in public service. The problem is that "outsiders" (which is what Carney would be as a candidate for leader) tend to have very poor records in Canadian politics, and with the Liberal party in particular. Michael Ignatieff was another very intelligent individual with some compelling ideas, but who crashed and burned with the voters. The very thing that was supposed to be an asset--his outsider status, his long career in academia as opposed to government (which was assumed to mean that he brought a fresh approach)--became a stick with which the Conservatives very effectively beat him.

Perhaps a better comparison would be John Turner. Turner was the future of the Liberal party once, and he won the leadership (and 24 Sussex Drive) as an outsider--remember he had left politics. Turner came back to take the top job, but despite a solid track record as a minister years earlier (particularly as justice minister) he proved to have feet of clay and Mulroney absolutely throttled him.

Carney could be brilliant, he could also end up with the downsides of both Ignatieff and Turner. Like Ignatieff, Carney has never held federal office. He would find electoral politics MUCH different and much less pleasant than any of his previous jobs. (Ignatieff seemed genuinely rattled by how raucous the election campaign became.) And like Turner, Carney would be trying to defy gravity: voters were tired of the Liberals in 1984, which seems to be happening again now with the electorate closing in on eight years under Trudeau II.
 
^. ^^

other than i think the electorate is even much more frustrated with trudeau and his actions and choices than with the party which means the party has a chance to reset. it’s just that the new leader would have to do just that to have credibility and that will take someone like carney, possibly by welcoming back some of those like philpot who trudeau drove or pushed out…

my concern with poilievre is that while he can be an effective critic so far there isn’t enough substance to an actual platform and policies to demonstrate he’s capable of being the one to be criticized.
 
I think that if PeePee ever becomes PM, he will piss off so many people so fast that his term in office will be very short, like Joe Clark.
 
Carney also served in a government role under PC (Flaherty) and Liberal (Goodale) finance ministers before his BoC role so I think he will have a wide base of support not to mention his environmental leadership more recently.
 
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