Thank you so much for this thought provoking article.
You asked, "Is Mark Carney going to be the saviour of the middle class?"
This is the core flaw I’ve observed with Canadian and US politics, and shows how similar they are.
British North American settler-colonial citizens are generally not looking for a strong and healthy democracy, but a "saviour". They are looking for a benevolent dictator, with a subjective concept of benevolent. Different political factions are looking for a different saviour as they want to be "saved" from different things, but fundamentally they are looking for some strong individual able to implement their vision in a top-down way, rather than strengthening Democratic Institutions such that no single individual ever matters.
Liberals were the first "Canadian" party to adopt the American national convention process to have a Leadership Primary where corporate party "members" (shareholders, whatever) determine the leader rather than the leader being decided by and at all times accountable to elected caucus members (as is the system used in other Westminster Parliamentary Systems, and what Canada did prior to the Liberals party adopting a more US Presidential system).
While the Liberals may have started this US policy, the NDP, Conservatives (various names over Canada's history), the Bloc and even the Greens are using the same US Leadership Primary system.
The flaws of this top-down unaccountable hierarchical system should be obvious from what we have been observing with the USA, except few Canadians actually see themselves different enough from US citizens to notice those systemic flaws.
Well, there's now competition for money. From Dan Gardner and Paul Wells on substack:
Dan Gardner:
We need new allies. To get new allies, we need a ground-up reconstruction of the Canadian Armed Forces that fixes decades of atrophy and only then expands CAF capabilities rapidly. Rebuilding and expanding the CAF will require staggering amounts of money. And that means all the talk of tax cuts and new social programs — all the stuff that Canadian politicians continue to talk about like this is 2019 — is empty chatter.
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Paul Wells:
I spoke to a European diplomat last week who absolutely could not believe that Canadians, including Mark Carney, are still talking about defence spending drifting lazily up toward 2% of GDP in a half-decade.
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The only good news I can see there, is that there may be a real "zero-based" re-evaluation of what defence we need. A lot of our purchases, I think, were not for shooting plausible attackers, but just for "keeping up" with American partners.
Thought provoking as always - thanks for this. But )naively perhaps) I do hold out some hope that Carney will change directions for the Liberals. Admittedly he’s already thrown a huge sop to wealthy Canadians by announcing he’ll cancel the planned increase to Capital Gains. But his knowledge of how these big players avoid taxes could be a real help to figuring out how to get more fairness in the tax system. He talked in his acceptance speech about the fact that corporations don’t work in the interests of people. I’m happy to give him a chance to prove himself.
The smart headline definitely caught my eye and I thought it was another spin doctor working to promote pp, but on rereading your excellent breakdown in complete agreement, my hope is that Carney will be true to his word that the important value lies in people, not money.
“ There is no material difference between having someone beat you up and insult you versus having someone beat you up and apologise. ”
Nice.
Thank you so much for this thought provoking article.
You asked, "Is Mark Carney going to be the saviour of the middle class?"
This is the core flaw I’ve observed with Canadian and US politics, and shows how similar they are.
British North American settler-colonial citizens are generally not looking for a strong and healthy democracy, but a "saviour". They are looking for a benevolent dictator, with a subjective concept of benevolent. Different political factions are looking for a different saviour as they want to be "saved" from different things, but fundamentally they are looking for some strong individual able to implement their vision in a top-down way, rather than strengthening Democratic Institutions such that no single individual ever matters.
Liberals were the first "Canadian" party to adopt the American national convention process to have a Leadership Primary where corporate party "members" (shareholders, whatever) determine the leader rather than the leader being decided by and at all times accountable to elected caucus members (as is the system used in other Westminster Parliamentary Systems, and what Canada did prior to the Liberals party adopting a more US Presidential system).
While the Liberals may have started this US policy, the NDP, Conservatives (various names over Canada's history), the Bloc and even the Greens are using the same US Leadership Primary system.
The flaws of this top-down unaccountable hierarchical system should be obvious from what we have been observing with the USA, except few Canadians actually see themselves different enough from US citizens to notice those systemic flaws.
thanks for this. Right on.
Excellent post!
Well, there's now competition for money. From Dan Gardner and Paul Wells on substack:
Dan Gardner:
We need new allies. To get new allies, we need a ground-up reconstruction of the Canadian Armed Forces that fixes decades of atrophy and only then expands CAF capabilities rapidly. Rebuilding and expanding the CAF will require staggering amounts of money. And that means all the talk of tax cuts and new social programs — all the stuff that Canadian politicians continue to talk about like this is 2019 — is empty chatter.
---------------------
Paul Wells:
I spoke to a European diplomat last week who absolutely could not believe that Canadians, including Mark Carney, are still talking about defence spending drifting lazily up toward 2% of GDP in a half-decade.
----------------------
The only good news I can see there, is that there may be a real "zero-based" re-evaluation of what defence we need. A lot of our purchases, I think, were not for shooting plausible attackers, but just for "keeping up" with American partners.
Thought provoking as always - thanks for this. But )naively perhaps) I do hold out some hope that Carney will change directions for the Liberals. Admittedly he’s already thrown a huge sop to wealthy Canadians by announcing he’ll cancel the planned increase to Capital Gains. But his knowledge of how these big players avoid taxes could be a real help to figuring out how to get more fairness in the tax system. He talked in his acceptance speech about the fact that corporations don’t work in the interests of people. I’m happy to give him a chance to prove himself.
OMG how long were you holding this headline in your back pocket?? 😄
hah I've been making carney jokes all weekend but it didn't hit me as a headline till this moring.
Mine, for a year, has been,
"Chrystia Freeland wrote this great book, 'Plutocrats'. It's about all Carney's best friends."
Trolling
It’s easy to suggest what not to do. What precisely do you propose we do to build something better in the six weeks or so that we have?
Love the headline, great analysis.
What name calling?
The smart headline definitely caught my eye and I thought it was another spin doctor working to promote pp, but on rereading your excellent breakdown in complete agreement, my hope is that Carney will be true to his word that the important value lies in people, not money.