Justin Trudeau recently announced that he will be around to fight the next election. Michael Harris is betting that it will occur in the spring. And it will be an ugly fight. Trudeau is facing strong headwinds:
Grocery bills look more like car payments thanks to inflation. To get runaway prices under control, the Bank of Canada keeps raising interest rates, as it did again this week. In time, that may help. But for the moment, it merely turns the screws on people seeking or renewing mortgages.
The price of gas is a daily reminder of how much poorer everyone seems to be, drawing attention to Ottawa’s carbon tax of 11.1 cents per litre. Critics say the policy doesn’t work. Some provinces like Nova Scotia want out of the federal system — even though the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that Ottawa’s carbon tax is constitutional.
The health-care system is sputtering like an old lawnmower. After two years of COVID, doctors and especially nurses, the forgotten people of the system, are beyond unhappy. Although the provinces run health care, Ottawa is taking heat for not paying its fair share of the costs.
What was once a 50/50 split has turned into the provinces footing the bill for 70 per cent of health-care costs. If we get another wave of COVID this fall in tandem with a bad flu season, as they have had in Australia, the system could collapse. Even Trudeau admitted that Ontario Premier Doug Ford was right when he claimed that the status quo isn’t working anymore.
Ditto for the teaching profession, where there are shortages across the country. As of May, British Columbia had 500 vacant positions across multiple school districts. Several other provinces are having trouble attracting and keeping educators.
The queue of immigration applicants hoping to come to Canada is longer than the lineup at a Tim Hortons drive-thru on a rainy day. There are now more than 2.7 million people waiting to have their applications processed, up 300,000 from June.
Canada’s biggest airport, Toronto Pearson International, is an exercise in travel masochism. Once viewed as the best airport in the world, Toronto’s air hub is now seen as one of the worst. Now when you head out to catch a flight, you have to bring survival rations and an overnight bag.
Trudeau's opponent will be Pierre Poilievre:
Poilievre hopes that he can ride the anger train to power, the way another unqualified candidate became president of the United States for one term. Trump demonized Hillary Clinton, and Poilievre will try to do the same thing to Trudeau using similar techniques. Tom Mulcair recently told me that Canada is “too good a country” for that to happen here.
What Canadians will see in the new Conservative leader is pure Pierre — fangs, venom and the smirk. The fact is Poilievre is a dyed-in-the-wool acolyte of Stephen Harper, proud of his far-right populist views and unapologetic for his dismal record as a member of a government that ignored the environment, abandoned Indigenous peoples, undercut democracy and despised the press.
And oh yes, a government that added $150 billion to the national debt during its time in office.
Poilievre’s fossilized views on vaccine mandates, and his chummy relationship with that mob in trucks that took over Ottawa for three weeks, make the point. Pierre Poilievre is a one-trick pony.
It won't be pleasant. We'll see how good the country is.
Image: YouTube
9 comments:
Mr PP could learn a few things from the Queen about humility and respect. Especially what it means to “listen”. Anyong
Point well taken, Anyong.
What was once a 50/50 split has turned into the provinces footing the bill for 70 per cent of health-care costs.
Mr Harris is being a bit disingenuous here. The funding mechanisms were changed. The Federal Gov't may be funding as much, more, or less than in 1977. Maybe the Parliamentary Budget Officer could figure this out. My bet is "more".
What the Federal Gov't seems to have done is give up some of its ability to direct the funding. I have seen at least one reporter claim that Doug Ford has taken some of the Federal Covid funding and stash it away so that he can use it to reduce the deficit
From 1957 to 1977, the federal government's financial contribution in support of health care was determined as a percentage (one-half) of provincial and territorial expenditure on insured hospital and physician services. In 1977, under the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements and Established Programs Financing Act, cost sharing was replaced with a block fund, in this case, a combination of cash payments and tax points. A block fund is a sum of money provided from one level of government to another for a specific purpose. With a transfer of tax points, the federal government reduces its tax rates and provincial and territorial governments simultaneously raise their tax rates by an equivalent amount.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/reports-publications/health-care-system/canada.html#a7
Quite true, jrk. The provinces now have the power to raise taxes, But several provinces -- particularly conservative provinces -- would prefer to pawn that business off on the federal government.
I don't blame any level of government for the high price of gas. They haven't raised the taxation rates on gas. The high gas prices are the doing of greedy producers and/or retailers.
Quite true, Gordie. Lower gas prices are all about using less gas.
Gordie is correct, of course, but consumers can be awfully gullible. The oil industry has been highly successful persuading the average Canadian that taxes are the cause of high fuel prices. Conservative politicians have been complicit in this, using the myth to knock their Liberal opponents.
We're easily conned, Toby.
I'd like to publish your comment, Anon. But you'll have to initial it.
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