29 Comments
User's avatar
Athol Cohen's avatar

Excellent commentary Mark! I agree wholeheartedly. Two things... 1) does Pierre know 2) enough of the slogans. As you say, now it's time to show leadership and nation-(re)building.

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Grumpy Canadian's avatar

Fuck no, we need an adult at the wheel more than ever before.

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Jim Stewart's avatar

As long as Poilievre continues to emulate Trump and Musk he will be seen in that light.

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Kelly Dee's avatar

A little late for that, wouldn’t you say?

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Bill MacGougan's avatar

It was all fairly good, some bits seemed a stretch but not overtly biased. And then I came to this regarding the carbon tax: “Policy merits aside, it is a deeply unpopular tax that has laid waste to the spending power of everyday Canadians. Even the Liberals now recognize this and all their leadership contenders have pledged to eliminate it” The Liberals do not recognize that it has “laid waste to Canadian’s spending power.” All reasoned analysis shows that the Carbon tax, before accounting for longer term benefits, had an inflationary impact of less than 0.5%. Thus, I couldn’t read any more of what was otherwise reading fairly well. It appears as a camouflaged partisan piece. Too bad.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

No point talking with you then. Have a good life.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

Reasoned analysis done by all Liberal leadership candidates, including the winner, concluded the carbon tax was so deeply unpopular they all (save Gould) vowed to eliminate it. Carney did so, though promises to replace it with a hidden tax. Hidden because it is deeply unpopular.

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Bill MacGougan's avatar

Exactly. It had nothing to do with the actual impact of the tax. Poilievre was successful in convincing people that not only was the program not good, it was evil and Trudeau was deliberately lowering our standard of living. It’s all BS of course. I mean, I have no clarity on if the tax was the right thing or done right or any of that but the story about its impact was total bafflegab. Mildly clever slogans and put-downs repeated ad nauseam. And this is why the tax will be axed. Will there be something else? Well, yeah. He’s only removing the part that was attacked - the visible part. It was all optics. Is the remaining tax a “hidden” tax. Yeah, in a way - but it’s not deceptive. We can all see it there. You could call any tax on a producer or supplier a “hidden” tax by that logic.

Is the climate and the issues caused by excess carbon still there. Yup. The consumer price on pollution is shown to be the most effective single tool, if you believe humans can impact the climate, but there are other tools that - and the “best” tool is really only the “best” if the people say it is and are willing to accept it.

The economic arguments were never real and individual’s spending power, especially the spending power of Poilievre’s louder base, was never affected.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

Every tax is inflationary. Canadians are stretched. The point of carbon pricing is precisely to increase costs in order to modify behaviour. Problem is, there is no alternative to energy. There is, however, an alternative to increasing cost of living. Reducing GST commensurate with the increase in carbon tax would provide a behavioural incentive without making food and shelter unaffordable.

The Liberal Carbon Tax was horrific policy that has devastated millions of Canadians and will continue to do so without fundamental changes.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/towhey-canadas-ready-for-a-conservative-carbon-tax

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Bill MacGougan's avatar

I don’t read the Toronto Sun Opinion pieces. I’m more of a facts and data guy. Not a partisan. Not a Trudeau fan. Definitely not a Poilievre fan. Maybe a GST trade-off would have made sense instead of the rebate. Same basic principle but a different tactic. I don’t know. Not all taxes are inflationary but that’s another topic. The point is the only credible analysis showed the carbon tax was not materially inflationary. Many other factors contributed to inflation and the impact of the carbon tax was marginal. In other words it was over blown for effect. Most people did not notice a difference. I don’t get any rebate… and did not notice the difference.

Instead of lying and vilifying, just propose the alternative from the start. If I want to see a dual on the topic… I want it to be between experts, not politicians.

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patti hamilton's avatar

No

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Kelly Dee's avatar

The LAST thing we need is this geek representing Canada on the international stage. Canada saw enough of this brand of politics with Stephen Harper. This guy is just Harper 2.0 with even less transparency.

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Anglo Quebecer Canadian's avatar

And Harper had very little transparency

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Garth Jolly's avatar

Answer: No. He’s an empty prick. And he still doesn’t have his security clearance to read the foreign interference report. That should bother every Canadian

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Mark Towhey's avatar

Who is?

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Grumpy Canadian's avatar

Carney obviously.

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Garth Jolly's avatar

You asked if Poilievre can be the leader Canada needs. No, he can’t. He’s an empty prick and being a prick is only leadership to cowards and yes-men.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

Is there someone better?

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Garth Jolly's avatar

You asked a question. I answered. You’re obviously looking to argue with someone who you think is one of those liberals you hate. Look elsewhere.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

So nothing to contribute.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

I’ll score that as a vote of confidence in Poilievre as it comes from an anti-democracy chaos agent.

Thanks for reading. Though, there’s no evidence you actually did.

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Simon's avatar

Nope.

Next question, please.

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P Bloom's avatar

The only thing I want from PP is for him to keep his word and leave this country when he loses. He has been given every opportunity from this country a massive pension. Yet he has contributed nothing back but slander and stoking Division. He has put forward no coherent passable legalisation at any point in his career and made no attempt to improve the lives of his constituents. He is a liar and coward misrepresenting himself for a savior of the working class.

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Anglo Quebecer Canadian's avatar

No thank you. Pierre Poilievre is not the man for the job.

1. He has consistently refused to get his security clearance.

2. When offered terms from CSIS for a foreign interference briefing, he refused.

3. He offers slogans over substance.

4. He can’t wait to slash social programs at a time when Canadians need them more than ever.

5. He is not the man to stand up to Trump. The next PM needs to be calm and measured (not PP’s temperament) and will need extensive knowledge on how to face economic challenges.

Over 80% of Canadians don’t want to become the 51st state so we need a strong leader in this challenging time.

And I read your full article.

6. He do

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Mark Towhey's avatar

Who is the person for the job?

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Chris Bell's avatar

There is too much focus on “who’s the leader.” The incompetent Liberal’s decimation of Canada’s economy, productivity and immigration system was a team effort, further enabled and supported by many special interest groups, outside consultants and politically connected vendors. Replacing Trudeau with an unelected, crowd-sourced, lame duck PM is not enough to fool us again.

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Mark Towhey's avatar

The question of leadership is not about past rights and wrongs. It’s about whether Canada has a sovereign future.

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Penny Leifson's avatar

He most certainly CAN! #PierrePoilievre4PM. This nonsense about Pierre emulating Trump is something pushed by the Liberals and their captured media. Pierre is nothing like Trump. Pierre’s ideas were his before Trump entered the political ring and turned it into a circus. Carney will be ringmaster of a circus as well, but it will just look different and cost more. There are billions to be cut from the outrageous foreign aid the Trudeau/Carney government has wasted on absolutely ridiculous things. Just within the last days of the lame duck, and all with the Economic Advisor Carney’s support, Trudeau has handed out insane amounts of money to insane foreign causes. Check the National Post articles about Trudeau’s recent spending lunacy. That’s the sort of thing that can and must be cut.

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