‘Pay attention to the basic needs of Canadians’: The best comments from Hub readers this week

Dynamic discussions were had in Hub Forum this week as January ended and February began. Readers spent their time discussing pressing economic issues in Canada, how Pierre Poilievre might govern, Canada Pension Plan funding, as well as debating the big question: is Canada broken?

The goal of Hub Forum is to bring the impressive knowledge and experience of The Hub community to the fore and to foster open dialogue and the competition of differing ideas in a respectful and productive manner. Here are some of the most interesting comments from this past week.

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Six charts that set the stage for Parliament’s return

Monday, January 29, 2024

“The charts highlighting our nation’s declining economic output are depressing enough. In the waning days of their coalition, though, the only chart catching the attention of the two parties that put us in this pickle is their sagging polling numbers.”

— RJKWells

Canada really is broken right now

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

“As I write in the article, obviously judgements about whether Canada ‘is broken’ are inherently subjective. But one does get the sense that there’s a broad-based view that something seems off. That the country’s economic and social conditions aren’t quite what we’ve come to expect. There are various factors behind this and it would be wrong to lay the blame solely at the feet of the Trudeau government. But it’s axiomatic in politics that governments claim credit for good outcomes and then try to absolve themselves of responsibility for bad ones. Polling suggests that Canadians believe that Ottawa is disproportionately responsible for today’s economic challenges. If one believes that we’re in the midst of a ‘lost decade,’ we need to be focused on how we get out of it.”

— Sean Speer (editor-at-large at The Hub)

“I want a politics that has big and bold policy prescriptions because, at some point in time, we forgot that effective politics, and governing, means you’re going to annoy some part of the population to govern effectively for the vast majority. We need both incentives and penalties to get there.

It’s time for a politics that is bold and optimistic because lord knows, you don’t beat malaise by sitting around in a circle and complaining about how broken everything is. We have a culture problem as much as we have a policy and government problem.”

— A Gen Z Subscriber

“I still think we are pretty lucky to live in such a great country—plenty to fix but doomsday thinking is not that useful. Polarizing one another is like poison. We should have different opinions and there should be more space for debate (not just yelling & spitting out one-liners). Canada still ranks high in many ways—one of the best countries in the world, very safe, stable economy, plenty of resources, reasonable inflation compared to many countries, longer life expectancy, and yes lower cost of living than many countries.

So much more we could be doing and maybe we need more grassroots think tanks. Maybe we all need to hold our politicians (regardless of party) to account when they lie and twist facts.
So much more to be done if we could start off by listening to one another with robust discussions.”

— Cathy

“The question is not whether Canada is broken. The question is, can it still be fixed?”

— Jim R

“I agree with your assessment. Pay attention to the basic needs of Canadians and give us the opportunity to do meaningful work.”

— Anne Phillips

How would Poilievre govern?

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

“Canada hasn’t had an effective opposition party for many years…so someone actually performing the role of presenting a cogent alternative is startling to many people and very threatening to a lot of interests that are benefiting from crony politics. Canada by all measures is suffering and they alone call for a new set of ideas and approaches.”

— John Williamson

“Converting slogans into effective policy is rarely as straightforward as Mr. Poilievre tends to suggest, and he needs to be perhaps a bit more circumspect in this regard.

As one example, I’d look at his housing policy suggestions: ‘build homes, not bureaucracy’. Great slogan. But most of the bureaucracy involved is at the municipal level, while some are at the provincial level—not within the federal wheelhouse.

Mr. Poilievre lays out an approach that would ‘reward’ cities that met specific housing start numbers, and punish those that fell short. Yet he is also on record as wanting to be more respectful of jurisdictional boundaries than the current government. With regard to his housing policy, it seems hard to square one policy position with the other.

The sad reality is that our current housing situation results from decades of government fumbling and myopia. The disparity between house prices and income began in the early 2000’s and has continued, unabated, through four federal administrations, including under P.M. Harper. While the Trudeau government has managed to turbo-charge things with increased immigration during a period of (now reversed) extremely low-interest rates may be the icing on the cake, the problem long predates this specific policy fumble. Unfortunately, it is not a problem that will see a quick reversal. So Mr. Poilievre might want to be just a bit more cautious about positioning around this issue.”

— David Foster

“It is totally reasonable that the opposition party does not put out a platform until part of an election process. Conservatives that are being pushed by the press on what cuts they will make, or where is your climate policy should be aggressive in their response that no opposition party puts out their platform until election time. Also, their response to (you did this or didn’t do that) needs also to be simple—that was then, this is now and things have changed significantly.”

— Al Raftis

Should we spend some of Canada’s CPP funds?

Thursday, February 1, 2024

“With all the taxes this current government collects, there shouldn’t be any need for them to touch any funds within the CPP. Furthermore, legislation should be put in place to keep any opportunity from government to utilize any money within CPP.”

— Arthur

“If there is such a surplus, I would look first at how many middle to low-income Canadians need more future retirement and look to benefits before the other suggestions.”

— Lloyd Posno

All hail Canada’s aristocratic overlords

Friday, February 2, 2024

“The current immigration policy, or lack thereof, has put an unrealistic strain on the availability of housing, health care, and infrastructure.”

— Kim Morton

“‘Neofeudalistic’ is really just good old-fashioned inequality. It is a guaranteed outcome in political systems that allow wealth to garner political power, even democratic ones. It snowballs as more wealth begets ever more disproportional political power.

This is just an ongoing extension of those with wealth incrementally and steadily and legally rigging the game ever in their favor, despite tragically being against their own long-term self-interest.”

— Paul Attics