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ELL Blog

Canada is Worse because of Justin Trudeau

These days, chronically online Canadians are absolutely wild. They complain about bills that they didn’t even read.

Why Trudeau was Elected

Canadian governments were not squeaky clean. While researching, the information I’ve come across point that both Liberals and Conservatives were not clean. Obviously, it was time for Harper to go.

Demeanor

Justin Trudeau is very inauthentic when he speaks. It is always speaking down and never speaking at the same level as us. Want proof? In a town hall, a woman who asked a genuine question about mental health services for English speakers got an answer in French…The rationale was because they were in Quebec and most people were French speakers. A town hall is a chance for citizens to get answers to their number one question for the prime minister.

January 18th, 2017

All questions were answered in French

SNC-Lavalin Affair

The Liberal government was broadsided by allegations that officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, after repeated lobbying by SNC-Lavalin, tried to convince former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to strike a mediation deal instead of pursuing fraud and corruption charges against the Quebec-based engineering giant

This is corporate cronyism from a party and its supporters who claim that the Conservatives do the bidding of Canadian corporations. Fun fact, telecom executives hated Steven Harper since he wanted to bring in Verizon from the US to compete with Canadian telecommunication companies. Harper lost votes for not following in line with the Canadian telecommunication companies.

Premier Smith of Alberta did a similar thing by the way recently regarding a case where the defendant was blockading the border and being mischievous in general. Ethical commissioner deemed in incorrect.

Indigenous Issues

These mass graves were not actually mass graves yet the federal government created a whole federal holiday from it; reactionary virtue. It solved zero indigenous problems. There’s land disputes right now in BC where indigenous people are losing land they claim is theres to a pipeline company. If the federal government wants to claim it’s actually doing good for the indigenous people, then focus on issuing a statement so that there will be peace in that region instead of one side claiming that they are right and the other side which the court sides with.

COVID-19

COVID-19 is when Trudeau could not be redeemed. First of all, there were so many restrictions. Doug Ford is not conservative either, and I’m glad I never voted for him. He is no different than the federal Liberals. So what are the problems with COVID-19?

  1. CERB: the government mandated lockdowns and then gave everyone free money. Of course this caused inflation
  2. Government Overreach: Border Entry Restrictions
    • Imagine forcing Canadians to get tested just to re-enter the country. Otherwise pay $6,000 to enter the country. Oh and then there’s random testing requirements as well. The only reason my family got through the border was because all of us were forced to get tested…Let’s see here Canada, allow people who tested positive for COVID-19 in and make them mandatory, but if someone doesn’t have a test, assume they have something worse than being COVID-positive. It’s ridiculous. The policy should’ve been: get tested negative to not have to quarantine, or else you are assumed to have covid and then you should quarantine. We had to do the COVID testing on a live video call. It was a waste of resources and front-line workers’ time.

WE Charity Scandal

awarding of a federal contract to WE Charity to administer the $912 million Canada Student Service Grant program (CSSG)

You read that right. The federal government allows citizens to deduct charity donations yet gives money to charities that pay the family members of the prime minister. Absolutely disgusting. During COVID, the government should be taking over investment that the private industry would not be doing. We could’ve had such a big jump on the housing shortage, but nope, almost a billion dollars was apparently available for the Canada Student Service Grant program (CSSG) during one of the worst budget deficits ($327.7B) in this country’s history.

And you know what the program was for? Paying volunteers. That’s right, instead of sustainable jobs being created during a time of high unemployment, it’s better to just pay people to volunteer (service-based).

participants will only be able to count hours accumulated from June 25 to October 31, 2020. Having students conduct WE Charity work at a reduced wage in the form of volunteerism which was previously conducted by paid employees

This was a horrible program as you had to register by August 21, but could only count for a selected few months anyways.

The prime minister said that only WE Charity could administer this program, but…

Other organizations, such as the Public Service Alliance of Canada and YMCA Canada, expressed skepticism at the claim that WE Charity was the only organization in Canada capable of administering the contract.

ArriveCan

$60M for a goddamn app that didn’t let me into the country and enjoy my full rights anyways? And the system we have now is extremely simple. My family came back from the Dominican Republic and they have these pillar system that take pictures of you and the entire system is a physical slip of paper with just your name on it. The pillar took a picture of my dad twice and the agents just let us through.

So $60 million dollars was spent on an app that reduced efficiency and isn’t even used for entering the country today.

Where is the accountability. The firm, GC Strategies has gotten a quarter of a billion dollars since Liberals came into power. The company would keep 15-30% as a commission to subcontract the awards it would get. How is a system so bad that a contractor can take a higher commission than what Apple and Google take at the mobile stores.

Housing (and Immigration)

Last but not least, housing and immigration.

  1. Housing to income ratios are the highest they’ve been. Canada with a population of 40 million has an index 148.16, followed by Germany at 140.6, where most people rent and the population is 83.2 million. We have more land!
  2. Record international students that were not vetted and were sold a lie. The company funneling this, ApplyBoard, unfortunately has University of Waterloo founders.
  3. Immigration itself is out of control. Canada needs 200,000 per year to make up for the low birth rate, but what Canada does not need is a skewed gender ratio and neither does it need 471,550 immigrants excluding students. The net migration was over a million people (add non-permanent residents)…
  4. Housing shortage in Canada is due to NIMBYism. NIMBYs want to prevent urban sprawl but at the same time do not want houses to be denser. This, combined with a growing population causes a housing shortage. The solutions are simple, reduce immigration, reduce inflation (and thus interest rates), create new cities, allow both urban sprawl and density (both solutions are better than one), and lastly, increase the efficiency of the LTBs so that more people are open to land lording and not just corporations.

Luxury Tax

Apparently, paying a percentage in taxes on items your purchase is not enough. With HST of 13%, a $100 item has a tax of $13, and a $100,000 item has a tax of $13,000. But that isn’t enough for the government. Not only is it not enough, the good being purchased can affect the rate too.

So if rich people want to bid up the price of investment properties past a million dollars, that’s fine. Only above $3,000,000 is it a problem. But if you, a middle class, person, purchase a modest home, save money your entire life want to purchase a corvette while your going through your midlife crisis, nope please pay an extra 20% on the amount over 100,000.

For boats, it’s above $250,000! This is insane. So I get punished for having just a car, but the person who splurges on both cars and a boat, gets away with it. This is ridiculous, and this tax is too.

Why tax vehicles but not Richard Milles or other luxury watches? Why not all jewellery? Or cottages? Or art?

We wonder why real GDP per capita is rarely growing, and it’s because the government thinks that the economy can improve even when taxes are known to reduce demand.

PBO Commentary

19 Reasons From my Google Keep

  1. Lied about ending first past the post. Even when exploring alternatives, his party and followers were apprehensive about ranked voting, which is not good for proportional representation at a national view. Ranked is good for mayoral elections.
  2. Not only did he not keep his promise for affordable housing for Canadians, rent become parabolic. https://liberal.ca/trudeau-promises-affordable-housing-for-canadians/ https://www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/hmip-pimh/en/TableMapChart/Table?TableId=2.2.11&GeographyId=2270&GeographyTypeId=3&DisplayAs=Table&GeograghyName=Toronto
  3. Didn’t stop Doug Ford from allowing colleges to ask for so many international student visas.
  4. Bill C-21, which demonized sports shooters. The NDP was only against this because it affected indigenous people, not because it affected non-indigenous Canadians.
  5. He enacted authoritative border policies during the pandemic where Canadians were forced to get results of a COVID test just to enter the country, or pay a fine, or get mandatory testing anyways. If you tested positive, you would still be let into the country but have to quarantine, but if you didn’t get tested, you would have to pay $6,000 instead of just being forced to quarantine. It was one of the most irrational policies I’ve ever been subjected to in this country. The only reason we had to leave the country was because a family friend was mourning the death of her husband.
  6. He keeps lying about the carbon tax omitting that it has an economic impact. Instead of using the carbon tax to actually reverse emissions, the money is given back even though the economic impact is worse for most. Additionally, there’s a $1B slush fund but there were conflicting of interest issues. There’s no priority to make Canada the number one nation in carbon capture technology. We already have a carbon tax, so investing it into carbon capture technology is a no brainer. If I was the prime minister, I’d be building so many of these carbon capture plants in cities in Canada that lack jobs. The average GDP per capita in Canada is not found everywhere in Canada. There are many small towns with a sense of abandonment and a lack of blue collar jobs. It’s just filled with one Tim Hortons, an ice cream parlour, and some small houses. Lots of wild life, but a severe lack of housing so only a limited number of people can enjoy it. The government should actively force governments to deregulate zoning in exchange for building these carbon capture plants that will bring in sustainable jobs. Furthermore, the government can inform its citizens how to properly measure how much emissions they are responsible for and allowing us to pay money to these carbon capture crown corporations in exchange for a tax credit deduction similar to charities and political donations.
  7. He keeps pushing for bills such as the online harms bill that result in more bureaucracy to regulate the Internet for speech that is already illegal. In Canada hate speech is already illegal, that Chilliwack woman was arrested by the RCMP! The bill is expected to cost us $200M when we don’t even have a balanced primary budget (the budget excluding interest payments). We also spend $30B annually for non-recurring indigenous reparations. Immigrants who didn’t colonize nor oppress Indigenous are paying taxes to correct mistakes made by the ancestors of wealthy Canadians who have been in the country for hundreds of years.
  8. He uses terminology such as people kind to intentionally divide and rattle people up. He could have used humankind. Regardless “mankind” is not sexist.
  9. Allows the LMIA system to go wild without clampdowns
  10. Let 10,000 H1Bs come into Canada and essentially steal away jobs from Computer Science graduates from the University of Waterloo who paid $80,000+ across 5 years only to end up unemployed or getting a job that pays 80,000 in 2024. In 2019, before joining university my new grad income goal was 100,000 in 2019. That’s 118,321 in 2024 terms. Although I am outdoing my goals, my friend is not only just below this, he is also paying 1900 in rent for a studio. According to CMHC, rent for a bachelor across Canada is “1414” and in 2019 it was “1142.” So essentially, he is paying 1900 instead of 1347 (inflation adjusted rent), which is a loss of $6636. So the adjusted income software engineers from UW should be making is $125,000. The only reason I exceeded my income goals is because I’m ambitious and used niche technology. We shouldn’t all have to be Leetcode gods just to make a living for our skillsets (i.e. working for a high frequency trading firm). Also not all of us with the same skill level will get job/internships at mid market cap firms or big tech. Furthermore, the barriers to starting a company are insane. Not only do I have to deal with my parents’ expectations of working a normal job, there’s barely any way to pay rent if I want to go against my parents’ wishes. Ideally, accelerators should give you a grant equal to 1.5 years worth of living expenses. This translates to at most $41400 in today’s terms, but if rent was at 2015’s levels (937 or 1200 in 2024), then the grant would only need to be at most $27,000. The minimum a grant should be is for 1 years worth of leg room or $26,400 in 2024 and $18,000 if rent was $1200/mo.
  11. During the pandemic the Liberal government issued many bonds to the central bank and instead of investing in jobs to pay people to produce goods and services and wealth, it was just issued to people who claimed to have been impacted. This is why I believe that the government should only expand in times of distress and recessions, as unemployment is two-fold. One is from the mismatch ratio of businesses to humans, which causes a labour surplus, and the other is due to a matching issues where businesses are looking for people with certain skills and are unable to find them and people with certain skills are available but no jobs exist for them. When the government hires, they are bound to the charter of rights and freedoms and are to set an example of what it means to be a good employer. What this means is that even if the private industry only hires experienced workers, the government who sets the minimum wage must be the employer of last resort which forces businesses to compete for these now experienced workers via a higher wage.
  12. SNC-Lavellin Scandal https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-wilson-raybould-attorney-general-snc-lavalin-1.5014271 . This company (now known as AtkinsRéalis) had lobbied the government to introduce deferred prosecution agreement, which allows for financial penalties in lieu of criminal conviction, however the prosecutor must not weigh economic impacts of a conviction when pursuing charges. Trudeau was directly involved in pressuring the attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould to secure a deferred prosecution agreement. In my humble opinion, bribing foreign nations, especially developing countries, should not be illegal, especially if its towards the existing government. Why should Canada be concerned whether leaders of foreign states are accepting bribes? That’s on their constituents. It’s either to bribe, or to lose business because some other companies bribe. It’s no different than charging royalties and using windfall taxes. It’s a cost of doing business. https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/libya-snc-1.5014939 . There is no ethical qualms about bribing someone. There is 100% moral qualms about accepting bribes. Ethically speaking, bribing someone is a tax. The person is forcing you to pay a bribe to get something done. What is funny is that lobbying is no different. The Liberals did include the DPA because SNC lobbied the Liberals. The government is a hypocrite for allowing lobbying, safe name for bribing, but not for paying a non-standard tax in a foreign nation. Honestly speaking, any body who accepts donations from corporations and actually does what they are lobbying for is corrupt. SNC isn’t the problem, Gadaffi is. From a Libyan perspective, they are simply taxing a foreign state. It would actually be embezzlement if Gaddafi was taking that “bribe” for himself and not the states chest. Still these are issues of developing countries. The only way to defend a stance of disallowing foreign bribing is if there was also a condition that any foreign political actor who forces a Canadian corporation to be bribe will automatically be internationally charged. That is how you do things. It does not matter though, because with Monero, there will be no financial paper trail that a bribe even occurred. Trust is something that is enforced on onesself, not on others.
  13. He added the luxury tax and made it very opinionated. Any motor vehicle worth over $100,000+ even if its electric like the Porsche Taycan or Tesla Model S. You are forced to buy a Model 3, Y, X if you want a family electric car that is good. Aircrafts also over $100,000. Vessels though? That’s right, only over $250,000, because someone who can afford a family car and a $200,000 boat is actually less rich than the person who just wants a Lexus LC 500, Corvette C8, Porsche Taycan, Porsche Panamera, Porsche 911. Rich people who own houses worth over $1,000,000? Not only do you not pay a luxury tax on homes priced above $2,000,000, you also don’t pay capital gains tax if your house appreciated by $1,000,000. Even a secondary home is not taxed, because owning cottages is more middle class than buying those luxury cars I listed.
  14. Vacationing to his billionaire friends’ islands because billionaires maintain friends with people who tax the rich right? It’s clear that his policies harm the middle class who want to experience a luxurious life style, and limit access to this luxury to people who are 10x richer who can easily afford these goods. That’s why the tax is high enough for the middle class to be dissuaded from purchasing these goods, but not high enough that individuals with a net worth over $100M question the purchase. If the government wants to impose a luxury tax, then make it applicable to cars that aren’t bought by the middle class. And make it 100% instead of the rate it currently is.
  15. Cost of living is insane, nationally. Blame Russia or claim its ubiquitous worldwide, however nothing is being done to alleviate the pain by investing in industries which are the blockers.
  16. WE charity scandal
  17. ArriveCAN due to non-competitive bidding, although costs were $50M during a period where jobs were about to start dropping in the tech industry. Not to mention, the firm that was awarded the contract was of two non-technical people. The firm specialized in outsourcing to subcontractors, not actually doing the work themselves. This means that the entire system was corrupt for allowing this sort of slimy middle man behaviour to take place.
  18. Avoiding answering questions and instead repeating the same generic lines. just watch him in Parliament.
  19. Tried to force Meta and Google to pay for simply sharing news links. If you share a news link through Meta’s app, the other user cannot even click on it because Meta will block showing it. Our regulations are so ridiculous that companies just do a full no no. This is what happened with AI with Meta not releasing their models in the EU, even though this is all digital.