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Episode 21 - If I Had $10,000, I'd Be Prime Minister
46 Plays3 days ago
Wearing clothes that his mother found for him, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is featured in the 1999 edition of Magna International's once-annual "@Stake: As Prime Minister, I Would..." book series complete with essays from great individuals such as Evan Solomon and Conrad Black.
Join us as we read through Pierre's essay that doesn't at all scream the likes of that annoying person you met in ECON 101 (or any of your first-year political science classes).
Feel like suffering with us too?
https://archive.org/details/building-canada-through-freedom-essay-pierre-poilievre_202407
Featuring returning guest, Kelly from the Canuck Is A Slur podcast!
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Shawinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Stó:lō (Stolo), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) first nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Mr. Poliev has the floor. What would be the actual effect of the amendment that's being proposed? Fuck you guys. Hello and welcome to Shewinigan Moments. My name is Heather and you see they pronouns. My name is Tamarack and I use they them or it its pronouns.
00:00:28
Speaker
We have a guest again. My name is Kelly. I use he, him pronouns. I forgot to come prepared with a bit like I did last time. Oh, JFK is on the coming on. Hey, the JFK will be part of this podcast no more.
00:00:48
Speaker
Can you do any
Shift from History to Current Politics
00:00:49
Speaker
other voices? Like, can you actually imitate ah the yeah the patron saint of this particular episode? Oh, I have to imitate someone. I was like, I can do a lot of, I mean, I have a lot of voices, especially from the era of our, the role-playing of our podcast. You know, you got your aunt, so is in. She's well-meaning, but she falls for a lot of multi-level marketing.
00:01:08
Speaker
And of course, we got Stoch McCullough, the median Alberta voter. and That was fun. Well, on the subject of the median Alberta voter, ah this is a little bit of a special episode. Once again, we find ourselves talking about politicians in this country and not about history. Also, we're talking about history, but we're just talking about history before it's like become history.
00:01:31
Speaker
Yeah. And I, in my research for the podcast, I'm always looking for like strange things, anything that might be interesting to torment Tam with or future episode ideas. And when we did our last episode on Justin Trudeau, you know, it's Trudeau over, I realized that I had never read Pierre Poliev's essay. Now, before we get into what this essay is, because I think it's good to create a little suspense. Can we just get the thing out of the way that I wanted to ruin your day with?
Controversies of the Kielburgers
00:02:01
Speaker
Go for it. I'm assuming, well, I'm hoping you haven't heard this because it's going to land flat if you've already heard this. um But this was the kind of thing I was listening to a podcast and unfortunately listening to the ads. And this is one of those things where I just like stop dead in my tracks because I was so floored by what I heard. And I think you'll recognize what I'm on about because I think we touched on this the last time we recorded.
00:02:24
Speaker
So, okay, so first off, what do you know about Martin Luther King III? Wait, the third? Yeah. Okay, yeah, okay, sorry. I'm just trying to track, like, because I actually do not know his son, admittedly. That's fine, I didn't either. Yeah, not really at all. He's some kind of, like, real quick Wikipedia versions. Like, all of MLK Jr.'s kids, you know, kind of went into his activism thing. Their stuff, they're broadly, I think, fine. They're into civil rights, whatever, it's fine.
00:02:53
Speaker
So fair enough here is the, I'm going to play you this trailer of this podcast. So let's start with this. Is everyone a podcaster now? welcome to My legacy. I'm Andrea Waters King and together with my husband, Martin Luther King, the third, right? Yeah. Okay. are so good It's her and her husband, it's him and his wife. And who else is going to join them on this podcast with these one in this wonderful trailblazing legacy of, you know, being a good person.
00:03:22
Speaker
And our dear friends, Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that- Like this was a thing where I was washing dishes and I had to put a dish down so I didn't like, drop it. I just had to process and I went back and I was like, did I hear what I just, what I thought I just heard? Like,
00:03:43
Speaker
Welcome to My Legacy. I'm Andrea Waters King and together with my husband Martin Luther King III and our dear friends Mark and Craig Kilburger, we explore the personal journeys that shape extraordinary lives. Every week we sit down with dynamic leaders, entertainers, athletes, and trailblazers to uncover how they're shaping their legacies and living a fulfilled life. I'm shaking my head while that audio plays so people know I don't approve.
00:04:09
Speaker
Is this an American podcast that you're listening to? Because he said, I heart. This is a not. Well, yeah, I was listening to Behind the Bastards and i you know I was washing dishes. So I was like, not quick to skip the ads. And I'm a sucker for listening to new ads when I haven't heard them before. I'm like, oh, what's this? And sometimes it's fine. You're like, oh, Martin Luther King, the third. I guess that's a thing. Why not? And then I just was completely stun locked by the mention of the Kielburgers. And I was like, I'm.
00:04:31
Speaker
upset Was this podcast episode from after, say, February 8th, 2022, and they filed for a suit against the CBC? What? They dropped this trailer if you like on the January 13th, it says. That's wild.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my god. No, apparently they collab, somebody, I posted this on ah on a Discord server and people looked into it and were saying, oh yeah, they they collaborated like last year as well. So this is, this is not a new, I would say pairing, but it's four of them. It's, it's these siblings and this couple, they they did some sort of activism together last year. So Heelburger is still going at it. Still not in forever jail at the bottom of the ocean, like they should be.
00:05:17
Speaker
is Is every time we bring you on this podcast, you're going to somehow bring up we charity and somehow keep it relevant. apparently and Yeah. they're They're sort of my, they're, they're my like evil version of Strombo. I don't like, yeah. Cause like your thing on your podcast is to find a way to connect whatever the heck you're talking about to Strombo. And I guess your role on this podcast, whenever we have you on is to connect to you ah anything we say back to we charities. I didn't want it to be this way, but.
00:05:44
Speaker
But here we are, and like, let's be real, like they, the Kielburger's got off way, way too easy.
00:05:55
Speaker
Again, well, ah jail at the bottom of the ocean says the prison abolitionist. Yeah. So policy of the podcast, we're all for prison abolition,
Introduction to Pierre Poliev
00:06:05
Speaker
however. And if you don't know who the Kielburgers are, we don't have time to get into it, but you're, you're lucky you don't. So yeah, unfortunately we do have to know this particular asshole we're about to talk about. So I was, we were alluding to earlier, we're here to talk about Pierre Poliev.
00:06:21
Speaker
a Frenchman from Calgary who ended up in politics, namely because he fell on his shoulder and tore it apart and couldn't wrestle anymore. That's why he's in politics. he Only because he couldn't wrestle at high school anymore. That's why. So can I say first off that when I was 20, so not high school, but I think it was like 23 or even 20, I was not, I was 22 I think when I absolutely No, it was before that. I was like 21, 22, and I completely fucked my shoulder um in a way that loved a bunch of dislocations and a surgery. It's better now, but you know what? Like, it's it's not good. And I am not... Well, I'm not Pierre Baliap, is what I'm saying. I have not done on any of the horrific things. Well, you wouldn't be on this podcast if you were. Yeah, so I don't... I just want to say right out the gate, I don't think it's an excuse, you know?
00:07:18
Speaker
It's like when someone is like, oh, yeah i must he's neurodivergent. He's never heard of a Nazi salute before. And I'm like, well, you know what? I am, you know, and in need of diagnosis of many things. And, you know, we don't see me doing it. So. OK, can we can we just like I just need to do a little bit of a tangent of ah Like I think it was the day after I saw a news report where it's like ah Bill Gates was talking to some on some conference or whatever and said that oh yeah well if he was born today he'd probably be diagnosed as autistic and I'm like buddy are you just like preemptively making the excuse so you can just do sick aisles too? Like what's going on buddy?
00:07:58
Speaker
After his injury, he ended up actually working for Jason Kenney, who we've spoken about in the past as being you know one of Alberta's worst assholes. um I think Pierre is close to the top as well. And to give you a little bit of the background about him, um he was born in 1979. He's about eight years older than Justin Trudeau. He was adopted by ah two a Saskatchewan Francophonies who were in Calgary.
00:08:24
Speaker
And I think his mother is a school teacher. His father is also a school teacher. His father is also gay. I don't remember when he came out, but he came out sometime before he but threw his dad under the bus by voting against gay marriage. And um eventually he you know found himself in high school, like I mentioned, got his shoulder all fucked up from doing wrestling and started doing campaign work for Jason Kenney.
00:08:49
Speaker
And during that time, he got his first job as a paper boy, found himself at the University of Calgary, and eventually found himself submitting an essay to Magna International entitled, Building Canada Through Freedom.
00:09:06
Speaker
he Yeah, he really needed to work on those slogans. Did he address the gay marriage thing in any kind of hand wavy way? Or is it like, did he kind of go for like, well, you know, if gays were allowed to get married, they wouldn't have, had wait, but this is his adoptive father who's gay or is like bio?
00:09:23
Speaker
yeah Adoptive. Okay, so i mean he couldn't he couldn't even pull the like. If my dad was allowed to be gay, he wouldn't have had me like it. No, it's just pure him falling in line with... I think it was... No, it wasn't stock all day. It was 2005. It would have been Stephen Harper. So, you know, like he had no fucking excuse. He just ah voted along party lines.
00:09:44
Speaker
So his essay got published in a book called At Stake, and that's at with the A circle at because it was the year 1999 and you had to use that symbol everywhere. It really was a time, wasn't it? I would. This is actually published ah like as a book full of essays from Magna International. Now, do any of you know what Magna International is?
00:10:07
Speaker
No, but I think you're gonna tell us is it is it as obvious as I think it is where it they've referenced the Magna Carta in some stupid way no, okay, so Magna International is The company that is founded by Frank Stronach and if you know who Frank Stronach is he's been in the news as of late He's also the father of Belinda Stronach. I was gonna yeah And Belinda's chronic is by far one of my favorite MPs to have ever existed because it gave me this news clip. The day after and Peter McKay came to his father's garden looking for comfort and for answers to the question, what just happened?
00:10:47
Speaker
Came home to heal and think a little bit, and today's a new day, so
Critique of Poliev's Economic Ideas
00:10:52
Speaker
my head's clear. My heart's a little banged up, but that'll heal. McKay says he hasn't slept a wink since yesterday's revelations at Belinda Stronach. The woman he had been dating for months, a one-time leadership hopeful for the Conservatives, skipped out on the party. You were with Ms. Stronach just prior to her meeting with the Prime Minister. Tell me about that time.
00:11:13
Speaker
Well, as I said, I ah just didn't see it coming. I spent a lot of time with her and her children over the last number of months. And so it hurts. if i correctly by the liberal party If I remember correctly, she didn't even break up with him at this point. She just left the party and he's talking like they were broken up. That happened months later is my recollection.
00:11:44
Speaker
So Belinda Strzonic is really an incredible person in Canadian politics, even though she's only had one term as a member of parliament. so she's only She was minister as well at one point. She was considered the future leader of the Conservatives, then fucks off to the Liberals, right? yeah But Belinda Strzonic hosted a party. And at that party, Justin Trudeau met his now divorced wife, Sophie Gregoire.
00:12:13
Speaker
What party did she leave him for?
00:12:20
Speaker
Belinda Stronik's kid also, this is a really funny thing. So Belinda Stronik had a kid with ah one of the executives of Magna International and um named him Frank in honor of his dad. And he wanted nothing to do with the business. And now as a DJ, like an EDM DJ, has opened up for like Britney Spears and Madonna and all them and when they're in Toronto.
00:12:40
Speaker
And the other thing about Magna International is Frank Stranek fucked off to go to Austria to go run a political party there. That was like a Eurosceptic party. And that went nowhere. So he tried to get the company back or whatever it was. It's like some holdings. And basically he tried to sue Belinda and all them involved and like was I think he lost.
00:13:02
Speaker
And now, of course, he's at the center of a sex execute. He's at the center of a ah sex execution. Wow. That sounds i know slash and sounds terrifying and yet a little bit a little bit sexy.
00:13:15
Speaker
so magnator how they deal with ah that's how they put put ace people to death So Magna International held a contest and um and basically, I think they would like give like a $10,000 bursary for education. So Pierre Poliev went after this. I think during this time, Pierre had a second job where he worked for TELUS doing collections. He said two jobs ever.
00:13:43
Speaker
So this guy's just been like angling for handouts his entire life. Pretty much. In fact, you give me a good little segue. So I have a clip here from Rick Mercer back in 2007 or eight. I can't remember where he's ragging on Pierre Poliev in such a way that I find rather cute.
00:14:00
Speaker
And then I have something to follow up with. Recently, the entire country breathed a sigh of relief when the nation was pulled back from the brink of the federal election. But nobody breathed easier than Conservative Member of Parliament, Pierre Poitiers, who will now qualify for a full pension the same month he turns 31. Pierre Poitiers, the Workers of Canada, salute you. Congratulations, Pierre. Yay, Pierre.
00:14:27
Speaker
I don't have a pension. Yes. Very few Canadians qualify for a full pension at the age of 31. Well, in fact, there really is only one. And that man? Pierre Poitiers. Which is why we wanted to throw a party for Pierre and get some fun stories from people who have worked with Pierre before he became a member of parliament. Now, unfortunately, we cannot find any evidence that he actually held what most of us would call a... job. So if you worked with Pierre at an actual job in any capacity, say as a co worker, please contact us with a witty story so we can honor a great Canadian. And this is what's so fucking sick about like, the the talking point of like, Oh, Jack needs just trying to know we have the talking points. He wanted his pension.
00:15:18
Speaker
his two point two million dollar pension that doesn't kick kick in until next year. And so he sold you out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fucking projection much. I will also note that la what here's pension is. I didn't get that from the clip. So once you have served five years in parliament, what entire parliamentary term is like a solid pension. So when you retire, you have a pension. Yeah. One term you get a pension? Yeah, one term in a year. Yeah. How how how do we feel about starting that fuck billionaires and landlords party? and we Can we make the whole episode about this? ah
00:16:00
Speaker
like you You just need to get elected department parliament Sorry, it's one term yeah and a year? What does that mean? so you It's not one term, it's one term plus a year. so you have to so You have to do four years, of course. When I say one term, I'm talking about the traditional four ah four years. the the The election spacing is five years apart.
00:16:22
Speaker
Or at least, no, it's four years, isn't it? They changed it. They changed it. I think it used to be five and they made it four. So you essentially have to get elected twice. Yeah, yes. So, okay, so the length of a term plus a year, right? Because if you win an election, win a re-election in two years, and then you serve like three years, okay, I got it now, yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, and actually, I just so I want to correct myself here. um It's not it's not five years. It's actually six years. I should correct myself. OK. Yeah, sorry. the I just wanted to quickly look this up. And then as of 2020, it's ah you have to be 55 years of or of age. And then you've had six years of accrued service as a member of parliament.
00:16:58
Speaker
Right, which is one term plus a year out of the old term length. And so you don't get the pension until you're 55. Yeah, that's when you qualify. right I said 65 because that's what us plebs get. Or actually, no, then you don't get old age security until you're 67, but that's a Harper decision. it was just It's amazing how retirement changed a lot under the Tories of yesteryear.
00:17:18
Speaker
Again, with with all of them having full pensions because it was a two term, two term for most of them. So Blaine Estronic never qualified. Yeah, no. But it seems like she had it made with her you know company there. Yeah. So to bring this back on track, this is a book that was published in 1999. It features essays yeah ah by the Honorable Conrad Black. Hmm.
00:17:46
Speaker
ah if That's a guy I want to do an episode on one day. In 1999, that might have actually been a reasonable thing to describe him as. Guy Tan Boucher, I believe he's an artist. Lorna Marsden. Lorna Marsden is ah a senator, or former senator, and I think she's done other work. I think she's been a chancellor of a university or something.
00:18:14
Speaker
Pearl McGonigal, which I believe was the former lieutenant governor of Manitoba. And then you have Hemi Matik, who is an artist. ah Charles Pache. I do not know who Charles Pache off the top of my, let me just look it up real very cool well quick here. He's an artist. Okay. There we go. Got my answer. And finally, um the last one was Evan Solomon. Hmm. Yeah.
00:18:41
Speaker
who has never been controversial in the past number of years. I genuinely don't remember. I just remember him being one of the most forgettable people in the like greatest Canadian um advocate list. So he basically has been in and around um some interesting people as a part of being in this book. And him working at Magna International, which is kind of interesting considering um Frank Strzonic was actually a very staunch liberal at the time. ah He ended up working in an internship or whatever. And it's all because of this essay, which I, again, entitled building can through Building Canada Through Freedom.
00:19:18
Speaker
I don't. It's such a stupid title. It doesn't roll off the tip of your tongue. It's not like he hasn't. He hasn't quite developed the noun, the verb ah and way of phrasing everything. Yeah. And so there's this well like this well laid out, you know, 2000s era, early 2000s or late 90s era book and they're like a couple of pages of him.
00:19:44
Speaker
talking about what he would do as prime minister, and it shows like three photos of him at the start ah hanging ah in and around Banff, and some clothes that don't quite fit him. and His mom dressed him. And one photo shorting him to the left. and so What year exactly is this? 1999. Okay, so then I can't say he's ripping off a softer world. They might have ripped him off. It's possible. Because that I look at this and I'm like, I'm imagining the captions I would put over this. like As soon as we finish this, I'm going to.
00:20:14
Speaker
Yes, please do. Please do. We will, we will, we will reskeet it. So it describes at the bottom here.
Poliev's Views on Democracy and Government
00:20:21
Speaker
Pierre is a self-confessed political junkie with a passion for public debating and special interests in international relations. He wants to pursue a career in business and enjoys hiking in the nearby Rocky Mountains with his pet Corgi champ. He never did a career in business. Let's just go on record here. He went straight into politics. He's, he's just, he's what if Canada had a Pete Buttigieg?
00:20:46
Speaker
So let's, let's dive in. Let's read this aloud and let's talk about this. So again, building Canada through freedom by Pierre Marcel Poliev. Although we Canadians seldom recognize it, the most important guardian of our living standards is freedom. The freedom to earn a living and share the fruits of her labor with our loved ones. The freedom to build personal prosperity through risk taking and a strong work ethic.
00:21:12
Speaker
y you The freedom of thought and speech, the freedom to make personal choices, and the collective freedom of citizens to govern their own affairs democratically. But he's very anti-union. Government's job is constantly to find ways to remove itself from obstructing such freedoms. Human beings are graced with the gifts of creativity, wisdom, and ingenuity.
00:21:37
Speaker
The best way for society to go about improving its living standards is to allow citizens to apply these qualities to the challenges of everyday life. Asking a Prime Minister to single-handedly improve the living standards of 30 million of the world's brightest is about as realistic as asking him to take up an Olympic sprinting track to help a lineup of world-class athletes reach the finish line. The more the government becomes involved in the race, the greater the number of hurdles competitors will encounter.
00:22:02
Speaker
Therefore, as Prime Minister, what I would do to improve living standards is not nearly as important as what I would not do. As Prime Minister, I would relinquish to citizens as much of my social, political, and economic control as possible, and never mind queer people, leaving people to cultivate their own personal prosperity and to govern their own affairs as directly as possible.
00:22:26
Speaker
So in his hypothetical universe where he becomes prime minister, ah he still will not actually do any work.
00:22:37
Speaker
He's got a real yeah. He's got a really tortured metaphor there because he's saying like asking the Prime Minister to help improve people's lives is akin to asking him get involved in their race. But like if you if you jump in on a race, even as a person is not qualified to do so, like unless you're really fucking up, you're not inhibiting the ability of anyone else to race.
00:23:02
Speaker
It's really funny because one of the things I noticed in this speech in the opening is, and I'm glad I picked, I have this saved because I knew this would come in handy, is this clip from Star Wars episode two. Kelly Lee's nerd. You really don't like politicians, do you? I like two or three, but I'm not really sure about one of them.
00:23:30
Speaker
I don't think the system works. How would you have it work? We need a system where the politicians sit down and discuss the problem, agree what's in the best interest of all the people, and then do it. That's exactly what we do. The the trouble is that people don't always agree. Well, then they should be made to. By whom? Who's gonna make them? I don't know. Someone. You? Of course not me. But someone. Someone wise. Sounds an awful lot like a dictatorship to me.
00:24:03
Speaker
Like it's not what he's saying, but like as it was as I was like kind of because I will have it I kind of read a little bit ahead It's I just kept thinking of that dumb scene in Star Wars episode 2.
00:24:14
Speaker
it's it's yeah it's not a dumb scene in star wars
00:24:19
Speaker
but Okay. Episode two is a bad movie overall, but I, but nonetheless, I feel attacked. I'm a prequel apologist. Fair enough. Episode two was the weakest one though. He continues on into economic growth and financial freedom is what he calls his next section here.
00:24:41
Speaker
A nation's living standards are intimately connected to its productivity, average disposable income, and economic growth. All of these factors have suffered in Canada over the past several years. In fact, in terms of productivity growth, Canada has placed dead last in the G7 between 1974 and 1998. More depressing is the fact that more people live below Statistics Canada's low-income cut-off line and than five years ago. This at a time when a growing number of our brightest young people are fleeing to the United States where they see more opportunity. To reverse these trends Canada must capitalize on its innovation by allowing investment to flow unhindered through the economy. If we are to retain our brightest minds
00:25:19
Speaker
we must allow skilled workers to earn rewarding salaries without losing half of their earnings to a punitive tax regime. Finally, we must ensure that economic conditions are ripe for job creation so that low-income Canadians can gain the pride of stable unemployment. All right, Rachel Reeves. Stable employment. Yes, stable.
00:25:42
Speaker
yeah the thing is it's like unemployment right now and that's not i can tell you it's not the same thing yeah and it's like like the The thing is, it's like he's he's basically pitching trickle-down economics, but with with foreign investment. And it's like, that's not going to do anything to people living below the low low--income cutoff line, many of whom are on state-mandated mandated poverty because of disability.
00:26:05
Speaker
like Okay, cool. Yes, I agree. That's a problem. I also agree people should have more democratic control over their work. I do I do not think this man has the has the solutions to these problems. So I'll skip over this next paragraph. He says it's tax relief and as Prime Minister, he would do these three things. So The first step is to recognize that Canada is blessed with some of the most educated and skilled entrepreneurs in the world. However, our ability to capitalize on this resource is obstructed by the difficulty business people face in attracting investment. Acquiring capital is essential to the firm's ability to finance new technology and gauge exceptional employees.
00:26:40
Speaker
The wages and working conditions of those employees are also correlated to the capital formation sorry to capital formation. For example, if companies were able to raise more dollars when offering shares or bonds, they could afford to increase the magnitude of their operation, which would then and require more laborers.
00:26:56
Speaker
The law of supply and demand dictates that an increased need for employees naturally drives wages up and unemployment down. Higher wages result in improved living standards for laborers." Oh my god, he's literally doing econ. one Well, I guess this was the second year of university, so he's allowed to be, he's allowed to be like uneducated in economics, but like, this doesn't fuck, it doesn't work that way.
00:27:19
Speaker
It really doesn't work that way at all. Yeah, I mean, even if it did work that way, I just OK, this is maybe me just kind of really outing myself as the, you know, liberal arts major that I was. But it's just and and also I say this as somebody who wrote dog shit essays on, you know, myself. But this is just like it just has such a strong energy of, OK, you took your econ one zero or maybe your econ 102 textbook and reworded it.
00:27:47
Speaker
yeah yeah you know You've not said a single new thing here. like i was I was really going into this being like, ooh, we've we've unearthed old shit from a weird politician. It's going to be like you know so some insane like werewolf porn or something. And I'm like, no, this is just so... ah like its just it's First day of learning the term supply and demand energy.
00:28:12
Speaker
Yeah, basically, it's like, this is this is man who has no ideas, which is now noun the verb guy, so, surprising? Maybe not.
00:28:23
Speaker
yeah he has added zero new ideas into this this is like if you told me that a young uh like i don't know youve you gave me the name of any mainstream boy if you told me stockwell day wrote this you know yes i was about to say a couple years before this i'd be like sure why not like there's nothing to this like at least now Pauliev has a a brand which is that he works out and hates drug users and immigrants or whatever like and trans people now apparently i don't exist does that mean i don't have taxes just imagine he just remember he got paid ten thousand dollars in 1999 the equivalent of almost twenty thousand today to write this whoa whoa whoa he got paid
00:29:12
Speaker
Well, Econ had a bursary for 10 grand. For re-wording his Econ 102 textbook. Yes. This is a $10,000 essay. Again, this man has never worked and has always been living off handouts.
00:29:29
Speaker
I came in to ruin your day. Why are you ruining my $10,000? I kid you not. Magna International gave him $10,000. I believe in the form of a scholarship to for this particular essay. yeah like ah i I feel self-conscious about just saying just extremely obvious things that you know people that we agree with would agree with and people that don't would disagree with, which is like,
00:29:57
Speaker
I just don't know what else to say other than like, man, if you have as a ah think tank, essentially $10,000 to hand out for doing fuck all, like you could hand out $10,000 to, I don't know, people who need help with rent. Like it's just the contrast between always agitating about like, oh, the government is choking us out. There's no money. People are struggling. Like, there's money. It's it's right here. There's ten thousand dollars sitting in someone's pocket that they literally don't know what to do with. And it gets worse because then he continues in the next two paragraphs here and I'm not going to read them off, but he just basically says, as prime minister, I would eliminate the capital gains tax.
00:30:37
Speaker
That's what they're paying $10,000 for, because if he becomes Prime Minister, which he's really angling for while he's while the window's open, ah that $10,000 is gonna pay for itself so like many times over.
00:30:51
Speaker
There's also a lot of elements of, I know this is a bit of like a jump, but the way that it's kind of framed as, you know, they say like in fascism, you're your enemy is simultaneously so weak and yet like terrifying. There's a little bit of that here where it's like, we have the greatest
Senate Reform and Democratic Ideas
00:31:08
Speaker
entrepreneurs in the world, but they are like just absolutely ram shackled by a and not even like Not even a high tax rate, a slightly higher tax rate than the US. It's just like, yeah. On the profits, because it's it's capital gains, right? it's Oh no, our profits are madly taxed. It means we can't do business now.
00:31:30
Speaker
So if this gets worse, because I'm going to tell you about the second component of his program. The second component of my program of financial freedom would be targeted at those who need it most, Canada's less fortunate. These Canadians would benefit directly from the elimination of the capital gains tax through enhanced job opportunities and strengthened wages. However, as a nation, we must also have the compassion to address the crushing burden of taxes paid directly by the working poor.
00:31:56
Speaker
As Prime Minister, I would mitigate this imposition by raising the personal exemption. This relief would benefit all taxpayers, but particularly the poor. Currently, the exemption of $6,500 places an unrealistic expectation on lower-income working people.
00:32:14
Speaker
As Prime Minister, I would set in motion a trend of continuously rising personal exemption. The bar at which Canadians would begin forfeiting their income to the government would ascend higher each year. To institutionalize this concept and ensure its sustainability, I would connect the exemption to economic growth. My government would increase the personal exemption by the same percentage that the economy grows in any given year.
00:32:37
Speaker
For example, if economic growth is 3% in a year when the personal exemption is $10,000, that exemption would jump to $10,300. The result would be that taxpayers, especially low-income taxpayers, not the government, would feel the rewards of our nation's economic gain. And to ensure that growing prices do not swallow these savings, I would also adjust the exemption to match the annual rate of inflation. Ah, cool. Can you also do that to the minimum wage?
00:33:04
Speaker
No, no, that's too much. that's that's That's a tax on businesses. We have to have indentured slavery. Right, right. But hey, the government will slice its own funding, not that they're working for really pay a lot in taxes. What is this plan here for this? Because like I here's the thing, like I think if you make below a certain income, in fact, if you don't if you make below a certain income, you don't pay any income tax. I think income tax should be eliminated. There's other ways to do taxation.
00:33:30
Speaker
But it's like the capital gains tax. That's a really good one. We should really. up Yeah, exactly. I paid capital gains in my lifetime. Like I don't fucking care. It's like I i'm earned money from doing nothing. That's what people at Magni International live off of. So anyway.
00:33:46
Speaker
And then he goes third. i would reorgan sorry I would recognize that payroll taxes are a ball and chain attached to the ankles of all working people. Payroll taxes come in the form of a Canadian pension plan and employment insurance. Premiums on both have quickly risen. These taxes erode the income of wage earners, some of whom are struggling to provide for themselves and their families because the employer is required to pay half It also becomes more expensive to hire workers and create new jobs. yeah sir Interestingly enough, however, there are resources available to significantly reduce this punishing burden. It is projected the program could fill government coffers with 20 billion annual surplus by
00:34:25
Speaker
the 2001 fiscal year. Passer pluses were not set aside for rainy days, but shifted instead to general revenue stream for spending purposes. I have i can sort of see where he's coming from on this and whatever. ah This scheme is fundamentally unjust to working Canadians who expect all their premiums to be devoted to securing their there are living standards in the event of job loss. As Prime Minister, I would reduce EI premiums progressively to a sustainable level a small portion set aside for periods of recession when unemployment is more formidable. Any surplus above and beyond what is needed for the EI program would be returned to the people who earned it. Workers' employers would receive a rebate, which would refund the government's actuarial miscalculation plus interest.
00:35:10
Speaker
I mean, yeah, but also like if you're really ah if you really want to do away with the EI premiums, you fund it through the same sort of quantitative easing that we bail out businesses for. I just want to point out something with regards to the capital gains tax ah that is extremely cursed, and I'm terribly sorry. Because this was actually $10,000 delivered as a bursary, Magnet International received a tax deduction for that $10,000.
00:35:38
Speaker
So it actually probably already paid for itself.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, all I can do is return to that point of like the the the the money exists out there. I feel like I would understand austerity more as a belief system. It's like, you know, we've all played Oregon Trail. When you don't have food, when there's no fucking food in the wagon, you have to go down to the meager rations, like it makes sense but yes just the amount of like dump trucks of money always being ready to put on somebody's driveway at any given moment
00:36:16
Speaker
to me is what just like puts the lie to all of the austerity politics. You can't tell me that like you know oh the the like the government's got to tighten its belt when like the money is out there to be just dumping 80 quadrillion dollars on Sam Altman's desk. like just fucking appropriate that. Just moving the piles away from the dipshit. Which thing would you want to fund? um The $500 billion dollars data center that requires multiple nuclear reactors or one Chinese Raspberry Pi running on solar power?
00:36:55
Speaker
for those of you who are paying attention to the AI news this past week. it's Yeah, it all just blurs together. It's what I find so offensive about this whole thing, which is that, you know, not only do I think, you know, yeah ah like like you say, it's trickle down. It's just the exact same recycled ideas of, well, if we just remove all form of, you know, all forms of governments and all all forms of taxation, then this is just going to mostly make its way down to poor people, you know ignore everything else. um Outside of that just being you know tired and bullshit and like demonstrably not true, it's just like, just say that. Just say like, I just don't think there should be taxes. I think that the market will take care of things and rise all the boats. You could say that in a paragraph. This is like 30 paragraphs just saying that in so many words.
00:37:47
Speaker
Well, because ah because if you just say that, then you reveal yourself to be the ghoul you are. I think it just ends me as a writer, I think is what. Yeah, I think economist Mark Blythe actually said it best, which is on austerity politics, is that he's he's all for and his understanding of needing to tighten the belt in hard times, but only if everybody is wearing the same size pants.
00:38:15
Speaker
That like, of course, if you cut across the board, people who don't rely on social services, which are usually what you're cutting anyway, are fine, who are usually happen to be the ruling class. And people who rely on those services are out given an outsized impact. Like austerity politics is just in effect fucking the poor over. And I don't think anyone can reasonably claim to not understand that.
00:38:43
Speaker
He continues on realistically saying that there would be difficult choices if my government were to drastically remove tax or reduce taxes and talking about like basically forming an equivalent of Doge for Canada. Of course. Government waste. We have to eliminate government waste. Says the man who got ten thousand dollars to write this reframing of Econ 101 mixed with like, I don't know, some Chicago Boyle shock therapy bullshit.
00:39:12
Speaker
We're going to go into democratic freedom next because I'm tired of talking about economics. This is basically, I went to economic Econ 101 and I think I understand how economics works. So again, this is democratic freedom. This is actually fairly short and that's probably because he doesn't really believe in it.
00:39:29
Speaker
Canada's democracy is only as sound as the institutions that uphold it. Unfortunately, through neglect and antiquated traditions, Canada's political institutions have caused our democracy to wither. The upper chamber of parliament is impotent and outdated. Almost all of our most powerful civil servants and judicial officials are appointed by one individual. So too are the members of the Senate. This system opens itself to patronage as it detaches a government from its people. True. A government that A government that is not directly guided by the wishes of its citizens will fail to secure the freedoms of those citizens. And as we have seen above, less freedom results in a weaker living standard.
00:40:12
Speaker
At the core of the problem is the concentration of power at the hands of the head of government. As Prime Minister, I would find ways to empower citizens while reducing my own span of control. My objective would be to make the ballot box, not the Prime Minister's office, the most powerful institution in Canada. Okay, Switzerland. And how? Exactly.
00:40:35
Speaker
What is he proposing? Like, is he proposing that we get turned into Switzerland and we have referendums every fucking, you know, every fucking once in a while and like, you know, take like 50 years after like, you know, other countries have like allowed it for women to vote?
Overall Critique of Poliev's Essay
00:40:50
Speaker
Yeah, and only in like three out of the, what, seven Cantons? I think what he's proposing really is, I mean, I i don't want to give 21 year old Pierre here the the the benefit really of actually having thought any of this through, or the benefit of the doubt that he's thought of this through. But I mean, most when i read this if I read this from him today, which I don't even think he would really change the wording that much, to be honest, I just think that basically,
00:41:19
Speaker
what they mean. Like it's is's a little unique that he's saying, reducing my own span of control instead of saying just, oh, reducing the government span of control, right? Especially government is like especially given his like death grip on his own caucus right now.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's his caucus. He's going to treat parliament different. Right. Well, like yeah, because that's what I mean is like when conservatives say small government, which is one of their favorite buzzwords, what they mean is like fewer public services, fewer, yeah lower taxes, fewer public services, like smaller. Except cops.
00:41:52
Speaker
Small, yeah, less services and more authority at the same time, right? So that means, yeah, you can you get more concentrated control and you get more cops and you get less of literally everything else. So, yeah, I i guess like, yeah, this is this is his version of youthful idealism where he's like, no, I would also reduce my own power. And that' that's what they mean when that when the people who are really, spend their whole life being basically conservative when they say,
00:42:21
Speaker
Oh, if you're not a liberal when you're young, you got to know her, you know, bob blah, blah, blah, you know the rest of it. Yeah, that's what they're referring to is like, oh, yeah, when I was young, I kind of believed actually in small government, you know, that was me being an idealist. And now I'm a realist. Now I just believe in all the things we just outlined.
00:42:37
Speaker
It's kind of funny because he talks about democratic freedom and then he gets into this next big section, which is the last one. He only has three points and thank God. ah It's called refreshing parliament. Canada's parliament is currently dominated by one individual whose party gained the confidence of only 38% of Canadians in the last election. Two thirds of the governing caucus currently represent writings in only one province, Ontario. This leads a large number of disenchanted voters.
00:43:06
Speaker
However, the Prime Minister has the power to ignore the interests of these people. Because of our bicameral system, Canada has a remarkable opportunity to remedy such democratic stagnation. My first action as Prime Minister would be to propose a completely original arrangement for the Senate.
00:43:22
Speaker
Is there going to be another completely original as in just shitty US Senate? OK, this is this is this is I think he's he's going to propose Alberta here. Each province would be allotted one senator with one additional senator hailing from the territories. Just one senator for the territories. Very.
00:43:42
Speaker
well No. Yeah. I mean, but this is this is basically just aping what the US has, which is like a disproportionate representation for all these empty places like Wyoming, right? I mean, it's... Yeah. Yes. Elections would be held every six years, making it a less political body. However, concerns would arise over the fact that a populous province like Ontario would have merely the same representation as PEI. To suit this concern, I would alter the rules that determine how bills are passed into law. Any petat major piece of legislation would require the support of at least seven of the Senators representing a combined 50% of the national population. Legislation would be considered important if it involved things like
00:44:25
Speaker
budgetary matters, declarations of war, national economic policy, international agreements, etc. This legislative formula is almost identical to the amending formula of the Constitution. Such a system would address all the legitimate concerns raised about the proposals for Senate reform.
00:44:44
Speaker
Critics of the Triple East Senate, elected equal and effective, argued that it gives equal powers to provinces that have significant population disparities. Under my suggested changes, bills would require the support of at least one of Canada's two largest provinces, along with significant support in the Atlantic provinces and the West.
00:45:05
Speaker
The government would have to negotiate with all regions prior to moving ahead with a major initiative. Influence over the government would be derived from across the country, not just one region, and certainly not just from the prime minister's office. Is he not fucking aware of how the Constitution was adopted in this country? Like, is he not aware of the night of the long knives that happened during the adoption of the Constitution? Is he not aware of anything that happened in his fucking lifetime with respect to the Constitution? Do I need to go on this rant any further? Those are third year classes.
00:45:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah, he hasn't had those yet. also god also also he's not he's not ah He's not in political science, so he might actually not learn about those. i just so It's frustrating because, but again, the the episode in the works of our mainline series is is on the Haudenosaunee.
00:45:57
Speaker
It just, it frustrates me to just hear this and be like, well, damn, the Haudenosaunee just like got it right from the beginning and we just suck at this.
00:46:10
Speaker
Like, okay, this is just less shitty, this is just shittier version of, ah like, territorial autonomy and making sure that you have consensus before moving forward with debate and stuff like that. It's like, just do that. The thing that's actually good and works.
00:46:29
Speaker
But no, I realized I realized I say neither long knives and there's a different yeah in Canadian politics. And so what this means is like in 1981, there was a there was a conversation that was held in the kitchen of a hotel and I can't remember the hotel anymore, where all the English speaking premiers, this was the kitchen accord. They just will talk about the kitchen accord. So.
00:46:54
Speaker
basically all but Quebec were talking in the kitchen about what to do. And they basically came up, this is also Jacquelyn's fault, I just realized, basically had like included the notwithstanding clause into the constitution, which is something that Quebec was actually ah disagreeing about. And they were right. Quebec was correct. I will agree. The not notwithstanding clause is fucking horrible.
00:47:19
Speaker
Anyway, um that Quebec took this as quite bitterly, of course, naturally, and this they should and coined it the the night of the long nights, which is also in reference to some Nazi shit back in the past. where Fair enough. This is some Nazi shit in the end, too. Yeah, where they where they purged the ah they purged all the like not the people that weren't going from the Nazi movement to continue into the German government. It was basically it stabbing their own in the back, which is an aft metaphor, because now it's being used to like murder homeless people. In any event, um if pure Polly Avenue knew anything about how the Constitution was adopted in this country, he would understand that this this whole fucking stupid idea of his would actually never fly and would just end up getting him alienated.
00:48:07
Speaker
So it continues on. After reforming the upper house, I would take my case for democracy to the House of Commons. A system of voter recall would be enacted to ensure that members of parliament were accountable to their constituents. Under this system, a representative would be forced to resign and seek reelection in the event that over a period of three months, 40% of voters in a writing signed a recall petition.
00:48:29
Speaker
This would put voters in command of legislature of legislators, not the other way around. What's the formula for recall reg legislation in British Columbia? It's like you need to get like 10 percent. It's not writing it's not much. Yeah. Like I think British Columbia is the only province right now that still has recall legislation. Hmm. I think Alberta. Yeah. Alberta has tried to introduce this in the past. I don't know. No, whatever happened with that.
00:48:58
Speaker
But yeah, it's there's is there's been constant calls to bring this to the federal level. I i i am in favor broadly of recall, but that then again, I'm i'm a syndicalist. I believe that representation is bunk. ah ah Delegation is is how you actually do democracy. this is This is my favorite part because I did see this ah when i was when I was digging this up. This is the part that I'm excited to read about. Finally, I would make a personal commitment.
00:49:25
Speaker
I would resign after serving my second term in office. huh well How many times has Pier Pauli ever been in an election? are you five time ah Enough that in 2018 he got his pension. Sorry, what? In this specific case, he's like the question is what would you do as prime minister, right? True, that's fair. so he would So we're going to be stuck with him until 2033, okay. Yeah. so The beauty of a genuine democracy is that it permits average citizens to serve their country in public office. Politics should not be a lifelong career and elected officials should not be allowed to fix themselves in the halls of power of a nation. If they are permitted to do so, politicians will devote their time to finding ways to perpetuate their own power
00:50:10
Speaker
as opposed to building on the freedom of their country. Therefore, I would institute a limit of two terms for members of parliament and return the House of Commons to tax paying citizens. see And that's how you know I wasn't reading ahead because he did spec did specify parliament there, yeah.
00:50:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, again, yeah, you you serve your two terms, you get your you get your pension, and then you get kicked out. All these changes would be geared towards expanding the scope of citizen involvement in the democratic process. The only way for people to protect their freedom from government is to have direct democratic control over their government. As Prime Minister, I would happily invest my faith in the wisdom of the Canadian citizen. Except for the non-binary ones, because he's not aware that we exist.
00:50:54
Speaker
yeah anyone who accept Anyone who accepts the idea of granting citizens greater control over their government and personal affairs must also have confidence in the strength of the human spirit. Canada is the greatest nation on earth because of the individuals that compose it. If they are granted personal and financial liberty, there are no bounds to the progress Canada will achieve in the coming century. We got to stroke that nationalism. it's That is his essay.
00:51:20
Speaker
How would you vote? but So like this is the thing. This was an online vote. I must make clear. Oh. Oh, did you find the results of it?
00:51:33
Speaker
I, okay, here's the unfortunate part. This is from 1999, the earliest that this website, this is a yearly event, by the way, this wasn't a one-off. So they just had $10,000 to, again, use as a tax write-off. Well, okay, so they had $300,000 in awards and the grand prize was like 10,000.
University Memories and Political Figures
00:51:52
Speaker
And this the earliest capture I have of the website is from um the summer of 2000, which would have meant that I could have theoretically applied for this when I was in university because I would have been of the appropriate age. But they haven't um I don't know when they stopped doing this program. um God knows. The website survived until 2021.
00:52:15
Speaker
According to this year, 2004 is the last time they had done this contest. what Sorry, was this the first year they did or the first year they did it online? like as a vote i it's It's tough to say um because it's called At Stake. and and the The problem is of At Stake as a name is it's also the name of a company that that I've actually known of in my in my line of work.
00:52:38
Speaker
And of course, like at stake is also the name of that bullshit online betting service at the casino in the Nazi streaming service and all that sort of thing. Oh, yeah. Rumble. I know. Kick, kick. It's kick. Yeah, kick. And so finding anything else about Frank Stronix is a little project to get people to write about what they would do as prime minister was a just just wasn't doable. So I know very little about at stake. I'm certain if I got my hands on this book. I could probably find out when they first did this. But when I went searching for copies of this book, once I knew the ISBN and all that, the only seller I could find was in upstate New York and they were putting it up for $140.
00:53:22
Speaker
ah yeah that's ah patreon dot com slashwinttinggen moment
00:53:28
Speaker
That's such a, this is a complete side tangent, but I've noticed that when I look for kind of like off the path books myself, where it's like, oh, a used book, oh, $140. I'm like, what book is worth $140 unless it's fucking made out of, like, I don't know, it's printed on gold. yeah Like it's just words, like print another copy of the PDF, the PDF's right here.
00:53:49
Speaker
What do you mean $140? Anyway, I don't know. I'm not an economist. Yeah. Annoyingly, I did a quick look with the local library. I grabbed the ISBN and searched for it in the Bank of Republic Library. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a copy of it there. When I came across this on the Internet Archive a couple of weeks ago,
00:54:14
Speaker
I you know was wanted to have a copy for myself so I could at least kind of see what else is in here. like Who knows what other fucking creatures have actually ended up in these books? wait that's That's the thing, like who else is written here? I would love to find like a similar essay by assholes like John Baird. Oh, it would be similar too.
00:54:35
Speaker
Yeah, it would be. Shockually similar, I'm sure. Except it would be more self-loathing. Yeah. Yeah, that is the essay. And like i've I've been sitting on this for the past week excited to read this. And all I have left out of this is, like man, I do not miss university. I do not miss having a deal of pricks like Kim because I initially did political science as my first elected, or sorry, my first elected, my first major before going into history.
00:55:03
Speaker
I had to run across these types all the time. And to be fair, even in some in some respects, I kind of had that mentality because there was a point in my life where, you know, even though I made fun of Peter McKay, there was a time where I probably would have been of voting PC. And that's just the way I was raised. Right. Time has gone on. I have fortunately never ticked an X next to anyone resembling a Tory. I have voted liberal once, you know, but like
00:55:34
Speaker
People like Pierre Poliev, who have never worked a day in their life, um aside from like you know harassing businesses to get them to pay their phone bill or to throw paper, newspapers at people's homes, he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
00:55:49
Speaker
I mean, he doesn't know how electricity works, so...
State of Canadian Politics
00:55:53
Speaker
That's true. That's true. I don't know, if Kelly, if you've heard the clip. I don't think I have it handy, but um let me find the clip, actually, because I think... The waitress, who balances 12 plates on a tray, serves 12 tough customers at once.
00:56:09
Speaker
works a double shift and comes home with enough energy to teach her kids math and balances her budget on a minimum wage salary. She is not ordinary. She is extraordinary. Oh, that's the wrong clip. It's actually this one. The electrician who captures lightning from the sky, runs it through a copper wire to illuminate this room and light up the world is not ordinary.
00:56:34
Speaker
God, if only we could do something about that minimum wage. I know that was the previous clip, but. Yeah. Only we could do stuff that, that was exactly why I selected that one. It's like, you know, it would've been great. It'd be easier for her to balance her budget if she'd like fucking got paid more. Yeah.
00:56:49
Speaker
And I mean, like I said, i don I don't know what to say because it's, there's nothing new about those. Well, okay. There's something new about the lightning clip, but there's nothing new about this. Uh, you know, Susie, the waitress, Joe, the plumber, like it, and it fucking works. You know, they, you can talk about the plight of working people in that like, wow, they work so hard. We need to, uh, rate, we need to reduce taxes for, I don't know, someone it'll, that's what's going to help these people.
00:57:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's just been, it's such a successful rhetoric that I'm like, how do you argue with it if not, you know, if not pointing out the democracy. Yeah, but it's like on the other hand, you really have to find a way to push back about it because we've watched basically like the the very radical trade union movement in North America turn into the labor aristocracy, turn into predominantly conservative voters.
00:57:44
Speaker
Yeah, like within a couple generations. Well, it's always depressing when I see somebody who is, you know, a union type has, you know, been doing their thing. So I've been working as a laborer for years and then they decide that they're going to go and vote Tory. I there's a perfect example of someone I know who I mean, can go back to the guns episode where he told me as much that, you know, my rights were less important to what his rights are. And he thinks that, you know, his guns have, you know, being under threat by The liberals is a huge problem. Meanwhile, he's forgetting the fact that he's working a certain job that's going to keep him limited throughout his life because, you know, people like Pierre Poliev are capitalizing on that sort of anger. And like, it's just it's just this. It's not just the Tories that are making this mess. It's everybody else that's doing it. Like we look at Jagmeet Singh, like, what the fuck is he doing right now?
00:58:37
Speaker
And he hasn't been capitalizing on any of this shit. Like the liberals are in disarray right now. We got Mark Carney and the and the ah Nazi granddaughter trying to go after like, you know, the being the next prime minister. And, you know, you got a choice between, again, the Nazi grandmother or granddaughter and the guy who is basically the reason why housing prices are so fucking expensive in this country. Is Karina Gold still hanging in there?
00:59:02
Speaker
Yes, and of course, so is what's her face? Dala, who's like a fucking psychopath. Yeah. But I really hope Karina like snakes it through, like threads the middle of dissatisfied. I will say, I'm sorry, it's going to be carny. Yeah, it's going to be carny and it's going to suck. But but like that's where we operate today, is like we don't have an effective left in this country. Like again, Jagmeet Singh,
00:59:28
Speaker
you know, I can make complaints about them all I want. But like, we could have had a different future if but like Charlie Angus would have been a perfect liberal, a sorry, NDP leader to have, he would have been like completely charing charging at Peter McKay's throat.
00:59:43
Speaker
Peter McKay's throw, Jesus Christ. This is last one of those days. Wow. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, there was a post that we made on the official account, like, come on, do something to the and NDP. But we're stuck with like this, this whole, you know, shenanigans. It's really just, oh, it's liberals and the and the conservatives when in reality, you got a third party. It almost managed to pull it off under under Jack Layton, but that energy is gone and Jagmeet Singh just doesn't have the Riz as the youth put it. Which is funny because he is really prolific on TikTok and it's just just getting him nowhere.
01:00:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I like, I don't know. I feel like it's not that we talked about during the last time I recorded with you, which was just, I mean, it's yeah, it's as you say, there's no risk, but it's the I really want a better word for this, but just the the political left is so cocked because there's this like this resignation to being the third party in a three party system.
01:00:46
Speaker
where um so kate I just saw an opinion poll when an opinion polls are fucking whatever, right? They're all over the place. And somebody had posted it because they thought it was interesting that, um you know, with with Trudeau stepping down and without even a new leader in place, it was like, what was your polling? And it was like, um I'm just going to let me grab the thing since we're doing that. The 40 percent poll where it's like literally a headless Liberal Party is more popular than Poliev.
01:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, okay. You got the gist of it, right. It was public. You can pull different things, but it's like you get a one point advantage over, yeah, something like 40%, it was like 37 to 36% of the one I saw. It was 40-38 for the Headless Liberal Party in Ontario. It's like... Right.
01:01:34
Speaker
But then below that, it's like way down the fucking list to get to NDP and like third at 18% or something like that. and Which is an improvement and that sucks. Yeah, so in this in the short term, yeah, okay, you get a small improvement. But in the long term, like if your major party is sitting for decades on end in the teens percent. like To me, it did it demonstrates like you got to do something different, but I feel like there's a bit of mentality of like, well, this is good enough for the NDP. But it's just like, yeah. And any um maybe some of that before was a product of the political climate in
01:02:21
Speaker
in the 90s, in the 2000s, but I feel like with the kind of, the squeeze people are feeling, with the depression era shit people are feeling, this is like, this is the, like the stage is so set for a comeback of some kind of useful left populism to say like, this is how we're gonna help poor people. Like you fucking deserve a minimum wage. You fucking deserve a UBI. And we're not gonna like hide from these policies the moment someone tries to demonize them. Like that's the thing. Yeah, we're we're we're entering the socialism or barbarism zone. So like come out there. like the A thing that frustrates me about about Jack Meat is that he won't, like he'll say, oh, we support these things. We support these things. But it's always couched as like ah as a third party. like Never have the NDP just been like, as fucking prime minister, when I'm fucking prime minister, we're going to
01:03:16
Speaker
raise the minimum wage federally, enforce it on all the provinces. ah We're going to give a national like dental and pharmacare plan that applies to everybody from the from day one. We're just gonna do it. It's like how are you gonna pay for it? Fuck you. We're doing it.
01:03:33
Speaker
There's lots of small things that were like Jack Leighton was pushing for that were fucking popular. One of them was like he was saying, I'm going to put a cap on ATM withdrawals. He was going to make like, if you go up to an ATM, like sometimes they end up charging you $5 to pull out your own fucking money because the banks go like, oh, you're not on the same network as us or whatever. So you got to pay like, you know how much how much money, right? Yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker
and Just reinvented interact is left late. Well, interact. we That was like 40 years ago. It's a great system, and but it's a private system. We should keep in mind it's not a government system, but like that was one of the things he was going for the populism idea. These are populist ideas. They they people kind of take like have a little bit of a frowny face over the term populism, but like the left can fucking do it, too. And there's lots of good things that you can do. Again, Jack Layton,
01:04:22
Speaker
much as I have a lot of misgivings with him with respect to what he did with the NDP, did the right things and got him his party into what? The official opposition position. And that's fucking incredible. Mm hmm. But then Jagmeet, who just goes like, no, I'm a I'm a wee little bean and I can't do this.
01:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I'm ah very reluctant to buy into this kind of like sports metaphor logic. But, you know, it's like when you have a sports theme and they're just saying like, yeah, you know, this this team doesn't like, you know, why has this team been out of the playoff for 10 years? Because they have no desire to win. And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of stupid in a lot of ways. But I i think that is true in electoral politics. It's like there's a very tricky people in enough people in like the NDP brass who want to win.
01:05:11
Speaker
And i yeah, it's just it's fucking embarrassing. like like There's is' only one political party in this country that I give any sort of leniency on that sort of thing, and that's the Bloc Quebecois. The Bloc are the only group like who are there not to win become um you know like get into government, but there are two.
01:05:30
Speaker
you know, just represent Quebec. That's all they want to do. And that's great. The NDP, on the other hand, they run candidates in virtually every writing and every election. I don't think they've ever missed out on any, or at least not very, it's very rare that they miss out. And they're in the again, back in what, 2011, 2012, I can't remember what election year that was anymore.
01:05:52
Speaker
They had lightning in a bottle. And it's not this and it's unfortunate that Jack Layton died and and whatever. But that was the part that was the time that the party had the energy to pull it off. And then, of course, you end up with all the subsequent leaders and leading us to subsequent leaders. We only had um What's his face? We'll care. We'll care. Thank you, Thomas. much chair I just want to i want to highlight something. The party had the energy because like, let's be real, it's been long enough. Jack Layton kind of sucked. Oh, no, I agree. I have i have made my complaints about what he did. He took the party to towards the right. He's the reason why the NDP have lost it.
01:06:29
Speaker
they got rid of being a socialist party out of their constitution under Jack Layton. like These are things that I'm acutely aware of. However, this country would have been far better off if Jack Layton was prime minister at some point. yeah i don't I don't know if it would have been necessarily the best the best of the and NDP could have ever done for us as as a society, but it would have been far better than whenever the Liberals and the Tories would have given us.
01:06:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, and again, like that's that's part of the someone, please give me a
Global Political Comparisons
01:06:57
Speaker
better word for this. But that's the cucked vibe of it, where it's no cucked is about right. Yeah, because you can't like it appropriate the refusal to use the word socialism when it was not that long ago that like, yeah, we are a democratic socialist party and like convince people why that's a good thing.
01:07:14
Speaker
Because rather than writing ra when you run from that you become a party of running like away like you and like so the the other thought I was having was like I think how many how many federal elections did Mulcair run in like one or two Yeah, and then he lost. And then he quit. And like look at what the conservatives have done since Harper. So like Harper lost an election, understandably stepped down as party leader. I think you know resigning your seat that you won is fucking coward shit. like In theory, you got to like to represent that rioting, do your fucking term, but whatever.
01:07:50
Speaker
So and then it's like who do they put up Andrew Scheer loses an election get a new leader, right? The Aaron O'Toole lose an election get a new leader if Paulieb loses They will get it is gone. So like how many elections do you have to fucking way back from the dead how How many elections do you have to fucking lose as Jagmeet Singh to sort of say do we have anyone better like Well, that's why I was talking about Charlie Angus. like you Look at this fucking blue sky. like i have my miss Again, Charlie Angus is not necessarily like the best person. but like Charlie Angus is willing to talk about stuff in an open manner. Unfortunately, he has decided to retire from politics, which fair enough. like He's in his 60s. But Jagmeet is just like doing nothing. like i have run This is the thing that's always weird. Jagmeet Singh is writing. is like
01:08:41
Speaker
not that far from where I live. So when I go grocery shopping, I have seen him and like people are happy to see him at the grocery store, which, you know, granted, that's really good of him to be pulling that off.
01:08:53
Speaker
But like, why is he not like using his sort of personal, like personability to like actually promote himself, be able to say all this, all these things about like what the and NDP will do if they were actually in government. But realistically, all they've been doing for the past, what, since 2021 when they ah the liberals had another election, you know, having this, ah you know, this yeah Just propping up a government. That's all they've been doing is just probably I'm like, oh we got a farm of care Oh, we got dental care and all that like big fucking whoop. Congratulations on doing the bare minimum What are you gonna do if you're gonna be running government and drug mate just has no answer for that? Mm-hmm
01:09:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the like mean i'm I'm not a political strategist, but I think that you know if you have a party like this, like take a person like that and be like, well, you would make a solid backbencher. You could be a minister in ah in a hypothetical PMO. It doesn't mean throwing an entire person out with a bathwater.
01:09:50
Speaker
but Like if you're not winning as the leader get a new leader like it's it's a team. It should be a team game here and I this is something I just find kind of baffling across politics generally.
01:10:05
Speaker
um And like I'm going to use the American election example because it's such a good example of it. which is like so the As a baseline, there's so many fucking people out there. There are so many people who could be running for office. right And when you looked at, I think this was like the, what was, Sanders was running in 2020, right? Yeah.
01:10:27
Speaker
um So when you're like, okay, our like last three candidates in the field are like Trump, Biden, Sanders, and like all these people are over 75 or whatever the floor was. And it's like, in the entire halls of your party, you can't find a person in their 40s who can talk in front of a microphone and can espouse some beliefs. like it's It's this insane, it's like it's like head coaches in the NHL. It's like, oh, we can only pick from this very narrow field of 34 people for 32 teams. When it's like, there's gotta be someone out there. There's gotta to be someone out there who has a fire in their belly that can fucking get something happening. The party needs to start looking for people like this, right?
01:11:09
Speaker
Yeah. And i not to defend and Justin Trudeau, but Justin Trudeau fits into that category. like Yeah, the Liberals fucking did it. The Liberals actually fucking did this and it was the smartest thing they could have done because they bounced between after Paul Martin went out went out and had his long winter walk. Justin Trudeau comes out. What is he doing? He's fighting Patrick Brazot in a boxing match and doing all this stuff that's, again,
01:11:36
Speaker
and not saying it, the giving him credit, but like he did the right things. And all of a sudden you had a reenergized Liberal Party comes in in 2015. And what does he do? He goes and makes half of his cabinet women and says, like, why did you do that? It's because it's 2015. And then you get like all these people, not just in Canada, but like internationally going like, wow, Justin Trudeau is this suave, handsome man who's like running Canada. Canada sounds like a cool place. And then Justin Trudeau starts getting having to deal with his own country loses his popularity. And now we're ending up with like, you know, again, we're talking about like ah Carney and, you know, in the grand dollar of a Nazi. Yeah. And but like they're there. They're in lies as recipe for success. Like, like.
01:12:23
Speaker
Sure. Half the cabinet being women was virtue signaling, but like the right virtue signals all the time. That's what all these culture war things are. But like when questioned on it, he was just like, he basically gave him like, well, fuck you. I'm doing it. Like, I'm not going to justify myself to you. Screw you. and That's the same thing. We go to Joe ah to go Biden. Biden had all these opportunities to do all these executive orders and he did it doing executive orders. What does Trump do on his first day as president?
01:12:52
Speaker
Well, he basically dehumanized half of my fucking friends and decided to also then base gut the entire federal government. And he did that all unilaterally. Now, obviously how the United States handles its presidency is very different from how ah Canada handles its prime ministership. But like if you have that energy, regardless of whether or not you're doing it for authoritative or altruistic means,
01:13:16
Speaker
You can capitalize on it and if you're voted in, you can do it. It's the reason why we we didn't need to have a whole bunch of fucking hearings on ah electoral reform. We could have just have fucking did it. Exactly. Justin Trudeau fucking says, biggest regret of his political career. You had the chance, you fucking dickhead. Yeah.
01:13:33
Speaker
Well, and you say like, oh, you know, you can't really compare the presidential system, like but it's the same energy. It's the same, like it's the cocked energy of anyone slightly left of center to just yield and yield and yield. And like you those examples of like, is it stupid to run the U.S. government by executive order? Yes. But if you know that the Republicans are going to come in and do everything by decree, you have to at least Figure out what your strategy is to work within that framework like the the parameters have been set This is the no, but you gotta play by the rules right and like but I think that's exactly what is well like that's that's across the world that is what is going to shit right now is the the the far right has learned they it is it is the time is ripe to push down the rules based order and just do and it's like
01:14:22
Speaker
if you lay down in a puddle of your own piss and be like, well, I follow the rules. Like, fuck, it's that's over. Like, that's done. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think when you look at the Social Democrats, the Social Democrats in the latter period of Weimar Germany definitely played by the rules as they allowed the Nazis to come to power. And they still ended up in the camps with the communists that they worked collaboratively with the Nazis to put there.
01:14:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And when you look at like what makes like um ah an electable leader, like you explained why Trudeau was electable. And there's a real thing that I think about, I've been thinking about recently where I'm like, you know, sometimes like the electorate itself gives me the vibe that like by and large in most places we're just not gonna in fact uh we're just not gonna like someone who isn't a white guy and like i don't think you should necessarily play into that but there is a certain like yeah like Trudeau is this like very well-spoken handsome white guy and like Pauliev is like a sure like a very a fairly handsome fairly jacked white guy and like but like it's part of like he
01:15:31
Speaker
It's a brand. like They are branding this leader that's exciting. He's more exciting to people than she or tool were. You have to come with some kind of energy, like something. yeah he's got He's got slogans, ah the fucking right-wing truck selfie guy makeover.
01:15:54
Speaker
And, uh, and just like a whole bunch of just pushing the, pushing the, like pushing the news cycle, trying to stay in the news cycle. Yeah. And you have to remember about Pierre is like back. It was at 20, 22.
01:16:10
Speaker
Um, those diagonal on fuckers were like threatening to go and sexually assault his wife. Yeah. And, you know, he, he, you know, came out swinging in, you know, saying like, this, you're all a bunch of fucking pigs and, you know, whatever. And what happens two years later? Well, you see him hanging out with all of them and she's like, she'll tell you a lot about him as a person. Like it, like.
01:16:32
Speaker
The thing is, it's like the NDP and the Liberals, to a certain extent, don't know how to turn that on its head. Because the majority of Canadians don't actually want that shit, but the problem is with the system that we have in place, those fuckers can get in anyway. But hey, electoral reform, that would have solved everything. So anyway, because I don't want to keep this going on too long, don't elect people who write essays like this.
01:17:02
Speaker
I think ah my my ah my official position as ah if I were to become prime minister would be to ban people who pontificate about what they would do in politics before having ascended to politics. If you're not in a campaign and you write a fucking essay on what you would do as prime minister, ah you're not allowed to run for political office. I mean, I was agreeing with you till you hit the end of ban people. And I was like, yes. And then you kept talking. And I was like, oh, no.
01:17:32
Speaker
Yeah, let's run our government through chat GPT. Yeah. There was a, this is just a stupid bit, but there was a, there was this thing from the, whichever election was the Corbin election in the UK. And there was like a screen grab caption from his subtitles saying like, unfortunately there are people in our society, but like that was just a still image you got.
01:17:52
Speaker
We get to the rest of it and I was like, that that that's my mood right now. Yep. This is the problem of the elections is there's a fortunately people in society and they're ruining it for my sit on the couch genius brain. Kelly, thanks for
Guest Kelly's Content Focus
01:18:05
Speaker
coming on again. Pleasure of having you once more. Again, if people want to follow you, find you elsewhere. I know you do Kanaka's a slur. Why don't you push that for us?
01:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, every time I come on here, we just get mad about electoral politics, but i that's genuinely not usually what I'm talking about. Usually I'm talking about really weird and stupid Canadian shit. I have been thinking about how a lot of what we've covered so far is bastards. um you know we kind of covered We covered you know really, really minor bastard Tim Horton and the major bastards around him. We covered the Wonderful, wonderful locomotive swiveling, Ambassador William King Thomas. And we're we're about to get into sovereign citizens in Doolo. How do you pronounce her name, by the way? I think it's Doolo. Doolo? Okay, I gotta ask someone before I record it. You mean our queen.
01:18:56
Speaker
Yeah, I've got I've got I've got stuff on like Shawn Avery in the bank I'm gonna find some good vibe stuff to talk about is my point. We're gonna find some we're gonna find some cool shit Cuz I I'm just I'm just bummed out by all of this constant ah Bummer shit. But yeah, that's that's what can I guys a slur is it's finding just really specific and just Interesting and hopefully a little bit like more obscure stuff in Canadian culture and history actually really good one will have them coming out is on the can the mad Canadian Carter jumping and trying to jump his rocket car over the St. Lawrence River so that story is all okay yeah because i we have down the road and I guess we can say this because this will happen in the future is that we're gonna be talking about ah barrels over the Niagara Falls at some point
01:19:44
Speaker
And the I do believe that's one of the things that came up in my research because I know he wasn't the same guy, but it reminded me of the other person who tried to use a rocket to go over the Niagara Falls.
01:19:56
Speaker
Oh, okay. He at one point was saying that he would want to do a car jump over Niagara Falls, but he was a fucking shyster. So not, not, not exactly a bastard, but definitely a shyster. So that's all stuff you can look forward to coming out in the next little while on Canuckas of Slur. You can find it by punching that into pretty much anything. We're on YouTube. We have video slash slide versions. We're on all the podcast platforms, ideally.
01:20:20
Speaker
And ah yeah, and we're on Patreon too. I often forget to mention, but I quit my jobs to do this. So um anyone who wants to just pop in and give me two or even possibly $5 a month, a little bit goes a long way. And yeah, I want to keep putting out high quality content every week as much as I can. so pay Kelly money so I can hear more stories about people like Drake. Yep. Full disclosure, both, both of your podcasts, regular hosts are, are patrons and also links will be in the description because it's on, it it's genuinely good. I love it. Again, Drake, kind of a bastard. We will talk about nice things. I promise.
Upcoming Podcast Episodes and Projects
01:21:00
Speaker
And one day we'll have you on for an episode that doesn't involve us getting angry about something, or hopefully nothing. Yeah, how about our future episode where we glaze Tommy Douglas for two and a half hours?
01:21:13
Speaker
We do have a Tommy Douglas episode in the future. For those of you who are just tuning in, of course, we also have a Patreon, patreon dot.com slash SchwinniganMoments. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, or hopefully not hate mail, if you have hate mail, just send it to pure polyf. It's mailbag at SchwinniganMoments.ca. And Tam, I believe the next episode should hopefully be on the Hoshone.
01:21:35
Speaker
I believe so many books that I still need to read. But yes, that is the next mainline episode is on the Haudenosaunee. If news could still, it could just like stop happening so that we stop doing these things. Like if everybody could just chill for a bit.
01:21:50
Speaker
Also check out Tam's new car project. I think they posted something. Uh, it's not, it's not out yet. It's just, I, the patrons got an advanced, uh, week of, of infernal machines, uh, where I'm fixing a Jetta and teaching the 1980 Volkswagen Jetta has no computers in it. So it's a, I very much appreciate it. But
Acknowledgment of Indigenous Lands
01:22:11
Speaker
yeah, um, but yeah, thanks for everybody for listening and we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Goodbye everybody. Bye.
01:22:32
Speaker
Shoinigan Moments is written and recorded on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam, Stolo, and Tsawatuth First Nations in what is otherwise called Vancouver.