The view from Pete

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GenX. My politics are clearly left and I’m tired of compromise with the neo-liberal right. They’ve driven a wedge with their money based centrist politics. We used to be able to do great things and we can again; we just need the leadership to do so; and folks to say as much.

  • At the precipice of historic justice

    We stand at the precipice of a major human rights accomplishment by advancing towards reconciliation and settling century old land claims in BC.

    What should be a humbling yet proud moment for BC, has turned into a political opportunity for the BC Conservatives and related hard liners to attempt to undo reconciliation – period.

    Their position against reconciliation has morphed into an effort, using BC’s “Recall and Initiative Act” to force a repeal of the Dripa Act.

    Make no mistake, while their petition initiative is to repeal the Dripa act, its final goal is to stall or reverse reconciliation with First Nations entirely.

    The opinions coming from the opposition and their friends range from “we’ve given too much to the natives” to “white people didn’t do anything wrong”, while some argue that residential schools were harmless, even ‘good’ for natives.

    There was nothing innocent or virtuous about the residential school program as it was designed to erase Indigenous peoples’ cultures and assimilate into Canadian society by forcibly taking children from their homes to schools far away from their communities.

    Our government tried to, systematically, delete cultural groups and their identities from their existence in Canada.

    On the matter of taking land, consider this for a moment. In the late 1800’s, Canada passed the Dominion Land Act, which gave land away for a nominal fee provided that the settler built a house and committed to farming the plot for 40 years. We read that in history as “settling the west” to blunt America from claiming parts of the west in those years.

    Ok, but whose land was it to begin with?

    If you guessed that it was first nations land, you’re right. Land that legally acquired by the various “numbered” treaties that cover the western provinces.

    Except for BC.

    In BC, we had almost no treaties with first nations’ and land – when it was taken – was simply stolen. Worse, when the various first nation leaders attempted to recover or be compensated for such losses, they faced official harassment and even death for asserting their proper legal claims.

    Free expression is protected in our constitution to be certain, but for a moment consider that some of the most repugnant views shape policy direction of the official opposition in BC and they could potentially reverse 100’s of years of slow progress to reconciliation because its politically expedient to do so.

    In the 1935 campaign, the federal Liberal party in BC ran newspaper ads against the then CCF with text such as this, “A vote for the CCF is a vote for Oriental domination.”

    While the Liberals clearly no longer support such a position – and haven’t for a very very long time, this politicization of fear, hate over race and equality can have damaging results.

    The new CCF party were blunted that election and the cause for human rights and equality was set back for decades because of this political opportunism.

    We see it here again in BC today.

    The difference is that we have the advantage of knowledge and the study of history. All of which point us naturally to wish to reconcile very bad behaviours by our leaders of the day and historic injustices that are well documented beyond doubt.

    So what is the Dripa Act? Here is an AI summary of the law (https://share.google/aimode/WbGgWHeD6IkWKv4NQ), and its accurate. I would argue that it adds guardrails to legislation and government policy going forward to adhere to the principles of the UNDRIP treaty that Canada has signed. But those arguing that we can just repeal the Dripa Act and everything blissfully returns to where it was, are misleading BC voters.

    While the Dripa Act is related to the UNDRIP treaty, its also affected by Section 35 of the Constitution Act and unassailable by any legislation by a province – the famous notwithstanding clause cannot nullify Supreme Court decisions related to it,

    BC is the last jurisdiction in Canada to adequately deal with land claims. For whatever reason (and there are many – many bad ones) that land claims and reconciliation was never attended to until more recently, its producing some bold headlines. Specifically, headlines regarding substantial land transfers of crown land to various first nations’ as part of overall reconciliations with certain first nations.

    These headlines have upset some people though. Read a certain way, it sounds like we’re just giving lands to the indians. Read another (correct) way, we’re transferring land back to these folks.

    Through the courts so far, stated by government and affirmed by various first nations’ and their legal teams, they are not seeking to take private property from homeowners and businesses in this process of reconciliation. Given the makeup of the land distribution above, it makes sense to settle these claims through land transfers out of the vast provincial crown land holdings available.

    This isn’t free of course. The value of land is what it is.

    But consider this. The costs, whatever they are, will dramatically escalate should they be awarded through expensive court litigation as opposed to good-faith negotiations by fair-play actors for all sides to the dispute. Doesn’t it make sense to ‘get this done’ and get it done as soon as practicable?

    The business case for settling as soon as possible by good faith negotiations is far stronger than letting the courts decide. Businesses and industry also want certainty, and delaying or obstructing reconciliation has a harmful effect on our economy too.

    At my most charitable, I might regard the oppositions exploiting reconciliation because of its unknowns and the related fear and apprehension over such a policy. At worst, I feel that the opposition is attempting to resurrect an “cowboys vs indians” narrative…both are awful, the latter being unabashedly racist.

    Exploiting a sensitive issue is typical for an opposition party or movement. They’re trying to portray themselves as on the side of virtue and justice while the government is up to some bad behaviours and needs to be stopped. You can inject almost every issue into this calculus and it makes sense.

    But in this case, the efforts of government are to undo generations of injustice – which makes the efforts of the opposition here the side who wish to preserve the injustice – and deny anything went wrong at all.

    Some might argue that the reconciliation should at least be slowed down or even paused. But remember that justice delayed is justice denied.

    Let’s be clear. This, politically is risky for the NDP. Just like it was politically risky for the CCF to stand up for the oriental for which they paid an electoral price in the 1935 federal election. We were right, then, we are right. now.

    History will record who these obstructionists were. We will never forget them.

    We have the means and the moral duty to set this right, we can do this and we should do this. Whatever the political fallout may be, so be it.

    As Barack Obama once paraphrased, “The Arc of the Moral Universe is Long, But it Bends Toward Justice.”

    We must move forward. Eyes forward. We are on the right side of history.

    My2bits.

  • The emerging consensus is that the Trump trade negotiations were wrecked by his side.

    There are some summaries out there on the last minute changes demanded by the Trump team that nuked the negotiations and triggered the Canadian side to walk out and fly home…be damned with the cicumstances.

    1. What looks to be an AI generated summary

    2. A summary list gleaned from public reporting.

    Now, nobody can be sure what was said in the negotiations because unless you were there – or a direct witness is reporting on the contents, its all hearsay at this point.

    But information is getting out.

    From the American perspective (not a Trump spin), news is leaking of a narrative building that generally supports the above summaries.

    And..

    Summary. (and this may change as new information comes available)

    1. Economic terms were almost complete – there was almost a deal.
    2. Industry pushback – top level intervention to go even more hardball
    3. Unacceptable structural demands and sovereignty attacks by Lutnik and the Trump side knowing full well they’d be unacceptable to the Canadian side.
    4. Blame Canada.

    So you see, it was bad faith actors and bad faith actions by Trump officials who wrecked the almost-deal. We were right to walk away. No deal is better than a bad deal.

  • What. The. Fuck.

    The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is possibly the worst scandal in the western hemisphere ever. The core of it, if you follow, is the systematic abuse of underage children by Jeffrey Epstein and a group of associates in and around his property. Jeffrey died as most of you know under circumstances that are under a cloud. For a number of years, a shadowy figure, “Q” of “Qanon” had been posting online about this secretive cabal of child sexual trafficking wealthy and powerful insiders at the centre of American business and government. As the narrative went, the information would implicate business leaders and political figures from both the major parties.

    One of the theories is that Jeffrey Epstein kept score on who patronized his ‘services’ with these young girls and he kept a racket going; maybe blackmailing the powerful people for substantial cash payments? He lived a very nice lifestyle with his own private tropical island – whose regular career might not have normally afforded it. But that’s just a theory.

    It sounds like a horror story, but its true. And the young girls, now women and their families, deserve justice and comfort by the society who has largely protected the creeps and pedo’s hiding in the shadows.

    Nobody in their right might would be defending these monsters. Nobody.

    Qanon and a loosely affiliated group called ‘save the children’ spoke about this great awakening and put their trust largely in Donald Trump; that he would set things right. He would unmask the bad people at the centre of the Epstein scandal. Until we started learning how deep Trump’s connection to Epstein goes.

    There is a desire to unmask the reality of the scandal, but for reasons which you can imagine, Donald Trump and his administration have been running interference on this process. But lets be clear, everyone wants this out in the open so that we can get to the bottom of the Epstein scandal. Except Trump, and a small cabal of powerful people awfully close to the affair whose fate are tied to said information not being released in its entirety.

    This group, coined “the Epstein Class” who operate outside of normal rules which apply to you and me was given its nickname by Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, a young man from Atlanta. Upset that this group and their benefactor, Donald Trump, are determined to thwart any semblance of justice by a full release of unredacted data from the case.

    Donald Trump, to be fair, has denied all possible wrongdoing in the Epstein scandal. So what’s the problem? As observer noted, “I’ve never known a person so determined to block or obstruct the evidence of his innocence”. So, what is he hiding?

    Enter, the ‘anti-semitism’ defense.

    The what?

    That’s right. So in my ignorance, I didn’t know of Jeffrey Epstein’s Jewish heritage. To me, it doesn’t matter. There are bad apples in every bunch, right? Every larger religious community has some terrible actors who have committed horrible crimes, but that’s not a reflection on the entire faith, (or political party, or ethnic group, or gender, etc). We can correctly differentiate between the man and his religious community.

    So you can imagine my shock when some influential Jewish voices from the larger community condemned this reference to “the Epstein Class” as anti-semitic. Really bro?

    Watch Sen. Jon Ossoff On “The Epstein Class” And The Lie At The Core Of Donald Trump’s Political Project. This is a video from January when Jon Ossoff was on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert where he articulates what this means. From the fiery speech that launched the catchphrase.

    Jon Ossoff is Jewish. This is not to take a swipe at him, just the opposite actually. He sees through the bullshit and is calling it out.

    Now, I’m not Jewish nor do I speak with any authority about the Jewish community anywhere, so I will need to choose my words carefully here.

    But if I was Jewish and just learned of the Epstein scandal for the first time – then discovered that folks from my community stood up in defense of those around him (perhaps Epstein himself); I would be outraged. Are we not mature enough to separate the man from the community? By defending the man like this, its telling us a narrative…and its a very bad look.

    In Canada, the federal NDP just selected Avi Lewis, and on the stage where his ascension to the leadership would be announced, NDP Premier Wab Kinew made his speech with also denigrated this Epstein Class. Wab is First Nations; the first of Aboriginal descent to lead a party to power anywhere in Canada, and Avi Lewis is Jewish.

    That speech however was immediately pounced upon by Canadian political pundits as anti-semitic.

    What. The. Fuck.

    Jeffrey Epstein is a monster. Those around him defending him and participating in the obstruction of the release of those files are also monsters. This is the Epstein Class, and they need to face it.

    There is an elite out there who believe themselves to be exempt from laws, consequences and have no moral compass. That part we have long known; the fact that they’re getting called out finally is good news. And nobody with a spine and sense of justice should be defending these clowns. Ever.

    my2bits

    PS (added March 31)

    A poll conducted by UMASS showcases the deep antipathy that Americans have towards the Iranian war that Trump launched. Specifically, where those participants to the poll agree that the ‘war’ is a distraction from the Epstein matter.

  • Choosing Avi Lewis a bold move for the NDP

    To be clear, this isn’t an attack on the guy, its an acknowledgement that the Federal NDP has finally done what activists (inside and outside the party) have called for – going further left.

    This follows a similar logic that conservative parties have followed in the past; dismissing critics’ claim that [party] was too extreme, they begin to argue that they weren’t hard line enough. So they seek to distill and purify the dogma and candidates – and leadership – that better reflects a more extreme version of itself because they’ve told themselves that being moderate makes them TOO close to their opponent when voters are looking for bold change. That’s a theory, and it’s not without merit.

    For example, Republicans in the USA kept losing to more moderate versions of the Democratic party, but then Donald Trump came by. This is no defense of his current record or performance, its to showcase how the theory works in getting elected.

    Federal Conservative in Canada have done this too, but as yet, without success. To consider the CPC under Stephen Harper as moderate is a stretch of the imagination, but after having lost in 2015 to Justin Trudeau, this is exactly what the CPC did – it moved further right wing.

    This hasn’t been attempted on the left before in Canada, and it hasn’t been successful anywhere in North America. For generations however, pundits argue both that the NDP should shift unabashedly left to differentiate more themselves from the Federal Liberals, AND “moderate their image” by moving closer to the centre – where the votes are.

    Interestingly, the greatest success for the NDP was under Leader Jack Layton – a relative centrist, who managed to oust the Liberals and landed with a 100+ caucus and Official Opposition status next to – the CPC majority government. Was that because Jack Layton was a great leader? Well yes. Was it because the Liberals were a rudderless machine at that point? Also yes. The NDP filled a void left by the Liberals who had no use for the CPC; it was a perfect alignment of the stars…but the NDP didn’t win the election outright either; polling at the time suggested the NDP held a lead for part of the campaign, but to no avail.

    The NDP lost Jack Layton to cancer not long after his dramatic election performance, and ended up choosing an actual moderate under Thomas Mulcair – a former Quebec Liberal MNA and former Cabinet Minister in the Province. The following election the NDP won their second greatest electoral result – but at a substantial loss from 2011. Going moderate produced better results than the traditional tally they were used to, but it turned into a setback as the Liberals went from 3rd party to government the year that saw Justin Trudeau win, and Stephen Harper lose.

    The repercussions of that setback for the NDP, which still produced their second best result at 44 seats, was that the knives came out for Thomas Mulcair as he was demonized by the left in the party as the reason for the NDP’s slide.

    So they chose Jagmeet Singh.

    Arguably, Jagmeet was decidedly left of Mulcair and a departure from all previous leaders in Canada as the first non-white leader chosen by its membership to lead a party. Result? The party went from winning 44 seats to being reduced to 24 seats. They gained a seat back in 2021 to 25 seats but then the bottom fell out in 2025 when they lost official party status winning only 7 seats. Can we infer that the NDP went too far left then at the selection of Jagmeet? Hardly, but Canada has some deep rooted racism to address.

    These wins and losses don’t happen in a vacuum either. The global political narrative didn’t help the NDP. With the advent of an even more unhinged Trump into his second term threatening the very existence of Canada, one could argue that the NDP’s traditional arguments – however progressive – we eclipsed by the fear folks had of Trump and his supporters within the Federal CPC.

    The CPC campaigned on spicy culture war issues rather than bread and butter ones; didn’t address the lethal threat next door, and it led to a polarization of the voter…one that the NDP almost never has any advantages in. The result is that folks who might have normally considered NDP – voted liberal “to stop the Conservatives”.

    And the endless loop of insanity in Canadian politics continues.

    With a new, seemingly safe leader in the Liberal Party in Mark Carney and a re-affirmed leader for the CPC in Pierre Poilievre, the NDP looks to change leaders after Jagmeet Singh lost his seat and resigned his leadership.

    There is a huge opportunity here. The Liberals have shifted substantially to the right, returning to their more comfortable territory as neoliberal economic puritists and the fact that there’s no more moderate CPC anymore. But Canadians are not genetically right wing, and have an appetite for reasonable govt investment in the social safety net that Carney is set to chop.

    The time is almost right for an NDP resurgence.

    I had argued to some that a fire and brimstone unionist leader in Rob Ashton was the right pick. Rob was never the refined pedigree of more polished political personalities and is uniquely gruff in a human way that I felt would resonate better across demographics where the party was competitive among independent and conservative leaning voters; as in “working class”.

    While I like Avi Lewis, I had considered him a shade of elite that doesn’t serve the NDP well enough when its leaning voters who need convincing. I feel that Liberal voters disgruntled with the blue tilt of their government are up for grabs; and while Avi would do well with them, I felt that he would not score so well in the working class demographic that should be a lock for the NDP.

    But that’s not what the NDP membership has decided. I hope they’re right. I am tired of my party, of which I have given to, volunteered for, donated to, since 1995 – coming in 4th or last place federally.

    Lets be clear. Avi won a decisive victory here. His online and social media campaign was excellent, and he is a powerful and eloquent speaker. His brand of leadership is now in charge. Lets hope to turn this ship around.

    Canadians are yearning for something outside the red/blue stalemate in Ottawa.

    My2bits

  • Rational voices in an irrational time.

    To begin with, I will stress that I am not, nor have I ever been a Liberal Party supporter, donor, voter, member and will not be doing so for the foreseeable future. Philosophically, I’m just not on board with neoliberal economics and what they do to working class people – not just here in Canada, but every country where its a foundational economic plan.

    That being said. We are in the most unusual times. We have a conflict in eastern Europe, instigated by Russia’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. America is under the control of a President who by the most generous description is a far right iteration of the once proud Republican tradition of smaller less intrusive government and strategic external intervention. More practically, the Trump administration is outright fascist in their policies, unstable in their economic understanding of things, and have demonstrated their moral bankruptcy in foreign affairs by threatening Canada, Denmark and Greenland, Venezuela, Iceland and others. Trump and his xenophobic immigration policies are seeing I.C.E. arrest and deport thousands (so far), but have conducted themselves as a secret police causing large scale disruptions and have flouted due process. They have arrested actual citizens and tried deporting them – sorry, have deported naturalized citizens.

    Once upon a time, Trump’s critics called him fascist. Now everyone is calling him that.

    Now I could go on and on about the failings of Trump’s policies, or the allegations of illegality of his regime – which you can look up for yourself. But that’s not the point I am making here.

    There are times in history when a voice cuts through the noise and speaks the truth we feel and know, but then validated. We have seen them before. FDR for example was the voice in the noise that gave hope to millions of Americans in deepest depression they have faced and guided them through the last world at war. Winston Churchill gave voice not just to Britons seemingly standing alone against Hitler’s Germany, but the entire western alliance as they dug in for the long haul. JFK’s remarks on doing for ones country, not what the country can do for you. Ronald Reagan demanding that Gorbachev to ‘tear down that wall’. George Bush Jr in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks (well, he lost much of that cred once he invaded Iraq, but at least in the early part of his term, he hit the mark).

    These are leaders who captured the moment with their voice and message. Yes, they had political opposition, FDR was a Democrat as was JFK…Churchill was a Conservative, there were Labour MP’s and a substantial opposition…Bush Jr barely squeaked into office in 2000, but like leaders previous to him, spoke unifying messages that cut through partisan boundaries when people needed it most. In irrational times, rational voices will carry the day.

    Then Mark Carney spoke.

    The message was unique, but it rationally recognized the new order forming in this world where the superpowers such as America because they’re no longer playing by a rules based international order but exploiting their privilege and power to abuse those not so powerful. It recognized the collective power of the middle powers such as Canada, UK, Australia, etc if they choose to do that. That the instability created by Trump and others has broken the last illusion of the system as it existed. That we have to move past this era.

    Mark Carney doesn’t get a free pass on everything, not by a long shot. His agenda is a neoliberal one that would have fit quite well in a PC party government; even Stephen Harper asked him to be a candidate for election for his CPC.

    I am not philosophically aligned with Carney, his party or their agenda. But of the voices of national leaders out there, his was the most stable and rational. I will give him credit for that.

    And in a stark contrast to someone like Trump, Mark Carney is the polar opposite of what Trump represents. That is what’s needed more of in this world.

    My2bits

  • The Federal NDP’s leadership committee assessment made the right call.

    Its not a great look when a so-called green-light committee blocks an aspiring candidate from seeking a nomination or in this case, seeking leadership of a federal political party. Its not a great look, but its an absolute necessity.

    Yves Engler was denied entry to the leadership race by this committee within the NDP was upheld on independent review…and look, if it was without cause, this would be outrageous.

    But. This is a problem.

    Just kidding. This is a HUGE problem.

    And what’s with his Rwandan genocide trutherism?

    In his own words: https://yvesengler.com/2017/09/22/statistics-damn-lies-and-the-truth-about-rwanda-genocide/

    B’nai Brith, Humura Association, Ibuka Canada, Page Rwanda, and the Memory
    Keepers Association of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda issued a letter regarding public comments of Yves regarding his genocide denial.

    I can understand some folks antipathy towards Israeli policy today as it relates to Palestine; this chapter will be recorded as one of the darkest ever in humanity. But the potential of platforming a guy who undermines the experiences of Jewish people and amplifying the term ‘holocaust industry’ and is apparently a Rwandan genocide truther, imagine this man leading the party..

    No thanks.

    We on the left should never be in the business whatsoever in minimizing genocide or undermining the experiences and trauma of survivor communities who are left to bare witness in their wake. It is morally repugnant that anyone on our side of the political map would try this…and it’s a political cash cow to our opponents.

    Yes, the NDP struggles to connect at times. We get eclipsed in the broader red/blue endless battle where little actually changes. The Liberals steal our progressive ideas, campaign on them then abandon them once in power; the conservatives hone their blue-collar populist appeal to working class by their own version of intolerant identity politics – only to deliver neoliberal economics once in power.

    The NDP needs to reconnect to the working class, but the platforming (at minimum) of someone with such views would force the party to fight fires they started themselves. This is so unproductive and a major disservice to Canadians looking for a voice outside the usual liberal vs conservative merry-go-round.

    We’d get the electoral oblivion we’d deserve.

    So the green light committee as such, while imperfect and doesn’t get everything right – got this right.

    If it’s true that Yves was musing about joining the Greens, fill your boots.

    My2bits

  • Rational voices are needed while we navigate through the Cowichan vs Canada effects

    To listen to some opinion makers and politicians of the far right in BC and Canada, you’d be forgiven in thinking that “the indians are tryin’ to take away your land” – because that is their narrative, and the previously faint racist dog whistle is now a defcon 1 air horn proclaiming in incoming calamity.

    Ok. Calm the fuck down.

    The Cowichan vs Canada case goes back in its origin to 2014, pre-dating the current BC NDP government by a couple of years. Not that it matters here, because the underlying issues underpinning the arguments extend 150+ years.

    Start with the actual court case. Specifically, this.

    A couple of disclaimers here first. I am not a lawyer and I’m not of any First Nations ancestry. So my take on this is just my opinion. I would like to think that my views are relatively informed – even when stated through my political lense.

    Now, please read this examination by the BD & P law firm. Another by MLT Aikins. More by JFK Law.

    Next. Please view this commentary by Chief Aaron Pete. He gives some important historical context and discusses the legal journey this matter has followed to get to the decision.

    From my very lay understanding, the Cowichan argument demonstrated that they had occupied the land in question since before the arrival of settlers, but was sold out from under their noses without their knowledge.

    Now, given that I have no legal background, no known First Nations ancestry, I will tread carefully here.

    I am also a private property owner in Nanaimo where I live with my family, so the questions regarding private land “fee simple” are of interest as you might imagine. Given the rhetoric lately by certain politicians of the right and far right, I could have been convinced that eventually, my house could be taken away. Gladly, as I read in the decision, that privately owned land (homes and businesses, presumably) were not on the table.

    But I am a supporter of genuine reconciliation. What’s more is the fact that since most of BC is without any treaty, let alone modern treaties, its incumbent upon us to continue to pursue this path as it will finally establish the certainty needed for moving forward.

    To be clear, we are the last province to have treaties sorted out.

    I understand that all parties to the defense have filed notice of appeals on the outcome of this case, and will likely end up in the hands of the Supreme Court.

    So be it.

    But we need to talk about the gushing racism now flowing out from these racists of the far right. These folks range are almost exclusively from within BC’s conservative parties’ worldview, and it’s time to call them out for the repugnant positions they hold.

    Quick gallery of images designed to inflame the Cowichan vs Canada case

    First Nations in BC have always faced racism and bigotry – ever since there were European explorers and settlers among them. But this case has ripped the scab off and unleashed a torrent of hate.

    The ironic part here is that should we end up at a coherent conclusion of reconciliation, the various First Nations would be far better empowered to innovate and create prosperity for the folks of their communities; but the pathway there is seemingly blocked (or would be blocked) by the very folks who would then turn around and demonize the very ‘lazy indians’ that “cost taxpayers so much” (in various social program spending, etc).

    Reconciliation is cheaper than litigation. Cooperation is better than confrontation. Now, I don’t know what happens next as far as this particular case goes, but we cannot go backwards.

    I understand the anxiety and apprehension exposed by such headlines, but we should give absolutely zero moral license to those pushing hate and racism disguised in the narrative of “indians comin’ to take your land”. YOU are as vile and repugnant now as those making the poor decisions then. We see you, and call you out.

    Sit the fuck down and let more rational people do the talking.

    my2bits

  • The far right overplayed their hand on Charlie Kirk

    This was a moment. In the immediate aftermath of a very public assassination of Charlie Kirk, that more rational minds could have spoken up and unilaterally condemned political violence and encouraged the masses to put down their weapons and return to civility.

    That did not happen.

    To be absolutely clear, nobody deserves to be murdered for speaking their minds in public. I disagree, bitterly at times, with virtually everything that Charlie Kirk said and stood for. In my view, his positions on so many issues were so repugnant that they were ludicrous; deserving the scorn and ridicule they were rightly getting. But he did not deserve to be shot dead over it.

    What’s worse is that the garbage that he spewed is now virtually untouchable in many circles because the shooter has made a martyr out of a man who spewed such bile. Now there’s a very public move to immortalize the man with public spaces renamed after him, streets named after him, state level governments partnering with his former organisation to install their politically charged material INTO the public education program.

    There is no evidence that the shooter was actually a leftist, certainly no more evidence that he was a rightist, despite the hopes that he can be tied to one tribe or another. The shooter was born and raised in a traditional Mormon family, Mormon community and was surrounded in a conservative worldview. He went to college for a single semester, and dropped out of their trades program. But because we’re stuck in this toxic narrative that if we can blame a supporter of one side, then it justifies an escalation of political violence as ‘revenge’…and so the downward spiral continues.

    If I were a betting man though, I’m sure when the evidence is fully revealed – that the shooter was probably subject to some undiagnosed mental health condition.

    Again. Political violence is all wrong. It doesn’t matter the target, it doesn’t matter the motivations of the attacker. In a civilized society, we settle our differences at the ballot box; and if our side doesn’t win, we lick our wounds and try again next cycle.

    Between elections, we’re supposed to put down the sword and learn to get along. It doesn’t mean that everyone and everything is happy and harmonious, it just means that we’re mature adults and we learn to agree to disagree.

    But that’s not where we are at.

    Look there is a problem with radicalization of our politics, but it is not an even split. There’s no actual equivalency, except to say that the radicals of the far left and the far right are very capable of violence. But it’s more complex than that.

    The right could have had their moment here though. They could have been the side calling for calm, calling for dialogue, they could have been the ones dismissing all political violence as a means to settle differences; but instead they are giving into the most venomous voices of hate and revenge. Worse, the death of Charlie Kirk has allowed them to unmask their desire for fascism.

    Instead, despite having suffered assassinations against liberal and left leaning politicians by well established right-wingers, it was the centre-left and moderates calling out political violence and for peaceful dialogue; and condemning the actions of this shooter – even if the “leftist” allegations are as yet unproven.

    The extreme right controls the Republican Party. You’re free to prove me wrong, but you’re up against the record of your own President and both houses of congress who have rubber stamped everything promoted by Trump. What used to be the great value of America, the thing that folks around the world admired is the limited government version of administration. Where the President, while powerful, was not all-powerful. Every branch of government had checks and balances to constrain the temptation to rule like a dictator, but those guardrails are coming off – to the cheering crowds of the Trump MAGA people.

    This was your moment to pull back the extremists on your side. You control the US government and Trump of all. Instead, you have chosen to lurch into a dark and dangerous future.

    It will take generations to undo this damage. One can only hope that it isn’t too late.

    my2bits

  • The working class are a voting pool that neither the conservatives nor liberals deserve

    Conservatives are really good at portraying themselves as the voice of the little guy when they’re not in power; they have this identity politics sewn up like pro’s. But working class voters, who’s grievances and anxieties are real, keep being sold a bill of goods that are at times opposite to what was advertised.

    To be sure, the Liberals are an elitist party. They also say the right things and their strength is their appeal to emotions and the generic progressiveness of an overwhelming majority of Canadian voters. But its all a ploy. Say the things that they know will force a reaction – out of fear or anger, and you’ll have voters drinking up whatever swill you’re offering.

    But here’s the spoiler: Conservatives are an elitist party too.

    They both draw their economic philosophy from neoliberalism. That is to say, the least amount of government regulation and presence and the maximum amount of corporate influence and tax cuts, and the rest is just noise.

    We’re seeing in live time what this political bait and switch looks like.

    In America, Trump cultivated a following among certain working class demographics, harnessing their anger and grievances and won a narrow election victory because of it. He tapped into their frustrations over inflation and ever growing wealth gap. But his approach was to rail against immigrants and the trade deficit. Both misguided, but it sounded good to those needing a scapegoat.

    So what has he delivered? Very dangerous things.

    Setting aside the legality and constitutionality of such deportations, what was to unfold would shake the American economy to its core.

    To be certain, there are large communities of undocumented immigrants who live in the USA. They are not citizens, cannot vote, cannot obtain many taxpayer supported benefits, ineligible for medicaid or social security, but they pay taxes and participate in the larger economy. Interestingly, its their participation in the economy, now being undone, which is doing some extreme damage.

    Its no secret that many of your farm workers are undocumented immigrants; picking fruits and veggies, handling livestock, etc. Why? Because their labour costs were substantially cheaper than what a citizen with right could demand.

    The result is produce rotting in the fields and the vines of farms that relied on this undocumented labour. To hire “legal” employees and citizens to do the same work (who have proper and enforceable labour rights), would cost said farmers exponentially more…if they can find those hard done by Americans displaced by illegals. Well, guess what: nobody wants those jobs.

    And it’s not just agriculture; its construction too. Undocumented immigration has filled gaps in the economy to such an extent that by withdrawing them – it could fundamentally cripple it in their absence. These are not the only sectors where the blatant racism behind the mass-deportation agenda is going to cause some devastating and unintended consequences.

    The fact that the undocumented send some of their earnings “home” to support their families elsewhere is the fundamental underpinning of the American Dream is it not? Work hard, save some cash, build a life and success. Who opposes this?

    The next target in Trump’s rage, a pillar in his election strategy, was to demonize the trade deficit as a measure of his manhood, or by extension – the strength of the US economy. Nothing further could be the truth. In fact, blanket, kneejerk tariff rate increases have done nothing but damage the US economy. Its well documented that the tariffs launched in and around the great depression era – while not the instigating factor of the depression, assured that it would cut deep.

    Every nation has a right to impose tariffs, and many do – for various reasons. But make no mistake – a tariff imposed by a country is forcing its own citizens to pay the premium. Its a tax, its always been a tax. The Trump administration is crowing about how many billions of dollars their tariffs are collecting in revenue; but its directly from American businesses and consumers…and its adding to the costs of said imports causing expanded inflation where it at all but died down.

    Trump campaigned on cleaning up corruption and waste in government. To that end, he launched Elon Musk in his “DOGE’ campaign to discover where waste and fraud was hiding in the federal government and eliminate it. What did America get? Cuts to essential public services, gutting of medicaid and veterans services. Whole departments closed, oversight scrapped. Suddenly, the people voting for Trump to clean up waste ended up losing disability benefits.

    What’s the point of this? Its illustrative to the extent of the betrayal of populist right wing governments when given power to do what they want. What do they want? To enrich their elite friends, insiders and top dollar donors – and themselves at the expense of the taxpayer and the forced sacrifice of the working class whom gave them the support to do so.

    But why?

    For the same reason that Liberals do it. Their version is just as repugnant though. They appeal to the emotional heart strings of moderates and liberals with often vague pledges around human rights and other performative matters; that they’re the antidote to the harshness of hard-line conservatism. While that might be true for social issues, they are indistinguishable from conservatives on economics. They’re both neoliberals.

    Neoliberals. The modern way of marketing ‘trickle-down’ economics.

    The essentials are; cutting social service spending and the public workforce, tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, deregulation for heavy industry, and austerity for the rest of us.

    But neither will campaign on this; they campaign against each other on things that either scare you or anger you. What should anger you most is that they both answer to the same elitists and make you suffer even more.

    Look around you.

    In every major crisis requiring government intervention, the massive taxpayer bailout benefits the 1% and not you. Big companies, big financial institutions, heavy industry, big tech, big pharma, automakers, oil companies, etc – they end up with the cash, you get the layoffs.

    But the moment some real solutions come by that actually address the wealth and prosperity gap between rich and poor; its treated as a biohazard.

    Its because once the centrist Liberals and hard line conservatives discovered that its very profitable to pander to the neoliberal elite, they had no use for working class people any longer. But they had to play the game with the same old rhetoric to grab votes when it seemed possible they’d win.

    The answers are on the left. That’s always been the case. We ran western civilization with a largely free enterprise economy under Keynesian economic theory, which is positively leftist compared to what’s going on lately. We had a strong social safety net that cared for the destitute, we had strong unions that created the blue collar middle class, we had governments that cared for the arts and culture, seniors and planned for long term sustainable growth.

    We don’t have that any longer. We have a system that rewards greed and corruption. and everyone can see it.

    Now its time to do something about it.

    My2bits

  • Don’t get cocky, Liberals.

    Please understand that your team barely won this election. A minority government where you’re to rely on opposition parliamentary votes to pass legislation.

    To be sure, Liberals could have claimed victory in any case. The day before Justin Trudeau announced his resignation, his party looked like it was racing towards the electoral cliff and the CPC leadership were measuring the drapes to the PMO.

    Mark Carney took the Liberals from certain death to a contender in a stunning turn-around, but know this: he didn’t do this alone.

    But…the Conservatives almost won the election too. A handful of differently placed votes or candidate missteps, and we’d be looking at a far different outcome.

    There was a moment where the NDP could have pulled the pin and forced an election in the fall that would have assured defeat of the Liberals, a substantial gain for the NDP – but a likely landslide win for Pierre Poilievre and the CPC.

    The interceding time allowed for a leadership change for the Liberals and their fighting chance to turn things around. It largely worked. Even if they lost by a small margin, Carney could have claimed that they did the best possible in an unwinnable set of circumstances.

    Jagmeet Singh knew what he was doing. The legacy of the progress made in the previous confidence and supply agreements made between Liberals and NDP would have been torn up by a MAGA fuelled Conservative government. The sacrifice of Jagmeet Singh might have saved Canada from Poilievre.

    We took one for the team. Team Canada that is.

    The polling started to reflect the shift as well. NDP, Green and BQ support (those who were progressive and swing voters) begun to move, and it saved the Liberal party.

    There will be some smug reactions gloating over the near miss against the Conservatives, or the stunning losses of the NDP. But this historic rescue of the Liberals took place because large swaths of NDP voters shifted to the Liberals out of fear of the CPC.

    In the coming days and weeks, the Liberals owe progressive Canadians for that rescue we gave them.

    They can start with electoral reform.

    I am sick to death of “strategic voting”. Its an undemocratic device used by both the CPC, but mostly Liberals to scare voters into choosing their party out of fear. What it does is monopolizes democracy down to two parties…just like the American system we’re not supposed to be like.

    I would argue that any system is better than this, but generally something proportional would achieve results. We are grown ups. If we vote for parties that share a relatively similar worldview, they’ll find common ground in parliament to get things done for citizens in coalitions, CASA’s etc that serve the best interests of the country…and it won’t deny the electoral voice of the people’s will.

    Now, before we get into “a proportional system would allow for extremist parties”, I’m sorry but that ship has already sailed. Have you seen the CPC lately? They’ve been shifting further and further right that they’re at a point that the party would not be recognizable to what used to be the PC Party only a generation ago.

    The kind of electoral system we end up with is certainly up for debate. There are several variations of electoral systems that are generally proportional, without breaking down into chaos. But we should have that debate and the legislative follow-up necessary. For most Canadians across every demographic and political alignment, their largest gripe about politicians is that they “just do as they want” (implied: not what they promised to do). Changing the system and putting voters in more direct control ads a morality layer that has long since vanished.

    I’m not one who would ever give a platform to separatists (regardless of the region in question), but I would argue that separatism at its core is borne out of a sense of extreme frustration with a central government. Well perhaps a better way of choosing our leadership nationally can serve as part of the national healing that needs to take place.

    We’ll also be monitoring for the inevitable conservative shift that the Liberals now that they’re in office again. In fact, its already started.

    My2bits