Right-wing hysteria over the carbon tax their movement invented the worst of Canadian politics

Thing 1: carbon pricing is a good idea that conservatives invented and they should proudly own it. Instead, we’re in this surreal hellscape where they’ve disavowed their idea, labelled it as the “Liberal carbon tax” and are campaigning hard against it.

To be clear, it was under the federal Liberal Party that the government passed the carbon tax legislation that attached a price to carbon consumption which applied nationwide – except where a province had their own plans which substantially meets the same goals.

BC had their own, Alberta (under the NDP) had their own, Quebec, Ontario (under their previous Liberal gov’t) had their own – of the large provinces.

Ousting the provincial NDP gov’t in Alberta and subsequent defeat of the Ontario Liberals brought conservative regimes to power in both provinces. For reasons unknown to logic, they both repealed their own carbon pricing regime – with triggered the federal one to be imposed.

They handed control over this file TO the Federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau…for which they attack him for now.

Now, I get the electoral politics here; it is politically expedient to align against a program enacted by your political opponent. There is a short term benefit to that in the context of polling to be sure. But the longer term side effect is ones credibility.

But the elephant in the room is the fact that carbon pricing is intended to act as a consumption tax (the form of tax that conservatives generally support), that is supposed to be revenue neutral. Carbon pricing dings the consumption, rewards the reductions we make in our carbon footprint. Any excess therein is generally redistributed in forms of tax relief and various rebates/credits to offset the financial burden of the various carbon taxes at the lowest income scales.

That was the idea behind carbon pricing. Philosophically, it’s a good idea and yes, the devil is in the details.

The crux of the current debate is the scheduled increase on April 1, 2024 of the per-tonne carbon rate. The detractors calculate that as a 23% increase. Sure, we’ll take that argument at face value.

But this is no ordinary tax, and the reasons for it aren’t specifically for basic revenue generation reasons.

Thing 2: why we have carbon pricing.

Look around you. The effects of climate change are only disputed by small cabal who would argue that the world is also only 6,000 years old.

We have once-in-a-lifetime climate events every year now. BC has had several record wildfire seasons in the last decade at the cost of billions of dollars each – and that’s just the cost of fighting the fire. The other costs are the post-fire repairs, mitigation, compensation, and effects on the economy where the fires damage timber supply to our forestry sector; or other important agriculture operations. Same problem for the atmospheric rivers – which entered BC’s weather lexicon in the last few years as catastrophic rains and flooding diplace towns, farms, disrupt transportation links, etc.

Private and public insurance rates increase as a result of the redemption of insurance policies made necessary by climate triggered damages. The effect the bottom line for business and families are sure to be felt with higher premiums, or taxpayer supported bailouts when insurance companies fail to deliver on their policies.

These are the costs of climate change. There’s no hope that this cost decreases so long as we don’t take this seriously.

Thing 3: Anti-tax propaganda and hypocrisy of the far right.

To hear the rhetoric of the opponents, the carbon tax rates are to be increasing by almost 20¢ per litre for regular gasoline. That’d be huge – if it was true.

Spoiler: its a lie.

2.69¢ per litre is a far cry from the 18¢ being pushed by conservative propagandists.

To be sure, few people will willingly embrace any tax increase, though most people accept that taxes are necessary. But if we’re to debate tax policy, let’s start out from a position of honesty. Conservatives are absolutely not being honest. But that’s their trademark: lie about something, then campaign about the thing that isn’t true…make it about big government hurting the little guy.

The problem is that government has a requirement under our constitution to do what it can to protect society; and climate change – the effects therein, are a real – existential threat to Canada and the world around us. By having conservatives undermine the threat of climate change, they’re putting society at grave harm.

The harm isn’t specific to flooding in leftwing BC coastal areas from atmospheric rivers and rising sea levels, the harm is also the droughts affecting interior, northern and prairie agricultural sectors. These are small towns and rural areas that the conservatives call their base of support. Watch and see how absent these politicians become once their farming towns are decimated from a raging wildfire made possible by soils and plants dried out from a lack of snow and spring rains.

Thing 4: the carbon tax is a consumption tax, something that conservatives generally like.

Think of the GST. I remember that chaos of an introduction in 1989/90 when the then PC Party government under Brian Mulroney replaced the Manufacturers Sales tax with the GST.

The revenue haul from that tax is substantial. Ottawa collects a gross $48 billion annually from the GST. The GST credit, designed for low income adults in Canada costs up to $5 billion annually. That’s a staggering profit. All leftover revenue goes to the general funds of the nation and finance whatever is deemed appropriate in the annual budget.

The Carbon Tax is different. It’s supposed to be revenue neutral, and it largely is; but its purpose driven. In Canada, where the federal carbon tax is collected from; the proceeds are turned around and remitted back to the provinces where they originated.

In BC, where the carbon tax revenue allocations are spelled out; well over half is returned in a ‘climate change’ credit, and the remainder is split between an electric vehicle rebate program (on the purchase of a new zero emission vehicle), a BC Hydro rebate to install heat pumps, and funds to assist in carbon friendly retrofits. In both cases, federal and provincial, while not exactly as revenue neutral – they come awfully close…and a lot closer than the GST which is the original consumption tax in Canada.

Summary

Conservatives are trying to position the carbon tax issue merely as a political one; where they’re seen as the good guys trying to hold back the ever-oppressive federal government from taxing citizens into oblivion. It is that over simplification that gets played over and over and over in the media and we’ve stopped talking about what is really at stake.

The controversy of carbon pricing is that it shouldn’t be controversial. The goals and means are clearly stated, and the evidence that its working is also just as compelling.

Sure, nobody likes it when things cost more, but that is the taxation model of carbon pricing; increase the price through the tax, decrease demand. The “23%” increase looming this April 1 equates to 2.69 cents/litre in BC which has so many folks upset, but nobody says anything when big oil jacks the price up by 30 or 45cents over the span of a couple weeks for no reason.

We’re set to judge our political leaders in the coming months over policies and performance based on how we feel in the moment. But we are going to be judged by our children and grandchildren by our failure to act when we fully knew better.

It’s time to stop being influenced by the here-and-now politics, and be swayed by the do-the-right-thing planning for the future.

My2bits

The far right’s anti-immigrant narrative gave a permission structure to the Trudeau Liberals to cap foreign students wishing to come to Canada to study

Political triangulation is a thing that centrists know well; it’s where you adopt a position of your opponent to appear pragmatic, denying the opponent a position to attack from, then paint them as the extremists unworthy of your vote.

There are exceptions to this rule. Adopting policies which are inherently racist or bigoted in nature should be avoided.

But these are desperate times for the federal Liberals.

There’s an undercurrent of resentment in various western nations about “foreigners” who “come here and take [x, y, z] from our own folks and we need to take it back”.

What they’re not telling you is that politicians who follow through with these anti-foreigner policies aren’t interested in providing “for our own”, they’re just full of hate towards the different looking folks and used a right-wing populist mythology to score your vote from you.

The joke is on you.

It’s a hard truth that every province relied on a mix of foreign students (who pay full rates) to help subsidize domestic students who were largely subsidized.

Ottawa has unleashed a policy change to severely restrict the number of foreign students under the pretense that they want to stop the “cash cow” of milking foreign students of money (at full tuition rates).

This is going to ring popular in certain voting blocks to be sure; but popular doesn’t always mean ‘right’.

This policy change won’t open up those former seats in universities to domestic students..the extra money that subsidized the domestic seats the rest of our students chase after has been chased away.

If anything, expect that tuition rates in many provinces to either go up – or enrollment to decrease.

Right wing populism has real world negative consequences, I just didn’t expect that to flow from federal Liberals – not this blatant at least.

There is one upside though. It will help fully expose the funding shortfall that government at every level is guilty of when it comes to post secondary education.

Racism and bigotry are gaining again

And we are worse off for it.

By now you’ve been well acquainted with ‘wokeism’ and the smear the far right have coined against anyone or anything that highlights systemic injustices faced by minorities and the historically oppressed.

But the opposite of ‘woke’ isn’t merely to disagree. The folks on the right are actively moving legislative agendas to literally criminalize the very people that the “woke” identify as being under attack…justifying the social activism of the left.

But the right doesn’t care. The far right has some natural advantages here. There are severe economic pressures and genuine anxiety in society in the slow recovery from the pandemic.

As predicted, the economy bounced back very quickly once the various pandemic restrictions came off, but it seems to have bounced too far and too fast…and its left many behind.

Income disparities, housing crisis, hardcore drug use, and global crisis’ such as climate change and war are on everyone’s’ mind, but true to form – the far right’s response isn’t to offer solutions, its to find a scapegoat.

To believe the far right, its the Woke (the activists who raise awareness on social inequalities and injustices) who are causing banks to fail; making housing expensive, exploit the vulnerable, etc. Arguments that flop with the slightest amount of scrutiny.

Its the same tactic of a certain nationalist party from Germany in the 1930’s led by a former Austrian corporal who pinned blame for all things on the Jews of the world as his scapegoat.

That scrutiny however, as it comes in the form of media inquiries and fact checks – is promptly spun around into the typical victim complex that the right wing has perfected in the sense that they are the victims of witch-hunts and ‘cancelling’…when in reality, every allegation of theirs is a confession.

To be fair however, centrist politicians fail at addressing crisis’ which allows extremists to rise as they offer extreme solutions to poorly understood problems.

Its just that the yardstick is different when measuring up what might be proposed from the left vs the right.

There is an expectation for those on the left that whatever they propose will be a perfect solution, but the right doesn’t get that sort of scrutiny – so its populist and vile talking points are given FAR more weight than anything on the left…even if the left is correct.

We’re seeing banks fail; a call back to the 2008 subprime lending scandal that threw the world into a near depression; but what the right wing isn’t telling you is that the bank crashes are linked to their repeal and Trumps signing of bills that repealed the Frank – Dodd regulations that were to prevent such stupidity from happening again.

It was a move from the left to regulate big banks and the investment community to ensure such disasters don’t happen again; it was because the regulations were removed that the stage was set for a return of risky behaviors which landed in a handful of banks failing – and crumbling investor confidence.

There is no justification on earth to exploit children, they have a right to live their best life and grow into young adults where they can make their own decisions.

But lets be honest. Historically, and in the current context, there are far more people generically conservative who groom children – or far worse. Vile people people aren’t specific to one group or another, its just that you end up finding more from a conservative ilk than not. Reminding of this fact gets you hate and death threats however, as they run out of coherent things to say.

I am the last person to argue for a crackdown on free speech; in fact I would argue that the remedy for awful speech is more people speaking out against it. But there are elements in our society who do not deserve a platform.

Neo-Nazis do not get equal billing in the round table of ideas. They are the modern standard bearer of genocidal murderers who need their mouths sewn shut, forever. That goes for any ‘group’ who calls for laws to exclude, nullify, attack, imprison, or otherwise demonize anyone in society just for being who they are.

There are legitimate grievances by left or right on the economy, social issues and immigration, national defense, etc. So have fulsome debate in the democratic forum, formulate plans and offer them as a platform: how is your party’s idea better than the rest and how will your changes benefit everyone? Lets have those debates.

But those ideas need to be rational, backed by data and a coherent philosophy. Should those ideas come at the expense of other you scapegoat or wish to deport, enslave or murder? Then you’re a fascist.

We don’t accommodate fascists.

Ever.

my2bits

Go Left. To save us. All of us.

In uncertain times, folks can reach for more bold solutions when the same-old no longer works.

These are some of those times. The Neoliberal economic philosophy hasn’t worked for large swathes of society, and those for whom it works are already the wealthiest and most powerful among us.

Through no fault of our own, the economic pillars have been knocked out from the ‘if you work hard and save your money, you can get ahead’. Unless you are part of a 1% elite out there, you’re not going to get ahead. Staying afloat is hard enough.

The powerful and elite know this and will do their best to retain the system that keeps them powerful and rich. There is a war by the 1% against everyone else. Both left and right however, present potential solutions to get us out from under that control paradigm.

But they are not the same.

The left demands wealth taxes, programs to supplement the poorest among us, assistance to those living with disabilities, tax fairness among working peoples and housing for the masses seemingly out-priced for even the very basics of shelter needs.

The right points to groups that require blame and that if only they were outlawed or restricted, the great prosperity would return. The right campaigns for harsher controls over immigration, crackdowns on unions, and engage in social culture wars to divide people among religious and ethnic lines as a source to gain power.

The problem is, the powerful elite tolerate one of these idealisms more than the other. Neoliberal elite do not necessarily care about religious conflicts or divisions, nor do they participate in culture war debates, their interest is in maintaining social status, wealth and power. The rules for you and I do not apply to those at the very top.

The elite however, will bitterly oppose wealth taxes; they’ll oppose low cost housing for folks barely hanging on, and they most certainly oppose any measures to share decision making power. You know this to be true.

While the far right pretend to have a populist message that is to get us out of the rut, in the end, they share philosophical common ground with the neoliberals who sit at the helm of power and wealth.

They are natural allies.


The answers, as they always have been, are on the left.

My2bits

Conservatives are determined to re-elect Trudeau – this time with a majority. This is awful.

There was a series of social media posts circulated by various prominent conservative political leaders and thinkers in Canada which elevated the angry rants of some white-nationalist, covid-truther EU politicians as evidence that the world hates Trudeau and is harming Canada’s reputation around the world.

Bunk.

I am no Trudeau fan whatsoever, but I don’t hate him. My opposition is policy based and there are substantial gaps between him and I on environment, poverty, disability assistance and others. The gaps are significant enough that I will never vote Liberal; not under their current policy direction at least.

But Conservatives hate him.

No. Completely false. But from this 2016 tweet from Conservative insider Steven Taylor – which goes without any explanation or context – you are MEANT to make that connection.

They do so with a visceral hatred usually reserved for Nazi’s or Stalin’s regime. In fact; some of his conservative opponents in the deeper interwebs share memes and conspiracy theories that compare Trudeau TO Hitler…and Stalin. One of the more famous ones is connecting Justin to Fidel Casto; which has repeatedly been debunked.

Its not that conservatives actually believe that Trudeau is a family relative of Castro (they likely know that he isn’t), the point is to make you hate Trudeau as well.

Its the same tactic republicans used against President Barack Obama. He was falsely accused of being born in Kenya (which would have made him ineligible to run for president at all), then that he was Muslim. Of course there is no rule that excludes a Muslim from seeking the nomination of a party to run for President, in fact – there’s a rule that outlaws a religious test for holding public office).

Why? Because you cannot use certain language (or words that start with “N”) to identify black folks. That would be nakedly racist; but if you mask it around some (false) ineligibility narratives (Kenya) and paint Obama with being Islamic; the racist voter gets to vote against the black guy without saying that as the reason. Keeping in mind that the post-2001 world was pretty hostile to Muslims; especially in America.

Hitler? C’mon.

The same campaign baggage is being attached to Justin Trudeau, but in a country who would have elected Obama by an 80% margin if we could, this hate-standard is risky at best.

There are many reasons to oppose Trudeau (and Obama) – on based policy and performance. Both are objectively centrist who borrow more from the conservative economic theories than an actual liberal or left – where bolder, more decisive solutions lay.

But the conservatives are making it easy for Justin.

The deeply personal, character attacks launched towards Justin by several conservatives, and their proxies are quickly swept aside with “we might not be perfect, but we’re not crazy like them”.

In the context of the outcast EU politico’s that went after Trudeau with lines not much different than the worst rhetoric of the #KarenConvoy bunch, Conservatives should have dismissed them on the spot. Imagine if any one of the current crop of CPC leadership candidates, sitting MP’s, fanbase online had remarked, “while we have little in common with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we will not share any moral ground or political space with unabashedly racist, xenophobic political figures who even the EU assembly keeps at a distance.”

They did not. Nobody did. But the internet is forever, and those who gave space to the crazy right wing in the EU here will also feature in Liberal Party campaign ads.

Justin Trudeau probably cannot believe his luck; and if he gets re-elected – its your fault.

My2bits

Federal NDP/Liberal CASA deal being cast as a coup d’état by incoherent conservative man-babies

To listen to some of the white hot rage thrown about by conservatives, their allies in the punditry and several folks in the #karenconvoy toddler tantrum party, the NDP and Liberals performed a successful January 6th-type overthrow of the government; or at least that’s the narrative they would like you to believe.

These clowns have no currency to trade except the political value of hate. To be honest, hate itself can motivate people into actions – for better or worse.

In selling their hate, they wrap it in a bunch of lies – because there is no factual basis for their counter-attacks.

There is no ‘coalition’, and any educated person will tell you that. What has been agreed to is a formal ‘confidence and supply agreement’ that assures that the minority government will have the necessary legislative votes for confidence reasons in exchange for concessions made to an opposition party. There is nothing unusual, immoral, illegal or unconstitutional about it. Its a tool available to Parliament by government to maintain office and its literally how Canada’s healthcare system and old age pension changes were enacted.

Parties reaching across the isle when there is no majority government is the expectation of voters who expect their leaders to get substantial things done. In this case, its an expansion of the national healthcare package to include dental care and pharmacare for the first time. If done right, this will be a life-changing enhancement for millions – including thousands of self employed and small business operators who function without a substantial extended healthcare package normally available from large companies or government employers.

Nobody expected conservatives to like anything about this development, but they are taking their hate – misogyny and other intolerances to new depths to instill revulsion towards Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh.

I’m not suggesting that there’s no appeal for this tactic, but in a country famous for its ability to compromise and strike deals internally to accomplish big things, they’re coming off as violently hostile to compromise and deal making. This is a general philosophy only reserved for the most radical groups; some political, some religious…and it looks awful. They are appealing to the most hateful and bigoted subgroups in our society…don’t think we haven’t noticed.

Noteworthy however is the atomic-bomb thrown at the idea from Warren Kinsella. He’s a former Chretien-Liberal insider who now runs “Daisy Group”, a consulting firm in Ontario who served a variety of clients – and pens opinion pieces in local nespapers.

I think I expected better of him than this. With a legal background that he has, calling this ‘sneaky and undemocratic’ is about as false as you can get. But maybe his client base includes more and more conservative types and this is the worldview they’re all sharing now.

My own personal perspective is that while I appreciate our MP’s and opposing caucuses working together for measurable results, I don’t think ‘means testing’ dental care is consistent with the universality of medicare. I think that more substantive goals could have been agreed upon in electoral reform, and there’s some taxation/benefit areas missing from this deal. Like, where is any mention of a wealth tax? How about something profound for our fellow Canadian’s living with disabilities? Sure, we’ll see what happens in the next budget – and I am hopeful, but I remember the Liberals betrayal on electoral reform from 2015.

Still. Watching the Conservatives lose their minds of what’s largely a housekeeping matter so that we don’t land in another premature election makes me support this (admittedly imperfect) deal even more.

You clowns aren’t ready for power. Unhinged rhetoric is never helpful – regardless of which side foists it upon the public.

For now, I’ll go with this…and I suspect a super-majority of Canadians agree with me.

My2bits

The epic failure of the #TruckersForFreedom will be a sight to behold

Oh, they’re loud, and they’ll muster a gathering of supporters at the nations’ capitol as promised, but not likely in the numbers they’ve been promoting. Numbers – like half a million people, 50,000 trucks from across the country. Now I could be wrong with the numbers too, but it doesn’t invalidate the next point I’m about to make.

They’re about to step into the stupid-trap…and we’ve been warning them all this time that its going to suck.

They’re protesting a federal Transport Canada vaccine mandate rule for truck drivers entering Canada from the USA that they must prove their vaccine status or face up to 14 days quarantine.

Read it again.

The federal mandate speaks to drivers entering Canada. It does not regulate the vaccine status of a truck driver heading to the United States. They have their own mandate.

If the Transport Canada (“Justin Trudeau”) mandate disappears tomorrow, unvaccinated truckers from Canada will still be denied entry to the USA because of their right to set border rules.

So every truck with banners saying all sorts of profanity towards the federal liberals and Trudeau are again missing the mark.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the political people in high places too. There is a reason why the federal liberals are slow walking any sort of pushback – the clowns who have organized and fundraised off this effort are making themselves look like total idiots at a scale unseen in Canada before.

It will be worse than antivaxxers spitting at nurses, throwing rocks at the Prime Minister. Imagine driving your rig 3000km to Ottawa to protest the actions of the wrong government.

Of course, this all links back to the garbage arguments made by a tiny handful of folks that the vaccine(s) aren’t safe, or that covid is fake. Well shut the fuck up about that. Unless you’re sporting the qualifications of a medical doctor or virologist, this ain’t your ballpark to render ‘professional’ opinions on the matter.

The fact that its brought out the kooks on the far right is political gravy for Justin. As a result of this convoy-of-stupid, Justin will score a majority government if we had an election any time soon.

Well done. Idiots.

my2bits

Liberals try to corner NDP and fail.

From the outset of the 2021 election call, when the federal Liberals saw that their plan of an easy romp to a majority was clouded, they pulled the emergency trigger.

True to form, when the Liberals have their backs against the wall, they charge that a CPC government would repeal a woman access to her private health matters (read: outlaw abortion access). Never mind that this was a matter decided by the supreme court and has largely been untouched since the early 1980’s.

Well that failed to move the needle, so then the federal Liberals launch a broadside on “CPC plans to privatize healthcare”. Well the sad reality check is that Canada’s healthcare system is heavily private and much of that happened under Liberal leadership. What’s more telling is that the Liberals aren’t pledging to reverse this trend, they’re scaring folks that the Conservatives might make it worse. If they were real progressives on this, they’d argue to increase the scope of healthcare to include mental health, dental care and more. But they haven’t and they wont.

The third pillar in Liberal scare tactics is to scare progressives that “THE NDP MIGHT WORK WITH CONSERVATIVES” (against the Liberals?). This historically has been a more effective attack – in terms of moving the needle, but it doesn’t hold much water. Historically, the Liberals and Conservatives share far more in common than either of them do with the NDP. In terms of parliamentary votes, if it has anything to do with economic justice for workers or the environment, the Liberals most reliable ally are the CPC.

Not that it matters. All Liberals have to do is say it; that there’s some nefarious plan of the CPC and NDP to throw the Liberals out. It almost never checks out as far as facts go, but never let a good spin get in the way of the truth.

Recently, an editorializing journalist suggested that since the NDP leader didn’t explicitly say that he wasn’t going to team up with the CPC, Liberals pounced immediately as finding the proof that it WAS going to happen.

Exhibit A: Liberals think they have a smoking gun.

Except that editorialists are opinion writers. As it turns out, the facts point elsewhere. The interview where Jagmeet Singh is asked point blank if he would work with Erin O’Toole if he scored a minority parliamentary win in the election, Jagmeet wasn’t non-committal, he forcefully said that the NDP and CPC on most matters were incompatible. But don’t take my word for it, watch the interview yourself.

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Liberals are pretty desperate to glean their message from the interview above. But they have run up against a wall here. They don’t have any significant new ideas that could not have been accomplished in the functioning parliament that had two years left in its mandate, so they’re resorting to scare tactics and misinformation to whip up vote they feel entitled to.

Ultimately, the operation of the next parliament is up to voters, most of whom didn’t feel this early election was necessary. No matter, here we are, Canadian’s will vote regardless – and the party leaders will respect the verdict and work with the cards they’re dealt – not the ones they want.

There’s no use trying to re-litigate the election call itself – that ship has sailed. But if anything has been made clear by this stunt, its this: Justin Trudeau had a functioning government and a mostly cooperative parliament. He had a mandate and enough good will to continue at least for another year – hopefully to see the backside of this pandemic leave.

He chose politics over governing; there is not compelling issue that sparked this campaign – no decisive wedge that required attention – except to get us to the other side of the pandemic.

Maybe Justin has given us an issue to contemplate.

He might not like the answer.

My2bits

Trudeau plays his conservative opponents like a fiddle and they’re too stupid to realize it.

From the hyperventilating going on, you’d think that Trudeau has outlawed all firearms.

He hasn’t.

He’s done the thing that so many Canadians mock Americans for: banning of military grade weapons. Included on the list you’d find RPG’s and rocket launchers. Here’s the list.

Outrage.

What he is guilty of is exploiting another crisis to do this, but that’s Trudeau. But in doing so, he’s managed to bait a lot of people into taking on Trump-like NRA/Republican talking points. Y’all stepped right into it.

How embarassing.

Trudeau always wanted to campaign against a Trump-like irrational group think. Given some of the reactions so far, you’ve played right into his hands.

Now he gets to run on a polarizing issue while nobody is talking about his various other failures.

How embarassing.

Coronavirus and its silver lining

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Look, there has to be a silver lining to the outbreak of a major pandemic in this modern age.

I don’t mean to make light or joke around at anyone’s expense; there are real people who have died in this pandemic – made worse by the actions (or lack thereof) of powerful leaders.

In watching the worlds’ nations reaction to #coronavirus, some nations are reacting swiftly, bringing all resources to bear, others – have different considerations.

We have seen some countries at first deny a problem exists, then ignore science, then ignore emergency protocols because their primary concern goes to the economic impact of the disease.

We have also seen places act proactively when given proper information, grant full disclosure and transparency, act with a life-preservation motivation at every step.

The first model is a politically driven response which attempts to mitigate financial and/or political fallout from any panic coming from the pandemic, while the other model puts aside the politics/money and mobilizes government resources and tools to whatever extent necessary.

The first model is being used by America and some European nations, the second is being deployed by Canada, most Asian jurisdictions and elsewhere. The first being a generically right-wing model, the second is a generally left-ish response.

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Guess where you’re finding the problems? Not on the left.

In fact, in a crazy sense of irony, the left wing approach may save the right. By using the full weight of government action, public healthcare and generally being proactive, the significantly larger cost up front may be the most efficient way to navigate this disaster.

Inversely, the right-wing model, loaded with its layers of political and fiscal policy tests, is proving no match for a virus that doesn’t give a shit about policy. So we lurch from willful ignorance to overreaction causing various financial markets to crash – in a world where markets are particularly sensitive to instability.

So what do the capitalists do? Unload $1.5 trillion into the markets to give it a jolt and make it better. It lasted 15 minutes and evaporated faster than rubbing alcohol.

Here’s the bottom line.

We’ll get through this, some places will fare better than others. I for one, am grateful for our public healthcare system that places patient-care above profits. For all of its flaws, this is a far superior model to one that is profit motivated and subject to the politics of the day.

Let doctors and healthcare pro’s do their jobs. Listen to first responders and civil authorities. Don’t over-react but don’t take chances either. These are uncharted waters for many. Whatever economic slowdown may happen as a result will be followed up with a recovery, and hopefully, positive change.

Hang in there everyone, we’ll be ok.

my2bits