Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

[Reed John]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Oh, I see. That seems very sensible.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Mortgage interest is NOT tax-deductible in Canada. As per the Chipotle thread, this is a major difference between Canada and the US.

Capital gains on a principle residence are non-taxable, though.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

I should've known that. Shows how long it is since I've had a mortgage. (Why did I think they were I wonder?)

[Anton Gramscescu]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Because you got your mortgage in late 1979, just as Joe Clark brought in a doomed budget promising mortgage-interest deductibility?

[Amor de Cosmos]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

That's probably it actually.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Tories 35, Libs 30.

I shouldn't speak ill of the Strategic Counsel since I work with them closely on a file, but their numbers are notoriously pro-Tory.

Still, I reckon this should give the invertebrate element in Iggy's coterie pause. Shit, even Stephane Dion had the Liberals on level pegging with Harper at the end of last summer. After a year of recession, you'd think they might be worried about the lack of progress. But apparently not.

[linus]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Some room for a coalition govt with those numbers, if the Libs feel like hanging out with Layton for a few years...

[Anton Gramscescu]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

I think Duceppe's the issue, not Layton. English Canada might wear a government that relies on Bloc abstentions to survive - it's not going to wear a government that requires Bloc votes to survive. I wouldn't have thought those numbers suggest that the Libs and NDP combined will gain more seats than the Tories.

Any Liberal gains have been at the expense of the NDP - the pro-Harper vote is still stable and the anti-Harper vote is just splitting in a slightly different way.

[Anton Gramscescu]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Thank fuck at least sovereigntists can act like grown-ups.

[WOM]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

And now the NDP say they'll be propping up the government, so it's pretty much certain we won't be going to the polls in the near future.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

Yup. Zip up your flies guys, no one's interested.

[WOM]

Intrigue in the Canadian Parliament

[Amor de Cosmos]

Or the Ontario one anyway. What's the thinking on tomorrow's election?

I've a horrible feeling Doug Ford's going to get a majority. In spite of having no platform or policies, he's going to get the Trumpian "He's an ordinary white guy like me and that's all that matters" vote. I sincerely hope I'm wrong.

[ursus arctos]

Virtually everyone I know in the past I've seems resigned to that outcome

[WOM]

I think he's going to walk it. Unless there's a serious undercurrent that I'm not detecting. I think the Libs are going to get massacred. May even lose official party status.

[WOM]

The NDP will do really well in the popular vote, but they won't take enough seats.

[WOM]

Oh, and Rob's widow suing Doug (and Randy) the week before the election...for non-payment and running Deco [apparently] into the ground: perfect.

The only thing she didn't do is confirm he was, indeed, a major hash dealer back in the '80s.

[Amor de Cosmos]

And so it goes. Not even close.

Fuck.

I mean really... Fuck!

[WOM]

Yup.

[Hot Pepsi]

Evil always wins because good is dumb.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Blind stupidity is less forgivable than dumbness

Anyway I'm not sure were dealing with evil in this case, just blind opportunism.

[Amor de Cosmos]

The surprise expulsion of Canada's amabassador, and recall of 15,000 Saudi students is going to be massive for the Liberal government.

Fuck Twitter eh? I used to believe diplomacy was carried out quietly and offstage, now its just thrown onto the internet in a couple of thousand characters. I find it hard to believe Chrystia Freeland OK'd this but there it is. Of course, I'd like it if we politely told the Saudis to fuck off and release the Badawis, but that's become very sticky now that several billion dollars in arms sales is in jeopardy. The student issue, though minor financially in comparison, is significant for post-secondary institutions. The package the Saudi government provides their students with is extremely generous, and most of it ends up in Canadian pockets. It'll be interesting to see how the government finesses their way through this.

[linus]

The Saudi gvt funds a lot of the hospitals in Montreal, in return they get to place interns, most of whom return to KSA. Not a big loss, the 15k students will be quickly replaced by students from China.

Badawi activism has gained some traction in Quebec, he was adopted by the dedicated quebecois laïcistes, the majority of whom are latent islamophobes. Yemen is the real issue with Saudi Arabia, crimes against humanity on a massive scale, complete devastation of a country and hundreds of thousands killed. Yemen isn't even mentioned in this article because MSM outlets like the G&M are on board with neocon NATO policies that have resulted in millions of Arab Muslim deaths in the past decades. So Freeland will focus on Badawi and remain complicit about Yemen.

[Diable Rouge]

Just reading an article on the Quebec election (in Irish, strangely enough), and CAQ come across as a francophone version of UKIP - cutting immigration by a fifth, and vowing to deport anyone que ne parle pas le francais after three years. In terms of their "autonomist" philosophy, presumably this means they want talks with Ottawa on redistribution of powers in a "devo-max" style deal?

[WOM]

Anything to preserve the pur laine for a few more years. Caquistes are, hopefully, just another gasp of a dying breed.