Of course I am aware of the “notwithstanding clause”, but this is not relevant for the strict majoritarian view you were espousing, is it? Moreover, “it allows Parliament or provincial legislatures to temporarily override sections 2 and 7–15 of the Charter” and the parts of the Charter subject to override are limited: “rights such as section 6 mobility rights, democratic rights, and language rights are inviolable”.

To my mind, this is clearly all further evidence of the fact that our government is organized via an intricate (and ever-evolving) system with various overrides and corrective measures and balanced powers, and that it is in no way simply reducible to strict, %50+, majoritarian rule.

I am not a constitutional lawyer (or any sort of lawyer), but my understanding (and what I meant to say) was that unconstitutional laws are subject to legal correction, so sure , we may vote in whatever we want, but that doesn’t meant the law will stand or take effect.

See e.g., http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp

The reason we in Canada nowadays use the term referendum to mean mainly the non-binding  type is because at the beginning of the century the western provinces experimented with the binding referendum. But it was abandoned because the Manitoba law on the subject was declared unconstitutional in 1919, mainly on the ground that it usurped the power of the lieutenant-governor, as a representative of the crown, to veto legislation. It also interfered with the powers of the federal government, which appoints the lieutenant-governors and has the power to instruct them

The limits are decided as the society and its government are formed and as they develop. Just as you note, look at the process for amending the constitution or the fact that you can’t vote in unconstitutional laws.

It just a basic fact about well functioning democratic systems that you have limits to majoritarian rule.

There is a lot more to democracy than winners taking all in bare majority votes. There is absolutely nothing wrong with requiring super majorities for some process, or requiring consensus in some cases, in having some things decided by experts instead of by vote, or by using deliberation with no voting in some cases.

The important part of democratic governance is that we work together to develop and maintain well reasoned and functional systems that are stable and responsible to our changing needs, based on engagement and deliberation of the citizenry. Winner take all bare majoritarian voting is the least of it, honestly.

Edit: it’s helpful imo to skim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy to get a sense of how varied and expansive democratic governance is.

That platitude does not convince me of anything. Some things should obviously require a super majority, or require additional process beyond voting, or not be subject to a vote ad all.

Majoritarian rule is not the end all be all of a functioning democracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Unfreedom has an interesting take on the wave of separatist movements. It traces it to a reactionary “politics of eternity”, which is being supported and advanced by authoritarian regimes to undermine the established order based on trade democratic deliberation. See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum

Now that X and Meta have become dedicated propaganda platforms, and I don’t know that it’s even possible for the government or researchers to get the needed access to determine if there are bad actors manipulating the public in this way now.

From Snyders view, one of the aims of this global effort is to convince people that coordination via democratic deliberation doesn’t work. Proposing ridiculous, highly polarizing referendums and tricking as many people as possible into voting for the most absurd option is a great way to convince everyone that democratic process are stupid, since that is the most degenerate form of democratic activity.

I would refer you to my other comment made.

I don’t see a comment that speaks to numbers. You said they are “banning guns outright”. If you mean “banning SOME guns outright”, then it would be correct, but of course almost everyone thinks some guns should be banned outright. But not all guns are banned outright, you can still own and buy guns.

Please show me a poll showing that 25% of Canadians are single issue gun voters. (I know gun owning families (avid hunters) who had no problem voting for a Liberal PM.)

You are spreading disinformation, because it is not true that guns are banned “outright”. Specific classes of firearms are.

But How many more votes are really at stake thru your (apparently) favored pet issue? How many Canadians who would consider voting lib do you really think are single issue gun voters?

Avoiding detergent packs is better: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkart/2021/08/08/study-says-up-to-75-of-plastics-from-detergent-pods-enter-the-environment-industry-says-they-safely-biodegrade/

True. Also could be they lower the price point due to lack of demand, and that pulls in folks who otherwise wouldn’t have traveled to compensate somewhat. But they probably also have less money to spend and would do shorter trips…

I hope Europe and Asia get the message…

Bonus also is you are not creating value that is directly fueling the unfolding nightmare there.

part of the psyop is to claim a large or majority view, then push the view, normalize it, get even the opposition to validate it and respond to it.

I am completely opposed to U.S. imperialism, but it’s important to note that Puerto Rican’s are U.S. citizens.

The person you are replying to is an anti immigration advocate. It’s all they talk about and they’re only point in any issue.

Uh… do you know what contribution he made to 2008? Or are you just free associating “banks” and “2008”?

Carney’s actions as Governor of the Bank of Canada are said to have played a major role in helping Canada avoid the worst impacts of the 2008 financial crisis.

The epoch-making feature of Carney’s tenure as governor remains the decision to cut the overnight rate by 50 basis points in March 2008, one month after his appointment. While the European Central Bank delivered a rate increase in July 2008, Carney anticipated the leveraged-loan crisis would trigger global contagion. When policy rates in Canada hit the effective lower bound, the central bank combated the crisis with the non-standard monetary tool “conditional commitment” in April 2009 to hold the policy rate for at least one year, in a boost to domestic credit conditions and market confidence. Output and employment began to recover from mid-2009, in part thanks to monetary stimulus. The Canadian economy outperformed those of its G7 peers during the crisis, and Canada was the first G7 nation to have both its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment recover to pre-crisis levels.

Ah, true. Reading https://liberal.ca/cstrong/build/ I don’t see anything that says these affordable units will be kept off the market, or that ensures they will be rented at affordable rates.

I also think land taxes seem promising, and taxes on uninhabited excess square footage, that are earmarked exclusively for building high quality public housing.

I agree that such tax reform (and other regulatory measures) is really needed.

But, if the units are purpose built for affordable housing (as proposed federally in https://liberal.ca/housing-plan/ , for instance), this should at least not fall into the investor problem, no?

IMO one of the really critical takeaways of this historical survey given the current climate is this: The claim that immigration has caused the crises is completely B.S. With the dynamics in place to drive the crises, increasing population can exacerbate the problem on the margins, but population growth didn’t cause the problem and deportations won’t fix it.

We need systemic fixes, like public development of purpose built affordable housing and regulation to prevent finalization of the human right to housing.

Worth noting that https://smartvoting.ca/ projects a better outcome for greens, NDP, and libs using strategic voting. But I respect your view, and in general I agree that a minority lib government in coalition with the NDP would be preferable. But with what is at stake, it just seems like too big a risk IMO to not be really clearly working the levers of power that are available to progressives.

I would also really encourage us to not spread complacency and an assumption that the polling will foretell outcomes. Polling in the current climate has proven to be really iffy (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-polls-were-mostly-wrong/). Demographic shifts, new media and habits, and generally instability make this stuff really unpredictable. We should vote like our country depends on it.

We all know that immigration needs sensible reforms. And we all know that there is a housing crises. The question is whether immigration “created the housing crises”. But the cost of housing has outpaced incomes globally. If it were just created by immigration, then shouldn’t the prices balance out globally as countries that lose population get more housing availability?

Surely the pressure from immigration aggravated the housing crises, but it did not create it. The crises has been building for at least 50 years. It is created by the financialization of housing and the withdraw of public investment in affordable housing.

Housing is a human right, because it is a basic necessity for living a decent and secure life. When you let core needs be met entirely by the market, without any social support to guarantee access, the profit motive will inevitably squeeze the population to extract more and more upside.

In any market, maximum profits can be made when there is high demand with a restricted supply. By surrendering housing entirely to increasingly unregulated markets, the production of housing becomes prioritized based on return on investment, and that means in order to attract capital housing production and sales have to be more profitable (for some segment of available investment) than other investments, such as mining, oil, finance, etc. If not, any capital would just flow to those more profitable avenues. As a result, we get luxury housing when we need affordable housing and we get unproductive sprawling, overly large single family homes when we need medium density housing near urban centers.

So then, is it any surprise that think tanks and corporate interests that want to drive forward market deregulation to maximize profit potentials will try to tell us to blame immigration for “creating” the crises that is actually due to the very deregulation they want to advance?

Caveat Emptor:

• Tornto Sun is US owned by Post Media which is 66% owned by Chatham Asset Management, a hedge fund with close ties the Republican party and which contributed to Trump’s takeover in the US. Post Media has an explicit rightwing political agenda.
• The source of the report, is the Fraser Institute, a “libertarian-conservative” think tank dedicated to market deregulation (so called “free markets”).The Fraser Institute receives millions in foreign funding including notable US sources. The institute does not disclose their funders, but we know that they are at least partially funded by the U.S. Koch brothers, who were primary instigators of the corruption that is eating the US alive.