Canadian Politics

[bigg jay]

34 minutes ago, HardCoreBlue said:

Wow. It’s like if any of us at work were in the boardroom, meeting room, lunchroom whatever and someone asked us to say a few words to help comfort a colleague who lost a child and we start off by celebrating our sons football championship win or daughters hockey championship win. What in actual f. Show some class, some empathy. Your timing to share a proud parent moment sucked royally. 

Just another woulda shoulda coulda moment for her.  The next election cannot come soon enough.

[bustamente]

She has always been over her head in all her portfolio's and this time she failed up the ranks, she knows the next election will not be kind to her and her party

[blue_gold_84]

https://angusreid.org/premiers-performance-march/

Quote

March 18, 2022 – As the prospect of warmer spring weather begins to lift Canadian spirits, most appear to already be warming to their premiers.

New data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds higher approval numbers for most of the country’s premiers, including Ontario’s Doug Ford, who – less than three months before an expected provincial election – rises 13 points. Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston also springs well forward, up 16 points.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe (+6), Alberta’s Jason Kenney (+4) and Manitoba’s Heather Stefanson (+4) also see slight boosts, while in British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and New Brunswick, the approval of Premiers John Horgan (+1), Andrew Fury (-1) and Blaine Higgs (+2) remains stable. Quebec’s François Legault experiences a slight decline in approval (-3).

Houston’s climb to the top spot in approval comes as his province is set to remove all COVID-19 restrictions after being a bright spot in handling of the virus over the last two years. As well, he recently voiced frustrations over the Mass Casualty Inquiry – a commission exploring the events of April 18-19, 2020 when 22 people were shot by a gunman who was then killed by RCMP – echoed by loved ones of victims who lost their lives that day. Three-quarters (73%) of Nova Scotians approve of the job Houston’s done as premier, one-in-five (21%) disagree.

At the other end of the spectrum sits Stefanson, who despite an improvement over the last months, remains the country’s least approved-of premier. One-quarter (25%) in Manitoba approve of her; two-thirds (64%) beg to differ. As that province, too, removes COVID-19 restrictions, Stefanson continues to face criticism over the government’s handling of the pandemic, including a deadly third wave which overwhelmed intensive care units when she was health minister. Notably, Manitobans were least likely to give their premier a passing grade in handling the pandemic over the last two years.

[bigg jay]

I'm guessing if that poll was taken today, the small bump Stefanson has made would be wiped out by her appalling performance this week.  Still dead last either way.

[blue_gold_84]

7 minutes ago, bigg jay said:

I'm guessing if that poll was taken today, the small bump Stefanson has made would be wiped out by her appalling performance this week.  Still dead last either way.

Her comments on Tuesday were so thoughtless, and the fact that she took roughly two days to issue what seemed like a pretty generic and insensitive apology speaks to how out of touch she really is. What an embarrassment.

[HardCoreBlue]

19 minutes ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Her comments on Tuesday were so thoughtless, and the fact that she took roughly two days to issue what seemed like a pretty generic and insensitive apology speaks to how out of touch she really is. What an embarrassment.

I betcha she's an awesome hockey mom to be around said no one ever.

[JCon]

This really bothers me for several reasons. There are opportunities in the Leg for just this type of comment to be entered into Hansard. It happens all the time. They recognize guests, they make statements and it's all good. 

But to ignore a very valid question and one they knew was coming is disrespectful to the family of the victim and all Manitobans. Whoever advised her to make this statement in response to the first question should be fired. Deflecting the question is one thing that all politicians do but to completely ignore the question and go off about your child tells you what type of person Stefanson is. Privileged, out of touch and completely inappropriate for the job as premier.  

It also bothers me because I know the coach and he and his whole family are such good people. Obviously, no one is going after him but his name has been repeated many times through people watching the clip and through reading Hansard. 

[Tracker]

14 minutes ago, JCon said:

This really bothers me for several reasons. There are opportunities in the Leg for just this type of comment to be entered into Hansard. It happens all the time. They recognize guests, they make statements and it's all good. 

But to ignore a very valid question and one they knew was coming is disrespectful to the family of the victim and all Manitobans. Whoever advised her to make this statement in response to the first question should be fired. Deflecting the question is one thing that all politicians do but to completely ignore the question and go off about your child tells you what type of person Stefanson is. Privileged, out of touch and completely inappropriate for the job as premier.  

It also bothers me because I know the coach and he and his whole family are such good people. Obviously, no one is going after him but his name has been repeated many times through people watching the clip and through reading Hansard. 

Stupid is as stupid does. It seems to me that a political party can become so insular that the only voices they hear are their own and become totally divorced from reality. I was in Saskatchewan (don't judge me) for the last year or so of the Grant Devine regime, and, in the opinion of a writer for the Regina Leader-Post, they governed like an army of occupation because they knew that they had no chance of returning to any significant number of seats in the pending election, let alone power. I see the current provincial PCs in the same position. They will try to hang all of the pas faux on Stefanson without saying it out loud and pray earnestly that voters have a short memory.  After the election, they may be so ravaged that they change their name, as did the Saskatchewan PCs.

[17to85]

1 hour ago, bigg jay said:

I'm guessing if that poll was taken today, the small bump Stefanson has made would be wiped out by her appalling performance this week.  Still dead last either way.

And less popular than Jason Kenney! That's quite the accomplishment because everyone hates Jason Kenney. 

[WildPath]

20 minutes ago, JCon said:

Deflecting the question is one thing that all politicians do but to completely ignore the question and go off about your child tells you what type of person Stefanson is. Privileged, out of touch and completely inappropriate for the job as premier.  

Not to mention the sh**-eating grins on the faces of those around her like Cameron Friesen while she's deflecting a question about a tragic death with news of her son's private school hockey team... And then the big applause given to her by the PC MLA's after. Who are these people? Any normal person would have the understanding not to answer a question about someone's death by bragging about your privileged family, especially when her party's mismanagement had a large part to play in the incident.

[Tracker]

3 minutes ago, 17to85 said:

And less popular than Jason Kenney! That's quite the accomplishment because everyone hates Jason Kenney. 

Hard work often pays off.

[JCon]

8 minutes ago, Tracker said:

Stupid is as stupid does. It seems to me that a political party can become so insular that the only voices they hear are their own and become totally divorced from reality. I was in Saskatchewan (don't judge me) for the last year or so of the Grant Devine regime, and, in the opinion of a writer for the Regina Leader-Post, they governed like an army of occupation because they knew that they had no chance of returning to any significant number of seats in the pending election, let alone power. I see the current provincial PCs in the same position. They will try to hang all of the pas faux on Stefanson without saying it out loud and pray earnestly that voters have a short memory.  After the election, they may be so ravaged that they change their name, as did the Saskatchewan PCs.

I was there from '88 through '91. Those were very dark times in the province. I was too young to really grasp it but you could sense it. 

[the watcher]

5 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

Her comments on Tuesday were so thoughtless, and the fact that she took roughly two days to issue what seemed like a pretty generic and insensitive apology speaks to how out of touch she really is. What an embarrassment.

 Not just thoughtless but plain stupid. What politician has no ability to address an issue or question with a bit of "  political double talk "  and not make a target of yourself. She is way, way over her head .

[SpeedFlex27]

On 2022-03-16 at 7:39 PM, bigg jay said:

Just another woulda shoulda coulda moment for her.  The next election cannot come soon enough.

That was just terrible. Did you see that Conservative MLA beside her grinning the entire time? 

[WildPath]

1 hour ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

That was just terrible. Did you see that Conservative MLA beside her grinning the entire time? 

That's Cameron Friesen, our former health minister. The one that questioned Doctors Manitoba and accused them of trying to cause chaos in the system when they asked for emergency funding to deal with one of our big Covid waves. "Manitobans need most to understand that the people in charge have got this."

Manitoba health minister accuses doctors of 'causing chaos' for criticizing pandemic response | CBC News

[SpeedFlex27]

Just now, WildPath said:

That's Cameron Friesen, our former health minister. The one that questioned Doctors Manitoba and accused them of trying to cause chaos in the system when they asked for emergency funding to deal with one of our big Covid waves. "Manitobans need most to understand that the people in charge have got this."

Manitoba health minister accuses doctors of 'causing chaos' for criticizing pandemic response | CBC News

All the provincial Conservative governments are trash. 

[HardCoreBlue]

9 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

https://angusreid.org/premiers-performance-march/

I want to know who are these 25 - 30 percent because no matter what sane stripe you where c’mon. Are they their handlers and their family members? Beneficiaries of their stupidity and crap ideologies? Knuckle Draggers? Combination of all?

[Noeller]

1 hour ago, HardCoreBlue said:

I want to know who are these 25 - 30 percent because no matter what sane stripe you where c’mon. Are they their handlers and their family members? Beneficiaries of their stupidity and crap ideologies? Knuckle Draggers? Combination of all?

People who participate in "Freedom" rallies.... 

[Tracker]

Manitoba leaders worm their way into history with 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' pandemic response

This column is an opinion by Dr. Jillian Horton, a Winnipeg-based physician and author of the national bestseller We Are All Perfectly Fine: A Memoir of Love, Medicine and Healing. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

So many of our elected officials govern with such a general contempt for humanity, you'd be forgiven for generating a long shortlist.

Maybe it was former Manitoba premier Brian Pallister, who once wished happy holidays to the atheist infidels. Maybe it was Premier Heather Stefanson, who said it's time for Manitobans to look after themselves.

Or maybe it was then-Manitoba health minister Cameron Friesen caught on camera, referring to me and the 199 other doctors and scientists who wrote to him in November 2020, pleading for action on the brink of a crisis in our health-care system.

I couldn't bring myself to write any two-year anniversary reflections on the pandemic. I hate this milestone. To me, it is an anniversary of leadership failure at virtually every level of our government — a heart-wrenching deep dive into a cesspool of indifference and incompetence.

Two years in, despite more than 1,700 Manitobans dead and solemn-faced admonitions from our government officials that it's time for us to "learn to live with COVID," there is, as many others have pointed out, little evidence they have learned much of anything.

Chief Provincial Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin said recently that mandate-free Manitobans are now "empowered" to make the choices that are right for themselves and their family.

While I sympathize with the many challenges Dr. Roussin has had to contend with these last two years, this statement is hard to reconcile with the mantle of public health.
COVID is airborne, but general members of the public are not easily "empowered" to know anything about the quality of the ventilation and filtration in the spaces where they work, send their children to school or seek medical care.

Patients and at-risk elders aren't "empowered" with the knowledge that their care providers are fully vaccinated.

And none of us are "empowered" to make personal choices based on the degree to which COVID is circulating in our community, since the province has eliminated the comprehensive testing and data sharing that tells us how much disease is circulating.
Worse still is the language of "anxiety," as if whether or not you think restrictions should carry on is just about desensitizing yourself from fear. This is particularly absurd, as patients who face chronic and life-altering diseases are some of the bravest people I have ever known.

Yes, for some, the public health measures are an issue of "comfort" and personal autonomy; for others, they are a matter of life and death. But the fears of immunosuppressed patients are often portrayed as being roughly equivalent to a phobia of clowns, with the suggestion being that one should simply try to relax at the circus.

What a depressing development for a province that calls itself "Friendly Manitoba."

But of all the things our leaders have said in the last two years, perhaps the most illuminating has been the repetition of this mantra: "Coulda, woulda, shoulda."

Pallister started it, Stefanson kept it going, and recently, Fort Whyte PC candidate Obby Khan ran with it, repeating the point as if he had just completed an exceptionally bad franchise training module.

'Coulda, woulda, shoulda'
Watching him speak, I found myself thinking about a fundamental aspect of modern medical culture: critical incident analysis.

Critical incidents are unintended events that result in death, disability, injury or harm to patients. These incidents can be reported without blame, to support a culture of learning and openness. Events must be meticulously reviewed so we "look at what can be done differently and what improvements can be made to the way health-care providers work."

In 25 years of medical education and practice, I have never yet heard a physician respond to a question about a critical incident with "Coulda, woulda, shoulda."

As long as we aren't sociopaths — and sociopathy does exist in medicine, although less frequently than in politics — our reactions are usually on the opposite end of the spectrum. We lie awake at night, haunted by that one mistake, that one decision, the death or disability that could have been prevented.

For most of us, the grief and shame of having caused harm is unbearable; a physician's risk of suicidal ideation is highest in the weeks after someone has made a complaint about their care. 
This context is one of the reasons why I was stunned by Premier Stefanson's indifferent and heartless response to questions in the legislature about the death of Krystal Mousseau — a young Indigenous mother of two who died in an attempted out-of-province intensive care unit transfer during the horrifically bungled third wave.

Mousseau's death was subsequently declared a critical incident. But when Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew said "Krystal Mousseau's life mattered," Stefanson responded with the totally excellent news that one of her own children had recently won a hockey game.

This is much more than a clumsy "Coulda, woulda, shoulda." It is pathological.

[blue_gold_84]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeu-jagmeet-singh-working-together-1.6392756

Quote

The leadership of the Liberals and the NDP have reached a tentative agreement that would see the NDP support the Liberal government to keep it in power until 2025 in exchange for a commitment to act on key NDP priorities, CBC News has learned.

The so-called confidence-and-supply agreement still needs the support of NDP MPs who are meeting late Monday night, according to multiple sources who spoke to CBC News on condition they not be named due to the sensitive nature of the discussions.

The agreement would see the NDP back the Liberals in confidence votes, including the next four budgets. In return, the Liberals will follow through on some elements of national pharmacare and dental care programs — programs that have long been promoted by the NDP.

Sources say the agreement would also see the two parties collaborate on parliamentary committees, as well as some pieces of legislation.

The deal does not involve the NDP joining cabinet.

Sources say discussions between the two parties began soon after the September 2021 election. The Liberals reached out to the NDP to find a way to collaborate on policy and allow the Liberals to stay in power.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday morning to "discuss how the NDP is fighting for the help Canadians need to take care of themselves and their families."

Conservative Leader Candice Bergen issued a statement late Monday saying the deal "is nothing more than a callous attempt by Trudeau to hold on to power."

"This is an NDP-Liberal attempt at government by blackmail. Nation-building is replaced by vote-buying; secret deal-making over parliamentary debate; and opportunism over accountability," she said.

"If this NDP-Liberal coalition stands, Canada is in for a very rough ride." 

[Mark H.]

What I don't understand about Dr. Horton's response is - where in the world are they doing anything differently? Canadian provinces have had some of the toughest covid restrictions, in the entire world. 

[MOBomberFan]

9 hours ago, Mark H. said:

What I don't understand about Dr. Horton's response is - where in the world are they doing anything differently? Canadian provinces have had some of the toughest covid restrictions, in the entire world. 

In Manitoba's case we shoulda had beds available in the province (or shouldn't have cut ICU capacity pre-pandemic to begin with), coulda hired trained and equipped emergency personnel to transfer ICU patients when beds did run out, woulda saved Krystal Mousseau's life and we'd have one less very clear failure to point at

And what good are the toughest restrictions in the world if enforcement is sporadic and inconsistent at best? Springs? Monstrosity? Half the gyms in the city.... How were these places able to continue to function while flouting the 'toughest restrictions in the world' with impunity? Nobody in power ought to be patting themselves on the back for a job well done imo

[WildPath]

10 hours ago, Mark H. said:

What I don't understand about Dr. Horton's response is - where in the world are they doing anything differently? Canadian provinces have had some of the toughest covid restrictions, in the entire world. 

I think Dr. Horton was also referring to national and global leadership when she was talking about failure of leadership at all levels of government. From what I've read, the CDC set a really low bar when Covid first came out. My memory on this is a bit fuzzy, so feel free to correct me, but when they first brought Americans back from the Covid cruise ship in Japan, they refused actively refused testing and mitigation measures in hopes that it would just go away. From what I have read, many health agencies and governments followed their lead and this led to it getting out of hand really quickly. The information I got is from experts interviewed in Michael Lewis' book on the pandemic response. The outright suppression of knowledge of Covid in China would also be an example of horrible leadership that may have saved us from a worldwide pandemic.

In respect to Manitoba, we consistently had a buffer in Covid waves. For some reason we were behind other areas of the country while local doctors and experts warned it would come to Manitoba and we needed to be proactive with restrictions. We never were. Coming to mind is Pallister's cancelling Christmas speech that was lauded in other places in the world, but was criticized in Manitoba because we were asking for proactive restrictions that may have prevented "Cancelling Christmas."

I understand your point that in many respects we weren't all that different from the rest of the world. Compared to some of the Republican-run states, we had extreme restrictions. Unfortunately I think we've seen a bit of a race to the bottom, especially lately, in terms of who will open up the economy first. Manitoba also has a population that has been a lot more in favour of restrictions than our prairie neighbours to the west or places in the US. One of the reasons Stefanson and Pallister have/had such low approval ratings is because the people of Manitoba have wanted more restrictive measures or at least more proactive measures to prevent harsher restrictions when it is too late. (There are definitely other reasons for low approval ratings as well - see defending residential schools and the response to the death of Krystal Mousseau for example)

We've seen how our leaders optimism/indifference played out for other Covid waves we have had - we'll see if the optimism of our leaders will finally work out in our favour in the next months.

[the watcher]

11 hours ago, blue_gold_84 said:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeu-jagmeet-singh-working-together-1.6392756

As someone who supported the NDP in the last 2 elections and has a dislike for our current PM, I don't know what to think of this. It's not a true coalition. The NDP will have no members in positions of control and power. They will also be giving up their biggest stick, the threat or ability to bring down the current government in non- confidence votes. A  government that has been prone to scandals and ethics issues. On the plus side possibly they get some programs that have been long time NDP goals. But those programs will be held up as Liberal trophys which may affect hopes for more gains for the NDP next election. For those who think this is wonderful think about the future if you get a Conservative gov doing the same. It might benefit the Libs and NDP right now but there are alot of  unseen ,possible ramifications for the future. One of the reasons I 've always liked minority governments is that threat of non confidence puts a leash on them. Like I said, I'm not sure what to make of this.

[JCon]

Just now, the watcher said:

As someone who supported the NDP in the last 2 elections and has a dislike for our current PM, I don't know what to think of this. It's not a true coalition. The NDP will have no members in positions of control and power. They will also be giving up their biggest stick, the threat or ability to bring down the current government in non- confidence votes. A  government that has been prone to scandals and ethics issues. On the plus side possibly they get some programs that have been long time NDP goals. But those programs will be held up as Liberal trophys which may affect hopes for more gains for the NDP next election. For those who think this is wonderful think about the future if you get a Conservative gov doing the same. It might benefit the Libs and NDP right now but there are alot of  unseen ,possible ramifications for the future. One of the reasons I 've always liked minority governments is that threat of non confidence puts a leash on them. Like I said, I'm not sure what to make of this.

NDP can pull out at any time. Think about this as a map for co-operation. If they can't co-operate, it breaks down. 

At least they can try to move dental care forward. I don't see pharmacare working out.