Great. That means it’s only a matter of time before Hank Hill and his Hillbilly Sask Party decides to do the same thing in Saskatchewan…

Thank you for that link. It allowed me to get some things off my chest. lol

Something that doesn’t get a lot of airtime with most of us “city-folk” is the fact that Farm Equipment manufactures enact the same policies for farmers whose combines and other equipment break down. This represents untold millions in lost productivity during harvest, and it’s something that I hear a lot about because of my small city’s proximity to a number of large farm operations.

I also talked a lot about releasing an appliances software kernel as FOSS once that appliance has reached the end of manufacturers support. But that would be an added bonus that I don’t see ever coming to fruition sadly.

Unfortunately Saskatchewan (my province). Alberta next door is Texas, and Saskatchewan wants to be like them, but our government is far far dumber.

Our Mini-Desantis is Pierre Pollieve.

Like it or not, what happens in America ripples through the whole world. Doubly so in Canada because we share a very long border.

Our politicians especially tend to follow the trends that politicians down there set; to the point where we have our own little mini-DeSantis running for Prime Minister.

Thank you. You get it. The problem isn’t a labour shortage, it’s a pay shortage. Rather than increase wages along with the demand for labour, they get cheap labour rubber stamped from overseas because the government lets them.

responding to real worker shortages

I have to disagree. And I’m as left as they come by the way. I don’t blame immigrants for wanting to come her to make a better life. I blame the corporations for taking advantage of that and the government for rubber stamping LMIA applications.

We’ll take my little nothing town for example. Swift Current, Saskatchewan. According to the LMIA map available here, we have 84 approved temporary foreign workers, mostly in coffee chains, convenience stores and gas stations.

Meanwhile, as a retail manager, I get five or six resumes a week from people who are either a) naturalised immigrants b) Canadian by birth, or c) folks who have just recently finished up their own TFW “contract” for lack of a better word.

So the way that LMIA works is that the business owner “applies” to the federal government and makes the case that they need to get a cheap overseas labourer because there isn’t any local person available to do the job. So in a town of 15000 people, there aren’t 84 unemployed people looking for part time work? I know for a fact that that’s not true because I get them applying here all the time.

The fact is, these corporations apply for an LMIA because they don’t have to pay them more than the bare minimum for an “x” amount of time. Then when that time comes up, rather than giving our raises, they don’t give them raises, forcing them (who are now effectively naturalised) to go find another job, freeing the corporation up to apply for ANOTHER LMIA, which gets rubber stamped.

Like I said, I’m as left as they come. This country is made by it’s immigrants. It’s rich because of our multicultural history. Immigration is a great thing. Hell, I’m a first generation Canadian. But the temporary foreign worker program is just a way for companies to use indentured servitude to create a “service class” made up of immigrants.

It’s absolutely insane that our media is so linked to the United States that our Conservatives only start to fall when people see American Conservatives getting beat-down and shamed in the presidential race. (and rightly so)

Are we, as Canadians, unable to tell how shitty our own Right-Wing is unless the American Mirror tells us so?

What happened to revoking passports for people awaiting trial?

Does anyone actually believe they’ll come back when the trial begins?

Well that should give Trudeau a nice boost in popularity, I’m guessing. I’m relatively sure we’re not crying in our Molson Canadians because a 'roided out douche isn’t going to come here.

The literal definition of “kicking it down the road until he’s no longer around”.

“We have fiscal guardrails and we’re not going to change those because of a summit,” the official said.

“We need to work within those constraints.”

But, Mr. Politician, if those constraints (the deficit plan) were created after the 2014 commitment, than it should have taken that commitment into account in the first place and planned for it. That’s the entire definition of…checks notes…“budgeting”.

I’m not a militaristic guy, and I’m certainly no right-winger. But 2% is an agreeable amount to help keep Russia and China in check to some degree. And it IS riding the coat-tails of the other powers.

We need a better educated populated

Conservative politics don’t poll well with educated people. An educated population is the very last thing Shmoe needs

That allows the people to get their hate out, and resets the playing field for the next election cycle when people realize the Conservatives haven’t done shit all to make life more affordable.

Traditionally this hasn’t been how Canadian politics has played out. We tend to have long running federal governments over single term governments except in cases of extremely disastrous political results (ie. forcing an early election by a vote of non-confidence, etc…)

Canadian voters seem to be very very patient. It won’t matter how shitty PP and the Cons are as a government, voters will keep on electing them in for a decade or more before finally having enough. Same as we did with the Liberals, and same as we did with Harper before that.

The rich are flexing every muscle they have to try to make the general population dislike this change.

And in some parts of the country (like where I live unfortunately) it’s working. Simply because the cult of “hating Trudeau” is just as strong and stupid as the cult of trump to our south. Here in the land of “fuck trudeau” stickers and truck nuts, They’ll quite literally hate something that is clearly good for them just because Pierre Poppinfresh tells them that JT is for it.

“Jobs killer”

Oh no…you mean that money that was NEVER going to trickle down anyway will now NOT trickle down even harder? Whatever are we going to do!

Jinkies!..I wonder what it could be…What a mystery, Scoob!

Patriotism is a social disease.

Agreed. Imagine being proud of where you’re from like it’s some sort of personal accomplishment.

Nationality isn’t an accomplishment, it’s a statistic.

Do conservative voters just need a daily dose of misplaced resentment and rage to keep them going?

Yes. Conservative politics is (and always has been) the strategy of giving your followers someone to either fear, hate, look down on, or increasingly all three and then telling them repeatedly that they are the only party who can “fix” it. It’s not about governing, it’s about stoking anger and fear so that donors keep giving them money.

Pre-civil rights it was African Americans in the US and Indigenous people in Canada. Then it became homosexuals, then Mexicans, then migrants in general, then so-called “illegals” and refugees. Then 9-11 happened and it became Muslims. Then brown people in general. And now it’s circled back around to LGBTQ+ and trans folk.

Pick your marginalized society of choice and insert it into the very same playbook that’s always been used.

Little Pierre Poppinfresh isn’t doing or saying anything that hasn’t been Conservative policy from the very beginning. It’s just that thanks to the Trump effect, he no longer has to be subtle about it like his predecessors did.

On today’s episode of “beaurocratic horse-shit”…

Holy crap this is ridiculous. I feel terrible for her. As a child born only a couple of years after my own parents immigrated from Portugal to Canada, I can’t imagine.

Do they? Or are they funny TO YOU because you were part of that original audience?

If you put a kid in front of a 30 year old episode are THEY going to think its funny?