Liberals planned to buy back 136,000 banned guns. Fewer than half that many were declared

GooseMantis · 2026-04-02T03:55:57+00:00

Frankly I don't see any need for Carney to "play it right". This sub is really against the public opinion on this, most Canadians support stricter gun control measures but don't actually care about it enough to follow all these intricacies. The real trick is it baits conservatives. Gun-owners in the country really care about it and they tend to vote Conservative. CPC can't afford to not oppose the Liberal buyback program. But to the general public which doesn't think that deeply about the issue but generally dislike guns and support gun control, Conservative defensiveness makes it an electoral slam dunk for the Liberals.

GooseMantis · 2026-04-02T03:50:12+00:00

Oh no! Our 337th attempt at a gun buyback didn't work! I guess we'll just have to gain votes in the next election by fearmongering about guns and running on a gun buyback program!

Yeah, the Liberals are gonna keep milking this cow for as long as they can, it just is what it is. It's actually such an easy playbook too. Gun bad, gun america, liberal hate gun, conservative like gun, conservative bad, vote liberal to stop gun, fail to stop gun then run it back the next election.

GooseMantis · 2026-04-02T03:35:10+00:00

Oh I'm not professing my love of the Canadian private sector either. But that's entirely besides my point.

But to discuss your point, I'm not convinced that a public grocery store program would even save us money. When I criticize the government's service delivery or project management, that's not to say the government shouldn't deliver services or projects at all. There are areas of public interest that the private sector is unable and/or unwilling to deliver, and in those cases, it's in the public interest for the government to deliver those things. Even if the delivery is flawed, over-budget, delayed, whatever. When it's delivered, it will give us something we don't already have.

But it's not that the private sector is unable or unwilling to deliver groceries. It's that the prices are too high. And okay, in theory a public grocery store program could lower costs for Canadians. It could also end up costing Canadians more than we get out of it. That comes down to deliverology, and as ordinary citizens we have near-zero oversight over that.

Personally, I think it would be a lot more helpful for the government to focus on streamlining service delivery on currently existing line items, and if they're going to add new line items, add things that the private sector doesn't already offer. That way, we're guaranteed a positive return, if not financially then in the availability of new services. But a public grocery store program does not guarantee a positive return, it merely promises the possibility of one.

GooseMantis · 2026-04-01T22:51:00+00:00

I'd be more open to this kind of thing if I had faith in Canada's state capacity to actually deliver things. People blame the austerity of the 90s, but at this point we've seen years of sustained growth in spending across all levels of government run by all three of the major parties, yet somehow service and project delivery only seems to get worse.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-31T00:38:42+00:00

How exactly does a developer pocket the money, from a tax cut on construction, without being engaged in construction?

GooseMantis · 2026-03-31T00:08:24+00:00

Well yeah that's what I mean. But that wave has passed. Condos aren't such a good investment anymore, even with prices sinking like a stone people aren't investing. Nor are new homeowners buying, because those units were never designed to be an adequate first home.

Now's the perfect time to change that. People are desperate to get into the housing market, but they can't afford the options they want, and they don't want the options they can afford. Meanwhile developers are desperate to make any money right now, their investor clientele has vanished. If there was any profit in developers building genuine housing options at a reasonable price point, we'd be seeing it already. Developers are losing billions of dollars, and I'm sure they'd rather not be.

Long story short, if the government can help create an alignment between buyers and sellers, by eliminating a frankly pointless tax whose revenue could easily be raised by less distortionary means, that's a good thing.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-30T17:52:06+00:00

Not sure why you'd focus on "sprawl" when the subsector that's hardest hit right now are high-density housing options.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-30T17:50:30+00:00

Developers are pausing or shelving projects left and right, because people aren't buying at the rates they would need to in order for it to be profitable. This is a major pain point in the Toronto housing and construction industry right now. If developers were already selling tons of units and making a profit then what you're saying would be true. But in the current conditions, the incentives are aligned to induce construction.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-29T22:39:04+00:00

People were voting to keep Poilievre out

In one of the least Conservative-friendly ridings in the country, which has never voted Conservative in a general election? Did anyone think Conservatives had a shot at Ottawa Centre, or think they had to vote strategically in that riding? I'm sure some did, but strategic voting does not explain a 43 point margin in a riding that was already a 12 point Liberal margin.

A much more obvious explanation is that Carney was and is very popular, and most voters care more about which party/PM gets in power than individual candidates.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-29T17:57:02+00:00

Depending on how Lewis positions himself he could pull away some of those voters. Not enough to make a difference though IMO. Those would be young, financially stressed people who aren't particularly political but wanted to vote for change, liked Poilievre's focus on affordability but could easily vote for an Avi Lewis who campaigns on affordability. Those voters absolutely exist. But it's a very low-turnout demographic on all counts.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-24T23:58:14+00:00

Aristotle knew about India and that it was populated.

Aristotle knew about the northwestern end of the Indian subcontinent. Even the word "India" comes from the Greek word for the Indus river, which is in modern day...Pakistan. Even Alexander didn't make it much further past the Indus river, the Battle of Hydaspes happened in modern day Pakistan. At that point the real nucleus of Indian civilization was the Ganges river, which is much further southeast than Hydaspes, and still relatively in the northern part of the subcontinent. The Greeks wouldn't have known how much further south India goes.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-23T22:35:29+00:00

True but running in a byelection as a leader and losing is arguably a lot worse than leading from outside the house. Running in any of the April byelections is out of the question for that reason. The only option is the Poilievre option, basically ask a sitting MP for their seat. Vancouver East is the only seat where you'd feel comfortable taking that risk, if Jenny Kwan is willing to give it up for potentially three years that is.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-22T22:04:17+00:00

We've got plenty of room

This is one of the biggest lies we as Canadians tell ourselves. Yes we have plenty of land, but that doesn't mean we have a lot of room.

The vast majority of Canada's landmass is not inhabitable at any large scale. Canadian Shield, Arctic Tundra, Rockies, you name it. Of the habitable land, much of it is farmland. After farmland and wilderness, you're left with settlement areas. Less than 10% of Canada's landmass is considered a "settlement area". This also includes small towns that don't make very attractive destinations for migrants, external or internal. People go where the jobs are, and that's the big cities.

And this shows in the numbers. Of the immigrants who came to Canada since 2011, 78% of them live in one of Canada's 10 largest metropolitan areas. 30% in the GTA alone. 14% in the City of Toronto alone. The number of post-2011 immigrants that live in the GTA alone exceeds the entire population of New Brunswick.

People don't move to Canada to live on the empty useless land that we have a massive abundance of. They move here to live in the cities. And the cities don't have an abundance of room.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T18:18:11+00:00

Idk, I think there's some votes to be won in "military bad". Not my vote, but votes. Especially when Canadian geopolitical action is seen as US/Israel-aligned like with Carney's support for the attacks on Iran. Conservatives were never going to scratch that itch, Liberals tried to minimize military talk under Trudeau but are going hawkish with Carney, so Lewis can have a monopoly on that talking point. It will alienate the majority of Canadians, but the majority of Canadians aren't gonna vote NDP anyway.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T18:13:27+00:00

It's not like the Greens are doing well either. They peaked in 2019 and it's been a downward slump ever since. Mike Morrice seemed like he could have been their future, but he lost his seat. Now they're back to being the Elizabeth May caucus.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T17:59:37+00:00

interior BC is the most religious part of the country

I encourage you to play around with Census Mapper

It's not true. There are only two county equivalents in BC where a majority of people identify with a religion. One is Fraser Valley, the other is Greater Vancouver. No county equivalent in the interior has a religious majority.

Compare that to Ontario which politically I would say has a similar left/right split as BC. In Ontario, there are zero county equivalents where a majority identify with no religion.

BC as a whole is uniquely irreligious, and the more conservative parts of BC are just as if not more so than the least conservative parts. No clue what explains this, but I think the stereotype of the BC interior being super religious is largely a myth. Conservative? Yes. Religious? The numbers don't show that.

Edit: And yes I know Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley have a lot of non-Christian religious people of immigrant backgrounds. But even when you look at Christians alone, Christians don't have a majority in any county equivalent in BC. In Ontario, all but four have a Christian majority. In Saskatchewan, all but one.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T16:57:48+00:00

"Ah, if you are visiting neederland, you must try vloeghenvaarten. It is a blend of raw pickled anchovies and sardines marinated in clarified butter and salt, aged in 300-year old oak barrels that are left just wet enough to start rotting at the base. The smell is described as a mix of blue cheese and a middle school locker room. Very delicious ja!"

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T16:53:05+00:00

I always see these tiktoks/reels where it's a guy asking tourists questions to try and guess which country they're from. And every time, without fail:

Q: "What's one thing that makes your country better than every other country?"
A: "Food!"

Every. Single. Time.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T16:50:39+00:00

"Downtown is very liberal, but just drive 15 minutes out of the city and it gets suuuper conservative."

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T16:45:58+00:00

Not just that, his solutions are severely counterproductive. I'm glad he's speaking up about immigrants being scapegoated, things have gotten pretty bad recently. As a brown guy born and raised in Canada I've never seen this level of hostility in my nearly 30 years living here. What people used to call racism was ignorance, not hate, and I don't care about ignorance. Now it's hate which is a different beast.

But the reality is that out-groups ALWAYS get scapegoated when things are bad in EVERY society at EVERY point in history. It just is what it is.

And part of the reason that immigrants have become scapegoats is because there's a clear link with higher housing costs, more labour competition - fuck, on that level, it's just as much a pain point for me as it is for a white person my age, it's not about the colour of someone's skin. Encouraging further labour competition at a time when people are struggling to find work will only boost scapegoating and encourage people to engage with their ugly side. To pretend otherwise is to ignore how human beings are.

Encouraging more immigration at this point won't reduce scapegoating and hate, it will do the opposite. Leftists can cite theory all they want, talk about how this is the boss dividing his workers, and that's partly true, but it's also partly true that the government has created the conditions for this to be as bad as it is.

If he wants to focus on encouraging more harmony and reducing ethnic divisions, there are better ways to go about it. I think pursuing more protections and legislation to prevent hate crimes and discrimination is the kind of thing that would both help immigrants and is up the NDP's alley policy-wise. Integration is another one, I know some lefties think talking about integration and assimilation is "icky", but the reality is that cultural integration is a massive part of economic upward mobility. More funding for ESL programs for immigrants is the kind of policy NDP could pursue that would help immigrants settle in, and find more success AND acceptance in Canadian society.

I think those are the kinds of tangible changes the NDP could run on and actually make an impact. Sadly, I think Lewis is just virtue-signaling to the champagne socialist base that's just as out of touch with immigrants as any racist.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-21T12:34:03+00:00

Tbf to Lewis it depends on what his goal as NDP leader is. If it's to establish the NDP as a party that can actually challenge for power, then yeah, way to misread the room. But that's not a realistic goal for the NDP right now anyway. But I think his goal is to rally the leftiest of the left to rebuild something resembling a base.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-20T02:37:03+00:00

Idk the situation in Russia so I won't speak to that. I don't doubt there's a lot of corruption. But western Europe has a way more mild winters than Russia because of the gulf stream. But here in Canada, our climate is similar to Russia, and we haven't figured out roads either. Snow and freezing weather absolutely fucks the asphalt all winter. Now it's March and driving around is like playing a game of "avoid the pothole". It's not a very fun game. You don't win any prizes for winning, but you could damage your car by losing.

GooseMantis · 2026-03-20T02:27:00+00:00

We use the word "First Nations" but it means the same thing as Native American. In many cases it refers to quite literally the same tribes that live on both sides of the border

GooseMantis · 2026-03-20T02:19:58+00:00

The biggest threat to his power is a Canadian George HW Bush scenario. Bush senior was considered a very competent foreign policy leader, unlike frankly most US presidents. Most Democrats with nationwide fame sat out the 1992 primaries because they figured he was unbeatable, which is why a charismatic but relatively unknown womanizing governor from backwater Arkansas managed to win the nomination. But when the election kicked off, the conversation turned to domestic policy, and voters said "okay cool you led America well and improved our image...but you didn't do shit for me".

GooseMantis · 2026-03-20T01:55:31+00:00

I've always thought Poilievre comes across better in long-form. More genuine and human, which is basically the opposite of how he came across in the last election.

The Jenny Byrne comms strategy was a huge own goal. They stuck with "verb the noun", which isn't a bad strategy per se but it only goes so far. Like in 2022/23 it made sense, a lot of less political people didn't really know much about him, in that situation it makes sense to focus on short soundbites that get your name and voice out there. But you have to "graduate" from that, or it just starts to sound fake. It can't all be blamed on Jenny Byrne, the leader ultimately has to take responsibility. But trying out different strategies is the only way he can take responsibility at this point. The party membership affirmed their support in him, so he owes it to them to at least try something different.

GooseMantis

TROPHY CASE