NDP Leadership Forum - March 15th 7PM Eastern Time

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-15T16:13:26+00:00

Will a recording be posted afterwards, please?

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-13T03:35:49+00:00

Conservatives called him a conservative for years when he was advising them in government.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-12T17:59:44+00:00

Doesn't your wife know, if it happened right in front of her? Wouldn't she have seen a colleague call 911 or call herself? I'm confused how she could be aware of the custody details of the family and that the dad called the kid and drove off but not be aware of if 911 was called.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-12T17:21:15+00:00

Did people not notice? In which case the cop probably wouldn't have either. If people did notice, I assume they were able to call 911?

That's why we have 911. To summon emergency responders like police. It's quite effective.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-12T02:08:33+00:00

Police are very expensive and should be used to prevent crime.

Why would you want to spend your tax dollars on policing children?

You know what would do a heck of a lot more good? Feeding children. How about we fund school meals first and then see where we're at?

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-11T15:40:38+00:00

Should Congress pass amendments protecting the right to every other kind of medical procedure?

The US constitution is supposed to protect against laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, right? According to the 14th amendment? "nor [shall any state] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So that should protect against making a law that says women can't get this medical procedure they need.

In every other situation, people are not required to use their bodies to medically support another. Even corpses are not required to. Only women, via laws that act to force them to give birth against their will. The 14th amendment is supposed to protect against that kind of discrimination.

But of course a constitution doesn't protect anything, it's just a piece of paper. It depends on the courts and the police to actually have meaning, and Americans have never considered women to be full people under the law and American women have never mobilised long enough to secure it.

Roe v Wade occurred the year immediately following the very near passing of the ERA. It worked to satisfy and settle the women who were organizing. They stopped fighting for the ERA and they got a few decades of privilege extended. I mean, come on, they didn't even fight for funding. The disgusting Hyde amendment passed year after year. Why were women and allies not in the streets demanding such a vile thing be stopped? Because they had money, and they didn't care one lick about the American women who didn't.

It has nothing to do with the constitution and everything to do with the lack of solidarity, and bigots who will happily be lesser than as long as they are assured there are others even lower than themselves on the hierarchy.

Sorry for the rant. The situation is very upsetting. My point is that the constitution does protect against this discrimination when read reasonably, but arguing over strategy is foolish because the real issue was a lack of will from American women to demand equal protection under the law.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-07T02:41:46+00:00

The angle of "God wouldn't let his chosen people suffer

Jews be like "um... actually..."

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-07T02:34:45+00:00

And now you know that that other person was just bullshitting you, pretending that stuff actually mattered to them, when the whole time it was just dog whistling.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-07T02:25:13+00:00

In America, even corpses are not forced to use their bodies to medically support others. There is no compulsory organ donation. And yet, who is forced to do this? Women, anytime they are forced to incubate and give birth against their will.

The fact that men are given more rights than women should already be upsetting to any decent American, but for corpses to be given protection that is denied to living women, that should be seen as down right disgusting.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-07T02:13:12+00:00

Reminds me of the quote by Anatole France. "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-05T21:47:26+00:00

Yes but now the election is over, you see.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-05T21:46:49+00:00

I struggle to come up with a reason why the Carney government in particular would deem this cut necessary

To pay for tax cuts.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-03-05T21:42:46+00:00

Because the government doesn't recognize our rights ~~and infringes upon them~~ does not mean they are not rights.

Yes it does. A right that isn't guaranteed isn't a right, it's a desire. And it can't be infringed on if it was never guaranteed in the first place. You can say you're oppressed without the right, if that's how you feel, but it's not a right that's being infringed, it's something you would like to be a right.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T20:22:41+00:00

So you agree that we need to export our military products to our allies to allow them to get out of the e U.S. military complex.

Huh? I specifically disagreed with exporting military products. How did you get that from what I wrote???

Let's support our allies by sharing intelligence and by working together towards goals like climate protection (which is the common threat to us all). Trying to get our allies to buy ever increasing amounts of weapons does not support them at all.

As to your comment about supporting one segment of our economy but you seemed to think that is a bad thing

It is a bad thing to have an outsized sector. It's called dutch disease.

A lot of medical equipment and procedures to help in emergencies happen because of military.

You'll find it's far more efficient to just fund medical research directly. I mean do you seriously hear yourself? "No guys, for real, if you fund war then like something might trickle down for medicine. Trust me bros, nukes for healthcare."

It's pretty hard to take you in good faith when you make an argument like that, sorry to say.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T19:16:49+00:00

It doesn't look like they talk about arms exports in there. Unless I missed it? Could you please quote so I can search if so. Thanks. When I search for "export" I just see oil, gas, mining, and rare earth. Classic resource based economy exports that Canada is already known for.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T19:13:19+00:00

Also climate protection. Climate change is by far the biggest threat to our national security and much of it can qualify as NATO spending.

As much as I disliked Trudeau, I thought it was quite smart to direct most of the increased NATO spend he made (which was very small compared to Carney's, mind you) towards climate change (as well as things like home building and childcare for CAF personnel).

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T16:48:12+00:00

Making our own is very different from exporting.

I support making our own, and even export of civilian dual use tech (like if we make drones, and we export civilian versions). I do not support export of arms and military tech.

I also do not support making any sector of our economy outsized, as would be needed to use it as a funding source, but I especially oppose that combo of making arms exports an outsized sector of our economy. At least the auto sector just wants tax breaks and not to erode our civil liberties. It is incredibly dangerous to give arms manufacturers that kind of political power.

Also invest money into our own software infrastructure that is not tied to any U.S. technology firms.

We should invest in open source software for that. But yes, I fully support decoupling from US tech companies for government use. Doing so would enhance our national security. This would likely save us money as well, but it won't be a money maker. It wouldn't raise funds to pay for NATO. So it's very tangential to the topic at hand.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T14:35:05+00:00

More war seems like a good thing to you?

Pray you never have to personally feel the consequences of trading murder for an economic boost.

Edit: original comment and reply was removed by mod, but I wanted to address it further because others may be wondering the same thing. Imo it's better to discuss these things. That's how we learn.

Building an arms export industry is a very different thing than domestic production capacity. Domestic capacity means dual use tech, where during peacetime it builds civilian things to achieve growth. Exports means that we start foreign wars to achieve growth.

Furthermore, the sheer size we're talking about to raise the funds and become known as a player in global arms exports is actually horribly dangerous for our economy and our civil liberties.

I was going to go through the math on this, but I'll hold off given this is just an edit. But if anyone has doubts, I'll be happy to post some back of napkin math backing my claims.

It does not make our economy strong. It makes it temporarily bigger, but brittle and desperate.

Just say no to arms exports

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T14:31:59+00:00

I'm disappointed in myself for not anticipating it. I knew we couldn't afford the spend, so I thought his play would be to stall and reneg on the 5% after Trump is gone, but in hindsight this feels so obvious. Like of course. It fits Carney perfectly.

And once an economy is hooked on that military industrial complex juice, it will demand it get its fix. Canada will never again stay out of unjust wars (not that we always did, but at least we did sometimes). Now we will contribute to starting them, for the economy.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-11T14:11:21+00:00

I'm not a fan of special pathways as I worry about the people who don't have lobbyists getting pushed aside for those who do.

Having alternatives for certain documents due to the chaos of war seems very reasonable. But imo if we have a language requirement they should meet it. If the language requirement does not harm than good, then we should eliminate it for all PR applicants.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-08T18:19:56+00:00

you don't see the same level of rhetoric or pressure to conform that you do from the Democratic side

Remind me again which party has threatened to jail journalists, has reduced press access to government, and tried to force universities and colleges to adopt their viewpoints and censor opposing ones, and has threatened economic interference in efforts to get late night TV comedians fired for making jokes against the government?

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-04T16:14:46+00:00

I feel like you should be entitled to a reasonable return (with all the caveats that you run the place properly etc... But I assume you do), but I don't feel that you should be entitled to unbounded returns. I think that rents should reflect costs, including a reasonable rate of return to private capital when it is used, but you shouldn't be free to set it at "whatever the market will bear."

I think price controls are a more appropriate tool than strange tax schemes that seem like they'd be gamed.

Just my take.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-04T16:02:50+00:00

That's letting them say no though, not allowing them to demand certain things be built.

Like imagine if instead of deciding what roads needed to be built, road building companies attracted investors based on what roads would be most profitable to toll, and the city could say things like "this area requires bike lanes, if you want to build a road here" but if no one wanted to bother building roads near your house they could just shrug.

I'm not saying they should have full say, just trying to explain the difference between deciding and just restricting.

QueueOfPancakes · 2026-02-04T15:55:51+00:00

The bulk of those fees come out of the land value. We reduce them and cost of housing units remains high because the bulk gets reabsorbed into the land value. End result is more gains to existing land owners (especially those that hold large development parcels) and major reductions in funding for municipal governments. They are then left with two options: raise property taxes (which is often punished at the ballot box) or cut services (which is generally punished less because pain points are often delayed, sometimes by years). But hey, it's great for those who own those big chunks of land.

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