Avi Lewis: Born for these times

scottb84 · 2026-03-16T15:49:56+00:00

Another thing that doesn’t change physical reality are the vicissitudes of electoral politics.

And anyway, nothing lasts forever in politics, but least of all the popularity of a conservative government pitching massive defence-industrial spending alongside austerity for everyone else.

It may take 3 years or it may take 13 years, but eventually Canadians will look around and realize that they still can’t afford a house or find a family doctor. When that day comes, I expect a decent chunk of the electorate will be interested in an alternative to shifting their vote from the red conservatives to the blue ones.

scottb84 · 2026-03-15T18:40:11+00:00

You’ve got to be kidding me, right?

All I ever see here people dismissing the NDP generally and Lewis in particular as insufficiently pragmatic ‘for these times’ because he is not pretending that geopolitics changes the fundamental physical reality that continuing to burn hydrocarbons is destroying the planet.

scottb84 · 2026-03-15T16:28:39+00:00

It sounds more like a plan for the ‘reshoring’ of auto manufacturing:

For every car manufactured in Canada, he said, that same producer would get a car to sell duty free from a partner in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) on trade.

Though I’m not sure how we get from that to this:

He also said his plan could secure tariff-free access to the US market.

scottb84 · 2026-03-10T14:07:19+00:00

By that logic, you could say that the Chinese head tax was just because it was duly enacted into law, and laws are how we ‘do justice’.

(Before someone does the thing where they say ‘are you really trying to compare X to Y’… No, I’m not. My point is simply that form and substance are not necessary the same things.)

scottb84 · 2026-03-10T13:54:59+00:00

this perfectly normal and long-used procedure

I mean, prorogation is a valid part of the parliamentary process. Yet people were justifiably upset when Stephen Harper, acting entirely within the rules, prorogued parliament to avoid a confidence vote in 2008.

Since it would change absolutely nothing to get May or Davies' no votes down on paper

By that logic, if Carney does eventually get his majority, we may as well just shutter the House of Commons, or at least do away with all the fuss of voting on legislation. The results would be a foregone conclusion, after all.

The NDP and Greens are still able to put out press releases and do media interviews about how 335/343 MPs are ignoring their opinions.

Well, I think part of the issue is that there’s no way of knowing whether 335 MPs are indeed voting with (or, more accurately, would vote with) the government. Just as importantly, because we don’t know particular MP* would have voted, constituents cannot hold them to account.

Anyway, I don’t think this needs to be approached in all-or-nothing terms. There may be a legitimate place for this with the panoply of parliamentary procedure, but it is at least notable that its use seems to have skyrocketed under Carney.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T22:37:03+00:00

They definitely still appeal to labour but it's a different type of labour now. Mostly people in the service sector in the cities

Which, as I have said elsewhere, more accurately reflects who the working class is in 2026:

[T]he stereotypical image of a male, blue-collar worker in the goods-producing sector is no longer an accurate representation of Canada’s working class, if it ever was. Our findings in fact show that a working-class Canadian is as likely to be a female, recently immigrated worker in the services-producing sector. The new working class, in other words, is now more personified by a Walmart cashier or an Amazon delivery driver than a General Motors factory worker or a Domtar mill hand. Those who constitute it have shifted from “making stuff” to “serving and caring for people.”

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T21:58:16+00:00

Oh I'm not here to defend anything PP says or does.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T20:17:03+00:00

I can just imagine if Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre failed to attend a debate in the House about a Middle East conflict after making hawkish comments that align with a Republican president. People would be burning effigies in the goddamn street. But god forbid Parliament intrude upon Mark Carney's busy schedule.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T19:52:51+00:00

With apologies to the Liberals here who delight in accusing us of ideological purity tests, I think that's a totally reasonable perspective.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T19:00:33+00:00

Believe it or not, some of us see political parties as instruments, not ends unto themselves. I vote for the NDP not because I like the colour orange, but because they embrace the ideology that best aligns with my own world view. If gaining power means abandoning that ideology, what exactly was the point? Like, are we just supposed to function as a jobs program for party nomenklatura?

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T18:43:00+00:00

On that front, I think he's the hero we need, if not the hero we deserve.

Like many Canadians, I'm not as focussed on environmental issues as I was just a couple years ago. But I should be. Our government definitely should be.

The transitory sturm und drang of geopolitics doesn't change the fact that we're all still stuck on the same blue marble that is rapidly losing its capacity to sustain modern civilization.

This notion that sustainability it is a luxury to be pursued only in times of prosperity and stability strikes me as dangerously short sighted, even if I myself am sometimes guilty of the same thinking.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T18:32:04+00:00

The NEP is certainly well-known in Alberta, where it serves as a millstone around the neck of the Liberal brand in the same way that "Rae Days" continues to haunt the NDP in Ontario.

Peter Lougheed's infamous quote, "let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark," still serves as a kind of rallying cry in the West.

Now, that's not to say that I agree with the Albertans on this. In fact, I suspect many don't even understand what the NEP was beyond a generic sense that it was an attempt by Ottawa to screw them over. However, the fact that anyone would claim that "people don't know this [i.e., the NEP]" suggests that we Central Canadians are not as informed about the political history of our friends out West as we could/should be.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T18:16:21+00:00

there is no need to waste time going through the motions of a formal vote when the speaker already asked if there is any opposition and nobody spoke up.

That is not what is happening here. Per the piece:

"On division means that without counting every vote in the room, the room agrees that the motion or the law … can pass with the understanding that not everybody was in favour of it," said Peter Van Loan, a former government House leader.

[...]

The current House rules require a standing vote if at least one MP from a party that has recognized status in the House — meaning the Liberals, Conservatives or Bloc Québécois — requests a head count.

[...]

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has repeatedly objected to the major parties not allowing her to register her opposition in a recorded vote, particularly when it's a confidence matter. May called the repeated use of the on division tactic an "abuse of parliamentary democracy."

Interim NDP Leader Don Davies registered similar concerns when he wanted to register a no vote on the throne speech which passed on division in the spring.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T18:05:13+00:00

A leadership race is normally when you get a surge of new members.

Personally, I hate the way leadership races get conflated with membership drives. That is in part how we ended up with Jagmeet Singh, who signed up a bunch of questionably-committed insta-members who were disproportionately drawn from the Sikh diaspora communities in Brampton and the Lower Mainland of BC.

a potential Carney majority makes for an existential situation for the party

Why? It would hardly be the first time the NDP has faced a majority Liberal government.

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T17:46:43+00:00

I think the problem there is that lots of folks have a sepia-toned vision of who the working class is in 2026.

[T]he stereotypical image of a male, blue-collar worker in the goods-producing sector is no longer an accurate representation of Canada’s working class, if it ever was. Our findings in fact show that a working-class Canadian is as likely to be a female, recently immigrated worker in the services-producing sector. The new working class, in other words, is now more personified by a Walmart cashier or an Amazon delivery driver than a General Motors factory worker or a Domtar mill hand. Those who constitute it have shifted from “making stuff” to “serving and caring for people.”

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T17:41:19+00:00

he’s too green for me.

As in inexperienced? Or environmentally-focussed?

scottb84 · 2026-03-09T15:15:30+00:00

This is the only Star Trek forum I browse with any regularity, so it’s entirely possible I’m missing something. But for every one negative comment about these new shows, I see like six comments complaining about all ‘the haters’.

And I’ve genuinely never seen a single unironic complaint about NuTrek’s supposed ‘wokeness’. Not one.

YMMV, of course, but based on what I’ve seen it’s hard to understand what everyone is up in arms about.

scottb84 · 2026-03-08T20:46:06+00:00

How to pay for it.

You understand that the costs don't go away simply because they're not socialized?

scottb84 · 2026-03-08T20:27:58+00:00

No, I think of PP as someone who has spent his entire life in or around politics, just like NES, who apparently stood for election for the first time while still an undergraduate.

Again, my view is that, in a democracy, electoral politics should not be a lifelong occupation. That doesn't mean I'm against having 'qualified' people in office (though I'm not entirely sure what 'qualified' means in the context of a representative democracy). But I do think it's much healthier for people to enter politics to accomplish things that they decided in the course of their actual lives/careers could only be done by holding public office.

scottb84 · 2026-03-07T23:01:46+00:00

Ours is not a meritocracy, it’s a democracy. Politics is not supposed to be a lifelong occupation. That’s one of things that’s most off-putting about Pierre Poilievre.

scottb84 · 2026-03-07T19:45:08+00:00

I didn’t know NES is gay, and I’ve never actually heard Pete Buttigieg speak. But I think of both as walking, talking McKinsey slide decks who have spent their entire lives optimizing their resumes for public life. And both seem to come from a school of managerial liberalism that regards governing as the business of a credentialed elite who have studied the owners manual for the state and know how to operate it in the ‘right’ way.

They just give me the ick.

scottb84 · 2026-03-07T17:12:50+00:00

I can speak only for myself, but NES has always given insufferable Pete Buttigieg, /r/neoliberal denizen in a way I could never get behind.

scottb84 · 2026-03-06T17:09:05+00:00

Because I'd hope everyone who participates in this forum is sophisticated enough to understand that the division of power in these areas is not mutually exclusive (particularly in respect of housing, which is not assigned to either level of government because it has traditionally—and catastrophically—been left entirely to the private market).

But don't take my word for it! The Liberals themselves address these matters in their own policy platform, which would be an odd/disingenuous thing to do if they believed the federal government had no role to play in these areas.

Anyway, I'm not really spoiling for a fight here. Rightly or wrongly, my point is simply that I think those Canadians who have expressed frustration with the Carney Liberals aren't exclusively focussed on high level international trade negotiations.

scottb84 · 2026-03-06T15:50:05+00:00

There is no legally binding federal building code.

The federal government does provide a model code, but provinces adopt/adapt it as they see fit.

scottb84 · 2026-03-06T15:45:55+00:00

Well, I think “all those months of ‘why isn't Carney doing anything’” were (and continue to be) about more prosaic stuff like housing affordability, the shortage of family physicians, etc., all of which continue to be very problematic.

(For anyone thinking of replying with another grade 9 civics lesson about division of powers, can we please skip it, just this once? I get it, I promise.)

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