Tea Party sentiment growing in Canada?

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There was a nasty round of restructuring that's been dubbed the Great Canadian Slump - this lasted from 1989 to about 1999. Perversely, the damaged caused by the policies that triggered the Slump strengthened those responsible for the Slump and weakened those who could oppose it, and this allowed the policies of the Slump to be deepened. It began with the zero inflation mania at the Bank of Canada fully backed by Finance, as well as fiscal austerity measures that went with it. This caused deepening recession, unemployment and increased deficits. Perversely, the guilty parties with the media's help blamed the 1968-79 Liberal regime for these things and this became "conventional wisdom". Deficit hysteria was stoked in 1993 when a change of government became imminent. In 1995, the federal government gave in and implemented even more radical austerity that marked the long "jobless recovery". After the restructuring the size of the Canadian state was reduced by about 15%-20%. High unemployment became the new normal.

It would have served everyone right for the YES side to have won in the Quebec referendum at the height of the Slump. However, Conrad Black did say he wanted YES to win on the eve of the referendum so it's probably good that they didn't win.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnUfPQVOqpw[/youtube]

marginally? i would call universal health care anything but a marginal difference.

Reform-liberal Canada is still closer to a US style corporate welfare state than a social democratic Fenno-Scandinavian style social welfare state.

Persistent budget cuts have made Canadian Healthcare less than what she used to be, by the way.

As I said, the state was shrunk considerably in the '90s, the unemployment insurance system was poked full of holes, all this done because right wing leaders decided to strangle the economy in the late '80s and cause massive unemployment and the resulting deficit (unemployment and high interest rates balloon the deficit) was used to claim that the social programmes were "unsustainable" and they were subject to assault through the 1990s.

A self fulfilling prophecy?

That is somewhat like burning a house down to prove that it is not fireproof.

ruveyn

perhaps, but it is still "pregnant" as opposed to america's "almost pregnant" system.

I also doubt that pregnancy is a pre-existing condition in Canada.

Not to mention they aren't looking to make a profit from the system through aggressive denial of claims.

One of the key issues at play in Toronto is the 416/905 split. If Toronto still had the borders that it had before amalgamation, Ford would have been utterly destroyed, but amalgamation can given enormous electoral weight to the populations of Scarborough, York, North York, East York and Etobicoke.

As is true in many cities, the urban core consumes a disproportionate level of services compared with the taxes levied. This largely has to do with the concentration of jobs in the core. In disaggregate metropolitan areas, ratepayers in suburban cities are content to see their taxes go to their local suburban council, and remain blind to the fiscal transfers to the core city or to the super-city that is responsible for things like infrastructure. But when amalgamation occurs, then all the tax revenue is flowing downtown, and suburbanites start to feel hard done by.

We see a certain amount of this in the regional factionalisation of national politics in Canada, but it doesn't tend to be particularly fertile ground for a "Tea Party" movement. The Conservatives may be largely composed of former members of the "Reform Party," but they know that they cannot form a government without Ontario, and regionalism is not going to play well in Ontario.

Contrast the electoral result in Toronto with the current situation in Saskatchewan. Last time out, 13 of 14 seats in Saskatchewan went to the Conservatives. But recent polls suggest that over 80% of people in Saskatchewan are opposed to the BHP takeover bid of Potash Corporation. If we were truly seeing the growth of a Tea Party movement in Canada, I would not expect to see that kind of number.

Governments are not supposed to strangle the economy deliberately. The Mulroney regime did just that. The social programmes were never the problem, the deliberate strangulation of the economy by a right wing regime was. It shows yet again that the right wing are wrong and evil. Interest rates were put sky high as part of a "zero inflation strategy" - the result was massive unemployment reducing tax revenue and increasing expenditures, and the high interest rates also increased the debt service charges. This combination caused the record deficits, not social programmes, but the Trudeau government of 1968-79 was successfully blamed in a campaign of propaganda that should bring shame to many. If that wasn't bad enough, Canadian business leaders shouted at Moody's officials when they said that Canada's economy was fine and that lowering its credit rating was not on the table. That those traitors got away with it shows that they were and continue to be above the law.

Or we could state it the other way. The right in Ontario depends on the west to help them gain influence.

If we look at the 10 largest communities in Ontario, we see something interesting.

1 Toronto 2,503,281
2 Ottawa 812,129
3 Mississauga 668,549
4 Hamilton 504,559
5 Brampton 433,806
6 London 352,395
7 Markham 261,573
8 Vaughan 238,866
9 Windsor 216,473
10 Kitchener 204,668

Total: 6,196,299 of 11,410,046 live in the cities. About half the population (46%) lives pretty much small town and rural. They often vote this way too.

Looking at Alberta, we see

1 Calgary 988,193
2 Edmonton 730,372
3 Red Deer 82,772
4 Strathcona 82,511
5 Lethbridge 74,637
6 St. Albert 57,719
7 Medicine Hat 56,997
8 Wood Buffalo 51,496
9 Grande Prairie 47,076
10 Airdrie 28,927

total: 2,200,700 out of 2,974,807 live in the larger areas. Thats 26% that are rural(ish), but thats not the point I am about to make.

Subtract the difference. 774,107(Alberta) vs 5,213,747(Ontario). 4,439,640. Or in other words, there are 5.7 times as many rural people in Ontario than Alberta, and actually 2.3 as many rural people than all of Alberta. There is a certain perpetuation of the myth that The Right is sustained by the Canadian west, but this shows it to be quite untrue. Even if you tack on the whole populations of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Ontario still has more.



Agreed. If there were dissatisfaction with the cons in the west(or anywhere in Canada), it wouldn't be a tooth and nail fight. The conservatives would just vanish in a flood of votes. Precedence: Reform Party.

i should have abstained from engaging in silly word play here. i meant to say that canada has a real health care system [like being really pregnant] as opposed to america's pretend health care system only for people with money, which is just like being "almost pregnant" which is of course not pregnant at all. i hope that made a bit more sense.

Of course not. They are just trying to put one sixth of the economy in the hands of government burocrats.


ruveyn

I understood what you meant.

The pregnant term just reminded me of yet another way our system is messed up.

It's a false economy. There is no benefit provided by having health insurance as a private industry. There is no product that is made with that economy, only money taken by private interests.