Even if that were true it doesn't justify letting them off the hook. Keeping them honest is paramount. Thankfully the Opposition did their job.
Justin Trudeau – What's with the f**king mustache
- Thread starter Major Tom
- Start date
Did they? Has their been an accounting or justification? Has the investigation into the clear corruption around WE completely stopped? JT throwing a tantrum and making every vote that could cast light on the last 9 months a confidence vote that would trigger an election is a horrendous abuse.
Well, I was being specific in putting a spotlight on the power grab and appropriate pressure on them to give it up.
In general it's been a **** show. Clip after clip of opposition parties at committee calling for a vote. Then hours and hours of government stalling, reading poetry into the record and other nonsense.
It was explained several times in the early days of things like CERB *why* there wasn't checks and balances in place - because it simply wasn't realistic. Inside the period of days millions upon millions of people got laid off across the country. If all these people who suddenly didn't have a job applied for EI the "normal way" a lot of them would have waited months for the backlog of applications to be processed. The manpower wasn't there to deal with this, and there was zero realistic way to do so in short order.
The same thing went for the wage subsidy programs and business supports. For every 1 business that abused the system, it kept thousands (likely tens, or hundreds of thousands) of others afloat. And if they made it a bureaucratic nightmare to apply and get this money millions of businesses would not be around right now leading to massive unemployment.
So the checks and balances were removed. If you applied, you got approved pretty much instantly. And you got money, sometimes in as little as 24 hours.
Yes, some chose to abuse that system, but I do have faith that it will come out in the wash when Revenue Canada starts to correlate things in the months (and yes, perhaps years) ahead. With so much in the way of payroll and banking being done electronically now everything has a paper trail - when people who applied for CERB and collected it all while their T4's showed a normal years earnings, well, there will be red flags that they will follow up on. When businesses files their taxes and show banner earnings and GST returns that don't show expected gaps, it will set off red flags.
I expect it'll take a long time for it all to come out in the wash, and I wouldn't want to work for Revenue Canada for the next 2 or 3 years as they're going to be really busy with audits and prosecutions, but I also fully expect a significant percentage of those funds will be (forcefully, or otherwise) returned.
Unfortunately, in short, this was a situation where the fears of the few could have ruined it for the many.
So they just doled out the money. Sort it out later. I think history will look at that as the right decision.
I think it was the right decision for the first 30 or 60 days. As it dragged on, not even implementing cursory checks (did you file a return last year, did it indicate net income over xxxx, etc) was gross negligence.
The manpower to do this did not exist 30 or 60 days in. And given the restrictions, that manpower couldn't even be onboarded even if they tried - you can't just hire people over the phone, train them over the phone, and then give them free reign to sensitive government information systems, sensitive business and personal financial information, etc.
The manpower probably does't exist today.
My wifes job has been a great example of this. Her department was overwhelmed as Covid got into full swing and they were all work from home, but they couldn't hire staff as the onboarding was difficult to impossible as dragging them all into an office environment for months of 1 on 1 training couldn't happen. Given they would be handling personal medical information of employees as well as being expected to manage and keep confidential company secrets and all sorts of other confidential information, it's something they take pretty serious.
I'd hope and expect the government agencies with access to a lot of similar highly confidential and sensitive information also puts due concern in their hiring practices. In short, they couldn't just call up "Temps R Us" and dump people into the job.
It needs very little sustained manpower. You are requesting cerb through you cra account ffs. Checking that line 23600 exceeds a certain amount takes one programmer a little time. I am not implying that they should have checked every condition, but that one alone would have stopped a lot of the stupidity. There is a zero percent chance that JT requires 15 year olds to repay five figures in an election year. Any money cerb sent out to people with active reported income streams is gone forever.
I'm sure it *seems* easy to those looking in from the outside.
People think my job is just sitting behind the steering wheel pushing the skinny pedal, too.
And who knows. There's a good chance these checks and balances ARE currently in place and chunking away on the data readying some big surprises for people when they file their tax returns in a matter of weeks.
People think my job is just sitting behind the steering wheel pushing the skinny pedal, too.
And who knows. There's a good chance these checks and balances ARE currently in place and chunking away on the data readying some big surprises for people when they file their tax returns in a matter of weeks.
ALL transportation is deemed essential right now, it doesn't matter what you're hauling.
wait, it's not? ?
Had a lady ****** at me 2 weeks ago while I was parked on a street carrying stuff into a store (apparently I'd inconvenienced her somehow) for which she was holding a bag of stuff.....from that store.
People think stuff just magically falls out of the ceiling at night onto the shelves, I guess.
sounds like a conversation i have with the production floor all the time
"we lost the parts"
"okay."
"get more"
"okay, it will be here in 6 weeks unless you want to expedite"
"6 weeks?! what the hell man, the customer is picking up tomorrow"
"oh im sorry, let me get my basket and go pick some components off the trees outside"
Has said a lot more about who the conservatives chose to run against him than him himself.
In 2015 he ran against Stephen Harper who was at that point very unpopular because of several scandals of his own (which people seem to have forgotten) plus his vehement anti-science views and actions. Amongst many other things. The people had enough of him which is why he got shellacked in the election.
In 2019 he was put against Sheer. With a lacking personality and an equal lack of charisma, he never really connected with anyone. The results spoke to that - JT paid the price for his bumbling and scandals, but Sheer never connected well enough with people to take the easy win he should have had.
That's the conservatives fault for putting forth the people they did - hell, with Sheer and Maxime Bernier competing against each other at the end, it was basically an unlikeable guy versus a somewhat unknown also unlikeable guy who also had a lot of questionable actions behind him already at that point. And knowing what we know about Bernier now we should all be glad as hell HE didn't win and end up one step away from becoming PM.
And they risk doing it again at the next election with Erin Otoole. I like him more than I ever liked Sheer, but from what I've seen of him on the public stage so far two things should concern anyone who wants to see the Liberals lose the next election:
- His personality still doesn't exactly shine or connect with people.
- His willingness to go on tasteless attacks that remind people of US politics right now.
- His party is stacked with people who follow the MAGA nonsense in the USA right now. Just scroll through the social media of many members of his party for a wakeup call about who many of these people really are.
If there's one thing that turns off Canadians more than anything else right now, it's Trump style politics. ESPECIALLY in the last week.
If Otoole allows his party to go that way the Liberals will be quick to use that against them by simply running ads reminding people that the Conservatives are "The MAGA party of Canada" using the words of many in the party to clearly demonstrate such.
And they are destined to lose again.
pfbmgd
Well-known member
You make some great points . I don't recall what scandals Harper had . He probably had . All I recall is people wanted change . Scheer had the election in his hand . But he tried to play up to the media that will never accept the CPC party .
Right now I don't see any difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives . O'Toole is missing in action .
The Canadian media is paid for by the government . They will always show JT in a favorable light . The black face should have been the final blow . Yet Skippy is doing well in the polls .
Green Meenie
Well-known member
JT's a great magician though. Look how he made that whole We thing just disappear!
not really, he prorogued parliament to do it and broke an election promise about never using this tactic. Doubt average person would remember.
