What’s up with Canada?

Fall Session ’23

  • This will surprise nobody: If an election were held today, Pierre Poilievre would clobber Justin Trudeau. According to the latest poll, 38% of Canadians now support the Conservatives and only 26% support the Liberals.

    But this may surprise you: If only Millennials could vote, the clobbering would be worse. Forty percent of Millennials now say they’d vote for Poilievre’s Conservatives and just 21% say they’d vote for Trudeau’s Liberals – putting them in third behind Jagmeet Singh’s NDP.

    OK, maybe that isn’t actually surprising: Millennials have endured an unrelenting economic grind since entering the workforce in the fallout of the financial crisis, and they’ve undeniably borne the brunt of Canada’s affordability crisis. Plus Millennials are old and grumpy now.

    But still: This is definitely new. As recently as February 2022, before Poilievre became party leader, only 24% of young Canadians supported the Conservatives and 32% supported the Liberals. But by July 2023, in the middle of Poilievre’s “Canada is broken” summer tour, Conservative support among young Canadians had soared to 31% while Liberal support had sunken to 29%.

    So how did Poilievre overtake Trudeau and double Millennial support for the Conservative party in under two years? By relentlessly blaming Trudeau for something that genuinely is broken: Housing.

    Historically, owning a home in Canada cost an average of 41% of household income. But now Canadians are spending an average of 60% of their incomes on their homes. In Toronto, it’s up to 80%. Who can afford that?

    The issue is particularly acute for newer homeowners who took on huge, long-term, variable-rate mortgages when interest rates were at historical lows – and who’ve since seen their monthly payments increase by an average of 49% in 2023. Who can afford that?

    And the situation is no better for renters. The average rent in Canada is up nearly 10% from 2022 and has been rising by around $100 per month since May. In August, the average asking rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Toronto was more than $3,400. Who can afford that?

    Fewer and fewer people, it turns out: A survey published this week found that a staggering 63% of Canadians are now living pay cheque to pay cheque – including 30% who are spending their savings or going into debt just to cover their monthly expenses.

    This is an extremely serious problem. Things are looking genuinely grim for a lot of Canadians right now. And a lot of people are understandably angry about it. And it is this despair-fueled rage that Poilievre has become such an effective spokesperson for.

    It’s worth noting that Poilievre isn’t offering any serious solutions. He’d cancel the carbon tax, which would make gas a bit less expensive; he’d defund the CBC, which would make Canada a lot less informed; and he’d cut TBD government waste, which would mean public sector layoffs and social service cuts.

    That won’t fix anything – let alone the housing crisis. But Poilievre isn’t interested in fixing Canada. He’s just trying to convince Canadians that Trudeau broke it. And he’s doing a great job.

    Millennials are Conservative now

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  • I’ll admit my initial reaction to learning that the Canadian government gave two standing ovations to a 98-year-old who literally fought for the Nazis was to feel sorry for the guy responsible: Anthony Rota.

    Before resigning earlier this week, Rota served admirably as speaker of the House of Commons. He was remarkably nonpartisan, despite having to deal with an unrelentingly unprofessional Conservative party. And he obviously isn’t a Nazi, or Russian propagandist, or anything like that.

    Plus, as somebody who can make them from time to time, my general position is this: People shouldn’t be defined by their mistakes, unless their mistakes define them.

    But this sense of compassion has since given way to new feelings: contempt and curiosity.

    First: contempt. Everybody makes mistakes, sure; but this mistake is absolutely massive. It’s one thing to take a very old man at his word when he tells you about his time in the war; it’s another to not google his name before shouting him out in front of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

    Rota meant well, of course. But he may as well have accidentally fired a missile by sitting on the launch button, considering all the damage he has done to the Liberals. How could he and his staff be so careless when this situation so obviously called for so much care?

    Which brings us to my second delayed reaction: curiosity. Just how bad is this going to turn out for Trudeau? Because – while I know it seems inconceivable now – our deeply unpopular prime minister was just on the cusp of making a comeback.

    Trudeau had finally taken steps to fix Canada’s housing crisis – both by waiving the GST for new rental construction and by beginning to talk openly about the fact that home prices can’t keep going up (sorry, homeowners).

    Whatever you think of him, Trudeau’s better-late-than-never plan is the same or better than the one put forward by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

    And Trudeau had just taken a stand against food price inflation that could be accurately described as “gangsta.” He summoned the leaders of Canada’s biggest grocery chains to Ottawa, berated them, then ordered them to stabilize prices by Thanksgiving “or I will.”

    Whatever you think of him, that’s some cold-blooded shit to say to Galen Weston — and as the kids say, I’m here for it.

    Plus Trudeau had just let Indian prime minister Narendra Modi know that he’s not somebody to fuck with after Modi tried to stonewall an investigation linking the Indian government to the murder of a Canadian Sikh in B.C in June.

    Whatever you think of him, that’s a power move to take against a superpower — and it’s forcing our allies to publicly admit what they privately know about India’s interference in diaspora communities.

    And then of course there was the Zelenskyy visit itself… prior to the Nazi thing, I mean. The Ukrainian president spent two days thanking Canadians — but Trudeau in particular — for steadfastly supporting Ukraine and courageously condemning Russia.

    So things really were starting to look up for the prime minister. But then he was dealt this fresh disaster. And all that really matters now is: How will Trudeau respond — and how will we?

    Canada accidentally honours a Nazi

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  • So here’s a hot take: Canadians should be happy with Justin Trudeau right now. 

    On Monday, he stood up to India to defend Canadian sovereignty and international law; on Friday, he stood beside Ukraine to defend Ukrainian sovereignty and international law; and in between, he stood before the United Nations to call for international cooperation in reducing poverty and mitigating climate change.

    For comparison, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s big win of the week was getting to call “jet-setting Justin” a “carbon hypocrite” for flying to New York. Because everybody knows that “everyday Canadians” walk to New York.

    Regarding Trudeau’s decision to publicly confront India over the murder of Canadian Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar: It would have been much easier to simply let Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s government get away with it. India has the world’s largest population, after all, making it the world’s biggest domestic market.

    So it would make economic sense to look the other way when India violates Canadian sovereignty.

    Something similar can be said of Trudeau’s support for Ukraine: It would be much easier to simply let Russian president Vladimir Putin get what he wants. Russia is much more powerful, after all, and it has a much bigger economy.

    So it would make economic sense to look the other way as it eliminates Ukrainian sovereignty.

    But Trudeau recognizes that Ukrainians aren’t simply fighting to defend themselves: Ukrainians are fighting for the fundamental right to democratic self-determination. And if Canadians can agree on anything, it should be that democratic self-determination is worth fighting for – or worth spending billions in tax dollars to support the fight for.

    And that brings us back to reducing poverty and mitigating climate change: It would be much easier to simply cut taxes and leave those problems for some future government to deal with. That’s exactly what former prime minster Stephen Harper did – as well as what presumed future prime minister Pierre Poilievre would most likely do.

    Sometimes it takes a real leader to make unpopular decisions. And Trudeau is extremely unpopular right now. So maybe he’s doing something right?

    Justin Trudeau is doing a good job

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