Trudeau Popularity - or not (various polling, etc.)

[Kirkhill]

It’s too reductive to say that “disagree = stupid”. I disagree with some work colleagues’ political positions all the time but I acknowledge that they are not dumb people.

What I see is the difference between what I would say “short term” and “long term” thinking (and priorities), assuming that all the info people getting is correct and unbiased. If people don’t baseline that info and assume that something is the same, then this whole conversation is pointless if “climate change is fake news”.

That and “well we (Canada) can’t do enough so why bother?” Sort of related, but again - I think it essentially breaks down to whether the info is believed to be correct or not. Let’s say it is correct - then anything we do towards it would be a small step in the right direction, right? Sort of like combatting global child trafficking - there is no way one country can change it by itself, but it doesn’t mean that it should just throw its hands up in the air and say “oh well, we can’t change what [country X] does anyway, so what’s the point…”.

The key word, IMO, is "belief".

Do you believe the witness in the box? Do you believe the lawyer for the plaintiff or that of the defendant? Do you believe the Judge applied the law correctly? Do you believe the jury came to the right decision? Do you believe you would have come to the same conclusion?

Do you believe yesterday's article in JAMA or last week's article in Lancet? This year's text book or the text book it replaces but was the text book which has delivered useable solutions since it was supplied as the authority when you were at school?

Do you believe the politician, the car salesman, the disgruntled employee?

I believe that people believe different things.

Do you want to fight over what is the right thing to believe? Or would you rather live in a place where people are not fighting?

...

In my view the whole purpose of democracy and the parliamentary system and the common law system is the avoidance of fighting, to maintain Peace and Order through Good Governance.

Liberalism is not about a set of values. It is about toleration of different values. So I believe anyway.

 

[Kirkhill]

I'm not referring to people that disagree with us on the overall objective, but who may disagree on the best way to achieve that policy.

Look at Brexit. Now, I'm being hypothetical here because I don't know what is/would have been the best solution. But lets say the popular opinion was that they needed to tackle immigration and jobs lost to low-income immigrants. Ok, find, we accept that the objective of the state is to correct that with the over arching "value" that we want a country with low unemployment and jobs that are both fulfilling and pay enough to allow a decent standard of living. However, the populist strategy was "This is all the EU's fault, so we need to leave the EU!", but the expert strategy (meaning something studied and developed by people with years of experience dealing with labour and international relations) might be staying in the EU but developing some nuance, well funded, well supported plan (I don't know what it would be, but something).

So, to realize a "pluralistic" approach, you accept the populist view (fix immigration and the labour market) with the expert view (smart people figuring out how to achieve that). The populist approach would be just to do whatever the people are screaming to do (in this case, quit the EU).

A person isn't stupid, people are.

I'm afraid I have difficulty with the word "stupid" in any context. I don't think it does much to resolve disputes.

 

[Eaglelord17]

I'm not referring to people that disagree with us on the overall objective, but who may disagree on the best way to achieve that policy.

Look at Brexit. Now, I'm being hypothetical here because I don't know what is/would have been the best solution. But lets say the popular opinion was that they needed to tackle immigration and jobs lost to low-income immigrants. Ok, find, we accept that the objective of the state is to correct that with the over arching "value" that we want a country with low unemployment and jobs that are both fulfilling and pay enough to allow a decent standard of living. However, the populist strategy was "This is all the EU's fault, so we need to leave the EU!", but the expert strategy (meaning something studied and developed by people with years of experience dealing with labour and international relations) might be staying in the EU but developing some nuance, well funded, well supported plan (I don't know what it would be, but something).

So, to realize a "pluralistic" approach, you accept the populist view (fix immigration and the labour market) with the expert view (smart people figuring out how to achieve that). The populist approach would be just to do whatever the people are screaming to do (in this case, quit the EU).

A person isn't stupid, people are.

Brexit was more about sovereignty than anything else. The EU isn’t what the UK signed up to initially. It was originally envisioned as just a trade union, what it evolved into wasn’t the original intent. There was no solution other than leaving.

If it was just about economics then they would have stayed. Its all the social aspects, the taking of sovereignty that really pushed them out.

Imagine your elected government being unable to pass laws due to some government you had no say in electing making decisions. Would you want to stay in that group? Would you consider that a fair system?

Long term I think the EU will be a political failure due to the decision to keep expanding the political side of it instead of just being happy with the economic advantages.

Its not populist to want to be sovereign. Yes there was economic consequences to leaving the EU and some more travel oriented will be sad about the loss of the EU passport. But for some issues the only solution was to leave, there was no negotiating otherwise. The EU made sure of that.

They are also seeking to punish them as much as possible for Brexit as they don’t want others to leave (though that will be increasingly likely as time progresses).

 

[TacticalTea]

I'm not referring to people that disagree with us on the overall objective, but who may disagree on the best way to achieve that policy.

Look at Brexit. Now, I'm being hypothetical here because I don't know what is/would have been the best solution. But lets say the popular opinion was that they needed to tackle immigration and jobs lost to low-income immigrants. Ok, find, we accept that the objective of the state is to correct that with the over arching "value" that we want a country with low unemployment and jobs that are both fulfilling and pay enough to allow a decent standard of living. However, the populist strategy was "This is all the EU's fault, so we need to leave the EU!", but the expert strategy (meaning something studied and developed by people with years of experience dealing with labour and international relations) might be staying in the EU but developing some nuance, well funded, well supported plan (I don't know what it would be, but something).

So, to realize a "pluralistic" approach, you accept the populist view (fix immigration and the labour market) with the expert view (smart people figuring out how to achieve that). The populist approach would be just to do whatever the people are screaming to do (in this case, quit the EU).

A person isn't stupid, people are.

You got it upside down.

Brexit didn't fail them. Governance did. Because populism didn't win.

The UK's woes are attributable to the fact its electorate is asking for right-wing governance from a lost, chaotic Conservative Party that is conservative in name only and won't give them that right-wing governance.

That is why you keep seeing right-wing alternatives (UKIP, Brexit, Reform, and constant Tory leadership changes) rotate into its public sphere.

The "right-wing party" has been disconnected from the people and serves primarily the establishment's interests and values. People are confused and don't know where to go. Reform is trying to harness that energy, but I doubt it'll go anywhere because it appears unwilling to truly free itself from establishment normativity.

 

[Lumber]

I'm afraid I have difficulty with the word "stupid" in any context. I don't think it does much to resolve disputes.

I don't disagree, but this isn't real public discourse requiring real public harmony. This is milnet.ca, and I get to say the quiet part out loud.

 

[Lumber]

Just to be clear @TacticalTea, @Eaglelord17 , I was just using BREXIT as a frame to try and show my view about how the populist view and expert opinion can be combined to create a pluralistic society. I fully recognize that I am completely ignorant of the complexity of BREXIT, and that the specifics I used may be completely wrong wrt the actual situation.

 

[Lumber]

What defines a “popular opinion” ? How do value systems interact with “popular opinion “?

Edited to add: I don’t think the initial article and your depiction of a “value” are the same.

So, its funny because I upon introspection, I don't think I have a consistent definition of "popular opinion". Generally speaking, I attribute "public opinion" to be a negative thing whereby "people" are demanding something that expertise would otherwise say is not the write thing to ask for. The over simplistic example is a plane full of people demanding that they be allowed to take over mid-flight and fly the aircraft because they don't think the pilot is fit to fly the plane. A more real-world example would be experts around the world providing guidance for effective response to a pandemic, and the public at large (even potentially a majority) demanding not to do those things. And I want to be clear I'm talking about extreme examples. In the pandemic case, there is definitely a case to be made about whether the costs of say, lock downs, and the long term economic effects of the measures outweigh the short term benefit in terms of lives. That's a legitimate discussion to be had and a position to consider. But if people aren't demanding without being informed, than it's all just mob noise.

So, if I removed that take on it, what is public opinion in general? It's just the loudest or strongest or majority opinion being expressed. We should listen to that opinion, but we shouldn't blindly support it; that would be populism.

 

[TacticalTea]

Just to be clear @TacticalTea, @Eaglelord17 , I was just using BREXIT as a frame to try and show my view about how the populist view and expert opinion can be combined to create a pluralistic society. I fully recognize that I am completely ignorant of the complexity of BREXIT, and that the specifics I used may be completely wrong wrt the actual situation.

Yeah, sorry, didn't miss that but I didn't really acknowledge it either, my bad.

Guess I just wanted to exploit an opportunity to voice a perspective that goes too frequently unheard.

 

[Fabius]

Fair enough in terms of public opinion.

I’m of the thought though that the results of listening to public opinion are heavily weighted by the value system subscribed to. In the example of pandemic measures as you articulate above, the weight you would subscribe to locking everyone and everything down or not would be based on the value you accord to individual freedom vs communal responsibility. That is a value judgement that is political. It’s what drives policy, neither is right or wrong, which is what I think was the point.

There is no expert opinion that says what value is right.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I want to say that this thread has taken what I think is an interesting philosophical turn. More of this, please.

 

[Halifax Tar]

So, its funny because I upon introspection, I don't think I have a consistent definition of "popular opinion". Generally speaking, I attribute "public opinion" to be a negative thing whereby "people" are demanding something that expertise would otherwise say is not the write thing to ask for. The over simplistic example is a plane full of people demanding that they be allowed to take over mid-flight and fly the aircraft because they don't think the pilot is fit to fly the plane. A more real-world example would be experts around the world providing guidance for effective response to a pandemic, and the public at large (even potentially a majority) demanding not to do those things. And I want to be clear I'm talking about extreme examples. In the pandemic case, there is definitely a case to be made about whether the costs of say, lock downs, and the long term economic effects of the measures outweigh the short term benefit in terms of lives. That's a legitimate discussion to be had and a position to consider. But if people aren't demanding without being informed, than it's all just mob noise.

So, if I removed that take on it, what is public opinion in general? It's just the loudest or strongest or majority opinion being expressed. We should listen to that opinion, but we shouldn't blindly support it; that would be populism.

Your response is mature and we'll delivered, however let me counter with my thoughts that that sounds like a cop out for elected officials to act in a manner counter their employment belonging to the people the are paid to represent.

And I think this is all a symptom of an over polarized population. Which is the real problem. It's our current inability to compromise and not speak the simply punish those who have different political slants.

 

[Brad Sallows]

A more real-world example would be experts around the world providing guidance for effective response to a pandemic, and the public at large (even potentially a majority) demanding not to do those things.

An interesting feature of that example is that one group of experts (public health), supported by politicians, essentially managed to have all other experts' views (social, educational, economic, etc) declared all but forbidden.

There aren't really any polymath experts who are expert in enough domains to constitute reliable "experts of everything". Most experts are, outside their fields, just laymen, and consequently not much better than any other laymen to assess the total mix of what experts in different fields propose. The "passengers taking over the plain" rhetorical examples all suffer from the flaw of not resembling in any way a confluence of conflicting recommendations from experts in multiple fields, and are therefore essentially nonsense.

 

[OldSolduer]

I want to say that this thread has taken what I think is an interesting philosophical turn. More of this, please.

I can change that.....

 

[YZT580]

Your response is mature and we'll delivered, however let me counter with my thoughts that that sounds like a cop out for elected officials to act in a manner counter their employment belonging to the people the are paid to represent.

And I think this is all a symptom of an over polarized population. Which is the real problem. It's our current inability to compromise and not speak the simply punish those who have different political slants.

and if I may add a little bit, the trend within individual parties to not permit any contrary opinions. Parties now hand out hymnals with all pages removed but one and if you as a liberal or conservative or NDP don't like that hymn then you have no place in the choir. It may provide for a unified front but having one hundred or so people all saying the same thing does not make for a healthy country. We need contrary opinions within government as well as from the opposition

 

[daftandbarmy]

It's OK, once business collapses everyone will be working for government so there will be alot more people agreeing with each other in this country

Canada's Regulatory Overburden​

Canada is struggling with declining economic prosperity. At the same time, governments across the country, and in particular the federal government have introduced significant new regulations. The trends are not unrelated. Regulations impose costs on business and serve as a deterrent to business investment in several major elements of Canada’s economy.

Surveys of senior executives in Canada’s extractive industries (mining, oil, and gas) show that concerns about regulation would deter potential investors in various highly regulated jurisdictions (Mejía and Aliakbari, 2023; Mejía and Aliakbari, 2024). Canada’s regulatory load is substantial and growing: from 2009 a nadir in the count of regulations measured between 2006 to 2018 showed that the number of restrictive regulations in Canada grew from about 66,000 to 72,000 by 2018 (McLaughlin, Stroskos, and Jones 2019).

The last few years have seen a vast swath of new regulations at the federal level. These are regulatory initiatives that have sweeping effects on large sectors of Canada’s economy—particularly the government’s central focus on climate change—and making Canada a Net-Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter by 2050.

A recent study published by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)—Canada’s Red Tape Report—found that “(t)he cost of regulation from all three levels of government to Canadian businesses totaled $38.8 billion in 2020” (for a total of 731 million hours—the equivalent of nearly 375,000 full-time jobs). If we apply a $16.65 per hour cost (the federal minimum wage in Canada for 2023), CA$12.2 billion annually is lost to regulatory compliance (Cruz et al., 2021).1

The same report showed that regulatory costs are considered too high by small business owners, who cite excessive regulation as one of their top concerns. The smallest businesses bear a disproportionately high burden of the cost, paying up to five times more for regulatory compliance per-employee than larger businesses. “The smallest businesses pay $7,023 per employee annually to comply with government regulation while larger businesses pay a much lower $1,237 dollars per employee annually for regulatory compliance.”(Cruz et al., 2021).Regulations in Canada also eat up people’s scarcest commodity, time. In 2020, average Canadian businesses consumed 677 hours in compliance with regulations. That is equivalent to 85 days of regulated businesses.

Canada's Regulatory Overburden

www.fraserinstitute.org

 

[Kirkhill]

It's OK, once business collapses everyone will be working for government so there will be alot more people agreeing with each other in this country

Canada's Regulatory Overburden​

Canada is struggling with declining economic prosperity. At the same time, governments across the country, and in particular the federal government have introduced significant new regulations. The trends are not unrelated. Regulations impose costs on business and serve as a deterrent to business investment in several major elements of Canada’s economy.

Surveys of senior executives in Canada’s extractive industries (mining, oil, and gas) show that concerns about regulation would deter potential investors in various highly regulated jurisdictions (Mejía and Aliakbari, 2023; Mejía and Aliakbari, 2024). Canada’s regulatory load is substantial and growing: from 2009 a nadir in the count of regulations measured between 2006 to 2018 showed that the number of restrictive regulations in Canada grew from about 66,000 to 72,000 by 2018 (McLaughlin, Stroskos, and Jones 2019).

The last few years have seen a vast swath of new regulations at the federal level. These are regulatory initiatives that have sweeping effects on large sectors of Canada’s economy—particularly the government’s central focus on climate change—and making Canada a Net-Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter by 2050.

A recent study published by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)—Canada’s Red Tape Report—found that “(t)he cost of regulation from all three levels of government to Canadian businesses totaled $38.8 billion in 2020” (for a total of 731 million hours—the equivalent of nearly 375,000 full-time jobs). If we apply a $16.65 per hour cost (the federal minimum wage in Canada for 2023), CA$12.2 billion annually is lost to regulatory compliance (Cruz et al., 2021).1

The same report showed that regulatory costs are considered too high by small business owners, who cite excessive regulation as one of their top concerns. The smallest businesses bear a disproportionately high burden of the cost, paying up to five times more for regulatory compliance per-employee than larger businesses. “The smallest businesses pay $7,023 per employee annually to comply with government regulation while larger businesses pay a much lower $1,237 dollars per employee annually for regulatory compliance.”(Cruz et al., 2021).Regulations in Canada also eat up people’s scarcest commodity, time. In 2020, average Canadian businesses consumed 677 hours in compliance with regulations. That is equivalent to 85 days of regulated businesses.

Canada's Regulatory Overburden

www.fraserinstitute.org

Until, as Maggie noted, government runs out of other peoples' money. The good news for the government is that by moving to electronic currency they can skip over the step of debasing the currency and devalue it at will on an ongoing basis. The bad news is that, eventually, they will still find it impossible to supply bread and circuses.

At which point - entropy wins again.

...

The baseline for every discussion has to be 7,000,000,000 sentient beings conducting their own OODA appreciations on an continuing basis, all drawing their own conclusions and deciding on their own actions.

Governments that lead will survive longer than those that command and, as my favourite prairie philosopher noted the best way to lead is to find a parade and get out in front of it.

 

[Kirkhill]

In terms of getting out in front of the parade two observations

Net Zero - many of the governments influenced by the progressive movement to drive towards Net Zero, having discovered that they are no longer leading the parade and are in danger of being run over by it, are soft-pedalling their positions. The crisis is less of a crisis.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, promoted by the progressives, explicitly rejected Martin Luther King Jr's Colour Blind Society.
It appears that that may be another parade requiring a change of direction

A Colorblind Nation

Can the idea of America looking beyond race work in such a divided time? Are there reasons we should still use race as a basis for public policy?

theprogressnetwork.org

The Progress Network is associated with Barack, Hilary, Tony Blair, John Major, John Podesta, Justin, Mark Carney, Jacinda Aldern and Canada 2020.


....

If they want to continue leading they are going to have to limit themselves to places that people are willing to go.

Immigration and borders have become another universal sticking point.

....

Ultramontanism, Internationalism and Globalism are just as hard to sell as any empire.

 

[Good2Golf]

It's OK, once business collapses everyone will be working for government so there will be alot more people agreeing with each other in this country

Canada's Regulatory Overburden​

Canada is struggling with declining economic prosperity. At the same time, governments across the country, and in particular the federal government have introduced significant new regulations. The trends are not unrelated. Regulations impose costs on business and serve as a deterrent to business investment in several major elements of Canada’s economy.

Surveys of senior executives in Canada’s extractive industries (mining, oil, and gas) show that concerns about regulation would deter potential investors in various highly regulated jurisdictions (Mejía and Aliakbari, 2023; Mejía and Aliakbari, 2024). Canada’s regulatory load is substantial and growing: from 2009 a nadir in the count of regulations measured between 2006 to 2018 showed that the number of restrictive regulations in Canada grew from about 66,000 to 72,000 by 2018 (McLaughlin, Stroskos, and Jones 2019).

The last few years have seen a vast swath of new regulations at the federal level. These are regulatory initiatives that have sweeping effects on large sectors of Canada’s economy—particularly the government’s central focus on climate change—and making Canada a Net-Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter by 2050.

A recent study published by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)—Canada’s Red Tape Report—found that “(t)he cost of regulation from all three levels of government to Canadian businesses totaled $38.8 billion in 2020” (for a total of 731 million hours—the equivalent of nearly 375,000 full-time jobs). If we apply a $16.65 per hour cost (the federal minimum wage in Canada for 2023), CA$12.2 billion annually is lost to regulatory compliance (Cruz et al., 2021).1

The same report showed that regulatory costs are considered too high by small business owners, who cite excessive regulation as one of their top concerns. The smallest businesses bear a disproportionately high burden of the cost, paying up to five times more for regulatory compliance per-employee than larger businesses. “The smallest businesses pay $7,023 per employee annually to comply with government regulation while larger businesses pay a much lower $1,237 dollars per employee annually for regulatory compliance.”(Cruz et al., 2021).Regulations in Canada also eat up people’s scarcest commodity, time. In 2020, average Canadian businesses consumed 677 hours in compliance with regulations. That is equivalent to 85 days of regulated businesses.

Canada's Regulatory Overburden

www.fraserinstitute.org

“Canada is no longer open for business…”

Canada: Unserious and Unprosperous.

 

[Brad Sallows]

With luck, once AI development settles down into models that can do mundane things as well as people, we'll experience another of the periodic productivity lifts that delays a reckoning another decade or two. The productivity gain will probably manifest in a way that displaces a bunch of people from their current employment, and we'll see what new productive output they can be employed towards. An exciting time to be a person whose job is essentially shuffling information.

 

[RangerRay]

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, promoted by the progressives, explicitly rejected Martin Luther King Jr's Colour Blind Society.
It appears that that may be another parade requiring a change of direction

A Colorblind Nation

Can the idea of America looking beyond race work in such a divided time? Are there reasons we should still use race as a basis for public policy?

theprogressnetwork.org

The Progress Network is associated with Barack, Hilary, Tony Blair, John Major, John Podesta, Justin, Mark Carney, Jacinda Aldern and Canada 2020.

I’ve heard a few interviews with Coleman Hughes promoting his latest book The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America. Very illuminating stuff.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Race-Politics-Arguments-Colorblind/dp/0593332458?nodl=1&dplnkId=d672f0df-990b-499e-b0b2-8bdadc0d57c4

Coleman Hughes - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org