LogFAQs > #979420775

What is the current political environment in your country like?

In Canada there's basically four major parties

There's:

• the Liberals which is centre/every so slightly centre-left)
• the NDP (New Democratic Party) which is firmly left/social democratic
• the Conservatives which are most analogous to the pre-Obama Republican Party but are currently led by a populist.
• and the Bloc Quebecois which is an annoying regional party that advocates only for Quebec. It's mostly left-wing but its members are a mish mash

The Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been in power nearly a decade now. Most people are tired of them and blame them for several crisis' currently.

There's a housing crisis, a cost of living crisis, and an immigration crisis which feeds into the previous two. His government is accused of doing either not enough or actively making these problems worse.

The immigration issue in particular has enraged a chunk of the population against him. Basically Canada welcomes 500,000 new immigrants per year (out of a country of roughly 35,000,000). A lot of issues with the immigration system also come from both the Temporary Foreign Worker program (basically supposed to be a program through which Canadian businesses hire foreign workers to work at jobs for which there are no qualified Canadian applicants) and the International Student program (which as the name suggests entices foreigners to attend Canadian universities and colleges). Both these programs have been HEAVILY exploited as pretty much either a way for corporations to import cheap labour or for schools to bilk money out of immigrants (non-citizens pay about several times more than a domestic student).

The exploitation of these programs has led to increased rates of immigration, which in turn (since we're not building enough housing) is blamed for rising rent and housing prices. There's also a racial element to the backlash (a very sizable chunk of new Canadian immigrants come from the Punjab region of India).

tl;dr: People are fucking MAD and getting angrier/racist-er. The Conservative Party is polling historically well and will likely win bigly in the next election

Do you agree with the current state or the direction your nation is heading?

Not at all. For how much I admonish the negative reaction to the immigration programs, the fact of the matter is they are absolutely being exploited by the people seeking an easy way into Canada, by the corporate interests seeking to get cheap labour, by schools seeking a piggybank to bilk huge fees out of, and by the government since huge immigration rates artificially prop up the GDP.

Trudeau has wasted just about all his political capital. He has no major successes in office to point to, is making no major moves to fix the housing/immigration issues voters have, and has no "vision". There's no reason for me to vote for him again.

Usually I would vote for the NDP since they usually align more closely with my views anyway, but their leader is about as bad as Trudeau. He's an empty suit.

I'll never vote for the Conservatives, especially not with their current leader either.

Are there any threats from parties/politicians that have you concerned?

For how much I dislike him and how much people online will try to claim he is, Pierre Pollievre (the leader of the Conservatives) is not Donald Trump.

I wouldn't like him being elected, and I think his policies would be a disaster for this country; but he's not particularly anti-democratic or authoritarian in a way that makes me feel threatened.

Is there anything that's giving you hope for the future, such as possibly countering the aforementioned concerns?

Honestly, the only thing keeping me hopeful is the fact that after they get blown out in the next election, the Liberals and NDP will select new leaders who are hopefully better than the current crop, and from there an actual left-wing vision for Canada can be achieved. And I honestly aim to be part of that in whatever way I can when the time comes (though I'm unsure which party I want to work for).

The current electoral coalition that the Conservatives have built is also not particularly sustainable. There's too many competing factions at each other's throats. Maybe they'll have the solution to our housing and immigration problems, but I doubt it. Happy to be surprised though.