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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 11th, 2023

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  • The point is we need alternatives that are an improvement over the status quo, not making the current options worse. In some cases it might mean making things cheaper (EVs), in other cases it might be improving the service even if the cost goes up a little (public transit). In any case no one’s going to switch to a much worse or more expensive product or service for environmental reasons, it needs to be better on its own merits.



  • That’s not really what I meant. Most of the similar proposed proportional systems break down the proportional “evening out” to provinces or smaller regions. Theoretically (although extremely unlikely) if the Bloq lost with 50%-1 votes in every riding they’d have about 12.5% of the overall vote with 0 seats. They’d get 50 of the 62 seats regardless of anything else that happens anywhere else in the country.



  • We should be looking at (disincentivizing) plane trips, cruise ship trips, gas plants, etc - not fixating on the price at the gas pumps.

    And therein lies the problem. Disincentivizing the bad vs. incentivizing the alternatives. A couple bucks here and there make a lot of difference to lower income people. A small tax adds up quick and quickly feels like a punishment for not being able to afford the alternatives (EV, moving within biking distance, taking public transportation, taking a train, owning a house where you can choose what energy to use/make efficiency improvements).

    As a side note, cruise ships are the odd one out as they’re strictly a luxury and no alternative is needed, however they’re specifically exempt from both the carbon tax and regular fuel taxes. Interesting.



  • I live on Vancouver Island so I probably could ride an ebike 11-12 months a year, but I also live in a small town and work significantly further away than ebike range. So the only trips I could replace my car with an ebike would be in town, less than 10km round trip which is less than 1L of gas for even inefficient cars. Even if I went on one of those small rides every day off, best case scenario I’d save $350/yr. That would take a long time to pay off an ebike, not to mention the trailer I’d have to have for my kid and/or groceries to actually effectively replace a car trip.




  • It shouldn’t make a difference, and I think this would set a terrible precedent, but I have much less of an issue with special treatment for players than for “VIPs”. The only way I’d truly be ok with this is if FIFA paid to have increased capacity and/or some kind of lasting improvement to the hospital. But we all know with FIFA’s track record their more likely to demand the hospital pay them for the privilege to and publicity from treating their executives.



  • Yeah, if someone can’t afford a toy at $56, they’re not going to be able to afford it at $53.50 even one of the most expensive exempt items I can think of, a PS5 Pro ($1075.20 after tax, not including electronic eco waste fees or whatever), only goes down by $48. Not nothing, but hardly a meaningful impact. Someone on fulltime minimum wage who spent 100% of there income on newly tax exempt stuff would save about $200 over the 2 months, but that’s not even including the necessities that don’t get any cheaper like rent and other bills.




  • SomeonetoCanadaIllustration by Michael de Adder
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    1 month ago

    Clearly I’m not good at articulating my point so I’m going to stop trying. I don’t know what I’m saying that would benefit the Conservatives in any way. My riding is NDP with the cons playing catch up and the Greens have a better chance than the Liberals. So maybe we’re just coming from different perspectives. Voting for Liberals here is a vote for conservative.