Thread by @katebirl

I want to preface this with the fact I am not a Trudeau supporter, I did not vote for him, and I think his treatment of Aboriginal communities and lies he has told regarding promises made to those communities is abhorrent.

MEGA THREAD

The purpose of this post is to fact check the "Yellow Vest" Movement.

(YVM)

Before I start, I want to make it clear that I understand there are people who do have legitimate fears and concerns about their livelihoods, and I think sometimes those fears are misdirected and come from a place of misinformation provided to them for political gain.

I have tried my best to use sources that are unbiased to avoid any conflict. I will be linking studies from universities, government of Canada websites, as well as articles from professionals.

If I could not find anything unbiased, I have linked to news outlets that tend to be more right-leaning and align with many of these views. Although I do follow CBC, I have not used any of their articles here in the interest of avoiding accusations of Liberal bias.

Below are some of the topics that I have gathered which are being protested by the Yellow Vest Movement in Canada:

UN Migration Compact:

This one is pretty controversial. Canada signed on to this Compact in 2018, in an effort to commit to safe, regular immigration.

It appears the assumption is that this means our borders are wide open and we are just letting people cross willy-nilly.

This is false. Below I have linked the website where you can read this entire compact, page for page: refugeesmigrants.un.org/migration-comp…...

Illegal Immigration:

Illegal immigration means that someone is in the country without permission, whether it be overstaying visas, or "sneaking in".

When folks cross the border to seek asylum at a border crossing, this is not illegal.

When folks do not cross via a border crossing, this is deemed irregular until said person manages to make it without being caught, and without claiming asylum. If an irregular crosser is caught they are taken to where they can claim asylum, and are not an illegal immigrant.

More info on this below:

canada.ca/en/immigration…

The fear here is that terrorists are entering the country, and being allowed to.

Another fear is that immigrants are getting paid when they come to Canada.

Firstly, Canada cannot sustain it's economy without immigration. The reason being that the biggest generation, the baby boomers, are retiring. We also aren't having nearly enough babies.

google.com/amp/s/www.theg…

If we have too many retirees and not enough economic growth, senior struggles are going to continue to spiral. Less people paying taxes means less government funding, stripped social programs and no pensions.

Immigrants do NOT get paid in Canada, refugees do. There has been a lot of misconception about how much these families are receiving. Refugees receive money based on Social Assistance rates in each province.

Below is a link with more information:

cic.gc.ca/english/helpce…

The Trans Mountain Pipeline. Below I have linked an article explaining the proposed return on investment with this pipeline. Fiscally, it doesn't make a ton of sense.
thetyee.ca/Analysis/2018/…

I have also linked a PDF report of a study done at SFU.

SFU is claiming Kinder Morgan exaggerated the job growth as well as a few other things. If you click on the link it will download the PDF for you to read.

google.com/url?sa=t&sourc…

Aside from this, where are we at now? Well, Trudeau bought the pipeline.

The YVM protests re: the pipeline confuse me a bit. Trudeau has purchased the pipeline, provided $1.6 Billion in relief for the Oil industry in AB, but is still getting yelled at for it.

I am assuming it is due to the courts shutting it down.

Trudeau has absolutely ZERO control over the courts. No Prime Minister, Conservative or otherwise, would be able to get this through by any means other than invoking the Notwithstanding Clause as it was struck down due to a Charter violation.

I have provided a link below that explains why the government and the courts are separate entities. It is imperative to democracy that these remain separate.

justice.gc.ca/eng/csj-sjc/cc…

Using the Notwithstanding Clause is no small matter.

The Prime Minister would be accepting the violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that this country's citizen's are protected by. It would set an extremely dangerous precedent.

Just a side note: Trudeau also retro-actively provided and extended unemployment benefits to Albertans when he got into office, because Harper refused to extend them during the last oil crisis.

Media 'Buyout':

Honestly this one I am not 100% familiar with but I did a bit of research. The media was not bought out by Trudeau.

There was $600m in funding that will help "trusted news sources", and I think this is where people are hung up.

Trudeau and his government will not be deciding who is "trusted". An elected board of journalists will be approving or denying any applications.

The funding is to help media organizations deal with the decline in revenue due to the lack of printed media, and most people going digital. This funding also includes rebates to Canadians who purchase online subscriptions to media outlets.

More info below:

theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

Veterans:

Veterans do deserve more, there is no doubting this. That being said, the criticism of Trudeau is a bit misplaced.

When Harper was in power, he closed Veteran's Affairs offices all over the country, leaving many without assistance.

Trudeau made promises during his campaign to re-open these offices as well as hire more front-line staff to help vets get services faster. These offices have been re-opened, however the hiring of front-line staff IS taking longer than promised.

They have hired about 1/3 of what was promised so far. Although this IS an improvement, it is obviously not ideal.

Trudeau has also increased veteran funding by $10 billion. That is not to say there shouldn't be more, but it is still a substantial improvement.

He has also increased spending since Harper was in power. I have provided a link below:
veterans.gc.ca/eng/about-us/s…

Carbon tax:

It is hard to wrap my head around how people are so concerned with national debt and how it will affect their kids, but they aren't so concerned about the state of the planet they are leaving behind.

I'm not going to debate climate change as I feel like there is more than enough proof that this is a concerning issue.

The Liberals have introduced a Federal Carbon Tax as one way to help combat climate change.

This has been extremely controversial, as many think it will destroy the economy, but let's just unpack this a bit.

BC has had a carbon tax for over a decade, and we had the second largest GDP growth this past year.

Our economy is doing great, and when the tax was first implemented, and raised regularly, our emissions went down. The problem is in 2012 the rate was frozen and has not gone up since, so we ended up actually seeing an increase in greenhouse gases.

I think Alberta may be wary of this since so much of it's economy relies on an industry that is one of the largest polluters. I can definitely empathize with that. I don't think it's a good enough reason to continue destroying the planet though.

Interestingly enough, companies like Shell Canada support carbon taxing.

Carbon taxes not only help incentivise cleaner production, but they also foster innovation. How will we move forward with finding cleaner energy?

Below I have linked info on the BC GDP growth, the…

…Liberal's proposed carbon tax, an MIT study on why carbon taxes are effective and do not destroy economic growth, as well as an interview with economist Bill Nordhaus who won a Nobel Prize for his work relating to carbon taxing and the economy.

theglobeandmail.com/business/artic…

www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/en…

news.mit.edu/2018/carbon-ta…

forbes.com/sites/howardgl…

Equalization payments:

Equalization payments were developed in order to ensure all Provinces were on an equal playing field when it comes to Federal funds.

More info can be found below:

thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/equ…

The big issue surrounding this is that Alberta thinks that they are paying equalization payments to Quebec. This is simply not true. Equalization comes from Federal money, not Provincial.

Every single working citizen in this country pays federal taxes. This is not unique to Alberta.

Equalization payments are based on a formula that is reviewed every 5 years.

The current formula was developed by the Harper government 5 years ago, and when it came up for review last year, Trudeau's government kept the status quo. Jason Kenney, the UCP nominee in Alberta, threw a fit over this and started blaming the Liberals.

He is one of the members who defended this formula in parliament back when it was developed by Harper. This is manufactured outrage for political gain.

Homelessness:

Homelessness is obviously horrible and needs to be addressed. I think this is part of these protests due to the misconception that our own citizens are being left behind in favour of immigrants.

The Liberals have recently developed a new program and are working with Provinces to try to address this problem. See link below:

canada.ca/en/employment-…

Homelessness is more complex than this though.

More mental health funding and better accessibility is needed, as well as better addiction services, solving the housing crisis, more low income housing, etc all need to be looked into.

Taxes:

Taxes always seem to be an issue, no matter what. I have linked the current tax information, as well as a wikipedia article that puts them in a nice chart. I am only talking about Federal taxes here, I think it's the 3rd chart on that page.

canada.ca/en/revenue-age…

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_ta…

It's very interesting to compare these rates with previous years. Looking at the charts, Trudeau has offered far more tax breaks to the middle class, and lower income earners.

The conservatives tend to present themselves as the masters of tax breaks, yet when you look at these charts, the majority of theirs are on higher income earners.

This is a problem as it removes tax burdens off of the people who can afford it, and places it on the people who can't. By taxing higher-income earners more, (200k+) the tax rates for lower income earners can be brought down.

Then for the massive earners (I am talking multi-millionaires, billionaires) you could impose higher marginal rates, and further lower middle class taxes. The problem is that governments tend to give tax breaks to corps and massive earners, and expect this to trickle down.

As we can see in the US, this does not work.

For example, Jeff Bezos is worth enough money to fund free education in the US twice-over, and still have over $30 billion left. The average Amazon worker makes less than $30,000.00 USD a year.

He has now received a massive tax break, yet his employees can't afford basic cost of living.

This structure has caused people to blame the lower class for needing and wanting higher wages, and not these massive earners who are making more than they even know what to do with.

Debt:

One thing I see often is Andrew Scheer talks about the national debt like it is credit card debt.

This is not at all true, and here is why (the article is specific to US debt, but the way it works is the same):

blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2…

Currently, Canada has the lowest debt to GDP ratio in the G7.

We have over 400k new job creation, most of which are full-time, leading to a 40-year low in unemployment rates.

Here's a bit more info:

fin.gc.ca/n18/18-064-eng…

Another thing worth mentioning is Trudeau did not start his term with a $7.4 billion surplus, the books were manipulated by the Harper Government.

Harper did, however, begin with a $16 billion surplus, and ran a deficit during his term. Historically, Conservatives are not so fiscally responsible, and Liberals have had better economic growth.

google.com/amp/s/www.theg…

I think that is the majority of the YVM protests, sorry if I missed any. I have added a couple extra topics as these come up often with the same people, and it's important to know the facts.

The Fraser Institute:

The Fraser Institute is a common 'source' cited by the Conservative Party of Canada, and many provincial conservatives as well. It is a "think tank" paid for by the Koch brothers. I have provided a link below with more info on this.

sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fras…

I would highly recommend using studies from an accredited university, not "think tanks" paid to manipulate data. When we are concerned about bias, it's important that we are checking our own sources for bias as well.

Islam Party of Ontario:

The Islam Party of Ontario is run by a conservative, and is followed by conservatives and Twitter bots.

nowtoronto.com/news/islamic-p…

An article was recently put out about a journalist being threatened by this party. It is not a real political party.

In order to be real, you must have 1000 signatures to even register. They have less than 200 followers, and many aren't even real people. This party appears to have been created as a means of fear-mongering.

YVM Violence:

The Yellow Vest Movement Facebook page has been getting quite toxic. Death threats are not okay, no matter what your political leanings are. Showing up with signs depicting Trudeau should be hanged are not okay.

Saying he should be shot, asking someone to shoot him, or saying you're going to shoot him is not okay.

globalnews.ca/news/4827607/f…

Also as a friendly reminder, making gay jokes about Trudeau is incredibly homophobic.

It is entirely possible to criticize policies without personal attacks, and perpetuating violence and harm. Please don't do it.

Omar Khadr:

This one comes up a lot because there are people who believe Omar was guilty and that he's a terrorist. Omar was 15 when he was taken to Guantanamo Bay, and he was abandoned by the Canadian Government.

This was a violation of his rights as a Canadian citizen, as it would have been if it were you or I.

This article below is very well written and has photo evidence that proves his innocence.

It also explains what led to his guilty confession, as well as the witness testimonies that sealed the deal.

nationalobserver.com/2017/07/07/opi…

As far as the $10.5m payout.

It would have cost the Canadian Government upwards of $40 million to keep this trial going, and it would have lost due to the clear violation of charter rights.

Trudeau settled in order to save taxpayers from incurring additional costs, as well as because it was just the right thing to do given the circumstances, and the rule of law.

We live in a bit of a strange time now where it's easy to manipulate information, and misinformation spreads like wildfire. Check your sources. There is a lot of fake stuff out there and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. We've all experienced this.

Fear is a powerful emotion, and I feel like politicians tend to tap into it for their own gain.

Please be respectful if you choose to comment. I am willing to discuss this peacefully and would love to hear people's thoughts, but insults, abuse, etc I will just ignore.

❤

Sorry for how long this is, and the formatting. It was all done via mobile using an app.

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