[hedora]

Wasn't the previous Canadian prime minister at least as xenophobic as Trump? (e.g., they revoked a bunch of dual citizens' Canadian citizenship)

What will prevent Canadians from out-crazying the US in the next major election?

(Honest question; Vancouver is a beautiful city, and presumably much less expensive than SF.)

[cldellow]

The previous government was nowhere near the same. Where Trump is openly xenophobic, the Harper Conservatives were more dog whistle stuff, e.g. stripping citizenship from duals who were guilty of terrorist charges and proposing the creation of a hotline to report "barbaric cultural practices".

IMO, the unchanging thing about Canadians is we want to be able to look down our noses at Americans. This is a stupid way to govern, but it runs deep in the Canadian psyche. Trump has caused many people here to realize that our self-righteousness is at risk if we permit such a candidate to run, let alone win, here.

Consequently, the more moderate candidates in the ongoing Conservative leadership race are reaping windfalls from every mean-spirited or xenophobic thing that Trump does. After the shooting at a mosque in Quebec, Michael Chong (a front-runner in the leadership race) denounced demagogues like Trump and Leitch (she of "barbaric cultural practices" fame, also a leadership candidate)--and it was well-received by conservatives and liberals alike.

And, for additional context, the last time my hometown elected a non-conservative was 49 years ago, so if they're rejecting such leaders, I'm reasonably confident the broader country will, too.

[conistonwater]

WRT citizenship, if I googled it correctly, C-24 requires a terrorism-related conviction, or having obtained the citizenship by misrepresentation or fraud, in order to strip a dual citizen of their Canadian passport. It doesn't seem to be in the same category of things as the sorts of things Trump's doing. I'd say compared with Tories, the Republicans really are in a class of their own.

[throwanem]

> It doesn't seem to be in the same category of things as the sorts of things Trump's doing.

Indeed. While we have similar laws regarding denaturalization, Trump did not make them. But you're probably right about the rest; I doubt a Tory PM would demonstrate the same level of sloppy, slapdash, incompetent jackassery we're seeing from the new occupant of the Oval Office.

Tangentially: I get there's a lot of fear going around on the subject of authoritarianism, dictatorship, Nazis, et al. I don't buy it, not least because we had the same with Bush, and the only difference of note in today's rhetoric is that it's as much hotter and faster as the Internet that powers it - remember that Facebook and Twitter weren't a thing back then. (So far we've come!)

Trump is no Hitler, though, any more than Bush was. He's not even a Mussolini. He might be some fraction of a Berlusconi, but most of all, at least to judge his performance so far, he's an utter boob, and not the first we've had in the office. I suppose an appeal for moderation in rhetoric, and awareness of history in one's analysis, is foredoomed to mockery and oblivion in this age of hot takes and clickbait. But it might ease the mind a bit to take, where you can, a somewhat longer view.

[conistonwater]

It could be that we've been reading different things (Twitter and Facebook aren't good for this sort of things IMO), but my impression is that people had justified suspicions, and that these weren't just Hitler comparisons (which really should be called out, they're too far out). Authoritarianism can mean a range of things, none of them good, and so so long as people base their arguments on things that Trump and his team said or things that they did, people should be on solid enough ground.

As an example, you say "he's an utter noob", and, sure, that is one of the possibilities. But it's not the only possibility, so one would be wrong to say that it's obvious, for example, that he's an utter noob. He might be, or he might not be. How do you know? And those other possibilities have to be considered too, to be fair. It'd be wrong to dismiss them straight up as clickbait without examining the merits.

(I'm not sure if you meant noob or boob, it looked like a typo to me, but as luck would have it, my reply works both ways.)

[throwanem]

Not saying I'm certain, just that it seems the parsimonious conclusion right now.

(I did mean "boob" - see https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/boob .)

[mercurysmessage]

I think a problem with this administration is the ties to Bannon and Breitbart. There is a lot of white nationalism (alt-right) going on in those ranks.

[hedora]

Hmm. I know Canadians that have dual US and Canadian citizenship, and they had to jump through all sorts of hoops ~ 6 years ago. They live in the US. Not sure about the details.

[baursak]

As far as I know Trudeau government already repealed it.

[jpdaigle]

You are thinking of Bill C-6, to repeal the changes from bill C-24. Although it passed over a year ago, it was referred to Senate Committee last December and since then, status hasn't been updated.

So "repealed" is premature, as C-6 still doesn't have any announced target date for entering in effect.

[WestCoastJustin]

House price is about on par with San Fran. You can check it out via mls.ca and look around the Vancouver area. There is and has been a massive amount of money coming into the Vancouver housing market driving things a little crazy.

[serge2k]

> Wasn't the previous Canadian prime minister at least as xenophobic as Trump?

God no. They passed a (bullshit) law saying that they could revoke the Canadian citizenship of someone under specific circumstances. You had to be a dual citizen (or eligible?) and commit one of a few crimes.

- obtaining citizenship by fraud (this I think is entirely reasonable) - committing an act of terrorism - treason - taking up arms against Canada

The liberals repealed some of this already (IIRC everything but the portions about fraudulently obtaining citizenship).

> What will prevent Canadians from out-crazying the US in the next major election?

We have a sane electoral system and just generally aren't as crazy.

[trapperkeeper79]

A correction to what you said: Bill C-6 (which undoes the damage done by the conservatives) has been stuck in the senate for many months. I followed it closely, and it was a bit disheartening. Checkout the forums of the website canadavisa.com to see people's frustrations.

I'm a Canadian and I am very worried about the future of our country. Due to various factors, new laws affecting large swathes of the population can get effected very quickly. What starts off as reasonable laws can get co-opted into something very crazy (any student of history should know this well). I echo the concern made by a few others that we are one election away from craziness. Not sure how things are going to go at this point. As a visible minority, I am scared.

[battlebot]

The whole "this is crazy" bit is a matter of opinion only, you understand that, yes?

What tech companies are so upset about is being cut off from their cheap source of exploitable labor. The rest of the huffing and puffing is just a smokescreen to make you forget what they are guilty of.

[cronjobber]

Yes, it's funny how the wage slaves cheer along with their billionaire idols. Mixture of the lottery player's hope of also winning the jackpot, and fear of losing the job they realistically must expect to be chained to instead (at least until they hit 39, that is.)

[nickthemagicman]

Its crazy on a practical level because those tech companies aren't going to lose their cheap source of exploitable Labor..they'll figure a way around it. it's crazy because the country is going to be losing out on so much tax money from these countries Outsourcing and moving their operations overseas or to Canada.

[throwanem]

> those tech companies aren't going to lose their cheap source of exploitable Labor..they'll figure a way around it

That's pretty much what we're looking at right here, don't you think?

[nickthemagicman]

It seems unavoidable. Am I wrong?

[mercurysmessage]

Are they actually paying foreign nationals less? As far as I can tell, it's just a talking point about H1B, compared to "expensive" US talent. Google, Apple and the like seem to pay very high wages to all employees.