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by mfoy_ 2313 days ago
Ridiculous situation:

MPP Lisa Thompson defends new Ontario licence plates. Video clip from Question Period, she calls previous license plates "Liberal plates".

https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/f5xbtt/mpp_lisa_th...

4 comments

The previous plates, and every other plate re-launch in Ontario, were under Conservative governments.
True, and absolutely the most crazy part of this whole debacle so far. Even if the old plates were launched by the previous Liberal government... so what? They were as neutral as possibly imaginable.
In fairness, the Liberals did change the black on yellow plates to red on white, the Liberal party colours, in 2007. They also added a french slogan to the blue and white plates in 2008.

So what indeed. It really doesn't matter. But, there is at least a modicum of truth in the statement.

Additionally, the previous blue on white design was really on the NDP. The Conservatives' only contribution to the design was accommodating the seventh character when valid six character combinations ran out.

Harris (PC) added the seventh digit, but the overall design of the previous plates was unveiled under Rae (NDP).
What the hell is wrong with people?

I thought Canadians were better than this. Don't believe what your own eyes are telling you. Orwell turning over in his grave.

It works. The US has a remarkable ability to aim for the lowest common denominator -- in movies, in food, in technology -- and export that to the rest of the world. We're very good at finding things that are broadly appealing, and rewarding the people who create them.

Politics is no exception. The world watches us, and they take what works. None of it is ever really novel, but a lot of it lies fallow until somebody says, "Hey, we should try that again." And at first people may say, "You can't do that, because mumble mumble," but the reply is "I can't hear you over the sound of you losing."

Trolling your opponents is hardly new, but we've polished it off and discovered that it's a great way to bond a political party. They feel enthusiastic, and they go out and vote for more of it, while demoralizing your opponents -- who go out and try to make sense even harder, and fail worse, because it's the reason they lose in the first place. They remain baffled that people fall for cheap tricks, without ever accepting the reality that they do.

Are you really blaming the US for Canadian politicians shitty behavior?

As a Canadian, I can assure you we're more than capable of coming up with that behavior ourselves.

I loathe so much about my America's politics right now, but the US is not the source of all negative political activity. It's such a broad, incorrect assertion on its face.
No offence to any American looking to feel influential, but the Ford brothers were operating this tabloid populist bandwagon up here before Trump stepped up.
I thought Doug Ford entered politics in 2010. Before Trump was elected but after he became a Republican attack dog on Twitter, spreading lies about candidate Barack Obama.
Before Trump launched a serious populist political machine. Rob Ford started rolling the ball in 2001.

The start of political office Trump, when the actual machinery was put into motion as an organization, was 2016. They would have been crazy to not be using the Ford brothers as a useful model.

Speaking of Orwell, easily readable license plates make ALPR and bulk government location/travel surveillance more effective.
https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/they-work-government-stands-by-ne...

"Thompson added that the technology on the new plates has already been adopted by provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba and can be read by Highway 407’s automated toll cameras."

If this assertion is true, bulk surveillance is not impaired; only the ability of individual humans to identify the vehicle.

This is the most interesting thing in this entire thread - it means we effectively have QR codes as license plates.
Doug Ford is literally a thug from a family of drug traffickers. What did you expect?
Ontario is a disaster, don't be fooled. Ford is a mini-Trump.
I don't understand the point of this. I don't understand WHY they would waste my money on changing something that worked perfectly fine.
The new plate colour happens to be the colour of the conservative political party who voted it in
Because they can take a cut of that money for themselves.
So bizarre to make it your own party colors...