PMJT: The First 100 Days

[jollyjacktar]

oh oh, looks as if the honeymoon is starting to wane.  Should be interesting to see the bricks and bats come out.

 

[Altair]

oh oh, looks as if the honeymoon is starting to wane.  Should be interesting to see the bricks and bats come out.

http://www.threehundredeight.com/2016/02/january-2016-federal-polling-averages.html?m=1

Really?

 

[Kirkhill]

Really.

All those NDP Harperhaters that Trudeau co-opted, having married in haste now have the opportunity to repent at leisure.

Ed Broadbent, Stephen Lewis, David Lewis - all of them will recognize the playbook.

Too bad folks don't read history anymore.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Well, according to a story in the Globe and Mail it looks like part of the "Team Trudeau's" communication problem is "media logistics," and, Laura Stone reports, "The Prime Minister’s Office has poached the long-time chief of the Parliamentary Press Gallery to run media logistics for the new Liberal government ... Terry Guillon, the de facto administrative head of the gallery who worked as a liaison between Parliament Hill and journalists for 37 years, told The Globe and Mail he will join Justin Trudeau’s office after he leaves his current post on Feb. 19."

The report says, that "Mr. Guillon, who recently accompanied the Liberals on three foreign trips ... is a public servant and not a journalist nor a member of the press gallery."

Others, with more knowledge of media and communications have speculated, here on Army.ca, about problems "getting the message out." I assumed it was just the need to hire staff and get media lines straight, but it may be bigger ... or it may be that Mr Guillon should have been hired back in Oct, not now, which suggests a lack of professionalism in one part of the transition team.

 

[George Wallace]

Question as to the importance of having a "Gold Reserve".  Is it really that important?


Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.

CANADA SELLS 43.3% OF ITS OFFICIAL GOLD RESERVES
DAN POPESCU – GOLD AND SILVER ANALYST

According to the IMF (http://www.gold.org/research/latest-world-official-gold-reserves), Canada sold 1.3 tonnes of gold reserves (43.3% of its gold reserves) in January 2016. As of January 2016 Canada had 3.0 tonnes of Gold reserves and as of February 2016 only 1.7 tonnes.

Canada sold most of its gold in the 1990s with UK at the lowest price possible. Canada had 1,023 tonnes of gold reserves in 1965 the highest level recorded in its history. Canada sold off half of its central bank gold holdings by 1985 down to 500 tonnes and then was a major participant in the western central bank collusion scheme to suppress the price of gold and sold gold at fire sale prices all through the 1990s up to 2002.

If Canada kept its gold reserves of 1965 it would be today the 6th largest holder of official gold reserves.

One argument was that Canada doesn’t need official gold reserves since it is one of the largest underground gold holders.

More on links found on LINK.

What affect will the Trudeau Government's selling off of these Gold Reserves have on our National Debt, our economy and GDP? 

 

[jollyjacktar]

Heated twitter exchange between Gerald Butts and political analysts over ISIS fight stance or lack thereof. Rather fun to read the barbs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-twitter-butts-isis-policy-1.3440155

 

[jollyjacktar]

Question as to the importance of having a "Gold Reserve".  Is it really that important?


Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.


More on links found on LINK.


What affect will the Trudeau Government's selling off of these Gold Reserves have on our National Debt, our economy and GDP?

So, maybe that's how the budget will balance itself...

 

[The Bread Guy]

Heated twitter exchange between Gerald Butts and political analysts over ISIS fight stance or lack thereof. Rather fun to read the barbs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-twitter-butts-isis-policy-1.3440155

And that's why the Boss has to get the message straight before s/he delivers it - everyone's going to parse every syllable, no matter who's in, so best to have it down before than having the sidekicks "clarify" later.  If they really HAD said it hundreds/thousands of times before ...

... I assumed it was just the need to hire staff and get media lines straight, but it may be bigger ... or it may be that Mr Guillon should have been hired back in Oct, not now, which suggests a lack of professionalism in one part of the transition team.

... then maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe this is the case.

So, maybe that's how the budget will balance itself...

As much as I'm not really a PMJT Hater, if that's what they did and why, I wouldn't exactly call the budget "balanced by itself".

 

[jollyjacktar]

Sigh, as part of my upgrade to Win 10, I can't use the faces or hyperlink, quotes etc.  I was being sarcastic on the budget stuff but can't post the face to go with it (much to my annoyance).

 

[Kirkhill]

Head of the Parliamentary Press Gallery joins the Liberals after 37 years -  No reason for Harper to believe that the Parliamentary Press Gallery was biased, eh?  Just like the civil service.

And on the subject of the Gold Reserves.

http://army.ca/forums/threads/120785/post-1412264.html#msg1412264

It is as I was reading the Department of Finance table linked above that I discovered this curious fact.

In 2005, Paul Martin's last full year on the job Canada held gold reserves equivalent to 56 BUSD based on December 2015 valuations.

In 2006, Steven Harper immediately started building all foreign reserves, including gold.

That reached a high point of 181 BUSD in gold by 2012.

Since then the Government has been drawing down the gold account, presumably to offset the depreciating dollar.

At the time the Liberals took over the reins in November there was still 102 BUSD in that account, as of November 30th.

By December 30th that account had nosedived back to 58 BUSD, or the same level it had been at when Paul Martin was making the decisions - effectively wiping out all the additional reserves that Harper had squirreled away against a rainy day.

One month. US$ 44,000,000,000. 

Where did it go? What was it used for?  I am not suggesting anything nefarious.  Honest people can disagree on managing finances.

But what was the rationale?  And what does it say about how the Liberals plan to manage the books?

 

[George Wallace]

So, maybe that's how the budget will balance itself...

A quick fix?

What are the long term effects?

I am sure a brilliant economist can weigh in as to what affect this may have on Canada, if at all.  It may be a red herring to trip up us less enlightened.

 

[jollyjacktar]

I'm surprised that one of his two stalwart defenders here have not already charged to the rescue to explain it all to the great unwashed.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I'm surprised that one of his two stalwart defenders here have not already charged to the rescue to explain it all to the great unwashed.

Wait for it ...

 

[PuckChaser]

I have no idea why we have gold reserves, but if we've sold $44B USD of it, we should have a surplus on the upcoming budget of over $50B CAD, after the $10B deficit and exchange rates. If we don't, something funny is going on with the books, and the PBO needs to investigate.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If we had gold, it was an asset.  If we traded the gold for cash, now the cash is an asset.  The balance sheet doesn't change, nor does the fiscal balance, unless the cash moves somewhere (eg. used to pay program or debt costs).

 

[Altair]

I'm surprised that one of his two stalwart defenders here have not already charged to the rescue to explain it all to the great unwashed.

Told everyone I'm taking a break from this thread.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Heated twitter exchange between Gerald Butts and political analysts over ISIS fight stance or lack thereof. Rather fun to read the barbs.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-twitter-butts-isis-policy-1.3440155

For those wanting a quick visual summary;  :slapfight:

;D

 

[a_majoor]

You know the messaging is going seriously south when Ceasefire.ca is now speaking against the Young Dauphin's plan as well:

Mason: Let's leave this ill-considered military mission altogether
by Peggy Mason

Published in the Ottawa Citizen online, February 8, 2016

The U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State (ISIL) is in utter disarray. Things are going so badly that some Arab members of the coalition who left the bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to focus on Yemen now say they are ready to come back and provide ground forces. In the meantime, believing that President Bashar Assad is the best bulwark against ISIL, Russian air strikes are decimating coalition allies on the ground, blowing up the fragile UN-backed peace talks at the same time.

ISIL is proving so difficult to dislodge that the U.S., under cover of outrage over the November Paris attacks, has relaxed its targeting restrictions. And ISIL advances in Libya have the U.S. and U.K. openly musing about extending the war into that country. An urgent course correction is long overdue.

The non-military aspects of the new Liberal plan, including diplomatic peacemaking in Syria, and promoting regional stability and improving Iraqi governance, are important steps in the right direction. However, the military components of the Liberal response, which involve not only an expanded training role but continued participation in the air campaign through reconnaissance and refuelling, will only heighten Canadian involvement in an ever-deepening quagmire.

Since the announcement by Justin Trudeau that Canada would be withdrawing its CF-18s from the coalition bombing campaign, there has been an incessant media drumbeat demanding that he rethink this decision. The demand only intensified after the Paris attacks, as if the decision to change Canada’s role in the coalition was based on a misunderstanding of the threat and not on a desire to be more effective.

The federal government can be rightly castigated for not articulating more forcefully its reasons for wanting to adjust the role. But this does not excuse the failure of the Canadian media to consider the actual effect on the ground of the bombing campaign.

The so-called coalition “victories,” in which cities such as Kobane and Sinjar in Syria, and Ramadi in Iraq, are “liberated” with the help of massive air strikes, have resulted in the destruction of these cities. They are reduced to rubble, leaving nothing to house or sustain returning populations. Yet the American secretary of defence has made clear that this is his plan for cities such as Raqqa in Syria and Mosul and Fallujah in Iraq. If this plan is carried out, then the almost certain result will be far fewer habitable cities and far greater numbers of displaced, destitute populations.

But what about Canada’s intention to increase its training of local Iraqi forces? Surely that is another step in the right direction. Unfortunately, the devil is in the detail. Training the Peshmerga, which Canada is already doing, puts us in the position of helping fighters whose goal is not to liberate Iraq from ISIL but to create an independent Kurdistan. Particularly troubling are credible allegations from Amnesty International that Kurdish forces are engaged in “ethnic cleansing” of areas they retake from ISIL.

And we still have precious few Iraqi Sunnis to train since, in their stronghold of Anbar province, Sunni tribes have largely chosen what they see as the lesser of two evils, ISIL, over a corrupt and sectarian Iraqi government. In other words, our training should take a back seat to that part of the Canadian plan intended to focus on Iraqi governance.

As for Syria, as long as the civil war continues unabated, ISIL cannot be effectively contained.

Canada would have far greater impact if we pulled out of the military mission altogether and concentrated on regional stabilization, humanitarian measures and, above all, acting as a catalyst for a new strategy that puts diplomatic peacemaking in Syria and Libya and governance reforms in Iraq at the heart of coalition efforts.

Peggy Mason is president of the Rideau Institute and former Canadian disarmament ambassador to the United Nations.

In politics, just like the military, selection and maintenance of the aim is an all important consideration. The aimlessness of so much of the new government's messaging and apparent plans (we will see where the real priorities lie once the budget is released) is now becoming apparent to many on the Left who voted for unicorns and "nice hair".

 

[The Bread Guy]

You know the messaging is going seriously south when Ceasefire.ca is now speaking against the Young Dauphin's plan as well ...

Looks like a Liberal variation on the "the NDP's not socialist enough for some of the base" theme.

 

[Journeyman]

Mason: Let's leave this ill-considered military mission altogether

The federal government can be rightly castigated for not articulating more forcefully its reasons for wanting to adjust the role.

It's never been a case of inadequately explaining;  it's not having given any explanation whatsoever.  It is always been a policy portrayed as no more thoughtfully considered than  'Conservatives did A, so we will do B'

....because it's now 2016!