(I haven’t seen a good explanation of why we needed to increase the public sector by 20% since then, nor of what we got out of that. If you have anything, I’d love to read it!)

Here’s an easy explanation: we didn’t have enough.

Wait times are no fun, right? Need more people to process the things, or you need to remove some of the regulatory steps involved. Both those, the doing of the work and the fruitless “just make it faster” boondoggles, need meatbags to do the doing.

You now how we can tell we didn’t have enough? WAIT TIMES. When it’s zero, you may have too many staff. When it’s a day, you’re probably just right. Show me a wait time report and I’ll show you 12 months in processing delays that we should have avoided by grabbing an intelligent peon and making them do some things of the things that need doing – because processing delays and wait times are absolutely the shits right now.

QED

The last month or so haven’t been good for Mark’s electability. He should really lay low a bit until the attack ad potential dies down. I’d hate to see more morons choosing Milhouse.

Conservatives are requiring electronic votes for travelling MPs as far as I understand, so there’s very few excuses to “accidentally” abstain. However, one has already crossed the floor, and more are to come. If the Liberals don’t get a majority then I’m sure enough NDP are going to abstain for it to pass.

Good riddance they are a plague. Make them pay their taxes before they leave.

Ummm, did you forget you propsed they would be the solution to our budget woes? Or are you not old enough to pay taxes and don’t realize we do those on an annual basis? (Putting aside the fact that most billionaires don’t earn it on taxed wages but more that they own unsold stock.)

We are paying more, but guess what bowing down to trump has left us where exactly?

One of the best tarrif rates in the world?

Fucking nationalize shit if they play that game.

Dafuq? You’re saying nationalize google?

Jesus though, this is why it can be so hard to take progressives seriously. This is just mindless slogan yelling with zero thought.

Ummm, did you forget you propsed they would be the solution to our budget woes? Or are you not old enough to pay taxes and don’t realize we do those on an annual basis? (Putting aside the fact that most billionaires don’t earn it on taxed wages but more that they own unsold stock.)

I never said they would be the sole solution lol. I’m old enough to pay taxes and I’m pissed that my tax dollars subsidize them, you should be too. There are businesses that get crazy tax breaks that we should take back, spend taxes on the population not the ultra wealthy. Yes close the fucking loopholes.

One of the best tarrif rates in the world?

I’d rather not be kissing his ass at all.

Dafuq? You’re saying nationalize google

The infrastructure yes, but Google won’t leave Canada if we enforce our laws because there are millions of Canadians and they would still make criminal amounts of money.

Jesus though, this is why it can be so hard to take progressives seriously. This is just mindless slogan yelling with zero thought.

And this is why it’s so hard to take centrists seriously, this is just mindless asskissing and excuse making to keep getting bent further and further over the barrel. We keep this up and you will own nothing and be happy for it, with no rights, no privacy, living in a corporate town using musk bucks to buy your Microsoft verification cans.

I remain unconvinced that cuts for austerity purposes are ultimately beneficial, raise taxes on the ultra wealthy instead

never said they would be the sole solution lol.

Okay, so if we’re admitting your first plan of tax the wealthy is a little myopic here, which tax breaks are you considering removing? And how will this stop those businesses from instead, setting up shop in a lower tax, lower regulation, larger single market like Americas?

I’d rather not be kissing his ass at all.

How many people should lose their jobs because of your sense of pride? Just curious.

Google won’t leave Canada if we enforce our laws because there are millions of Canadians and they would still make criminal amounts of money.

Read what I wrote about the digital services tax. The concern was not that Google would leave.

And this is why it’s so hard to take centrists seriously

He just descends into mindless sloganning again. Everything I’ve said can be backed up, whereas your thoughts aren’t even consistent in this single thread!

That $2B USD from the digital service taxes would not be so bad now.

Also, guess who will pay less taxes, and who will foot the bill?

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/11/government-of-canada-releases-budget-2025-canada-strong.html
A bit better diluted: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/budget-highlights-9.6966595

(detailed): https://budget.canada.ca/2025/report-rapport/pdf/budget-2025.pdf

Okay, but the person to whom I’m responding wanted to save money by taxing them. So, what services would you cut to be rid of the people who are paying for those services?

The problem with the existence of billionaires is really the wealth inequality itself, not the number of dollars in their bank accounts.

Inequality is what gives the ultra-wealthy their outsized influence in the political economy.

Dollars are not scarce items; the government can issue currency essentially at will. Taxes aren’t there to fund services. They exist to reduce inequality.

So yes, tax the billionaires. And if they leave: we’re better off that way too!

Alright, I see you won’t take this seriously, and as such I won’t take you seriously. Best of luck to you

The budget was designed to pass.

That means that it was pathetically compromising towards environmental protections, worker protections, a strong stance against the US, etc., etc.

In other words, it’s pretty much a fucking milquetoast mess with nothing good.

To each their own.

Edit: removed personal details.

If you know anyone who works in government or a quasi governmental agency, they will tell you horror stories of colleagues who couldn’t be removed but couldn’t be arsed to do anything over the bare minimum (like being sober, showing up and handling at least one file a day.)

There has to be something in between the nihilistic conservative “burn it all down, no more bureaucracy!” and the opposite “every government employee is sacred!” I think a slow reduction through attrition and buyouts seems pretty reasonable and gives enough time to actually find efficiencies and innovations.

The fundamental flaw is equating corporate efficiency with public effectiveness. A company’s goal is shareholder returns, so it serves profitable customers and abandons the rest. We see this taken to its extreme with certain venture capital and private equity firms: they can buy a company, burden it with the debt used for its own acquisition, extract massive fees and dividends, and leave it a hollowed out shell. When it collapses, the architects of that failure are shielded from the consequences.

A government’s mission is the opposite: to serve everyone, especially the vulnerable. Applying this profit extraction model to public service doesn’t eliminate costs it just shifts them, following the destructive maxim of ‘privatize the profits, socialize the costs.’ For a corporation, this might be a successful short-term play. But for a government it’s long-term ruin

Applying this profit extraction model to public service

Getting back to 2019 spending levels over a few years is hardly hollowing out the government.

And what that freed up money is doing is investing in stuff that makes those services work better.

For example in healthcare, which is hanging on by a thread, I think a few billion are going to building and renovating hospitals and investing in a new medical school. Those all make the services more efficient and sustainable in the long run.

Edit: My goodness, the cuts are something like 13 billion out of a 500 billion budget.

Most of the money got reallocated to the military though.

They’re cutting 13 billion. 51 billion (over 10 years) is going to local infrastucture; housing, roads, health and sanitation facilities.

Yes, military got more (~82 billion) and I don’t love that. Though, one part I do love is that a chunk of that military is also dual use, so climate emergencies like wildfires, floods etc.

Then give it to firefighters, climate scientists and forestry. The military is reactive not preventative.

Sure, you can dislike the military spending.

That doesn’t mean the budget isn’t investing more in the public than it is withdrawing.

I dislike the increase in spending on military because the returns to the public are minimal, the US has proven that, decades running.

The theme seems to be “reduce operating spending, increase capital spending”. We’ll see how that will blow over with the opposition.