In this episode, I talk about the Canadian public's reaction to the Trudeau government's proposed budget for the year 2020-2021, and why I don't think it's a good one. I also talk about why most people aren't thinking about the budget and why they don't care about it.
00:00:00.000As you already know, the federal liberal government tabled its 2024 budget last week, and although it hasn't been voted on yet, I think we all know it's going to be passed. It's not going to be a surprise when it gets passed. As much as Jagmeet Singh and the NDP are playing hard to get, pretending they don't know if they're going to vote for the budget or not, they will vote for the budget.
00:00:18.140They can't afford not to vote for the budget. Both the liberals and the NDP as parties are completely broke. Their polling is horrible. And really, Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau don't really disagree on that much other than Jagmeet Singh is just simply another step to the left of Justin Trudeau. So they're going to vote for it. They have to vote for it.
00:00:37.340But what was kind of surprising for me in this budget is when you look at the Canadian public's reaction, because a budget in Canadian politics is supposed to be a very, very crowd-pleasing item to pass an ear.
00:00:49.060Everyone tends to agree what's in the budget. Even if you're a liberal, you tend to agree with conservative budgets. Conservatives tend to agree with liberal budgets. And because most people aren't that partisan, so when you present them with a lot of good-sounding things that money is being spent on, they're just going to say, well, that sounds pretty good.
00:01:03.940But look at this. This is the Angus Reid poll where they pulled like 3,000 people on what they thought of the budget. You go to the top-line stuff that has more support, but still, only 74% of people agree with spending more money on disability benefits, increased disability benefits. And 74% is very high, but there's 26% of people just saying, stop spending money. In a normal year, that would be like 90% of people saying, yes, spend money on disability benefits.
00:01:27.820Here, funding free contraceptives and some diabetes medication for all. Only 70% of people in favor of that. Because again, the questions are kind of asked in a bit of a skewed way. I don't think it's because the pollster's biased, but they're basically just saying, are you in favor of spending on this?
00:01:44.140They're not saying, are you in favor of inflation and taxes going up to spend on this? If you ask that, the polling numbers would be way lower. But the fact that this many Canadians are still saying no to all this good-sounding stuff, I don't think it's actually good.
00:01:57.980Because under the surface, the private sector would do a way better job delivering this stuff, and I know it's going to cause more inflation taxes and whatnot. But the average Canadian's not thinking that deeply about it.
00:02:07.800So this one, funding infrastructure for new housing developments, only 65% of people in favor. $9 billion in new funding over five years for Indigenous health, housing, education, income assistance. Only 54% of people in favor of it. More defense spending, only 51.
00:02:22.960This one's a little bit of an obtuse one, where technically in the budget, they're cutting 5,000 people in the public service, but they're obviously going to employ way more people than that. So it's kind of a weird category. It doesn't really matter for us to talk about it.
00:02:38.620And this is focusing on general relational fairness to help younger Canadians. Only 51% of people in favor of that. And yes, you can say 51% of people are in favor of that, or 74% of people are in favor of this item or that item.
00:02:51.640Again, guys, budgets are made so that 90% of people will be in favor of them, right? Because the thing is that the questions are just saying, are you in favor of more disability spending? And, you know, caught in the middle of your day on the phone with a pollster, you're just going to say, yeah, sure.
00:03:05.780The fact that people are thinking about it, thinking this is Justin Trudeau's budget. No, you have enough money already. Figure out how to do it without increasing spending. That is what is actually being shown in these polls.
00:03:17.760Because when you look at these other polls that Angus Reid did more on general questions about the budget, this question says,
00:03:23.740Based on what you've seen, read or heard, does this recent federal government budget make you more hopeful or more pessimistic about the following?
00:03:31.300Your own personal financial situation, 47% say more pessimistic. The economic future of Canada, 56% say more pessimistic.
00:03:40.140Only 12% of people said they're more hopeful about the future of the country economically.
00:03:44.920And 9% said personally, their personal futures that they're more hopeful of.
00:03:49.220And then you get some people saying no change, but no change is obviously just the default answer.
00:03:53.820It's even more default than saying not sure, because most people who are not sure will just say no change.
00:03:59.120But anyways, you go down to this other one.
00:04:01.940And it says, do you feel the changes planned by the federal government will make the following better or worse or have no effect on the availability and affordability of housing where you live?
00:04:10.720And so renters are mostly against this budget.
00:04:14.260All the things that the government is planning to change, basically bribing cities to wipe out zoning rules and to invest more in affordable housing,
00:04:21.520which is just going to be a massive boondoggle where no real extra housing is going to be put up.
00:04:26.020But we all get to pay more in taxes and inflation is going to spike.
00:04:29.620Owners, owners, non-mortgage, other, yeah, has mortgage.
00:05:13.780For the most part, yeah, you can get most people to agree to some flowery language about the budget.
00:05:18.540The fact that people are now in almost half of what some of these policies, half of people are saying, no, don't spend more on that, is super telling about the mood of the country.
00:06:14.180The liberals are currently dealing with a base of supporters who more than half of them think that the liberals are making massive mistakes in government.
00:06:22.700And you can't go into a new federal election with most of your base thinking that you're full of it.
00:06:28.280You even see the polling where they ask people, would you like to see a federal liberal government re-elected or a majority re-elected?
00:06:35.720And only about 17% of people support that notion.
00:06:38.880And when you look at the polling, the liberals poll at 24% to 25%.
00:06:43.400So about a third or a little bit more than a third of the liberal support is saying, we don't actually want to see Justin Trudeau as the prime minister again.
00:06:51.020Yes, we'll vote liberal locally because maybe we like our local guy or we generally like the liberal brand.
00:06:56.800But although they're voting liberal, they don't actually want the liberals to win, which means that either they're lying about supporting the liberals or, at the very least, they're probably not going to show up.
00:07:07.260Or at least they're not going to show up for anyone who's not their local guy.
00:07:10.500So they're voting liberal, not for Justin Trudeau, but maybe just because they don't like the conservatives for whatever reason because probably they watch way too much mainstream media.
00:07:17.760So yeah, this budget has been an absolute flop.
00:07:21.280It was a shot in the arm that Justin Trudeau thought he needed, and it ended up just being poisoned for his party.
00:07:27.620It just leaned into all the worst things that people already assumed about the liberals.
00:07:31.580They spend too much, they tax too much, and all their plans are just the same old stuff with more dollar signs attached to them.
00:07:37.720Anyways, that should be it for me today, guys.
00:07:40.120Shameless plug, I, Wyatt Claypool, I'm running for the Calgary Signal Hill Conservative Party nomination.
00:07:45.060So if you live on the west side of Calgary, basically the riding is straight west from the city center.