it would seem that carney has emerged as the runaway favourite, with chrystia freeland running at a distant second and karina gould as an also-run. there's some business guy running, too, apparently.

there's one more candidate.

is ruby dhalla a dark horse in the liberal leadership, given that they use preferential voting, she's a legitimate outsider, she's the only immigrant on the ballot and she knows how to leverage her appealing appearance?

she might be.

it does look like carney will win the most votes on the first ballot, and the expectation should be that he will win by the third round at the latest, but i wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being dhalla that gives him a run, rather than freeland.

the reality is that appearances are very important in politics. it's better to learn that at the start of your career than at the end of it. that's just real life.

in ontario, the liberals have tended to lean pretty far to the left, as well, and the differences in policy are often difficult to articulate. often times, on issues such as gun control, the ndp actually come out to the right of the liberals. it's counter-intuitive. 

i don't support merging the parties.

but they need to stop competing. it's stupid.

it's a classic prisoner's dilemma.

if the liberals and ndp were smart about this and co-operated rather than competed, they could probably at least hold ford to a minority, and could possibly form a coalition government.

instead, they're going to be stupid and compete and both lose, and ford will win another majority.

if the liberals and ndp want to throw this fatass dumbfuck loser doug ford out of office this cycle, and probably next cycle, they're going to have to strike an accord. it's not that doug ford is particularly popular, although his demographic numbers are admittedly somewhat frightening if you break them down and analyze them. these are numbers that should really throw liberals in this country for a loop. the problem is that the anti-ford vote is almost evenly split almost everywhere, and they don't make any attempt to work together in any way, they just show up to compete against each other, they run directly against each other, they split the vote and they throw the election away. it's utterly foolish, tactically.

there is no possible outcome besides a ford landslide, and a situation where he gets 40% of the vote and has 100% of the legislative power. i don't want doug ford to be premier any more, and his approval rating is worse than joe biden's, but there's no realistic path to get rid of him.

the liberals and ndp need to take a different approach and should perhaps look at the recent elections in france for ideas as to what to do.

the truth is that america is really more like mexico than canada.

maybe it could consider joining mexico, or brazil, instead.

i'm going to flip this issue over.

the united states is not good enough to be a part of canada, like turkey or ukraine is not good enough to be a part of europe. there are a few things that the united states needs to change about itself before canada would consider admitting it to be a part of the dominion.

1) it needs to adopt the metric system.

2) it needs universal healthcare. today. this is non-negotiable. this cannot wait any longer.

3) it needs a bill of rights with bodily self-ownership in it, so that abortion is a constitutional right.

4) it must do away with property rights immediately. yuck. gross.

5) it has to accept better protections for trans rights, and allow for state-funded transgender surgery.

6) it needs a multi-party democratic system. the two party system is not democracy.

7) abolish the second amendment, outright. yuck. gross. i don't want that kind of bullshit in my constitution.

8) ban the death penalty.

9) abolish all slavery, including prison labour.

this is not a complete list, it's a set of basic starting points.

once the americans have implemented these policies, they can get back to us about becoming a part of canada.

odsp is currently about 55% of minimum wage (net, not gross, which is more appropriate because we don't pay taxes), which is too low, but i'd settle for a doubling in the housing amount, which is the actual problem and an issue everybody is dealing with. 

odsp, however, needs something more than money thrown at it. it is suffering from a design flaw brought in during the harris years to shift to something market-based. this was rooted in the silly conservative idea that people are more free when they have more financial choices (because that's what i want in my life, the freedom to make financial decisions. right. in fact, that's about the last thing i give a fuck about.) and less free when they have less financial choices. ergo, disabled people would be more free if better allowed to participate in the market. essentially zero disabled people agree with that logic; disabled people generally want freedom from markets and look to odsp as an escape mechanism from the tyranny of the market, which they can't compete in. 

it's the same issue with religion. conservatives want freedom of religion. secularists want from from religion.

today, they give us 55% of the minimum wage and tell us to compete with minimum wage earners for market housing. a one bedroom apartment in the cheapest city in ontario is roughly the same amount as my entire odsp check, $1300-$1400/month. how can i compete on the market when i'm not given the resources to? but, it's the premise - that disabled people can compete on the market - that is actually the problem, because it's backwards and orwellian and stupid. the definition of being disabled is that you can't compete on the market.

the inevitable outcome of telling disabled people to look for market housing and then giving them 55% of the minimum wage is that disabled people are going to end up homeless. the math is pretty oppressive. it doesn't work out any other way. worse, the disabled are the people in society least able to pull themselves out of poverty, or generate money from nothing. then the conservatives moan and complain and whine that they're throwing away all this money on the disabled, when this is actually not what we want and not what we need.

odsp needs to be redesigned to fix this design flaw brought in during the harris years by stop telling disabled people to pay market rent and then handicapping them by preventing them from being able to compete on the market by giving them too low a fraction of the minimum wage, so that they cannot compete with minimum wage earners for housing. the two ways to do this are to get odsp recipients out of market housing by increasing subsidized housing (which is the better idea) or, if you want to hold to the delusions of market theory, by setting the amount that odsp recipients receive to an amount that allows them to compete on the market. they would need to at least double the shelter amount from $600 to $1200, keeping in mind that, as a disabled person, i actually don't need income for things like gas money, because i can't afford (and in my case don't want) a car.

i'm such a dour realist that when i dreamt of gentle, rolling fields and pastures this evening (as i truly did, i woke up a little after 1:00), it was in an algorithmic pattern, so i could deconstruct it into computer code.

my brain subconsciously deconstructed the landscape into patterns and turned it into a cgi background.

some napkin math for the liberals.

29026*.85/12 = 2056.

1368x = 2056 <----> x = 2056/1368 = 1.50

a 50% increase, and legislation that it increase at the same rate as the minimum wage so that the distance between the two is maintained (canada is a metric space. i'm sorry.), would be sustainable and fair.

bonnie crombie repeated in the debate that she wants to double odsp, which is something that i've heard politicians say before, and sounds encouraging, but should actually be taken as a red flag - it's not a serious promise, and it will be broken. as an odsp recipient that is having difficulty finding housing, an increase in benefits is exactly what i need right now; it would be a godsend. however, i want to see and hear a serious plan for odsp that is sustainable and realistic, not a crazy promise to win my vote.

what would doubling odsp actually mean?

As of February 2025, Ontario's minimum wage is projected to increase to $17.82 per hour on October 1, 2025. This would result in a gross monthly income of approximately $35,149.92 for a full-time employee working 26 pay periods per year. However, after taxes, the net income would be approximately $29,026. 

ok.

how much would my yearly income be if you doubled my odsp check?

it's currently $1368 and set to increase by around 3% on aug 1 due to inflation, as it is pegged to inflation. $1368*12 = 16416. 16416*2 = 32832. they don't tax this.

so, if you doubled odsp, my income would be higher than minimum wage. unless you also boosted minimum wage - and maybe you should, to $20 - that would not be fair. as an odsp recipient, i know that's not fair.

however, we've increased minimum wage faster than odsp and that's created a problem that was foreseeable. that was a bad policy choice.

something fair and sustainable would be to set odsp as a fraction of the minimum wage, say 85%, and ensure they increase together, so increasing one doesn't harm the other. i don't want to play into protestant work ethic narratives about lazy disabled people, but some subset of alcoholics and drug users (particularly) should have that incentive in place. this does not describe most odsp recipients, who have legitimate disabilities, but it is a nontrivial subset and if you tell them they're better off doing drugs on odsp, they will make that choice.

when she tells me she wants to double my income, i'm supposed to run to the voting booth. i'm not that stupid and i don't appreciate having my intelligence insulted.

i'd call on the liberals to release a serious, sustainable plan for odsp. the province needs it. i need it. it's overdue and required.

if you could go back in time to 2025 and kill elon musk before he started world war three, would you do it?

hitler's biggest early backer was henry ford.