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Comment by kareemm | Hacker News Reader

I emailed 9 senators and heard back from one. Emailed the other 8 today. Even when you engage, there's little positive feedback. The older I get, the more I believe this is a feature of the system and not a bug.

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I feel most of us have been conditioned to prefer only the mildest and most inoffensive ways of protesting as valid and consider the rest impossible. In my view, governments today ignore protests because they don't actually threaten anything. A protest with teeth might be mass absenteeism from work, refusing to pay taxes, something that actually hurts.. although in this case it's probably a bit much, when the threat of real protest is completely gone you end up with authoritarian governments.

Or even just peacefully blocking the entrance to parliament and forcing them to arrest you to do their jobs.

France does protests more effectively. The government is paying attention there and trying very hard to hide the fact that the emperor has no clothes.

They are protesting against the same things that would make their situation better (like increasing the retirement age)

But they're too stupid to realize that

How does increasing the retirement age help? Genuinely curious

Pensions outspend every other social expense in France

The retirees have greater disposable income than the young people (read, most people in the labour market)

And of course the number of retirees is going up every day

Retirning early costs money. A lot. Every year you retire earlier is one year of income to pay extra, and one year of capitalisation less.

To give an idea of the orders of magnitude. France is 70M inhabitants. If 20 million people receive a pension of 24K€ one year longer, that's 480B€. The French yearly budget is 843B€. In total, France has spent between 8B€ - 27B$ on supporting Ukraine since 2022 (one of the other talking points)

France has just managed to increase retirement age to 64 years, and there are voices to re-instate it to 62. For reference:

• Germany: 65 to 67 years (depending on birth year; 67 for those born from 1964)

• United Kingdom: 66 years (rising to 67)

• Spain: 65 to 66.5 years (depending on career length)

• Netherlands: 67 years

The retirement age was moved from 65 to 60 in 1982, by the socialist Mitterand government. Life expectency has increased 9 years since then, and they have been trying (desperately) to move it back up since then.

Not retiring early means that money can be spent on other things. Such as the better schooling that the French kids were asking for.

It will also help in getting the French budget balanced. Something which it has not been since 1974. The EU rules require a national debt of max 60% of GNP. France is currently at 120%. For reference, Germany is at 63%, the Netherlands are at 44%. Spain is at 100%, and slowly falling.

In my experience, the major spending of governments goes out in corruption. It is much like the Parkinson's law. Government will eat any budget they have due to corruption and only provide basic necessities. After moving up the retirement age, that money will surely flow into some rich people's pockets rather than schools/healthcare. This is what the France is revolting about.

Out of interest, what is your experience in terms of government spending? How big a budget did you manage or oversee?

Hello internet stranger. I work in compliance investigations. If you want to see how gruesome government spending is, you may look up transparency international's reports, for example: https://www.transparency.org/en/countries/france.

Every western country with a pension system is slowly getting crushed under the weight of an ever-growing share of pensioners relative to the working age population. People live to 85 now, supporting 20 years of pension and healthcare while they vote against property tax increases, building housing, retirement age increases or any cut at all to their benefits is going to wreck the finances of any country. They were using immigration to backstop the system but that's slowing down now and is anyways not a sustainable solution.

Raise taxes on the wealthy.

Not going to support the “stupid” claim, I suspect the French public do have alternative solutions to their predicament in mind, some better than others no doubt, but ill take a stab at the answer: Context: The French government is underfunded, their debt burden is not healthy and if nothing changes they’re headed towards Greek-style economic problems (ie cost of debt gets too high, nobody trusts them enough to lend them the money they need, default could mean nobody will lend them money in future, so high risk, but avoiding default could mean enforced austerity as conditions of bailouts, which would be far more painful than just a retirement age change). Answer: Increasing the retirement age increases the working population (ie taxable population) and decreases the pension burden, so it’s one of the most effective levers to ease the costs to the government. The downside of course is it’s reneging on a contract with their own population, people working their whole lives with the promise of retirement are understandably not impressed when the goalposts are moved.

So make lower income people work longer rather than tax those at the top who take in the majority of wealth while doing the minority of work...

Tax the rich to solve all problems only works for so long. Eventually everyone has to be hit with the tax stick to support pensions, healthcare, a drive for a more US independent military, etc.

If it comes to that then it comes to that, but starting with the rich still makes sense.

Yeah, it's called redistribution. Right now everything is distributed upwards, so they so be taxed accordingly.

Also, we could significantly cut military spending and be fine if we stopped attacking other countries for no reason.

What countries has France attacked recently?

I didn't say France attacked anyone.

They can imagine themselves growing old which is pretty smart for young people

They cannot imagine themselves getting less than they put in because of an ever increasing proportion of non-workers.

Ironically, the younger people from whom to extract productivity to pay for the defined benefit pensions are being supplied by immigrants, who are also politically unpopular.

They are protesting again non-workers, also known as billionaires.

France’s annual spend on defined benefit pensions is north of $400B Euros and north of $300B Euros on healthcare. Seizing and liquidating the equity of everyone in France with a book value of $1B (or even $100M) would make no difference.

Maybe it would help the budget for 1 year?

Abolishing billionaires isn't about taking their money and then spending it back to them, it's about ending billionaires as a concept, because they are where all the money is going and the reason everyone else has a money shortage. If we subtract the part of the price of everything that goes to billionaires, things get a lot cheaper, and then we can afford them.

>they are where all the money is going and the reason everyone else has a money shortage.

You can look up all the government spending data, and wealth transfers from workers to non workers dwarfs all the billionaires’ combined net worths. The US federal government alone is 60%+ wealth transfers, not to mention state and local governments. These spending figures are measured in trillions of USD per year.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

The wealth of the top 0.1% would add up to much more..

Fortunately the government can’t just steal everyone’s net worth.

Today.

France has much lower per capita debt and deficit compared to the United States. I find it very funny to hear American media talk about the dire situation of French public finances.

They can because the USD is the world's reserve currency. Whenever the economic situation looks volatile, historically, organisations buy up USD and Treasuries as a its seen as a safe haven. That trust has been slowly eroding only due to the actions (and inaction) of the US admin regarding ukraine and iran

All the years of anti-violence rhetoric is probably harmful to democracy and human rights, because the entire point of a protest is to put up a large sign that says "Fix this problem or we will make it your problem."

Its the old MLK Jr vs Malcolm X bit. Everyone praises MLK Jr for his anti-violent approach, but that only worked because Malcolm X represented what would happen if people don't accept the non-violent solution. Gandhi preached non-violence to the extreme, and yet the government wasn't afraid of Gandhi killing himself, they were afraid of the masses of angry people that would fuck shit up if Gandhi successfully starved himself to death.

Specifically, non-violent protest works by demonstrating your ability to organize large groups of people in defiance of obstacles put in your way, very much including the law. It carries with it the implied threat that some non-trivial subset of that group would take up arms if asked.

Legal, peaceful protests really only demonstrate that your opinion has some level of popularity. Which can be useful for winning over the merely apathetic, but it does nothing against the outright opposed.

In France this week they burned down a town hall. Actually burned down - the town hall is gone - not that fake burned-down reporting they had about Seattle during BLM.

> refusing to pay taxes,

Taxes should be optional to start with. If you pay taxes you get services, if not you don't.

How do you stop the non-payers from using public systems?

It can be like any other system where you need some proof of payment. For example passes for roads where one has to pay a toll. To minimize complexity there can be a common pass for a bunch of services: roads, libraries etc. The important thing here is that there must be a way to opt out if needed. While it does shift complexity to billing each service, it removes more complexity from things like the extremely complex tax code.

(It does raise the question if the govt should have monopoly on roads etc. but that a bigger question.)

That sounds far worse than the current system IMO. Of course we already have people not paying in as much as the should.

Who else is going to build roads that anyone can use without being nickle and dimed into poverty? Certainly not for profit corporations.

>That sounds far worse than the current system IMO.

Nope. How often do you do taxes? Are you employed and/or do you own a small business?

>Of course we already have people not paying in as much as the should.

How do you decide how much a person should pay? Conversely how can you make sure that you are not paying into the pockets of the govt for services they don't render?

>Who else is going to build roads that anyone can use without being nickle and dimed into poverty? Certainly not for profit corporations.

Road are really cheap. ( cheap = cheaper than paying taxes) More than a century ago in the US about 3000 companies existed which constructed/operated toll roads.

Democracy. Electing people who do the things we want is how we decide things and stop the things we don't like.

You didn't answer my question:

How often do you do taxes? Are you employed and/or do you own a small business?

These will determine your views.

I didn't answer your question because I have found it pointless to argue with people who don't believe in supporting the society they live in.

Good try at the virtue signaling - i.e you care about society and I don't.

A more honest answer is - "I have never done my taxes and I'm 15 years old with very little life experience".

p.s - you won't get too far if you lied to me about doing taxes, because I'll ask you specifics on what you did.

How is that working out in the US?

It's not because we have allowed the wealthy to take complete control of the system. Though, really, it was designed that way all along.

We saw in the US early 1900s how that worked out. You literally had homes burning down because people didn't pay into the right fire fighter service to put out their homes. And how do you handle medical services like 911? Should we just leave the poor to die? How do you deal with people who don't believe they need X service and then they suddenly need it?

Libertarianism sounds great on paper and always falls apart in reality the moment a community grows in size and the individual can't match the good provided by the collective.

> Should we just leave the poor to die?

You can help them personally, not just the somebody else's money.

>You literally had homes burning down because people didn't pay into the right fire fighter service to put out their homes.

You left out many details. For example many people actually used fires to cook. And then there are accounts of fire departments starting fires off on purpose to justify their existence. And why shouldn't people be held responsible for their own fire safety, just like everything else? [For the records - I have lived in places with no fire department and 911 service]

Real question for you: what cumulative[*] tax rate on your income would you be comfortable with for the services that you are currently getting?

* cumulative = income tax + property tax+ sales tax + all other taxes

The fact is this political system of ours is heavily balanced in favor of those with the endless budgets and resources to spend engaging in "democratic" avenues of influence.

Mamdani released 9/11 files that prove Giuliani and his admin lied about toxic conditions

It's balanced in favor of the most nihilistic and toxic self dealing fucks

Boomers were not raised by principles of modern science; it was all being digested and packaged for education when they were kids

They’re religious nutters due to memory of their neurological makeup

Just Boomers are like that?

NYC released files showing internal warnings about asbestos, benzene, reoccupancy, and future lawsuits while Giuliani and others publicly called the air safe, and they show that later administrations withheld those records. They do not show that Giuliani or his administration lied. A lie requires knowing a statement was false, and the documents do not establish what Giuliani knew when he spoke or whether he rejected contrary advice rather than relying on the EPA.

And that's why rich people never get held accountable for their actions.

> Boomers were not raised by principles of modern science

I’m a Boomer with twelve years of post-secondary modern science education. My spouse, also a Boomer has spent her entire life in the academy. Your claim is false.

> They’re religious nutters due to memory of their neurological makeup

I’m an atheist Boomer. I haven’t a religious bone in my body. Your claim is false.

I’m sure there are other venues that will accept your ageist, angry and patently false generalizations as truth; but by and large this is not one of them.

You are text on a screen.

Boomers been in charge of politics and look and the environment and economy for youth

Your generation has been engaged in willfully ignorant ageism against next generations this entire time; oh atheist huh?

Still a child labor exploiter. Chanting "the right words" is low effort political correctness. Selfish af to self select language.

Your awareness of some language some long dead elder decided represented some ground truth is all your education is; your biology itself is still prone to ignorance and self selection at the expense of others

You made the usual mistake in logic; delusion our social abilities gives rise to an ability to be more than a squishy meat suit

You are an outlier.

> emailed 9 senators and heard back from one

Good start. Calls are also excellent. Then get your neighbors to do the same.

For controversial stuff, you want tens to hundreds of outreach events recorded. It doesn’t take all that much for electeds to spell a festering primary threat.

electeds? primary threat? i think that might backfire in the canadian senate

i know i voted against the referendum question last week to consider moving to a US inspired elected senate system. i dont think we need that pageantry

> electeds? primary threat?

I'm familiar with American and Swiss elections. In both, the principal threat to an incumbent is from an own-party challenger to their seat.

For an incumbent, particularly one in a comfortable seat, an opposition candidate is usually not an issue. But someone from inside the camp is annoying and requires rhetorical contorting and lots of spending, spending that can then leave one vulnerable to an otherwise-benign opposition candidate. (Also, motivated activists are annoying in the best way.)

A smart elected–in these systems–will thus take a call to defuse anger before it develops into organized activism.

Ah, to clarify, Canada's upper house is basically a house of lords equivalent that we expect to be full of puffed up nobodies that get paid a too generous stipend to sit there and keep their mouths shut. Canada has one elected congress body (the one we all talk about) and then this vestigial senate which is generally expected to sit there and silently approve everything that passes through it.

It does technically have power, but it's like the King's power to veto UK legislation - he can do it precisely once and then he'll be stripped of the power.

> Canada has one elected congress body

Canadian MPs are electeds. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Canadian Senate being referred to as an elected body—it’s irrelevant to the above.

> but it's like the King's power to veto UK legislation

Honestly this old chestnut comes up time and time again.

As much as many people would love the King/Queen to put the politicians in their place sadly there are two problems.

First, the monarch's role is effectively only ceremonial these days. Even "The King's speech" during opening of parliament is actually a piece of paper written by the ruling-party of the day, the King just sits there in his fancy regalia and reads it verbatim.

Second, if you are referring to veto during the royal ascent process. As per Wikipedia, the King does not have pure veto power, his options are:

    - grant royal assent, thereby making the bill an act of Parliament.
    - delay the bill's assent through the use of reserve powers, thereby invoking a veto.
    - refuse royal assent on the advice of his or her ministers.

None of the above is a pure veto option. The nearest the King can get is delaying it.

And what happens if he refuses royal accent against the advice of his ministers?

> And what happens if he refuses royal accent against the advice of his ministers?

Not my area of expertise, but at a guess.

I think that is the reason the His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition exists as a formalised concept (i.e. the party that came second in the elections), i.e. in the scenario you envisage, the King would still refuse it on the advice, but that of the recognised opposition minister (Leader of The Opposition).

But in reality an early election would likely be triggered the normal way well before things reached that state of affairs.

It would afterall be quite extraordinary circumstances if both the Prime Minister and Leader of The Opposition were pushing the king to grant ascent to a piece of law but the King still felt he should to refuse !

Yeah, I think it'd be excellent if we could just disband our upper house and while it's worth pushing them to act on this bill I loathe the senate's continued existence and would rather be in a position where this emergency call happened prior to it passing the house.

There are no primaries in Canada at all.

Parties select their representatives who run in the election.

The system basically guarantees that insiders cannot be removed.

That actually sounds crazy to me. At least for the House of Commons. I'm amenable to upper chambers of bicameral legislatures being indirectly elected. That's how the US Senate used to be before the constitution was amended.

The British system which Canada basically copied is entirely designed to prevent real democracy.

The only thing that takes the Westminster system away from enabling real democracy is political parties, and they hadn't been invented when the system was designed. It took around 400 years before someone finally found the hack to break it. The original designers would have never envisioned the possibility that it could be hacked like that.

I think you're misreading. MPs are directly elected. Anyone can run to be an MP (You have to collect 50 to 100 signatures from supporters and fill out some paperwork). Whoever wins the most votes in a riding becomes MP.

It's the property of a candidate being affiliated with a party - an indirect part of the election - that is run by the parties rules that are generally less than entirely democratic in nature.

Do you have several parties or just two?

Liberals NDP Greens Conservative

Liberals NDP and Greens would never form a government with the Conservatives so the liberals are effectively always in power.

Which means insiders in the liberal party are in charge and voting is partly irrelevant unless you're voting for the conservatives, but they would need an actual straight majority.

Except for my entire 20s the conservatives were in power, so...

Except with the minority, the NDP got a few of their platform issues through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Stephen_Harper

The Green party is not a force in Canadian politics,they have one seat and barring radical events will never have another.

Th Bloc has 21 seats, and has had as many as 54. They would certainly ally with the conservatives. (Not the modern maple maga variety, but old school PC).

Had two seats literally one election ago and are looking likely to get that second one back.

I know two seats is not "a force" but saying they'll never have another than one seems silly in this context.

The Federal Greens have had more than one seat before. Support for Greens is growing, and PEI may elect a provincial Green government next.

My senator doesn't have a number you can call to talk to an actual person. When you call you get an automated message telling you to fill out a contact form on their website. When you fill out the form all you get is an automated response telling you how the senator is fighting for your rights as a citizen (not even acknowledging that you contacted them) and as a bonus you get signed up for their political bullshit newsletter. If you go to their office, it's behind security and multiple locked doors that you can't get through unless you have an appointment. To get an appointment you have to call the office.

When the maze is only dead ends, why is it surprising that people disengage?

Nobody said its surprising. Everyone knows this is on purpose. That's why it's even more important to fight it.

"Pick a different protein? I'd rather pick a different senator."

> why is it surprising that people disengage?

Because it’s volunteering to cede power. If that’s one’s choice, call it what it is.

If your elected is truly stonewalling you, find their last competitive election. Reach out to their opposition. If it truly doesn’t exist, found or find someone who will found it.

(The one easy step you may have skipped is mailed letters. If your elected or electorate is older, this may be how they filter feedback.)

Mailed letters result in a form letter about their stand on shit that doesn't matter to me.

The last time there was a competitive election in my district was the 70's before the state was gerrymandered to hell and back.

Too many people vote for a candidate just because of the little r or d next to their name on the ballot.

Colin Deacon seems to care: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7519403...

Paula Simons has also been actively listening to Canadians on this subject. https://sencanada.ca/en/senators/simons-paula/

Paula Simons is almost certainly against Bill C-22, so it probably won't be of any use to contact her about rejecting it. I would focus efforts on other Senators.

Members of the Senate committee reviewing C-22:

Marty Deacon (Ontario) Committee chair 613-943-3429 Tony Ince (Nova Scotia) Deputy chair 343-991-5540 Andrew Cardozo (Ontario) Committee member 613-996-9545 Katherine Hay (Ontario) Committee member 343-991-5536 Rebecca Patterson (Ontario) Committee member 613-995-2185 Hassan Yussuff (Ontario) Committee member 613-944-1108 Kim Pate (Ontario) Committee member 613-995-9220 John M. McNair (New Brunswick) Committee member 613-995-5060 Victor Boudreau (New Brunswick) Committee member 613-947-4110 Judy A. White (Newfoundland and Labrador) Committee member 613-996-2433

You won't be able to convince representatives with facts and logic. So many people want their attention that they can't pay enough attention to your arguments to be convinced. Contacting them is about showing that you care about it.

If they receive 100 calls of people saying they're strongly against a bill and no for they might reconsider their position.

Also calling is a better signal of showing you care then emailing.

Why not both?

No region in Canada has 17 senators. Are you sure you’re contacting the appropriate offices?

Honestly senators probably don't have the time to answer everybody directly even if their concerns have an impact on their decision

Haha. You don't email them, you cut off their funding and smear their public image. This is how you make them move, not with emails. It takes some work though.

Careful there, too much of this kind of thinking and the MPs are going to find child porn on your phone, you sick criminal thief trying to overthrow the government.

This also. It's a race who's going to find CP where. Or whatever else.

That's politics 101. Read up Mark Twain's Running For Governor.

Where’s the cut-of-their-funding lever?

Dial #lever and say “cut off”.

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