To do list for Mark Carney:
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Encourage all Government Agencies to switch to Linux. It's completely ridiculous that hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money are wasted every year on Microsoft licenses. The French Gendarmerie switched to Linux and they never went back to Windows. They saved millions. Money that they can spend on actually doing their job.
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Create a Canadian fund to encourage Open Source Software. A $10 million fund over 5 years would not be much money, but it could help open source software developers. A small $100 000 grant could really help Gimp, Kdenlive and Krita fight Adobe. Too many Canadian artists and Canadian production companies are exploited by Adobe.
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Ban foreigners from owning more than 40% of any Canadian media outlet. It's absolutely sickening that an american hedge fund (Chatham Asset Management) currently owns 20 different canadian newspapers.
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Reduce the immigration rate. Justin Trudeau did a lot of good things, but immigration was one of two biggest failures. Under his leadership, the population increased by 3% a year. The Canadian population increase twice as fast as the population of Mexico, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. This is too extreme. Canada should aim for 2% population growth instead of 3%. Also, don't concentrate people in a single place. It's wrong to have a 4% population growth in Toronto and 0.5% elsewhere.
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Improve the voting system. This was the second failure of Justin Trudeau. The First-Past-The-Post voting system is just flawed. It is basically designed to create two very powerful political parties, at the expense of pluralism. FPTP is the reason why the US is stuck with only two parties.
Understanding the politics.
After the last 2021 election, Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party didn't have enough seats in Parliament.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election#Results
Jagmeet Singh (NDP) asked Justin Trudeau for 3 laws:
A law creating Dental Care
A law creating Pharma Care
A law protecting striking workers against scabs.
In exchange for these 3 laws, the NDP signed an agreement where they promised to not bring-down the minority Liberal Government.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60837941
The 3 laws were voted by Parliament.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeu-jagmeet-singh-deal-government-1.6393021
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pharmacare-bill-passes-senate-1.7349433
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anti-scab-labour-federally-regulated-workplaces-1.7023020
The agreement between Justin Trudeau and the NDP ended prematurely in 2024. Singh noticed that Trudeau was becoming politically toxic. But Dental Care was adopted. Pharmacare was adopted. That's what's important.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-ending-agreement-1.7312910
This is why I love multiparty politics. It forces governments to be more responsive.
Countries with proportional representation often end up with better governments than country with 2-party politics. My dream is for Canada to change the first-past-the-post voting system. The First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system is the reason why some countries only have 2 powerful political parties.
I have my fair share of criticism with Jagmeet Singh. But I'm very happy about what the NDP parliament members achieved. Politics can be very ungrateful and brutal.
In this election, the NDP was crushed.
To quote this recent article:
https://islandsocialtrends.ca/ndp-made-canadas-dental-plan-possible-now-carney-promotes-it/
(Alistair MacGregor is an NDP MP who just lost his seat)
Most Canadian voters may not be aware of it - sadly - but you guys made Canada a better nation.
Thank you so much.
Why are you saying all this?
Results are important. But it's also very important people understand how we got there.
So. What now ?
Children under the age of 18 are now covered by the recently created Canadian Dental Care plan.
https://www.mcgill.ca/channels/channels/news/expert-canadas-dental-plan-expands-cover-children-people-disabilities-357790
This month, the Dental Care Plan is expanding again.
Citizens earning less than $70,000 are eligible for coverage:
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/news/2025/03/canadian-dental-care-plan-expands-to-include-millions-of-new-eligible-canadians.html
The Canadian Labor Unions have called Mark Carney to expand Pharmacare immediately:
https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-call-for-immediate-expansion-of-universal-pharmacare/
I urge people to resist any propaganda from insurance companies like Sun Life. For these corporations, this is a direct threat to their business :
https://www.sunlife.ca/sl/cdcp/en/
The Canadian Insurance Companies publically called Canadian lawmakers to NOT vote Pharmacare :
https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/ca/news/life-insurance/clhia-governments-pharmacare-plan-set-to-be-more-burdensome-479479.aspx
They did it anyway.
The campaign finance system isn't as corrupt as the US (thank god), but they still have allies and friends. They can pay youtube influencers to lie. They can buy ads in newspapers. They can pay shady "think-tanks" that don't disclose their source of funding. So be on your guard. If you can afford it, please support quality journalism. We need it more than ever.
The hard thing is going to be managing DentalCare and Pharmacare properly. It will require honest and determined leadership. It will also require funding. Hopefully, the Carney government will keep rolling them out.
Mark Carney tried to politically capitalize on them during the election. This means they will hopefully be safe.