It's interesting to me that his team titled the video "Forward Guidance," because it's the same phrasing central banks use. Central banks tend to put out forward guidance on rate policy every quarter in a similar way. Carney is very much a central banker, even now as PM.

[–] ValueSubtracted@startrek.website 3 points 3 days ago

Indeed, it's the name of the entire video series. I think he's done three of them now?

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca -5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Excellent production quality. This is A-tier propaganda. He's even careful to obfuscate how much of this new development is cooking the planet.

[–] RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Oooo, you're like cool and stuff. So cynical.

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca -2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I'm not trying to be cool,. This is straight up propaganda. He has an agenda of his own which he is intentionally obfuscating. This video has had a lot of effort (and your money) poured into it, attempting to convince you that he is on your side, that he has your interests at heart... which is blatantly false.

[–] wretched@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why don't you elaborate then?

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The bulk of his plan to build "Canada Strong" (this sort of thing used to be called "propaganda", now we just call it "marketing") is to invest in ~~energy~~ oil and gas infrastructure. This in an economic and ecological climate that cannot tolerate further dependence on fossil fuels. It's been less than a month since Kelowna and Peachland were directly threatened by wildfires, since the country was blanketed in smoke, but by all means, lets burn more oil.

Embracing of AI is another key component of what he's proposing: a non-solution to a variety of non-problems and a classic example of the decoupling of the economy from what we actually produce. There is no path to a successful economy that runs through such massive investments in snake oil and yet, here we have Carney talking about it like it's a critical part of our future.

Expanding our military economy is another big part of "Canada Strong", which sounds like good financial planning until you realise that the return on investment and job creation around military spending pales in comparison to similar investment in things like health care and education.

This video was not cheap to produce. It was shot on-location with talented staff. It was scripted (just look at those subtitles), shot from multiple angles, with professional lighting. It was then run through post production that included charts, graphs, and animation.

This sort of thing is not cheap. If the intent was merely to keep the public informed about the government's plans, all of it could have been a simple press release. The fact that they spent so much money to produce it tells you that there is intention here beyond merely providing information. Obfuscating that intention has a price tag, and Canadians paid it.

So, for the 2 people who were actually interested in being critical about government messaging and honestly wanted me to elaborate, hopefully this will help. Carney is not here for Canadians. He is here to enrich his friends in the same industries that are literally destroying the world. His careful choice of language to obfuscate this fact, and the heavy spend on production, tell you that he knows that this is unpopular, but that he's chosen manipulation over better policy.

[–] wretched@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Thanks for elaborating your point. I'm not sure there's any point in replying because some of what you're saying is just bizarre to the point of surely being disingenuous. You're upset that it's scripted? It's a speech from the prime minister. What do you think a speech writer does? Or do you think he'd be a better leader if he just adlibbed his address to the nation?

You're upset that he uploaded a video? We all know that he will reach more people with a video than with a press release because more people watch videos than are willing to read. Hence keeping more of the public informed is achieved with a video.

You're upset that it's shot on two decent cameras and has production value and you're upset that we the Canadian public are paying for it like we're footing the bill for a Marvel movie - or even 1 second of a Marvel movie. Again, essentially nonsense. Would the prime minister look professional if they shot it all in one take on an old digital camera? Of course not. This is an important address to the nation pretty sure we can spend 1/10000th of a Doug Ford private jet on this.

No shit it's propaganda, as in:

information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions 0

Churchill's wartime addresses on British radio were "propaganda" - was it bad? No. Were they false? No. Is it the same as Russian/MAGA propaganda to you?

Regarding the AI point, that's a whole different kettle of fish - but ignoring AI or only having access to the "facts" presented by American or Chinese tech LLMs regarding history, geopolitics or social issues is not a satisfactory scenario.

If you don't want Canada to invest in energy, military or even make videos addressing the nation - out of interest, what do you think Canada should do to stop the US government trying to use economic force to annex Canada?

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 0 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not upset. I never suggested that this too expensive for a government spend. I'm pointing out that this is blatant manipulation. I cite the cost of this video as evidence that they wanted to obfuscate their intent while providing the illusion of transparency. I thought I communicated that clearly, but if you didn't get that, I'll accept the blame.

Your last comment is ridiculous though. The fact that the Americans want to annex us has absolutely no bearing on whether it makes sense to burn the planet or cripple our economy by throwing billions into the pockets of weapons companies. There is zero long-term benefit to these policies, and incalculable long-term disaster.

What would I have him do? Well I conveniently have a list I've been maintaining for a while now. The TL;DR though is to:

Divest from fossils & embrace renewables
Stop blowing money on AI
Form a national housing agency for the federal government to start building homes again.
Build an alliance of other nations to operate as a trading bloc for countries living up to their climate agreements. Membership in the bloc awards reduced trading friction, while non-members are hit with tariffs.

Or, you know, we can just double down on fossils and ensure that our grandkids live in a hellscape.

[–] wretched@lemmy.ca 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Ok cool but I guess it's a good thing nobody cares what you think

[–] danielquinn@lemmy.ca 1 points 20 hours ago

Weird. You explicitly asked what I thought. Twice in fact. So I guess at least one person does!