Rovik

Media should be neutral in my opinion, not endorsing any parties. Why? Well because the media has a very powerful effect in persuading the general populace. The media should be reporting the news, not influencing it.

True, the message is important and if it's a "hot button" item, the impact is greater BUT how the message is conveyed is also important. People are turned off by personal attacks on the politicians; look at the Conservative ad in 1993 that attacked the way Jean Chretien's face looked. It had nothing to do with the political campaign and the backlash from this ad was instrumental in the huge Conservative defeat back then. In this case, it's making fun of Jack Leyton and his "mustache." Many people consider it politically incorrect to make fun of someone in such a way.

If they do this, it would be quite ironic since the Conservatives brought in the GST in the first place. Second, how would govt. recoup the lost monies from the GST without cutting services or raising taxes? Unless Canada goes into a super boom, this would be very tough.

I'm thinking you are wrong on that one. Look at your second post in this thread. You had to *try* and give a nuanced, and a little rambling, response in order to prove why you *think* the CPC ads are wrong. It takes 16 words to explain what was wrong with the Pinochet ad. "Stephen Harper will not put armed soldiers in the streets of Canada, like Pierre Trudeau did." That is why there hasn't been a backlash on these ads. ok - The NDP support discriminalizing just Marijuana - The NDP does not support tax cuts for corporations - The NDP does not want to increase gas taxes - The NDP does not support any new inheritance taxes Better?

Accurate? no. Misleading? Distorting of facts? Usage of Liberal-type tactics? Yes. The Ad first says that Jack Leyton supports legalized drugs without no explanation. A couple of things here. The assertion is so broad that it can be easily misconstrued. For example, I could see a neighbour taking asprin for a headache and then I could turn around and tell someone else that my neighbour is doing legalized drugs. Before you know it everybody will think that this neighbour is doing drugs, and many will assume heavy drugs such as heroin or cocaine. Most people seem to think the worst when not given the specifics and that is what the Conservatives are trying to do here by purposely making the statement very general. Second the drug in question is Marijunana (and just Marijunana) which is pretty tame compared to cocaine, heroin crystal meth and so on. And many people would consider alcohol a much stronger drug and nicotine a much more addictive drug. Click the link (to the CBC) for more info Link and no I don't do the stuff myself by I agree with the reasons for it. Second the ad says that he supports no further tax cuts. Again, misleading. What he he saying is that he supports tax cuts for lower income, (in which the Conservatives are trying to take away a tax cut that is already there) but he doesn't support tax cuts for corporations. Third, the ad says he wants to increase gas taxes. Again untrue. He wants to protect people from the predatory forces of the oil companies and the direct oil and gas sellers (you saw what happened to gas prices after Hurricane Katrina.) Some will warp this as saying that this would increase gas taxes but this is just spin. Fourth, the ad says he supports an inheritance tax. This is not true. The NDP did support it in the last election but has since dropped this from their platform. For the Conservatives to reach back in the past and to bring up a policy that the NDP no longer supports is hypocritical because in this campaign, they have dropped a lot of their own policies they had in the past as well in order to seem more moderate. One example, is that they will now keep ACOA, it wasn't too long ago that they said ACOA should be scrapped.

The Conservatives came out with a negative attack ad in BC personally attacking Leyton, (much like the Liberals personally attacked Harper), and distorted the facts. Guess the Conservatives are just as bad as the Liberals in this regard. From the NDP web site, is their response to this negative ad. Here is the link to the reply. Link I'm thinking there will be a backlash to this ad as there was to the Liberal attack ads.

I'm still interested in this Liberal "nuclear bomb." Any Liberal insiders here that might know what this might be about. lol.

The Globe and Mail have basically endorsed Haper and the Conservatives and CBC may be considered pro-Liberal but I would never consider it pro-NDP...Larry Zolf could never be called pro-NDP. You might hear more about the NDP on CBC because the CTV at times doesn't even talk about the NDP, like they didn't exist. Often when Craig Oliver is asked about how he sees the election, he won't even mention the NDP unless someone asks him specifically about them. And regards to columnists, Sheila Copps might have some NDP sympathies but she can't touch the many, many pro-Conservatives columnists out there, such as Ezra Levant, Paul Jackson, Peter Worthington, Charles Adler, Tom Brodbeck and on and on and on, when it comes to spin.

I just saw that show as well. Interesting to see what the Liberals concoct tomorrow and will it backfire as their ads did. I have to note, media shouldn't lean toward any party but I have to saw that the CTV seems to be pro-Conservative. It seems that most of the commentators that Duffy has on are pro-Conservative, there are some pro-Liberal and once in a blue moon, pro-NDP. And Robert Fife, he positively glows when he is talking about Harper and the Conservatives. I think that the media should be neutral and provide all parties with equal opportunites but I don't see this. Conservatives are always blasting the CBC for being pro-Liberal (and I agree this does comes across sometimes) but the CTV can't be more pro-Conservative unless Stephen Harper, himself was the main news anchor.

If you want to talk about premiers who ran deficits, you can't beat Grant Devine's Conservative govt. in Sasketchewan that ran 10 straight deficits. 10!!!!!! I won't even talk about the scandals and the corruption in that govt. For many, many years consecative Liberal and Conservative govts. ran deficits in Newfoundland. This is a typical anti-NDP ploy that when compared to other Liberal and Conservative provinicial govts over the years falls flat on its face. Clean up govt? Ed Broadbent of the NDP has lead the way on pushing for the cleanup of govt. and even Harper has mentioned him. NDP has proposed some tough crime laws for illegal gun possession and is pushing to also fight the root causes of crime such as fighting poverty. Taxes? Well, the NDP is isn't pushing any new taxes so your argument is misleading.

The economist has basically said, again, that this is his conclusion using the info (incomplete that it was) the Conservatives gave him. His conclusion does not include monies to fix the fiscal imbalance or the Patient Health Care Guarantee. And what happens if the surplus revenues are not enough to fix the fiscal imbalance between the provinces and Ottawa. Will they cut spending, perhaps increase service fees, or maybe even raise taxes to make up the difference? And how about if there isn't enough exisiting budgetary resources for this Patient Health Guarantee, which could be the case if this guarantee is used by large numbers of Canadians, what would the Conservatives do then?

Exactly, in this situation today in this election campaign, this is true

Regarding the debt, I agree with you, though Mulrooney's Conservative govt. didn't help much knock down the debt either. Our debt might have been much higher as well, if we had went to war with the USA as we would if Harper had been PM at the time. And if Martin was in charge of the Liberals at the time, instead of Chretien, we may have been at war as well, considering he was supposedly leaning towards supporting the US in the war at the time. Each party can turn to economists to back up their platforms. Though this is the first time an economist (that I have heard) has cried "foul" because a party gave him incomplete info (as the Conservatives did.)

Interesting. Looks like the Conservatives can't complain about the NDP anymore when it comes to budget costs (and the Conservatives tend to exaggerate the costs of NDP budgets anyway), considering they are not willing to cost all their promises and even providing an economist incomplete information. They may even go the route of Bush and the US and put Canada into deep debt.

CRA? Canada Revenue Agency?

You know, it's funny. If some think-tank or association supports the Conversative view, many of you Conservatives note them like there can be no question on how right and true they are. On the other hand, if a think-tank or association comes out with figures not supporting the Conservative's numbers than they have to be wrong or misrepresenting the facts. Hypocritical if you ask me.

A missile shield will not protect from terrorists. How is a missile shield going to protect from a terrorist's dirty nuke. In regards to rogue nations, the only one close is North Korea who may or may not have nuclear weapons and if they do, the most practical and least expensive way to turn them from the nuclear course is by putting political pressure on them. Let's face it, this is is just an excuse to allow the American arms companies to make huge amount of profits, pure and simple. If it doesn't work or works very sparingly, why waste govt. money building a white elephant. And once we are committed, do you honestly think the Americans won't be looking for money from Canada to help build this system. They are deep in debt in the US already and if the costs of this missile project become much larger than anticipated the US will come knocking demanding we provide our fair share of the costs. And should we compromise our values to make friends in the USA. We are our own country, and should be able to operate without worrying that the US will punish us if we don't do what they say. Even if they build this system that most people believe won't work, we can say that we stuck by our moral objectives and wasn't bullied by our southern neighbour. Let's face it, one of the main reasons why the US wanted Canada to sign on is to say to the rest of the world, "geesh if Canada, a nation known for it's peacekeeping around the world, thinks it's ok, then it must be good." Basically, we would be used towards justification of the missile shield project to the rest of the world. And how far can we go to justify jobs. What if Brazil justified cutting down the trees in the Amazon by saying it will create jobs. And when all the trees were cut down what would Brazil say?...ah well, at least lots of jobs were created. What happens if there is a glitch in the missile shield system and ends up destroying a friendly target?....What happens if this starts an escalation of weapons in space between the Americans, Russians and Chinise? What can we say? Ah well, the main thing was that lots of jobs were created. I believe you can only justify jobs to a point, but once you cross that line.... And do you think it there is no chance that this system could be turned to offensive purposes. Under the right circumstances, this system could be turned to offensive purposes and if you take what has happened the last few years in Iraq, I'm not ready to believe everything the American govt. has to say as the absolute truth.

I agree with you, it's not ok to make that generalization. There are many type of Conservatives...there are"fiscal Conservatives" and "social Conservatives." There are also Conservatives that don't exactly fit into either category. I do admit there are people on both the extreme left and the extreme right but these are by far in the minority for either sides.

We saw the chaos that resulted with deregulation of Electricity in Ontario. it was a failure and resulted in massive price increases for the Ontario consumer and was one of the main reasons why the Eves Conservative govt. fell in Ontario.

This would be great if all the provinces were equal in resources and money but this is not the case. There would be huge disparities from province to province Perhaps in the bigger cities this would be true but I suspect in the more rural sections of the country this would not be true. For example, there might be one hip replacement clinic in Atlantic Canada, perhaps in Halifax, and this clinic would serve the region. People could go to other clinics in the rest of Canada but the extra cost of transportation would be detrimental. I'm not saying all companies are greedy but many are under heavy pressure to provide a return for their stockholders or to provide, for example, performance bonusues for CEOs or just plain corrupt businessmen. We only have to look at the ENRONs and the WorldComs of the world to see if this is true. We only have to look at the fact that many are outsourcing to third world countries to save on labour costs to produce better profits.

Lefty nitwits eh? Real intelligent calling anyone who has left of centre views names. And to generalize that all people with left of centre views would embrace polygamy is a stretch and somewhat demeaning. I'm sure most mainstream left of centre people wouldn't support polygamy.

So you are saying that poor, students and union members can't think for themselves. Must be tough for those people, I guess they should let the rich think for them instead. That seems to be quite an elitist statement.

Wow! That was unpartisan. I would suggest strongly not to be swayed by anyone on this forum. Do your own research. All the leaders have fairly clear websites when you can get a very good understanding of the issues. It's all true. Because it's true in your mind doesn't necessarily make it true in reality.

Hmmm, so you must really think it's really funny that the Conservative platform funding will cost $75 billion compared to the NDP's 71 billion platform. It is actually the Conservatives that will spend the most money of the three major parties.

Is this your idea of serious pros and cons of each party, because if it is, it is flawed.