Rovik

Just because someone says he will work with whatever party wins a minority govt. doesn't mean that he has to support them and say good things about them. You are really reaching by saying he is a flip-flopper. The real flip-floppers are the Liberals (by saying they'll cut the immigration head tax after introducing it in the mid 90s) and the Conservatives (who support tax credits for transit now, though they were against it before.) Ugly to me is a party (Conservatives) who complains about Liberal dirty tactics but then come out with two very negative ads...almost hypocritical if you ask me. Yep, I remember Joe Clark, a ex-Conservative PM who only lasted 6 months back in '79 and were soundly defeated the next election. And if you want to look at terrible provincial govts., look at Grant Devine's Sasketchewan Conservative govt. in which many say was perhaps the worst provincial govt. in the history of the country. His corrupt govt. ran multiple deficits and was involved in a huge scandal in which many were arrested and charged. I agree. it's time for strategic voting. Vote for anything other than the Conservatives and the Liberals, in otherwords vote for the NDP or other parties.

Liberals are centre-right and at times middle-right during when they have had majorities, though they run an election platfom as centre-left. Conservatives are middle-right to far-right, though they are running an election platform by pretending to be centre-right. NDP are centre-left and are running an election platform as centre-left. This contrasts with the Liberals and Conservatives who are pretending to be something they're not in order to fool voters to vote for them.

[quote name=mowich' date='Dec 30 2005, 09:07 PM Name me just one Rovik, just one. Come on take your pick give me the name of a "Fascist" in the Conservative party and I will personally make it my new mission in life to hunt him/her down and find out about their fascist beliefs. What the hell is a "Neo-Con?" [/quote] Well, I'm sure high level Conservative fascists wouldn't admit to it and for me to name any names would only be conjecture. Of course, I'm sure if there were any high level Marxist NDPs, (if there is such a beast) they wouldn't admit to being Marxist. Can you name any Marxists who are in a high-level position in the NDP and if you can, can you provide proof on such an accusation. Here is a link to Neoconservatism in Canada, not as scary as the Neo-Con Americans but still troubling. Link

I've heard many say that ours was one of the best in the world, even better than most European countries. And Canada being one of the biggest countries in the world and with many smaller communities spread across the country will see a more expensive system delivering health care compared to most small European countries who are tiny in comparsion. The Notwithstanding Clause was only meant to used when all other options have failed and the govt. is loathe to use it (as it should be because it could be a tool of dissent and conflict if used too frequently for a new govt. or hypothetically use it too change laws they don't like because it goes against their philosophy.) And regards to immigration....you're right...at time it has been abused but on the other hand if they do what you suggest, Canada may send true refugees that deserve to be here back to their old countries where they might face hardship or even death. The success rate is more than minimal and in some circumstances, the ACOA has assisted on companies in one industry towns become successful and because of this, kept these towns alive. Natives would not go along with this unless it was forced upon them and if it was, a nest of hornets might be released.

Actually the different polls range from 14 to 18% and 4 percent can mean a big difference in votes and seats won. The Globe and Mail have been pushing this soft NDP vote to Liberals so much that it makes one wonder if they, themselves are advocating it. I can see whay many people believe that the Globe and Mail are big Liberal supporters.

If all provinces were all equal in resources and money, say like what Alberta has, then there would be no problem with the provinces providing medicare and education. But there is one problem, they're not all equal. Therefore, without the federal govt. to even the playing field, what will happen is huge disparities in medicare and education services in the different provinces. Alberta, for example, would have perhaps the best systems while the poorer provinces would languish behind and the people in these provinces would see their lives adversely impacted in a big way. Basically, you would have a two, three, even four tiered systems across the country and there would be no standards. This shouldn't be acceptable in a country like Canada.

Perhaps thay might even tell the open Marxist to join the Marxist Party of Canada. That would be the best place for that person to go.

Again, you can't perpetually punish someone if they paid for their crimes. People do make mistakes, we're not perfect. It would be different if he commits the crime again and it would be different if he murdered someone. Even Mr. Harper never kicked out Mr. Grewel, though he never broke the law, committed an act that most of us would consider wrong. And the point of my previous post was not to compare "right wing" or religious belief to a petty crime but to explain the situation the NDP was in and why they couldn't just block Robinson from running.

Looking the the individual parties, the ratio of individuals to corporations contributions are all pretty close, so going by your arguement, all the parties' backbone funding is individual donations in smaller amounts. You are absolutely right. Conservative and Liberal Federal govts. have indeed been incompetent toward managing the fisheries. And in re: to the program itself, it was mismanaged and many people who got assistance shouldn't have gotten it but at the same time it's hard to tell 40s-50s year old fishermen with no education to move on to other areas. Some did get training under the program but many of these did not find work out of it. I wouldn't put much stock in someone "suggesting" Jack Layton spent more on each individual suit than the average Canadian spends on all his clothing in a year. Did this person have the sales receipt of a suit that Leyton bought. I would put as much credence in this as someone suggesting that the moon was made of green cheese. And of course, my impression of CTV is not one of being NDP-friendly anyway. Yes it doesn't make much sense. I see this as Hargrove looking to collect in the future from Martin for his support. Basically, Hargrove wants leverage in the future over Martin and the Liberals. I could see Hargrove in the future saying to Martin, well I supported you in the previous election, now I want you to do something for me.

I believe Scheyer considers this a moot point because SSM is now the law. Layton has indeed mentioned Campbell and Charest as against Medicare, here is a quote from a speech he did. "But Canadians can see that Liberals and Conservatives, both federally and provincially, are taking us to a very different place. Make no mistake about it. Medicare is being sabotaged by people who claim to be protecting it. Paul Martin, Ralph Klein, Stephen Harper, Jean Charest and Gordon Campbell are all on the same wavelength." Here is the link to the full speech. Link

I could also say the if the CPC wanted to appear more mainstream, they could try to froce out some of their members who are further right-wing than most, especially the Fascists and the Neo-Cons.

I disagree. It's not a matter of punishment, it's a matter of finacial survival. Someone making a high salary can afford a slightly higher tax bracket. Someone who is making say $20000, needs every little bit to survive day to day (food, electricity...the basics) so to help them survive, they are put into a lower tax bracket. Seems like the just thing to do to me. Alberta has been very lucky considering the oil and gas reserves in the province. Because of this, they have a huge advantage over the rest of the provinces and don't require the taxes for basic govt. services because of the royalties from the oil companies. What about if they have no choice. How about a single Mom going to a university in a town where she has no family. What happens when the $1200 runs out, where will she bring her child? Thye have the right, just like any person in a union to ask for better wages and I'm sure they wouldn't go on strike at the drop of a hat. There would be much negotiation before that, and I say this would take place over some time. Obviously the Quebec govt. underestimated the cost (maybe to have had a balanced budget in a previous year, who knows.) Perhaps the administration was bloated or perhaps ran haphazardly. Maybe there wasn't any contingencies or risk management put into the orginal estimates of the plan.

I agree I agree So basically, send an expensive high profile team to Europe to go through the motions and afterwards introduce private sector health financing (like there was ever any question it was going to be done anyway.) The public won't like this. I agree on some principles of new money and equipment for the military as long as it's not used for offensive missions such as if Canada went into Iraq like the Conservatives wanted at the beginning of the Iraqi war. I also agree on new laws as long they do not impact human rights and are not too intrusive. Using the notwithstanding clause is opening up a can of worms for it could be creating a precedent. A floodgate could be opened in which the notwithstanding law could be used in a frivilous manner or could be used to attack basic human rights such as SSM. Well if they stick to the centre, they could fool Canadians in thinking they are not as scary as people make them out to be but if they won a majority afterwards...now that would be scary for many non-Conservative and center-left Conservative supporters. Some of these "regional development" agencies are not as terrible as you make them out to be. ACOA has helped produce many successes in Atlantic Canada. Granted there has been some failures but there is never anything such as a 100% success rate. There has been numerous studies over the years examing the relationship between the Federal gotv. and natives. How do you think another study would be any different, in my opinion, it would just be a waste of money

The Gun Registry in principle is a good idea. If it wasn't so good why did many police associations across the country support it. And for those who say gun violence hasn't lessened across the country, first, there will always be gun violence no matter what you do and secondly, this is due to the more power that gangs are gaining in the bigger cities across the country. This was going to happen with or without a gun registry and a prime reason for this is the terrible poverty in these city slum areas as Argus calls them. Something has to be done to help fight this poverty. What is happening is a lot of the young people see the gangs as the only way out of poverty, and what has to happen is to give these people hope to escape poverty without turning to gangs and the associated violence including gun violence. The biggest problem with the gun registry is that the Liberals royally screwed up and it turned into a disaster. It needs to be streamlined into something that can work for Canada.

I found that very strange as well. Does anyone know what kind of company this 55555 Inc. is???

A vote for the NDP is a vote for the NDP, pretty basic stuff. If you want Paul Martin out of power vote anything but Liberal, be it NDP, Conservative or Greens.

It was the courts that sentenced Robinson, not the NDP. If you want to blame anyone it would be the courts. Even in the states, where the last I checked had a right wing leaning government, you'll hear of people get a slap on the wrist for serious crimes especially rich people who can afford the high powered attorneys. The NDP could have prevented Robinson from running but they had to consider that Robinson did pay for the crime (no matter how lightly the penalty may or may not have been) and they had to put in consideration that he won the nomination for his district, and if they stopped him, they would have been seen as heavy-handed, interfering in the local constituency and would risk alienating some of their long-time supporters who support Robinson. Let's face it, the Conservatives, if they wanted to appear more mainstream could try to force out some of their members who are further right-wing then most, especially the more religious ones that the Liberals always love to bring up but the Conservatives won't because it would alienate that sector of their support. Well it's only natural that Harper would put a spin on it.

Actually, I wouldn't want either a Conservative or a Liberal majority. I'm not surprised about the poll's results, because it seems that most of the posters here are Conservative supporters anyway, so I wouldn't put too much credence in the poll's results other than confirming that indeed this forum has a majority of right leaning posters.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Ok, I got the link to work. Here's the top 50 largest donation to the Conservative party by Businesses/Commercial organizations for 2003. I've tried to get it to work for 2004 but wasn't successful for any of the parties. Link from Elections Canada Link

Imagine telling people to vote a certain way or otherwise they should be charged with Treason.

Goodness, I guess you must Argus' official defender. One would think that if he would be the one to defend himself not someone else. Check the Elections Canada site for contributors to the individual parties. You will see that indeed major corporations did contribute to the both the Conservatives and Liberals, well into the millions of dollars. I tried to put links here to the numbers but because of the way they have the database setup, the links won't work. Perhaps I should have questioned Argus on where he got his information but I never.

Argus: Of course, I can say the same about what you are saying. As far as I knew, the Conservatives also get quite a bit of money from lobbyists and corprate supporters as well, looks like the Liberals and Conservatives have this in common. I'm curious when the farmers suffered because of drought and later because of the Mad Cow scare, govt. gave a lot of money to the farmers for support, would the Conservatives have done the same. And if so, why did they complain so much about the program that gave money to the fishermen in the mid 90s when the cod fishery was closed down, I wonder. Most of the NDP I know don't fit your stereotype, sorry to say. One of the main reasons why some Union people (and notice i say some such as Buzz Hargrove) slided over the the Liberals was because they tried to push the NDP further left but the NDP leadership refused to do this. Justcrowing: Would you consider yourself a average CPC supporter and do you believe most CPCs would back your philosophy? Scriblett: In regards to daycare, the not-for-profit is the way to go. Daycare is not cheap, but the subsidies the govt. gives lowers the cost for parents and gives a better wage to workers. For profit daycares would be much more costly for parents and actually be only affordable to the upper middle class and rich and there is no guarentee the workers would have decent wages. Locally, the for-profit daycares pay their workers much less with little or no benefits, the quality is much lower (food, nutrition, and value-added activities for the kids) and costs for the parents are either equal or higher than the not for profit. I know people who have worked locally at both the for profit and not for profit daycares and this is how I know this info.

Hey, I'm no Liberal supporter but the columnists that support the Conservative party have also been doing the same to Paul Martin and his Liberals. Even today Charles Adler of the Winnipeg Sun and Paul Jackson of the Calgary Sun (which is especially brutal) had columns out attacking Paul Martin and the Liberals. Therefore, if you say that Dianne Rinehart's column is an example as what Canuck E Stan calls "Desperate Liberals turn to negative,personal attacks when they have nothing substantial to offer the voters", someone else can turn around and say that Charles Adler and Paul Jackson's columns are an example of desperate Conservatives turing to negative, personal attacks when they have nothing substantial to offer the voters. It's a two-way street folks.

If a party can't find a willing candidate from within a riding (who has lived there for at least 6 months), they shouldn't be allowed to bring an outside candidate to run. Of course, there could be some exceptions. For example, if the candidate lives with 20 miles of the riding but otherwise... The Greens are notorious for this (they've parachuted a few candidates to run in Newfoundland, I guess to say they are running in all ridings across the country.) but it doesn't matter what party, be it Liberals, CPCs or NDPs. I believe this is something that can be agreed upon by all people crossing the political spectrum. What do you think?

Funny thing is that Harper has said basically the same. He has said that he would work with the NDP if the CPC win a minority but at the same time, he tells BC voters to stay away from the NDP. Cutting the GST will mainly benefit the rich, lower and middle class will only see minimum benefits. In my opinion, the best thing is too cut income tax (on a bracketed scale...the higher the income, the lower the % cut) and to completely cut the GST on selected items such as children's clothing and books. This will give people more money than a 1 or 2% GST cut. Giving parents $1200 a year for children sounds good in principle but, consider this, daycare often costs $200 or more a week, and for families with two working parents, this is the only option. So with $1200, the parents can pay for daycare for 6 weeks. How about the other 46 weeks of the year??? Wrong approach. I agree with more money for the armed forces as I believe all the parties do. The only difference is on how it is done. Hey, I would try to sway Liberals and Conservatives to vote NDP but I wouldn't call them fools if they didn't vote NDP. Everyone has a right to vote whatever the way they please and I would think no less of people who voted with their conscience or towards a party that best matches his/her ideology. In regards to your argument for people to vote Conservative, I have to counter with this. No matter if there is a minority Liberal or a Conservative govt., vote NDP to send members to Parliament to moderate and keep the government in line and perhaps even influence budgets that help students, the poverty-stricken, parents, seniors and others. But if you don't vote NDP, I'm just glad you used your right as a Canadian citizen to vote and for that i salute you.