SpankyMcFarland
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Posts posted by SpankyMcFarland
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No different than the several minority Governments led by PM Harper, that relied upon Liberal indifference to govern......a result far better then allowing socialists anywhere near power.
Derek, a coalition is quite different from that. You think Tom is a socialist?
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KPMG have been implicated in similar schemes in Britain and Ireland. It is what they and their fellow big firms do. The rich do pay a lot of tax but they also have unique abilities to bend the law in their favour.
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Let's be honest here. Nobody notices what we do. If you go to Europe for a month, Canada disappears from the news. In Iraq and Syria, we are playing our small and meaningless role. ISIS will hate us either way and we will have little or no effect on that.
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Well no, he does, as Cameron very much so took issue, as did British voters, of a proposed Labour/SNP coalition.
What is your opinion of the coalition government that David Cameron actually led for years in the UK?
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My point is this. I prefer to focus on what people do rather than on what they say in campaigns. In practice, David Cameron had no problem with coalition government. Harper does. Since he became PM, Harper has tried to make out that there is something wrong with coalition government.What of it? If you claimed Harper was a robot, and had carnal knowledge with a VCR or toaster in his youth, it doesn't make it true...
And campaigned against a Labour/SNP coalition that proposed tax hikes.........PM has had no need for a formal coalition when he was in minority, often supported by the Liberals.......David Cameron's partnership with their Liberal Democrats was simply formal governance with said party.......and now the Liberals are near gone and Cameron has his majority.
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Why? David Cameron used the threat of a Labour/SNP coalition government (and it tax policies) to win his current Majority Government.
1. Why? Piggate.
2. OK. Cameron has just presided over a coalition government himself for years. So coalitions per se are not a problem in Britain. Harper is opposed to ALL coalitions for his party in Canada, not just with the BQ, and tries to insinuate that there is something unparliamentary about them for anybody.
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So did coalition government.In your opinion......as already noted, it worked for David Cameron.
David Cameron may not be the ideal person to quote on best practice right now.
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The Gullible? Are those the ones that enjoy "beer and popcorn"?
It's a dumb promotion with no credibility.
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Meanwhile, back at the turd factory, Mulcair promises no deficits while implementing some huge new social programs.
Yet he makes no mention of how to pay for it.
Does this kind of outright fibbing appeal to the riders of short buses?
Will this way of expressing things draw any correspondence?
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Lies to suck in the gullible.One tenant, which I haven't seen personally from this proposed legislation, but is reported in the Huffpost:
Rather vague, I'd like to see the meat and potatoes, but in spirit another form of populism........
After a decade in office, it's a bit ridiculous to be making promises instead of defending your record.
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May is an excellent campaigner. I must say the current crop of Conservative female ministers aren't that impressive. Agglukaq in particular is out of her depth. Raitt, Leitch and Rempel would be my picks. Raitt seems fairly reasonable and would not annoy me on a daily basis if she was running the shop. Rempel seems capable enough but she has to lose that smirk.
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What is the point of candidates if they won't debate? Wouldn't we all save money if inflatable substitutes were used instead?
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Can you name any real achievements by the Maple Leafs in the last ten years?Yet you still support them.
I will support Harper in this election because,while he is far from perfect,he is in my opinion by far the best of all the leaders.
Party allegiance should be more conditional than fan loyalty. You can't really change what team you support, no matter how badly they do; although, I do wonder at the constancy of Leafs fans, given the soaring value of their dreadful team.
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I like the way he has earned the respect of leaders around the world with a consistent, principled and determined approach. Angela Merkel - de-facto leader of the European Union and Stephen Harper are best buddies. Commonwealth countries admire him - the UK, Australia, New Zealand. And of course New Zealand. Who doesn't like him? Well.....Russia and Putin of course, Iran........
Has Harper taken specific action against two oligarchs with Canadian interests, Sechin and Yakunin? They were left off earlier lists.
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I just hate to see people 'getting away' with things because it's too much trouble to go after them. For me, that's just wrong.
And, needless to say, these problems were with us long before Mr. Harper came along.
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My remark on the name was an attempt at humour. I should have put a smiley in there.I am not an accountant nor do I have many (if any) accounting skills. As a business owner I get drawn into the accounting world once or twice a year for year end financials but that's about it.
The CRA usually picks its spots where it can do the most damage. So I'm guessing this delay is due to information gather and/or waiting for that spot to open up. As I said in an earlier post, the legality of the matter is that the final decision to go with a taxation plan lies with the business. As such there may be some issues with going after or actually prosecuting KPMG on this. I certainly don't think its a slam dunk case.
There have been cases where large accounting firms have paid the ultimate price (ie Arthur Anderson due to the Enron case). So there may be hope here.
Seriously, though, the delay taken by govt should have been minimal given the circumstances of the case and the cynicism it encourages among ordinary taxpayers. Governments have to be tougher and swifter in these matters if they are to retain any credibility. Nothing is more annoying than being told that some extraordinarily elaborate scheme is completely legal when its sole intent is to get round the law and flout its spirit.
CRA has to take a longer view on these cases. The significant cost in pursuing them should be seen as having deterrent value against similar future attempts at legal subversion.
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The GST was a brilliant idea, which is why the Liberals kept it.
Harper's biggest achievement was dividing the country. I have never been more engaged in the outcome of a federal election.
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Your username seems a tad in favour of the bean counters at the heart of this story. How long are both sides going to park this case in the courts - until we mugs forget about it? Or perhaps until our govt negotiates a nice little out-of-court settlement with these gentlemen?KPMG is one of the big four accounting firms in Canada and they sponsor many events like the Canada2020 event which Justin Trudeau spoke at in June.
The fact is that the the Tories did not got to KPMG event, they went to a Vancouver Board of Trade event which happened to be sponsored by KPMG.
Of course, I would also like to remind you this matter is currently in the courts and I thought in this country it was innocent until proven guilty. Or is that only when it fits your narrative?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/federal-probe-of-kpmg-tax-sham-stalled-in-court-1.3210113
Anyway, it's not a criminal trial, so nobody will be found guilty or face jail time or anything uncivilized like that.
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This is a big story, a bipartisan, maybe soon to be tripartisan, story of how rich people can stack the deck in their favour.
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Don't. But I have been a close watcher of politics and the media for about thirty years now, and I know that the reaction of the chattering classes to Harper is far different than it was of Chretien, Mulroney or Trudeau. Nor can this be explained by a change of government policies under Harper.
What is it explained by?
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'KPMG has been fighting a February 2013 court order to hand over the list of wealthy clients to the CRA for more than two years.
Yet in the 31 months since the judicial authorization, neither the federal government nor KPMG has requested a court date for the accounting firm's appeal.'Why is the govt not moving on this case?
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Which do you think is American? Most people in MA seem to say "day-ta". (This is how I usually say it, although I grew up in Ottawa.)
I have heard both in US and UK. I think researchers tend to be fonder of dah-da and computer guys of day-da. Of course, in Britain the 'd' is a 't' - da(y)h-ta.
I think of day-da as American because of the Star Trek character and what I hear on TV..
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What's comical is the same people who revere Snowdon and get red-faced and furious about government snooping on their privacy are the ones furious that the government can't put people in prison for refusing to answer all their questions.
That would not describe me. I understand surveillance has to be secret and extensive in some cases, but there has to be proper parliamentary oversight which in this country we do not have.
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Nope.
Drones certainly have a place in the military arsenal. And some day they may replace manned fighters. But, there are some significant issues that have to be resolved... lack of 360 degree situational awareness, lag time between drone and pilot.
Almost all planes have had problems.
Eurofighter problems: http://www.airforce-technology.com/features/feature50517/
Lets see, from Wikipedia:
F35: ~9 years from first flight to deployment
Eurofighter: 9 years
Raphale: 5 years
F18 Super Hornet: 4 years
So, the Super Hornet did have a much shorter time to deploy, but then it wasn't exactly dealing with new technology. The F35s development time doesn't seem that far out compared to some of the other possibilities.
I guess the lesson is the newer the technology, the more problems you can expect.
What about the dollar amounts involved? There seems to be a lot of debate about the actual numbers.
Read My Lips: NO NEW TAXES
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
So which party did most in our recent history to reduce federal debt? Are you willing to give credit where it is due?