SpankyMcFarland
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Posts posted by SpankyMcFarland
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Nope. It's the best prediction we have.
With the loss of a number of high-profile incumbents, the Tories are in a lot of trouble in Nova Scotia. It's likely they'll only get a single seat there and be shut out of both PE and NL. NB will likely elect a few, but I'm in Fredericton and I'm almost certain Keith Ashfield, former Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, will lose his seat to Liberal candidate Matt DeCourcey.
In my NL riding, the only (dim) hope for the Conservative candidate is a huge NDP performance splitting the anti-Tory vote.
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We may as well. The only conflicts in which we are involved we come in on the coattails of the USA. The military aircraft and equipment we purchase from the Americans will never be as "sophisticated" as they keep for themselves.
What independence? Please cite a war or battle in which Canada has been involved in the last 100 years where the USA was not involved or when we did not play second fiddle to the USA?
The USA prides itself as a "warrior" nation. Let them be the sheriffs of the world, spend their money, develop their technological marvels of destruction and sacrifice their young in battle. I care what is good for Canada not what is good for the USA. If I have to view bodies coming back from battle I prefer to watch them at Arlington than on the Highway for Heroes (401) in Ontario.
I disagree. The US is not always our ally in the Arctic.
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Is there a possibility that UAVs and advances in missile technology could make the F-35 obsolete quicker than we think? Have the cost overruns been unusual in size and duration?
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I fail to see what one has to do with the other, and it's not like the Tories have not proposed or passed legislation that makes using the long form census as a spying tool look like a joke.
I meant the govt created a public fuss about the intrusiveness of the census while secretly doing far worse things through CSIS at the same time.
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Have they been convicted of anything or is this just more of your spam.
A lot of unsavoury individuals have never been convicted of anything. You'll be telling us their Isle of Man tax doodles are competely legal next. Outfits like KPMG are electorally bad news. We all know how they serve the ultra-rich across the world. And please, I know about Paul Martin, the Bronfmans and other Lib sins. These characters are thoroughly bipartisan in their shenanigans.
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The big question - is it day-da or dah-da? I heard one fellow on CBC use both pronunciations in the same paragraph. Most Canadians prefer the American pronunciation, I think.
That census business was so weird at the time and positively comical post-Snowden, now that we have some inkling of the warrantless and intrusive surveillance going on across the country.
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Derek 2.0 - simplify this for us. What were the total costs and what are they now? What does the F-35 provide compared to its competitors in simple language? What is the realistic life expectancy of such an aircraft in service?
I believe our military budget should be increased but the eye-watering and unstable costs of this project should be of concern to anybody worried about public expenditure.
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The predictions are not going to be very good with the parties hovering in a statistical tie. Just keep that in mind. Many predictions had the NDP leading in seats, but I'm not confident in that. It sounds like a lot of seats are going to flip blue to red in the Atlantic Provinces and the 905 from recent polling. This suggests that the LPC will win a minority government despite the tie.
Is there a better guide?
Speaking of Atlantic Canada, there's one province in there that will probably not feature any Conservative winners.
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Predictions by riding:
http://www.electionprediction.org/2015_fed/index.php
More important than usual in determining whom to vote for.
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Behind my summer cabin, there is a group of wild turkeys. They are a better air combat platform than the F 35.
You wonder how long it will be before UAVs make these fighters obsolete.
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Harper has been PM a long time. This is a problem in Canada. Chrétien was the same. We certainly don't need more than ten years from anybody.
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On the F-35 issue, we certainly need to have a debate about the monstrous costs involved but it's a pity that big ticket military procurement becomes a political football so often in this country.
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People are making something out of nothing. Geez man the left will jump up and down over anything it seems. I think people need to calm down. Nothing bad was meant by it. Relax already. Its not some sort of crime to state that we have new and old Canadians.
Harper's getting a taste of his own negative medicine here. Every night on PandP, his minions Rempel and Calandra try and scare the heck out of Canadians by quoting some remark from the other parties.,
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Since we've actually gained ground on most of the rest of them in terms of size, any more seems like the wrong thing to say there.
We are the smallest, right? Or are we in the middle of the pack now? So it is a little silly to compare ourselves to much bigger economies.
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Not better than 'the rest'. Obviously nations catching up in development like China and India are going to have better performance on growth, but compared to the US and Europe, ya we did quite well, very near or at the best. The whole developed world has sucked during this time, we just sucked somewhat less. Obviously Harper cannot do anything about the housing and then liquidity crisis from the US to the rest of the world, nor falling oil prices recently. Given the various trials over the last decade, he was in general quite competent.By far the most harmful thing he did is never mentioned - in 2007 allowing people to get no money down, 40 years mortgages with CMHC insurance. It was the spark that lit the housing bubble, by far the biggest threat to our economy currently. A very stupid, very un-conservative move.
Canada deserves praise over the past twenty years - not one man. This is a well run country. It was well run when Harper became PM.
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It's been better than just about anyone I can think of, certainly better than the other G7 nations.
It is not, by any stretch, 'head and shoulders' above the G7 countries. We have done OK. To big it up any more is not accurate. BTW G7 are not our peers - they are all way bigger than we are. We do not really belong in that group any more given the size of our economy.
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The fact that wants to get boring and give the numbers and wonk about the minutia, is a feature not a bug. Harper says more than any of the other leaders of terms of real life, regular boring reality. Mulcair also tried to hit a lot of firm, fact-based points. Nobody can touch Trudeau when it comes to saying nothing. Ya, that's true for almost the whole developed world, with Canada performing at or near the best of the bunch. The only country who is turning things around of the OECD is the US, after spending a trillion dollars per year in additional debt. Ya, if we spend $100 billion per year more than revenue, we can make things seem better to. That doesn't make it a good idea, since in the end you pay for it.
Our economic performance has not been way better than the rest. Harper's claim on that is flat-out wrong.
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Sure have. Ireland is the 6N champ but I didn't think it would be that bad. Canada and the US are the bottom ranked teams in their pools but maybe the Americans can do better. Japan is sure playing SA tough at half time.
Ireland narrowly won the 6N. I am biased on these matters, but I have to admit Ireland were a bit lucky and I would put Ireland with Wales below England and probably below France in this competition, although we all know how unpredictable the French are. So being hammered by Ireland is not a good sign. Canada recovered a bit in the second half. They just don't have enough top class pro players to compete at this level.
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Canada have gone backwards in rugby.
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It has not been great for a lot of young people who are underemployed. Canada's performance has been anemic in the last five years and I never hear Mr. Harper give any credit to his predecessors for leaving him a country with solid banks, a manageable national debt and no Iraq war dead. You can argue these economic things till the cows come home. Canada has done well enough but is not head and shoulders over the much bigger economies of the G7 nor of its real peer group, the G20.Most Canadians care an awful lot about the economy, and the economy was the subject of the debate.And it HAS been awfully good here the last ten years, at least as compared to just about anywhere else.
This whole where would you rather be is a Catch-22 thing. What pol could say I'd rather have been in Britain?
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JT's remark seems more aware of the potential meaning of the term than Harper's was, though.Justin used it, so did his father, as did Stephan Dionne. Jason Kenney used it once, when he gave a talk about the need for "new Canadians" and "old stock Canadians" to get to know one another better.
This old stock thing would flown over my head completely if it hadn't been pointed out to me. I can't say I find it that offensive.
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I disagree. IMHO, Harper is smarter than that, in French and English.
He's very smart but he does misspeak quite often when off script, usually small grammatical slips.
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The National Post's comment about Newfoundland not being around long enough to be old stock kind of ignores the island's story from 1497 to 1949.
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I guess it couldn't possibly be racist when Trudeau or Dion use the term, no matter what the context or how nuanced you want to make it.
Justin?
The Tories' War On Data
in Federal Politics in Canada
Posted
They sound like very basic and important metrics to me.