GWiz

HEY, why not just RAISE TAXES by a percentage point or 2 on say those making over $250,000 (individual) NET a year and we'd have THAT problem solved in no TIME flat... I KNOW I personnally wouldn't mind that solution one bit, nor would any of my more affluent friends... Just don't screw around with "average working man wages", hell they hardly make enough to keep their families fed as it is... Of course cutting into Corporate Greed er Profits slightly by eliminating the latest CORPORATE TAX BREAKS which create much of that type of debt would also help a LOT...

Who told you that? Seriously... I'm very anti-HST but I like to know under what kind of pressures Provincial Governments are placed to implement it... With the Manitoba Provincial Elections probably resulting in the PCs winning in Manitoba later this year it may be a good thing to know... I already know about the BIG MONEY carrot to the Province(s') (arguably unresistable to any large province it being in the Billions of Dollars from the feds) which could mean the difference in "survivability" of the provinces' credit rating or defaulting on financial obligations... Also, if you don't mind, tell me HOW combining 2 TAXES has ANY influence on "job creation" or job creating "strategies"?

Yes I do... Do you? I remember it well, in fact I AGREED that there was NO NEED for Canada to go into US style "stimulous spending" since the previous Liberal Government already had put into place several very beneficial "grant and loan programs" to ordinary Canadians with upgrading home insulation, heating and the like, as well as supports for municipalities to increase infrastructure spending and hikes in transfer payments to the provinces... I also remember that rather than arguing the relative merits of "stimulous spending" with the opposition parties as is the function of parliament the Harper Regime decided to proroque parliament instead... Since I've agreed with why Harper proroqued parliament I've deleted this part of your argument as redundant and irrelevant... Where did I say any different? Again, where did I indicate in any way that Canada was "totally unaffected"? So? Stating that I said things I didn't say is YOUR argument? NOW, all you have to do is tell ME if YOU were/are FOR or AGAINST the Harper Regime's "stimulous spending"? Seems FAIR to me since I was very clear where I came down on that whole issue... Ummm, sorry, I thought I made it VERY CLEAR indeed... - Ottawa initially allocated $179 million for the G8 and G20 summits — three days of talks that are now expected to set taxpayers back at least $1.1 billion. Most of the money, about $930 million, is for security. To make it CLEARER just for YOU the HARPER REGIME SCREWED UP ROYALLY BY NOT REALIZING that Huntsville was TOO SMALL to HOST A G20 SUMMIT and had to MOVE the G20 summit to DOWNTOWN TORONTO (of all places) which IN TURN produced astronomical security costs because that entire MOVE had not been planned on... The "MOVE" to Toronto was not only the WORST and MOST EXPENSIVE PLACE to move the G20 summit to, it was DONE for PURELY POLITICAL REASONS (or so Harper though by bringing an "economic boost" to Toronto) thereby compounding the Harper Regime's initial mistake by more and more mistakes, making Canada's G20 conference a FARCE in the eyes of the entire world... Yup, sounds EXACTLY like you... Talking to yourself? Lying is lying... Harper is without a doubt the best of the bunch when it comes to that I fully agree... What a COMPLETE LOAD of horse manure that is... You have now lost the last remnants of credibility... - "The worldwide recession of the early 1990s significantly damaged the government's financial situation. Mulroney's inability to improve the government's finances, as well as his use of tax increases to deal with it, were major factors in alienating the western conservative portion of his power base. At the same time, the Bank of Canada began to raise interest rates in order to meet a zero inflation target; the experiment was regarded as a failure that exacerbated the effect of the recession in Canada. Annual budget deficits ballooned to record levels, reaching $42 billion in his last year of office. These deficits grew the national debt dangerously close to the psychological benchmark of 100% of GDP, further weakening the Canadian dollar and damaging Canada's international credit rating." - - "The 1993 election was an unmitigated disaster for the Tories. The oldest party in Canada was reduced from a 151-seat majority to two seats in the worst defeat ever suffered for a governing party at the federal level. The Progressive Conservatives were no longer a party, since the required minimum number of seats for official party status is 12. The 149-seat loss far exceeded the 95-seat loss the Liberals suffered in 1984. As an example of the antipathy toward Mulroney, his former riding fell to the Bloc by a lopsided margin; the Tory candidate finished a distant third, with only 6,800 votes—just a few votes shy of losing his electoral deposit.[34] In her memoirs, Time and Chance, and in her response in the National Post to The Secret Mulroney Tapes, Campbell stated that Mulroney left her with almost no time to salvage the Progressive Conservatives' tattered reputation once the bounce from the leadership convention wore off. Campbell went as far as to claim that Mulroney knew the Tories would be defeated regardless of who led them into the election, and wanted a "scapegoat who would bear the burden of his unpopularity" rather than a true successor." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Mulroney You've said enough... Having "pride" (even without any justification thereof) is NOT the same as being a PROUD CANADIAN; as I am... Since you have shown your "true self" there's no point to this "exchange" at all... Have a nice day and thank you for your valueless TIME...

EXACTLY RIGHT! AND I want my money back!

Harper's election to lose? He's trying hard... A not so short list of RECENT events... That's the heading of this thread... Just in case you forgot and want to make this about "Iggy and the Liberals"...

Considering the state of the world economy what better stock exchange to get one's gloves on, eh? Now tell me the BENEFIT it has for ordinary Canadians for this to happen?

1. The IN - OUT election financing scam... 2. Canadian tax payers and our form of parliamentary democracy was scammed... 3. Hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars paid as election expense refunds to 67 CONSERVATIVE candidates that ran in the 2006 election.. Hope that clears things up for you...

Could it be a REWARD to keep them quiet? Just askin'

I agree STRONGLY for the simple reason that it's very bad for CANADA in light of the current world economic situation... This is an "end around" play/ploy to throw Canada into the "Mix" of world wide economic turmoil... Putting our GOOD fresh eggs in the basket with rotting ones has 0 benefit for Canadians and shows just how important it was when the Liberals quashed the "mergers" of Canadian and US banks some years ago... This is not all that different, just a "new" twist in getting at Canada's "smarter way" of regulating it's financial sectors... Just another reason that this Harper Regime must be stopped before it damages Canada and Canadians even more than it already has...

Don't forget LAYTON, PLEASE don't forget to put Layton on that same plane...

The Avro Arrow: Canada's Broken Dream - It's the closest thing Canadian industry has to a love story and a murder mystery. The Avro Arrow, a sleek white jet interceptor developed in Malton, Ontario in the 1950s, could have been many things. It might have become the fastest plane in the world, our best defence against Soviet bombers, the catalyst to propel Canada to the forefront of the aviation industry. Instead, it became a $400-million pile of scrap metal, and the stuff of legends. - MORE Nuff said

Agreed, let's put this into FULL context... Budget projected deficit - $30 BILLION - Harper Regime stated deficit - $56 BILLION REAL DEFICIT spending by Harper Regime: $56 BILLION + $9 BILLION wasted and lost revenues (2% GST cut and other tax cuts) + $13 BILLION spending of the Liberal's "rainy day fund" (put in place for exactly the purpose of preventing deficit spending in "hard times") TOTAL HARPER REGIME BUDGETARY DEFICIT SPENDING: $78 BILLION Mostly incorrect... Other than a "glancing blow" caused by our close economic ties to the US, Canada did NOT go into said "Global Recession" thanks to safeguards, although mostly wasted by the Harper Regime as I've just stated, put in place by the previous Chretien/Martin Government... This part deleted as it is totally irrelevent to this discussion... Easily answered... The Harper Regime chose a totally inapropriate site for the combined G8/G20 summit with it being too small for the G20 portion of the combined summit... But here's a much better, and much more impartial, "explanation" than I can provide - G20: Canada’s billion-dollar summit mystery Excerpt - - Ottawa initially allocated $179 million for the G8 and G20 summits — three days of talks that are now expected to set taxpayers back at least $1.1 billion. Most of the money, about $930 million, is for security. Last September, Pittsburgh hosted a G20 summit that resulted in no great breaches of public order but whose security-related costs totaled only about $12.2 million (U.S.) — less than 1.5 per cent of the projected costs of the summits in Toronto and Huntsville. “How you can get to $930 million is beyond my comprehension,” said Antony Davies, an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. “That seems impossibly large.” For the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh, organizers rented the seven-year-old David L. Lawrence Convention Center, located on the banks of the Allegheny River in the city’s business and entertainment district. The Toronto summit will be similarly conducted at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. “They shut down the entire downtown,” Davies said of the Pittsburgh gathering. “It went very well.” - I've deleted the rest due to it's irrelevancy to the question... I love full CONTEXT... Particularily when it was Reform/PC criticism of projected SURPLUS budgets falling slightly short of projections that changed the Liberals way of projecting budgets MORE CONSERVATIVELY to appease that criticism... A practise continued by the Harper Regime when they took power... Unfortunately project, or underestimating a SURPLUS budget is something completely different when it comes to projecting a DEFICIT BUDGET... A 26 BILLION DOLLAR underestimation of the Harper Regime's last "budget, I would say, amounts to, to be as kind as possible, a GROSS MISREPRESENTATION of Harper Regime spending both to Parliament and the Canadian Public... I'm sure ANY reasonably intelligent person of ANY political stripe can see that difference... Slight correction... Welcome to Harper Regime style politics... Really? Examples please... I have great doubt that there is/will be ANYTHING that ANY future Government will want to take "credit" for... Major note... There's a rather large thread you may want to spend some TIME reading through to become a bit more credible in regards to this whole issue... Since the F-35c, the far better and far more suitable plane for Canada is even MORE EXPENSIVE than the F-35a you are in effect making my "case" for me since the F-35a is NEITHER suitable nor "cutting edge"... BUT by electing a LIBERAL GOVERNMENT one can ensure one thing, a bigger bang for a LOT less bucks than the current "deal"... http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=17363&view=findpost&p=630722 Silly statement, at best... Saying no Government is infallible or IMPERFECT is true, but NO, not every Government is a failure, but to this point in TIME the Harper Regime IS a failure as a Government... Ummm, NO... One represented Canada's FUTURE in Military Aviation vs being forever FORCED into exactly this kind of debate about every Military Purchase... You obviously have no knowledge of Canadian History and are using the "Diefenbaker Argument" at this point in TIME as a defence FOR buying the UNPROVEN F-35, that's actually quite laughable... You seem to have very little PRIDE in Canada, which is quite the opposite of me, I am an EXTREMELY PROUD Canadian... I have therefore concluded going any further with this post would prove rather pointless...

Would that be the same as ONLY chance?

Food prices are going up and up Can INFLATION and HIGH INTEREST RATES be far behind? just askin'

To a certain extent that is quite true... ALL Governments are far from perfect and tend to screw up to some degree... But when you look at the REALITY of Canada's Governments, beginning with DiefenBaker (scraping the Avro Arrow +++), MORONey (Free Trade/NAFTA sellout to the US - "revenue neutral" GST - Air Bus - etc., etc., etc., - even SUING Canada and then ADMITTING he screwed Canada), and NOW there's MORONey's protege Harper screwing up and screwing Canadians again and again, it just seems that CONSERVATIVES are sooo much better at screwing Canadians than any other political party... I for one will take my chances on a relatively unknown Ignatieff backed by a pretty strong front bench than a corrupt (if not ouright crooked), parliament disrespecting, Canada defacing, BIG SPENDER like HARPER with a bunch of idiots on his bench any TIME... Just sayin'

Hmmm, I wonder, could Oil SPECULATORS be the reason for the cost rises related to not only the price at the pump but a substantial RISE in almost anything you'd care to mention? You know all those 1% ers, AND their "puppet" Governments that have most of the money to be able to manipulate just about anything they want to manipulate... All in the name of FREEDOM (for themselves) of course...

"Good job" as opposed to what? Running up the HIGHEST deficit in Canadian history, spending a BILLION dollars on 1 weekend, being SUBSTANTIALLY WRONG on EVERY budget or update since Harper's been in power, having a total disrespect for the workings of the Canadian Government, taking "credit" for all the "safeguards" the Liberals put in place that ensured the recession didn't hit Canada as hard as other countries, buying (as opposed to option to buy) planes that even the US Navy is having second thoughts about at more than DOUBLE the projected price, you call that a "good job"? I call that a TOTAL FAILURE as a Government...

Is Jim Flaherty the first great Conservative finance minister? - "Who knows: posterity may one day bestow on him the title of the first great Conservative finance minister. But let's not forget: Canadians are in a good mood right now because our resource sector is humming, based on orders from the emerging Asian giants. And it's the Liberals who put the country's finances on a sound footing and who prevented a financial crisis by not letting the banks overreach. Just don't expect any Conservative finance minister to admit it." - Rather well put I thought...

GOOD'UN! From your LINK: - "Canada is off to an impressive start at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancun, if what you're measuring is climate inaction and environmental embarrassment. Today, at the first set of the Fossil of the Day awards, Canada took home not one, or two, but all three of the awards. The dubious 'honour' is voted on by an international coalition of than 400 leading international environmental organizations, including Greenpeace, who vote on the countries that performed the worst during the past day’s negotiations. Turns out if you are really committed to climate inaction, fail to have any plan to meet already weak targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, defeat a climate change bill that was already passed in your House of Commons by holding a snap vote by an unelected Senate after no debate, and are complicit in trying to weaken climate policy outside of your own national borders, you can win all three of the humiliating prizes." - Hmmm, almost makes one wonder why Canada wasn't a "shoe-in" for that traditional seat on the UN SECURITY COUNCIL doesn't it? Hell, even the U.S. and GB couldn't find anything nice to say about Canada in support of that nomination... Canada's "reputation" in the world on almost every front is the LOWEST it has EVER been... THANK YOU Mr. Harper...

Is that really all that surprising at this point in TIME? The entire North Africa news, now Libya, dominates the airwaves... The next BUDGET, just weeks away, that will determine whether or not there will be a spring election is the FOCUS of the politically minded in Canada... Harper attack ads are running and have been running for over a year now "just in case" the current government is brought down... Once the writ is dropped things may change very quickly as an apathetic Canadian public starts paying attention to what the "Harper Government" is really like... In the reading I've done on MLW I have a very hard TIME finding anything substantive that the Torys have done or even their POLICIES going forward... This leaves me to conclude that the so called "support" the "Harper Government" has is extremely weak at best... The MEDIA itself WANT an election this spring BADLY and I find a LOT of evidence for that by just watching the NEWS and how said (political) NEWS is presented on the CBC, CTV, 24 hour NEWS CHANNELS as well as the "nightly news" on ALL Canadian channels... So you can see that it's not really that surprising that Canadians, for the most part, have simply "tuned out" and are doing their "social networking" thing or listening to music on their ipods...

Surprise, surprise, I totally agree that the Liberals have to be in a position to be a viable alternative to the CONS... Having said that, just watch, look and listen to what the Dips do in any upcoming election, they take bashing Liberals and mostly ignoring the GOVERNMENT as an art form... In my riding, in the last election, it was a 2 way race between CON Joy Smith and the NDP because Dion screwed up and there was no Liberal candidate in my riding... I voted Green... Joy Smith trounced the NDP candidate... There are 4 Winnipeg Federal ridings that are NOT traditionally CON ridings that went to CONS courtesy of the NDP... Once in of course it's harder to unseat them because of the "name recognition" factor if nothing else... Truth be told it doesn't matter much to me anymore... What will be will be and Canada will have to live with whatever comes out of the next election... They will DESERVE whatever it is they get... "Some people are so heavenly minded they're no earthly good."

Your self righteous crap shows me exactly how this is playing out... Hope you didn't vomit over your keyboard, I know I'm not THAT lucky... Cry me a river! If you don't like what you're reading, tell your boys and girls on the hill to quit screwing up... This "everybody does it" nonsense isn't playing to anyone with half a brain...

Right on the money, I couldn't have said it any better...

This is TRUE, this election, whenever it comes, will be a BIG TEST for the Liberals no matter the outcome...

Heaven forbid! EVERY NDP vote brings us closer to another "Harper Government" when they "slide through" between Liberals and the NDP just like the last few elections... Shame on you for even suggesting it... 1/3 of the VOTERS RULING OVER 2/3 of the VOTERS is NEVER a good thing... Not even to teach Canadians a lesson...