TTM

The only appropriate reply to a ridiculous comment--Do not question the system; the system must be obeyed; Big Brother is watching! What's the point of a political forum, if not to debate politics. And the political system we live under. And its flaws. And perhaps suggest alternatives. Or we could just yell "YOU SUCK!!" back and forth. Yah! that sounds like fun. PS Never voted Green, likely never will. But plenty of people do. I respect that.

Sure comrade

Feel free to refute any of it. I posted it for comment, not because I think it looks pretty. I've always been annoyed at the conventional wisdom that conservatives were better at managing a national economy, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Of the governments I have a passing familiarity with, we have Mulroney, Devine, Bush, and now (to a lesser extent) Harper. Compare to Cretien, Romanow, and Clinton. Not saying left-wing govt's are always better (obviously not), but they don't seem to get the free pass.

The only recognition the Greens are asking for is a spot on the debate, and a chance to gain a little exposure. Not much for a party that represents approximately one out of every 20 Canadians. I prefer a mixed proportional system. It balances the perversities of both extremes. ~2/3 representative MPs, with the remainder from party lists to more adequately reflect the popular vote.

My brain. With some help from my appendages (not saying which ones...)

I don't know why he would want to associate the Liberal party with a big tent anyway. The only association I make is big tent-->circus-->clowns.

It may help to know that I view simple first-past-the-post as a piss-poor method for electing a government.

I'm not sure I understand how the Conservatives can run as the party of fiscal responsibility. A "brief" summery of their actions on the economy would seem to indicate middling competence at best: (1) Inherited a government on sound financial footings with consistent surpluses on the order of ~$10 billion (2) In opposition, they constantly railed against this as being an example of how Canadians are overtaxed, despite the obvious observation that if a country is not making surpluses and paying off debt in the good times, what happens in the bad? (3) On getting in power, they implemented a populist and widely panned (by economists) tax cut -- the 2% GST reduction, estimated to cost on the order of 15 billion annually (4) At the same time they were also lowering business taxes -- not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a good thing. Lowering an uncompetitive rate should help grow the economy and increase the tax base. Lowering an already competitive rate is an inefficient and expensive measure. (5) Closed income trust loophole. This was a good policy, though ham-fistedly implemented. Also, this was after railing against the Liberal party for trying to do the same thing. While coming to your senses is a good thing, when you're the last person to realize the problem, that doesn't say much for your abilities. (6) At the same time as reducing the governments tax income, they were increasing government expenditures at well above the rate of inflation. (7) Shortly before the American housing crisis caused the recession, greatly loosened the requirements for purchasing a home -- went from 10% down, 25 year term to 0% down for 40 year term. I remember because I was buying a house at the time. At the time I thought the idea of purchasing a house over 40 years was retarded. (8) As the US economy started to go down the toilet, continually denied there would be a recession. (9) Told Canadians now was a good time to be participating in the stock market. It then collapsed. (10) Introduced a budget that contained no response to the recession, and instead contained petty partisan tricks (11) Was forced by a combined opposition into introducing a stimulus package. This seems to be what most people point to when they talk about the Conservative response to the recession, and they had to be brought to it, kicking and screaming. And the massive deficit spending has got to stick in the craw if you are an actual fiscal conservative. At least it appears this package was implemented competently. I'm firmly of the belief that this spending was mostly unnecessary, and the soundness of the underlying economy are what got us through the economy relatively unscathed. And these fundamentals were primarily due to the policies of the Liberals and the PCs before them (see (0), (1), etc). (12) Blew $1B+ on the G8/G20 meetings, in an attempt to shine our tarnished international rep, only to be snubbed in their bid to get a seat on the UN security council. (13) In the ongoing fiasco to replace Canada's Sea Kings, the Liberals chose the CH-148 Cyclone, a manipulated contract to purchase an untested, bleeding edge helicopter. Supposed to be delivered in 2008, will now not be delivered to 2013 (I believe "interim" helicopters have been delivered). Including the cost of delays and changes, the initial $5B contract will end up costing billions more. Now history repeats with the CF-18 replacement. (14) Instead of a mild deficit (see (2)), had the conservatives not implemented (3), (4), and (6) because Canadians were "overtaxed" , they instead managed to break all deficit records when the bottom dropped out. (15) Realizing the idiocy of (7) due to the overheating housing market, and what happened in the US, but apparently not wanting to admit it, they partially reversed the changes to the minimum requirements, now 5% over 35years, and tweeked a few other lending rules. This didn't work, so they again went back and tweeked the rules. Time will tell if they have to revisit this a fourth time. (16) They claim they will balance the budget by 2015, but with little or nothing in the way of tax increases or spending cuts, seems to be of the "and a miracle occurs" method of budgeting. The Conservatives call the other parties "Tax-and-Spend". While not my preference (and somewhat misrepresenting the actual policies), it is much better than a consistent pattern of "Cut-and-Spend". Every conservative government that has tried it has failed, leaving it to their successors to clean up the mess.

The Reform Party started out as a regional party. It elected its first member in a bi-election while poling at around 2% nationally. They were able to use their regional success to gradually transform in to the national Conservative party today (the complete collapse of the PCs also helped, much like the complete collapse of the Liberals or NDP would definitely help the Greens). The Greens, on the other hand, are already a national movement, consistently polling around 5% (1 in 20 voters) and as high as 10% (1 in 10 voters, and roughly the support of the BQ) with that level being fairly consistent across the country. To insist that, in order to be recognized nationally, they should concentrate their support regionally seem perverse, to say the least.