CPCFTW

What does a McLean's survey of experts have to do with an online poll? Does anyone really care what "experts" in political science and history think? Iggy would be PM right now if they did. Fact is that 21 people on this forum voted for Harper, whether or not they believe he is the greatest PM in Canadian history now, or if he will be viewed as such by the end of his career. It's not some conspiracy by "blogging tories and PMO staffers" to get 20 people to vote for Harper on these forums. Hell, you just posted a link to a survey of 1000 Canadians of which 19%, or over 190 people voted for him. I don't care if your argument is that he should not be considered the greatest PM, but to brush off the results of an internet poll with 50 respondents as some sort of Tory conspiracy is pathetic. If you're going to brush it off, brush it off because there are only 50 freaking respondents.

Yes it was rigged by the powers that be.. just like Harper's wins, Bush v Gore, and the 9-11 attacks. You caught us!

That isn't what you were suggesting... It just recognizes the user... as Marc Lepine's would have recognized him. As for cars driven by Google... http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/816724--woman-who-walked-onto-highway-sues-google-maps

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What don't you just lock yourself in a bubble in an underground bunker and leave the reset of us alone? We'll live with our 99.999% chance of not being murdered by an insane man with gun, and you can do the aforementioned to raise your chances to 100%. Don't ask for the rest of society to pay because you're afraid of your own shadow.

EI premiums make it more expensive to employ people. $530/mo is very generous for doing nothing. Stop perpetuating the mindset that leads to what is happening in Europe right now. Want to talk about a destructive notion? Look at what a strong "safety net" has done to Europe.

Judging by this sentence it doesn't appear that you do either. Anyway over 7% of the workforce is unemployed in Ontario. I'm sure if ei andd welfare weren't so generous people would gladly work in manfacturing for 20k/yr. Hell, I'd prefer if the government dumped 5k/yr into an resp for people working for a manufacturer than pay them to loaf around drinking beer and watching maury.

Have you ever worked in a McDonalds? I grew up in Anytown, ON. There isn't anyone in their right mind that would do it for 40 hours a week on minimum wage. Over half of new recruits quit before their 90 days are up because they can't handle the job. It's not as easy as you think and it certainly isn't worth doing for minimum wage.

If you believe that unions would have had to accept $3 per 12 hour day, then it's impossible to have any sort of discussion about labour relations with you. The problem with unions is that they hold management hostage. They can cost a business millions of dollars by going on strike, so management accepts terms which are not sustainable. Then the company either goes bankrupt, or management outsources the work to avoid being held hostage again. Either way, everyone (but the Chinese) loses when unions get involved. The reality is that manufacturing can certainly exist in North America, but non-unionized workers would have to be compensated at near minimum wage. I don't see how that is any worse than having those workers working in Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Subway, etc. for minimum wage. Do you only approve of minimum wage when someone's making you a hamburger and not a component of a car engine?

Wow you must watch too many movies or smoke too much... Yes we'd have millions of fully automated transportation systems if it weren't for the "pry-my-dead-cold-fingers-from-my-steering-wheel-crowd".

If you search through my posts you will find that I have several times argued that I wouldn't mind if our government borrowed to make investments in non-voting shares and bonds of corporations, rather than in welfare and EI. Governments can borrow at the lowest rates in the world because of their powers of taxation, so why not take advantage of that by borrowing to invest in financial assets (as corporations and individuals with good credit already do)? As a Canadian citizen I'd rather that government coerced taxes went towards investing in dividends for me and my progeny, rather than investing in a safe place for a heroine addict to shoot up. And the state doesn't "take" 60% of profits... it invests in companies and earns profits. Instead of investing in handouts for the lazy and stupid, it invests in cash flow and dividends. Ignoring the fact that teachers are compensated completely by the taxpayer, would you say Ontario teachers "take" the profits from the Toronto Maple Leafs when the OTPP owns MLSE? You're either completely blinded by your own ideology or just an ideologue trying to obfuscate.

One of the most attractive countries to do business in, and the fastest growing developed country in the world is Singapore. The personal income tax rate is a progressive system with tax rates from 0-20% (if you make about 60k CAD, you are only taxed at an effective rate of about 5%). The corporate tax rate is 8.5-17%. There are no cap gains taxes. Singapore has a 2% unemployment rate. A person in Singapore making 60k has about 57k take home pay. A person in Ontario making 60k is only taking home around 45k and consumption in most Canadian provinces is taxed at almost twice the rate (Canadians get less bang for their buck). Here is an article from the Economist on Singapore's attitude towards welfare: http://www.economist.com/node/15524092 Sounds a lot like conservatives doesn't it? What a horrible fate to live in a society with 2% unemployment and 98% with a much higher standard of living!!

And how much of our spending does that comprise? You are utterly clueless.

Oh a conservative from the 1800s was a proponent of welfare? I better change my mind then!! What was Bismarck's stance on globalization and the pending (in 100 years) european debt crisis? Is this argument stemming from the left's propensity to simply parrot their leaders rather than forming their own opinions? Sorry, conservative's don't think that way.

You probably don't even know what 2 + 2 is!1! And you're probably a stupid-head!!

Zombie apocalypse?

Almost everything you described is paid for by municipal taxes (ie. home ownership... you buy a house, you pay for "clean water, sewage treatment, and hydro. Your neighbourhood has street ligths, police, and fire for safety. Your roads are plowed and your garbage is picked up"). The cost of education could probably be covered by provincial sales taxes and a 5% provincial income tax (plus corporate taxes and other revenue sources (eg. OLG, etc.). All our other expenses are liberal/socialist feel good expenses which have ruined the western world. People should be paying 5-10% taxes on income for the above described services, not 30-50% for welfare and free abortions.

How was my post self congratulatory? If you have a pension or an RRSP than you are an investor and should be concerned about corporate profits. Most Canadian workers have some kind of investments. Not my problem you can't see the forest for the trees.

Why is shareholder value only important to wealthy shareholders? The ontario teacher's pension plan is a wealthy shareholder... should they not be entitled to a reasonable return on investment for the funds that they have been entrusted with by Ontario teachers to invest? I have an RRSP and TFSA with under $50000 invested. Should I not be entitled to a reasonable rate of return for these investments, or do you suggest that union labour should have a greater claim to my capital and the capital of other investors than the investors themselves? Is the new Marxist maxim that workers should have a claim to the product of their labour, the labour of shareholders, and the labour of consumers as well? Employees are the most replaceable part of the equation. If you don't generate profits, you can't attract investment for continued operations. If you don't provide a product that people demand, then they won't buy it. If you don't pay employees a wage that their collective bargaining overlords will accept, then you can hire cheaper labour in Indiana anyway. Why are 2/3rds of Chinese impoverished? Because there are 7 billion people in the world and the large majority of them have always been impoverished. Resources have always been scarce and wars have been fought for land and resources. Now we have a model that allows people to compete for resources instead of shooting each other for them. I'm not surprised you regressive "revolutionaries" prefer the alternative.

Cite? Most larger corporations would hire graduated MBAs for executive roles in the first place. This type of benefit is far from standard and would only apply to an exceptional individual who had climbed the corporate ladder through years of hard work to an exec position and needed some letters on his/her resume to back up the work experience. BS much?

So what you are saying is that 80 million people in South Korea and Singapore are a sub-human species that don't deserve to manufacture computer parts at a lower cost than good old North American unionized labour? You would prefer to pay $5000 for a laptop if it meant the upward redistribution of wealth from developing countries to the developed world could be continued?

Lets go over a simply economic exercise. The world demands 60,000,000 cars per year. Materials/parts/overhead etc. = $5,000/car 20,000,000 North American employees will build the cars for $60,000/yr each = $1,200,000,000,000 = $20,000/car + $5,000 fixed costs = $25,000 40,000,000 Chinese employees will build the cars for $5,000/yr each = $200,000,000,000 = $3,333/car + $50,000 fixed costs = $8,333 Cars are sold for a 20% profit = cars cost $30,000 when built by Canadians, or cost $10,000 when built by Chinese. The North American workers can either get a lower paying job, or they can educate themselves for a higher paying career. Lets say they take option 1 and they now make $30,000 instead of $50,000. They have lost $20,000 of income. But if you were to measure their quality of life in terms of cars they can afford, they can afford 3 Chinese made cars per year, but were only making enough for 2 North American made cars previously. Now repeat the above exercise for every conceivable product that is demanded. Surprise! While Western income may have decreased, quality of life has actually increased. And the quality of life in developing countries like China has dramatically increased (eg. 40 million low skilled unemployed workers now making $5000/yr). The only immorality in this model is people like you stuck in the "us vs them" mentality stopping at nothing to undermine this sort of progress. The irony is that you use computers manufactured in South Korea to spout your nonsense. There are 80 million people in Singapore and South Korea that live in an affluent country now because of free market policies.

How is it only lower paying temp service jobs? The jobs are going to other more competitive countries, they don't disappear. Yours is the shortsighted view of a fervent nationalist and/or racist. Sorry Canadians don't have a noble right to a higher living standard than other world citizens. And how can you bring up wealth redistribution when that is exactly what the union's intentions are (to redistribute wealth from shareholders and consumers to employees)? You demonstrate a fundamental lack of economic knowledge or comprehension.

It's already being remedied by the market. The companies are leaving the unionized labour and relocating to markets where they can get cheaper labour. The unions are dying. It's pretty simple: if your job can be done by someone else in another country for half the cost, then expect it to be done by them. There is nothing immoral about that. The cheaper that a company can build trains/cars/etc., then the cheaper they can be provided to consumers. I don't know why you guys seem to think that every dollar saved by a company goes towards buying some exec's lambo. You guys have a serious persecution complex.

The company wants to go to the us because of cheaper labour costs there. What does harper have to do with that? Tax cuts aren't a contract. When the government cuts personal taxes do they say "but you have to work in canada for 10yrs or you will have to pay us back!!!". The problem is, was, and always will be the unions. They can't come to terms with the fact that a company doesn't owe them a job.