normanchateau

How on earth do you view the Liberals' 12.8 billion dollar increase in military spending as "weakening our military"? "The Liberal government provided General Hillier with the authority to reshape the military, and wrote him a virtual blank cheque for the largest military spending increase in a generation in the 2005 budget: $12.8 billion over five years – an increase that will eventually take Canadian defence spending higher than any level since the Second World War." Source: http://www.canadians.org/peace/issues/Marc...s/military.html Well I don't know what happened to that money, Norm. All I remember was that our Canadian soldiers had to hitch a ride with the Americans just so to be able to reach and give relief aid in another country. I think this was during the tsunami in Indonesia. I was actually visiting Indonesia when the tsunami struck so I remember rather vividly that it was 2004. The 12.8 billion dollar increase came in the 2005 budget. Poor Paul Martin was so tainted by the sponsorship scandal that he never got the credit he deserved for the largest increase in Canadian military spending since World War II.

Many of the detainees are ordinary citizens that been rounded up, questioned, tortured and then released because they were not Taliban. Mackenzie is no longer a military leader. He is a former Conservative candidate who is a spokesman for Tory policies. Mckenzie may no longer be a military leader....but I don't think it is irrational for me to say that I'd still believe his words and assessments as absolute fact more than I would believe a Taliban suspect. Anyway, what's his being a Conservative now got to do with it? Are you saying you're automatically dismissing him just because he is a Conservative? His military background, rank and experience do not count at all? Yet you readily believe what a Taliban says. You gotta be kidding.... So you're saying we should believe Mackenzie because of his military background. How about Col. Steven P. Noonan, a Canadian former task-force commander in Afghanistan, who has testified to evidence of prisoner abuse? Should we believe him or should we believe Stephen Harper who said last week that “This is based on nothing more than a handful of unsubstantiated allegations from Taliban prisoners..." Who should we believe? Col. Noonan who has had military experience in Afghanistan and testified to prisoner abuse or Stephen Harper who has a record of incompetence and lying to Canadians? http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...fghanistan/home

Some would also say the Tories shouldn't do anything major because they don't have the mandate from the people. I see no problem in principle with the Conservatives doing something major and on some issues they already have though not necessarily successfully, e.g., they revisited the issue of the definition of marriage in a failed attempt to take away the rights of lesbians to marry, they let the US keep a billion dollars in illegal duties obtained from Canadian forest companies and replaced it with an export tax even higher than the illegal duty rate, they extended the mission in Afghanistan, they taxed the income trusts, they raised personal income taxes on July 1, 2006. If they could do these things, why can't they deport foreign criminals? And if they can't or won't deport foreign criminals like Omid Bayani, why can't they develop legislation to facilitate their deportation?

How on earth do you view the Liberals' 12.8 billion dollar increase in military spending as "weakening our military"? "The Liberal government provided General Hillier with the authority to reshape the military, and wrote him a virtual blank cheque for the largest military spending increase in a generation in the 2005 budget: $12.8 billion over five years – an increase that will eventually take Canadian defence spending higher than any level since the Second World War." Source: http://www.canadians.org/peace/issues/Marc...s/military.html

Pointing out that Dion looks gutless does not negate the fact that the spineless Harper supported the motion.

Show me a thread stating that the US is now threatening to pull out of the softwood lumber deal...or did you even bother to read the link?

How did she smear the party? She merely pointed out some of their actions during their brief time governing. For example, Harper, who campaigned on a feigned promise of accountability, did appoint his former campaign manager Fortier to the Senate then to the Cabinet within days of being elected. He did break the income trust promise. Conservative Emerson did let the US keep a billion dollars in illegally obtained duties that he had refused to allow when he was a Liberal cabinet minister.

That being the case, it's interesting that Canadian views toward involvement in Afghanistan resemble Dutch views. It must be those pesky Quebecers resemble the Dutch Muslims in attitude.

Perhaps they had anticipated that the Conservatives would have been more accountable rather than blaming it all on low level bureaucrats. What responsibility has Peter MacKay taken publicly? So you don't think the Liberals would have been more proactive on this file. Of course I think the Liberals would have been more proactive but I can't prove it any more than you can disprove it. The Conservatives have already demonstrated their incompetence in handling this file as they have so many other files. What a bunch of bumblers. And some of their supporters actually blame the victims of their incompetence...like women dying of cancer who should have anticipated that this would happen before they were declared terminal.

Yes, they must be doing something right. If only they'd reveal it.

Yes, but it didn't stop the Conservatives from supporting the motion. Is it because they are unconscionable or spineless?

Do they somehow think the Liberals would have been more proactive on this file? Perhaps they had anticipated that the Conservatives would have been more accountable rather than blaming it all on low level bureaucrats. What responsibility has Peter MacKay taken publicly?

When Liberal Cabinet Minister David Emerson turned down the softwood lumber deal offered by the US in December, 2005, he noted that the US refused to return all of the illegal US duties and Canada would not accept such a deal. When Conservative Cabinet Minister David Emerson accepted in 2006 a similar softwood lumber deal which left a billion dollars in illegal US duties in the hands of the Americans, he rationalized it as the best deal possible. And he noted that at least we now have a deal. So why isn't the incompetent Conservative government now touting the deal as evidence of Harper's brilliance? Here's one reason: http://www.topix.net/content/cp/1184535098...455563437911403 Prior to the 2006 election, Conservative supporters pointed out that Harper's conciliatory approach would get a lot more concessions from the US government. Well it didn't work on softwood lumber and it certainly didn't work on passports. What has accrued to Canada as a direct result of the approach of the new Government of Canada to George Bush?

I'm not sure what you want. There are provisions for emergency passports. There are provisions to speed things up, and people can be moved to the head of the line. It physically takes time to create a passport. Is that beyond your understanding? Either you didn't read the last page of the link or you failed to comprehend it.

No of course it's not the Conservatives' fault that they chose to ignore completely last year's warnings from the Auditor General that Passport Canada was unprepared for the massive, anticipated increase in passport applications. It's the fault of the Liberals, or the NDP, or the BQ, maybe even the Greens. Indeed the opposition parties and every Canadian without a passport is responsible for the Conservatives choosing to ignore the Auditor General's warning to the federal government. It was merely an unfortunate coincidence that last year's federal government was Conservative. What a bunch of bumbling incompetents the Conservatives have proven to be.

Harper apologized for pandering to Quebec? You've got to be kidding. This is what he does best.

True, any minsority gov't has to govern with all other parties in mind, they have to try to appease all parties or nothing will get done. So Flaherty raised the income taxes on all Canadians on July 1, 2006, to appease all parties? So Flaherty reduced by $200 the basic personal exemption on all Canadians on July 1, 2006. to appease all parties? So Flaherty broke the Conservative promise on not taxing income trusts to appease all parties? What evidence do you have that any of these Flaherty misadventures actually pleased the other parties let alone pleased Canadian voters?

I'm with you on this one, people have known for a long time about passport requirements and all of a sudden its the conservative's fault. So what you are saying is that this woman should have anticipated long ago that she would develop terminal cancer and have only 6 months of mobility left. Let's hope that Stephen Harper's refusal to comment on this issue doesn't mean that he thinks as you do. http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...1d0310f&k=66359

Mishandling is a charitable term. Some view Stephen Harper's public support for Minister O'Connor as far worse than mishandling. I enjoyed this headline in the Globe and Mail: "PM stands by O'Connor -- but for the wrong reasons." Conservative sources told The Globe and Mail yesterday (April 25, 2007) that despite pervasive recognition of Mr. O'Connor's failings, Mr. Harper has no plan to let the Minister go because it could be interpreted as a lack of commitment. "If it's interpreted as us wavering, or any weakening of resolve that somehow we're on the wrong course, those questions would get asked," a source told The Globe and Mail. "The Taliban would see it as a positive thing." There is something remarkably familiar about those words. They are reminiscent of what George Bush said when he still supported Rumsfeld. But eventually Bush got rid of Rumsfeld just as Harper will get rid of O'Connor. Harper made a serious error when he first appointed a former defence lobbyist as Minister of Defence. Now he is compounding that error through indecisiveness. No one really believes that he's keeping O'Connor on because he fears firing him would play into the hands of the Taliban. Does Stephen Harper believe that not firing an incompetent like O'Connor shows strength on Harper's part? If so, he's mistaken.

Oh boooooo hoooooo! If you lose your deposit for that trip to Florida because you only applied for the passport last month - good. Serves you right for being a sub literate cretin. I feel zero sympathy for those people waiting in lines for their passports when they've known about this for over a year. I wonder if you feel sorry for this 54 year old woman: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...1d0310f&k=66359 She has terminal cancer and just left palliative care at Vancouver General Hospital so she could stand in line for a passport before travelling to visit friends and relatives one last time while she is still mobile. She did not anticipate that she'd be dying so soon and so quickly, and therefore had not got a passport previously. Read the story in the link. Should Passport Canada not have a mechanism in place to deal with people like her or do you have zero sympathy for people like her?

He wasn't. He was defending the authority of Parliament. Now who is trying to set up a strawman? Strawman? The Conservatives supported the bloc motion, and Michael Chong defended it. If they didn't want to waste time and money on this issue, they wouldn't have voted for it now would they? So please do explain why the Conservatives, and Michael Chong, supported the motion. If you want to avoid the question again, don't bother waiting for a response. I'm sure they supported it reluctantly, but they supported it for political reasons anyway. In other words, the Conservatives supported the motion because they're noble and high-minded whereas the Opposition supported exactly the same motion because they're a bunch of unprincipled scumbags. Here's an alternative hypothesis. The Conservatives, having previously shown that they lack brains and heart, have no shown that they have no balls. If the Conservatives ignore the issue, well they are thick headed bigots. And if they listen to the Bloc and the NDP and Dion they are spineless. If the Conservatives had ignored the issue, as they rightly should have, most Canadians would have applauded them for their courage and common sense. The handful of snivelling Canadians who would have touted this as evidence of Conservative bigotry are unlikely ever to become CPC voters. By siding with the Bloc, NDP and Liberals, they erred in the direction of unprincipled spinelessness which is not necessarily a vote-getter among the undecided. Paul Martin might have survived the sponsorship scandal if he weren't also perceived as being spineless.

Dutch polling data released May 5, 2007 suggest the Dutch are once again stealing Canadian opinions. Then again, there may be other, more sinister explanations for these remarkable similarities in opinion. Do you support the Dutch mission in Afghanistan? Yes 56% No 37% Not sure 7% The cabinet must soon decide if the Dutch military mission must be extended or not. Do you agree or disagree with extending the military mission in Uruzgan? Agree 35% Disagree 51% Not sure 14% Source: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/...em/itemID/15623

I agree. You are referring I assume to Hell's Angel associate and drug dealer Omid Bayani who has managed to avoid deportation for 10 years. See story: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...a39&k=53251&p=1 No doubt the new Government of Canada is working hard on preventing such abuses but I wouldn't bet on it. They're far too busy fashioning themselves as Liberal clones. Harper has become Martin and if he hasn't, it's not for lack of trying. Of course his supporters will rationalize this sellout as something he's doing only because he has a minority...

The biggest fault of the Conservative Government so far has been an inability to deal with the unexpected or when forced to respond without a script. Well said. Case in point: the utter lack of preparedness of Passport Canada for large numbers of Canadians suddenly wanting passports. It makes one worry how this government would respond to a serious security issue, e.g. a terrorist attack or other unscripted disaster requiring assistance. Will this government try to get off the hook by blaming the citizens for not anticipating the disaster?

Argus, it is that kind of smug arrogance that irritates taxpayers.The bureaucrats in the passport office are public servants. We pay their salary. They are supposed to work for us. Moreover, we have no choice: we depend solely on them for our passports. It is the responsibility of the bureaucrats to organize their affairs so that we can get the service we pay for. It now costs $87 to get a passport and you may have to wait several months to get one. That's outrageous. The bureaucrats in the passport office are incompetent but we, as taxpayers, have no way to fire our so-called servants. If my local restaurant or car wash operated this way, I'd go elsewhere. In the case of the passport office, I can't - unless I become a citizen of another country. it is not the minister who is incompetent. It is the bureaucracy. Is the minister, in this case Peter MacKay, not ultimately responsible for the bureaucracy he oversees? Who's ultimately accountable if not the minister?