normanchateau

A judicial inquiry proved that $1.14 million dollars of taxpayer money was illegally diverted to supporters of the Liberal Party of Canada in Adscam. If you refuse to acknowledge that as mismanagement of public funds then there is no 'backup' you will accept about the previous Liberal government. I will mark your words. So no member of the Government was guilty? And there are no cases of mismanagment that you can tell us about? Really? You sounded so convincing in your post Not a good day be a Con supporter. Not only can they not point to a current Liberal MP guilty of anything other than belonging to the wrong party, but they're now stuck with a leader who has shown, in a very short time, a remarkable ability to break promises and mismanage the economy.

Yea.....ok. And who are you going to put in place, the leaderless Liberals with their sting of broken promises? Okiee.... I'm guessing the Liberal delegates won't pick a leader who has a history of breaking promises. The Conservatives are now stuck until the next election with a so-con leader who breaks promises.

I wasn't shocked to see these results which indicate that only 44% now support the mission. I suspect with time, that percentage will continue to decline just as the percentage of Americans supporting the Iraq mission has declined. Arguably, the Iraq issue is responsible not only for the Democrats taking control of both Congress and Senate for the first time in 12 years, but also for the Rumsfield resignation. As Canadians learn more about the corrupt Karzai government and its involvement with warlords, mullahs and drug smugglers, Harper will wish he'd never extended the mission. The Karzai-ruled Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a corrupt theocracy. Yes, as you say, Canada does have a history of helping those in need but I don't recall that we have a history of helping corrupt Islamic theocracies

Same as how the governments of England and Canada had thought it improved theirs when they decided to intern Germans and Japanese. Repeating a mistake is not a very strong rationale.

The lumber companies wanted to pursue litigation which eventually ruled in their favour. That's what Canada should have done. Harper imposed a deal which was worse than what the lumber companies suffered at the hands of the US. There's a reason why Emerson opposed the deal when he was a Liberal.

The CPC did indeed back the wrong horse. They picked a so-con rather than a fiscal con to lead the CPC. Perhaps next time they'll know better.

Would you rather have that money staying in Canada or given to US lumber producers? Canadian money should be in the hands of those Canadians who earned it, not the Canadian government. The Harper government thinks otherwise.

Afghanistan is an Islamic fundamentalist conservative theocracy. Without us there, they'd be an extreme Islamic fundamentalist conservative theocracy.

It's all part of the Conservative effort to connect themselves to hockey, as they were advised by Frank Luntz. My sig has a link to a story about that very thing. I love it. The Conservatives trying to ingratiate themselves with Canadian hockey fan voters by honouring, of all people, Don Cherry. I suppose they thought Don Cherry would not antagonize anyone but they miscalculated...again. In theory, ingratiating themselves to fans of hockey is not a bad idea, particularly since they'll never ingratiate themselves to fans of economics.

I would think that even a loyal Conservative supporter would acknowledge that Gurmant Grewal was not a credit to his party. But if I'm wrong, I'm sure the many Conservative supporters on this board will tell us why Gurmant Grewal should be brought back to run for the Conservatives in the next election. Personally, I'd welcome Gurmant Grewal running for the Conservatives. Incidentally, Grewal's BC riding was won by the Liberals in the January, 2006 election, one of several Liberal and NDP gains in the province in that election. I anticipate further Conservative losses in BC in the next election given Harper's betrayal of the BC softwood lumber industry.

When Dachau opened in 1933, internees and their relatives were told that they were there "for their own safety". They lied. Or things got out of hand. Or it was poorly planned. Etc.., That was then. We should've learned from those mistakes by now. In this day and age, when the world is really keeping tabs on abuses against humanity....and most civilized nations are trying to comply, chances are, internment wouldn't be like that from the past. Most likely, independent observers will be around to monitor the conditions of, and treatment given to interns. So what you're saying is that we have learned from the abuses of prisoners in Dachau that there are better ways, including the use of inndependent observers, to inter innocent victims. First of all, where is Dachau? I answered assuming it is in Canada...since we are talking of a scenario that happens in Canada. Is it in Canada? Dachau is in Germany. There was a little internment camp there from 1933 to 1945. Some of the people in that camp were innocent of any crime except belonging to the wrong religious group.

Do you see "action"? Do you also see ghosts, leprechauns, elves and dwarves? I saw a proposed, lack luster, bill that bombed. I then saw Harper and Layton expertly bury it in committee where it will stay until after the election. You neglected to mention Harper's most important action on the environment...appointing Darrel Reid Chief of Staff to Rona Ambrose. Maybe so-cons and homophobes with no background or interest in the environment are just what the environment needs.

The provinces signed on because of extraordinary political pressure from the federal government. Why are lumber companies still bitterly opposed to the deal? You might want to read the following and find out for yourself: http://thetyee.ca/News/2006/10/13/Softwood/ As you'll see in that article, some small family-operated lumber companies were barely breaking even when they had to pay the 10.8% in duties to the US. But now they're actually losing money as a result of the 15% export tax which goes to Ottawa. I suppose they could just shut down, declare bankruptcy and layoff their employees. Is that what Harper wants? Did he anticipate this or was it just incompetence? In the end, this Harper-initiated agreement will do far more harm to the lumber industry than keeping the illegal US duties in place would have. In many ways, the Harper softwood deal has done to lumber companies what the NEP did to Alberta. Like most investors in softwood lumber industries, I could not possibly envision that a Harper government would slap a tax on a Canadian industry that was an even higher percentage than the illegal US duty had been. Emerson and Harper...dumb and dumber.

When Dachau opened in 1933, internees and their relatives were told that they were there "for their own safety". They lied. Or things got out of hand. Or it was poorly planned. Etc.., That was then. We should've learned from those mistakes by now. In this day and age, when the world is really keeping tabs on abuses against humanity....and most civilized nations are trying to comply, chances are, internment wouldn't be like that from the past. Most likely, independent observers will be around to monitor the conditions of, and treatment given to interns. So what you're saying is that we have learned from the abuses of prisoners in Dachau that there are better ways, including the use of inndependent observers, to inter innocent victims.

I have no use for religion but I will say a prayer on November 11th for those Canadians who died defending us. And I don't support the Afghanistan mission but I am 100% behind the Canadian military and our veterans. Keep up the good work, Army Guy. You guys are heros and heroines in the eyes of ALL Canadians. Without people like you, we would not have the freedom to criticize our government when criticism is deserved.

We are a long way off from the next election. The Conservatives control the timeline and will focus their attacks on the new Liberal leader when he is chosen. The Opposition controls the time line in a minority government. Paul Martin ultimately discovered that. You are correct that the Conservatives will focus their attacks on the new Liberal leader since the alternative would be touting their failed policies and broken promises. Poor Harper, just a few short months in power and already he's raised personal income taxes on those earning the least, betrayed and slapped an export tax on the lumber industry and broke his promise to seniors not to tax the income trusts. But I think the failed Afghanistan mission might do him even more harm as will his perceived link to the gasping Bush administration, now repudiated by a majority of Americans.

Are you saying that Harper did not impose a tax on Canadian lumber, an increase in personal income tax and the broken promise tax on income trusts? If he's going to tax, tax, tax, then he should expect criticism. Come election time, he will of course promise tax cuts hoping that people will forget his imposition of a string of new taxes in 2006.

The irony is that Emerson had no intention of rolling over when he was a Liberal Cabinet Minister but suddenly did when he became a Conservative Cabinet Minister. This suggests that it was Harper, not Emerson, who decided that Canada should roll over and grovel bloody-nosed to the US lumber lobby. And what has Harper got to show for this? An angry Canadian softwood lumber industry who feel betrayed by the Canadian government. The Harper government now imposes an export tax even higher than the illegal US duties.

The Americans aren't taxing it. The export tax is Canadian. But it's certainly not the first tax imposed by the tax-hungry Harper government. The increase in personal income taxes was on July 1st. And of course you've heard of the tax on income trusts imposed last week, i.e., the broken promise tax. Given his record in just a few months, I'm sure Harper will impose a lot more taxes before he's done. Preston Manning he is not. No wonder Manning dumped Harper from his position as Finance critic and replaced him with Herb Grubel, a financial conservative.

Uhm... welcome to November. That story is seven months old and we've already discussed it any number of times. The provinces accepted the agreement after a few more changes were made and the deal's done. Move on already. What changes? The deal Emerson rejected as Liberal Cabinet Minister is more-or-less the same deal he touted as Conservative Cabinet Minister. Both deals had the US keeping more than $1 billion in illegal duties. And now Canadian lumber companies are paying more in export taxes than they did in illegal duties. This financial mismanagement is even worse in some ways than the idiotic increase in the personal income tax rate that Harper introduced in July. Harper needs to consult with some competent economists.

The deal the Government agreed to now has lumber companies paying 15% export tax. Even the illegal US duties were only 10.8%.

That would depend, would it not, on whether the sexual abuse by Muslim preachers was extraordinarily high as compared to the general population. Let's suppose it were extraordinarily high. Would that justify rounding up ALL Muslim preachers? It would depedn on how high the percentage, how severe the abuse, and what other options were available. And if I were to provide some hypothetical figures, e.g., thousands of victims, very severe abuse, 10% of Muslim preachers, would you answer with an unqualified yes or no? Depends. Possibly. You're giving me a theoretical situation with threadbare facts. I realize where you're heading, of course, in trying to suggest Catholic priests are dangerous, but the statistics and evidence about them don't support the suggestion. Thanks for acknowledging that an unqualified yes or no would not be forthcoming. This allows us both to move on to more productive topics.

That political blog contains exactly the same link you've just provided.

It's curious that when Canadian Ambassador Frank McKenna presented the US plan for a negotiated settlement on softwood lumber to the Liberal government late in 2005, the government rejected the plan on the advice of Liberal Cabinet Minister David Emerson. Yet when a similar US plan was delivered to the Harper government in April, 2005, that plan was accepted, apparently on the advice of Conservative Cabinet Minister David Emerson. Here's what David Gray, BC spokesman for the Montreal-based Free Trade Lumber Council, had to say about the plan that Emerson suddenly and inexplicably found was good enough to betray the softwood lumber industry: "They've taken McKenna, they've put lipstick on it, they've put a girdle on it, high heels and a wig, but it's still a pig." He later modified his metaphor: "It's still a pig, but now we're trying to make it fly." Here's the link: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...d3c&k=48564 It remains to be determined why Harper would bring into Cabinet a stooge like David Emerson who first rejected the deal then inexplicably reversed himself. Did he want Emerson to be the fall guy for the softwood lumber deal which betrayed not only the NAFTA concept of free trade but the entire softwood lumber industry?

Well this is very educational. I had no idea that these passages appeared in the Koran. Given that the current government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has a constitution which states that the Koran is supreme and over-rides ALL other legislation, why are Canadians dying in Afghanistan? Whether they have elections or not, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a theocracy. No wonder in March of this year a man who converted to Christianity received the death sentence. Only his exile to Europe prevented that sentence from being carried out. Thank you Stephen Harper for extending the mission.