Slim MacSquinty

And as if it weren't bad enough that they twisted the rules using this clearly corrupt semi-sponsorship scheme, when it didn't seem to work on the polls they reverted to "classic liberal tactic No. 1" smear campaign. Call the conservatives bigots it always sticks! And in a classic demonstration of the contageon of stupidity, it appears to be working! Man what's happened Ontario used to be a place to be proud of?

If you do not live in the 416 area code it is not in your or your families interest to vote Liberal in this election and here is why: Environmental Policy: The Liberals have pursued policies which are designed to make city people feel good about the environmnet, however many of those policies come directly at the expense of people in the country. A couple of examples are the Oak Ridges Moraine (ORM)Policy, and a number of changes around water regulations. The ORM Policy is long and drawn out and contains lots of statements about protecting various things like groundwater and other meaningless motherhood statements. However it actually protects the interest of a small group of people involved in the construction and sand and gravel industry. Even though people who live there have piles of restrictions that are generally designed to limit the number of people who live on the moraine so that eventually it will be significantly cheaper for the sand and gravel companies to acquire the land. The boundaries of the ORM line up perfectly (and I mean Perfectly) with the boundaries of the Aggregate resource maps produced by the MNR. Gravel extraction permits are exculded from the policies of the ORM and indeed do not require local municipal approval, gravel companies can remove trees, regrade the land create huge excavations and operate heavy diesel equipment within a meter of the water table with virtually no restrictions, yet a farmer may have reams of red tape just to add a barn or drive shed. There are virtually no municipal water systems connected to the oak Ridge moraine aquifers except a few small towns which serve only locals. So the premise is BS and the execution similar. Green Energy Policy: Windmills and solar panels make excellent poster and pamphlet material and knowing they are out there makes lots of city people sleep better at night, but should they have to look at them they have so far been successful making sure that they don't have their own views spoiled. If the wind energy was in any way viable the rates would not have to be overblow ten fold or more to support them, and we would not have to make secret deals with foreign companies to get them built. There are no rural municipalities that support having these stupid behemoths built in their jursidictions but Dalton will force them down your throat, because Toronto wants them and you'll have no say. Thr e truth is Green energy (unless its hydro generation) is not economically viable and will only increase your already expensive hydro bill. Immigrant hiring subsidy: Toronto loves immigrants, Peterborough and small town Ontario not so much, maybe I have that wrong, Immigrant love Toronto. At any rate hard economic times have hit all of Ontario, probably small town Ontario worse that the big cities, but thats not news. But regular Ontario people should take second place when it come to finding work? I have a son who has a skilled trade, he's an eighth generation Ontarian he makes $12/hr after being out of work for about 6 months. He got his education right here in Ontario, has paid taxes here since he was able to work, and yet when it comes to finding a good job he should be at the back of the line? That is just plain offensive. I know he or I don't mind competing fairly but I don't think we deserve to be back of the bus. Executive Powers for Police: I'm not talking about all that G20 business, as offensive and sectretive as it was, but things like the .05% rule. When you have 0.05% alcohol in your system you blow a warning on a breathalyser, 0.08% is breaking the law. Although I'm not much of a drinker I take offense when the police are allowed to tow my car, take my license and cause my insurance to go up even though I have not broken a law, furthermore there is apparenty no way to fight it? This was enacted without any discussion just on Dalton's signature. I know some are going to say, hey this person is in favour of drunk driving, which of course is just a variation of the "so have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question. Here is why I take offense to it, how it unduly hurts rural people and how it demonstrates how Dalton has no respect for due process. In the city you have taxis and public transit, if I go visit my family or neighbour up the road and enjoy a glass of wine, I have no transportation choices available to me, I have to drive. A hundred pound woman might be subject to having her car taken away, license suspended and being treated like a criminal after having done what most people feel is a pretty normal activitiy. That's just not right, yet it appears that this is a more and more common way to deal with things in Ontario, give authorities extra judicial powers that take away your rights, Dalton feels this is OK, you should not. There are more reasons, maybe I can get to them later. And I just am not going to buy the scare tactics about religion and other things circulated in smear campaigns by the Liberals, or their extra legal special interest groups like the working families coalition, cause it's BS. Thanks

This is all really a bit of a diversion, there are many good public service workers who do a decent days work for a decent amount of pay, union or no union. You just aren't going to get a better value privatizing alot of those jobs (even if you could). I agree that much of the public grevience with regular folks of all stripes is the apparent rise of in the increcredible incomes of the top 1%. Taxes are in no small way responsible for this but not how you think; corportate taxes are rightly kept low, this encorages investment and retained earnings which allows for various distribution. Where the problem starts is personal taxes, our marginal tax rate maxes out around $128K which means that you pay about 29% on your income above that threshold even if you make $2Mil. What that encourages is, for those individuals who can, to take the cash. This then translates into the silly salaries of the top 1%, if personal taxes got more progressive at the very high levels, say over $250K it would encourage these people to keep their money in their businesses. This has a double benefit, they would be interested in the long term value of the companies, since they would be investors not just payroll, and it would keep that money in productive use in the economy instead of wasteful savings or foolish spending on excessive luxury goods.

I wouldn't go so far as call that journalism, perhaps fiction is more accurate. The triumph of Harper's Conservatives is a revolution in Canada. Grumpy old men are happy but modernists, women, young people, immigrants, people fond of evidence-based policy will be much less so. It's the beginning of a kind of war, conducted in a dull, quietly agonising way. So there must be a lot of us grumpy old men here in Canada and by inference its really Grumpy old White men, doesn't look that way in most of the places I go? I guess I can take some solice in knowing that Ms. Mallick will suffer through a dull agonizing war beneath the rock she is hinding under.

There are 308 Seats, 285 reporting. It looks like we're going to have a Conservative majority, weak but that's OK. For the many Harper haters, think of it this way, its like brussel sprouts, your Mother made you eat them, you hated them, but they're good for you, just like a conservative government. Thanks Ontario!

Even without a majority the Tories have a good thing happening likely. The Liberals will be so week they will do anything to avoid an election for quite some time. At his point in time Iggy's fighting for his own seat. The right side of the Liberal party is about to get very vocal I would imagine, they won't have a hard time not showing up or quietly supporting Harper. That is a very likely scenario and probably a very good one for the country.

Thanks to Paul Martin. No thanks to Flaherty, who has brought back deficits, and whose government has engaged and is engaged in reckless, unnecessary spending. Reckless, unecessary spending. how so? Interesting that you mention the stimulus spending. The opposition parties basically had to force Flaherty's hand on this. So does this contradict the previous statement since my recollection is that both Jack and Iggy scolded Harper not spending enough and not fast enough. So by spending more we'd have less deficit? As for the fear of the big bag NDP. This is not the 1990's, and this is not the same NDP. Please do elaborate, not the same maybe worse? In terms of where we stand economically after the recession there is plenty of credit to go around, and it probably starts with Michael Wilson who under Mulroney set the course which Paul Martin ultimately followed. Under Chretien, there was much not to like, but that government was fiscally conservative and nothing like what Dion/ Iggy have done to the party. There is little difference between the basic principles of the NDP and Liberal financial platforms, neither is a fiscal plan any more than 649 is retirement planning.

First of all I have no disagreement with your analysis, however is that an adequate reason to turn your long running personal politics upside down, what does that say about your political philosphy? Clearly the two other options are miles from where you started. You do not choose who you will vote for based on which leader you figure is the "swellest guy", who would fit in with your drinking buddies best or would be most fun to golf with. You are choosing which party best understands where the country is at, where we need to go and has a plan to connect those dots together. We keep getting fooled by politicians who make us feel good, if the you think the government can do a better job of raising your kids, saving for your retirement and funding your healthcare, that's fine, I figure you must have low self esteem if you do, but so be it. But if you think they're pulling money outta their butts to pay for it you're a fool, the money will come from you and me, with a 20 to 25% surcharge for the cost of running it through the government machine. Jack and Iggy will tell you they are going to squeeze it from the tight fisted rich people and businesses, but your even dumber if you believe that, because those people and businesses will find a way to pass it right along to you and me, with a 10 to 15% surchage for the cost of doing business. The economy, taxes and business are all tied together and are far too complex to be summarized by a sound bite slogan, unfortunately that's about all we typically get in the media. No one has a greater interest in the wellbeing of you and your family than you, stop deferring to the government to look after these things on your behalf. You know the government and their minions don't really give a damn about you, otherwise they'd answer the phone when you called.

The Star would never let the facts get in the way of pushing their agenda. Couple of interesting articles in there today, they have a full parade of soft headed left wing experts to quote with authority. We should all be thankful that those who look after their own money, your mutual funds and our pensions don't look to the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives for economic expertise unlike the Torstar.

First off how is this any different than the kitten eater hidden agenda crap we've been hearing for years, except that there is indeed a morsel of truth at the center of this. Second if this is true then no wonder he's earned the name happy jack, since he's had fifteen years of borrowed time given the cops, who owe Jack Layton no favours whatsoever, have kept this under wraps. And no wonder he's happy, in 1996, living in subsidised housing, working part time as a professor at Ryerson and sitting on City Counsel, riding his bike to the rub and tug with his wife's permission, wow its every socialists dream! Now I wonder how we can work the hernia business into this scenario?

Well it seems that the editorial boards of a number of Canadian newspapers went out of their way to discuss Harper's competance, contrary to your well reasoned and ambitious opinion. As for contempt of Parliment, that was so weak that it refuses to resonate with either the electorate or the news media. In reality the only contempt of Parliment was the poor behaviour of the venemously partisan and imbecillic Parlimentarians who made up the majority of those committees.

Not true, the only the National Post has supported the Cons since day one, and they can, and have. dredged up links to many Liberal follies from days gone by. The Star never tires of finding a way to make reference to Mike Harris when refering to any Tory in any jursdiction. So to say the NDP are being treated unfairly because people are asking questions about linkage to past failed policies is just not true. Bob Rae is an intesting case, like many Steven Lewis era socialists his association with the left wing cause might well be attributed to a salving of the conscience based on his silver spoon - trust fund upbringing. Bob, who likely never had to balance a chequebook his entire adult life until he was confronted with a provincial budget as the unexpected Premier. If you read his books you would likely come to the same conclusion as I did. His experience as Premier lead to his (partial) conversion to capitalism, this was such an epiphany for him that he actually wrote a book about it, of course the comedy of this, for anyone who learned to prepare and maintain a budget in our teens as a necessity, is that he did not actually learn this fundemental lesson until middle age and was so suprised by it felt the need to share it to enlighten the rest of us! Bob's turned into a sort of well meaning, overly ambitious twit. I expect he now realizes he is never likely to succeed at either of his ambitions, to lead the Liberal party or to effect the merging of the left wing parties. He will likely fade into obscurity if we're lucky, if not he might occasionally emerge from the shadows as an entertaining diversion. If you really want to hear from him he does rent himself out: http://www.speakers.ca/rae_bob.html

here you go Mr Bluster, I'll do it for you: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita As you can see we would have to increase the incarceration rate by a factor of six to catch up, so how would a small increase in the length and frequency of incarceration rates for violent and abusive criminals either ruin our country and make us the least bit like the US? Please make a reasoned arguement based on some credible fact. Just stupid talk really isn't it?

Yes I also heard that the Star will endorse the NDP, not really a big suprise, they know that Iggy's done, they couldn't say anything nice about the Cons if the sun shone out of their *sses. Interesting times, may not be so bad for the Cons afterall though, with a fairly strong minority (say 130 to 140 seats) and a small rump of Liberals (say from 15 to 30 seats) they should be able to count on liberal support as the liberals will not want to go back to the polls for a very long time, depending on the exact numbers it may be sufficient to carry them through with few if any compromises. Four or five years as the official opposition should be sufficient for the NDP to demonstrate enough lunacy to send them to the back of the line for a while. This may prove to be a relatively stable arrangement that will eliminate the hysterical whimpering of Mark Holland and Scott Bryson and allow the conservatives to get out of protective mode and run the government in a reasonable fashion.