Slim MacSquinty

Dirty rotten politics as usual, I'm proud to say I supported the Tories to supplant the liberals after a watching politicians use my money to line their own pockets, literally theft - remember. Now the liberals having tired of their extended visit to political wilderness are suffering from withdrawl for power and access to our money. This insult at the hands of the electorate must be rectified, and soon. So for the first time in the history of parlimentary democracy our government fell on the pretext of contempt of parliment. Based on what? a couple of relatively minor issues that anyone with a sense of history might say were worthy of some penalty but not the historic route taken by the zealously partisan opposition. Remember there is nothing wrong with having contempt for the Liberals, that is not the same as contempt of parliment, but it does not supprise me that they would get that confused. Their fear of further distance from power was made worse in the first few weeks of the campaign when it appeared that Harper might indeed get his majority. This is where it gets even dirtier, a Liberal operative leaks the DRAFT report and the Liberals go into scandal hysterics knowing full well that the AG's final report says something different, I'm sure Mark Holland peed himself at the opportunity to put on his indignant face. Now I'm not happy at the negative adds, or the super control aspect of this Tory government, but it has been very clean by comparision to almost anything that went before it. And I can understand when a good chunck of the media and a lot of special interest groups appear to have a viseral hatred for the party that they would be inclined to be defencive and protective. But remember that we have had a minority governement for five years, the longest in history, that might suggest to some a less than despotic approach might have been necessary as some level of opposition support was necessary to sustain it through the many necessary votes. Yet the despot comments continue and the media gives zero credit for a minority government guiding the country so well through the roughest patch in nearly a century. I have to really wonder what the heck is going on with my homeland, it seems we've been overrun by hysterical liars.

Here in Central Ontario coyotes have become quite a problem, as mentioned earlier they are not pure coyote anymore they are a coyote/ wolf hybrid. A full grown coyote now is the size of a small german shepard. They are pack animals and can be heard nightly around here as they yip and howl after a kill. Generally they seem to be packs of five up to about eight. They have taken alot of rural cats, only saw one rabbit this year and take alot of small farm animals. They are not wary or humans but not particularly afraid. I encountered one last fall who ran about 30 feet, then stopped turned and looked me over then sauntered away. Last winter you could not find a dear track that did not have a coyote track behind. A couple of years ago I caught one trying to lure one of my dogs into a chase, of course the old dog would have been ambushed by the pack. Pity the poor young, and apparently very talented women.

In this largely political game, there is no free pass for geography. The US would be best not to play that game, or you will be entangled in more than Arabia for a very long time, remember your oil industry will be drooling over the oil sands sooner rather than later. And it seems there is indeed a free pass for geography, especially if you live nearer to the equator in a third world dicatorship.

are there other countries who can boast that their economies grew faster because they stuck to conventional energy sources? And please don't forget to subtract the environmental costs if they did. The question I have is in terms of electricity what have we done so wrong, while energy consumption was so low this summer spot overnight prices were actually negative, hydro electric producers were actually paying to dump electricity into the market, yes the most environmentally friendly method of generating electricity was paying to get rid of it. All the while the provincial government is willing to pay people huge premiums to implement less efficient questionable technology. Right now there are a bunch of Europeans over here doing the George Smitherman abreviated EA to secure approvals over huge swaths of land for wind generation, while providing no information whatsoever about technology, specific location or human/ environmental effects. They have no intention of actually building a thing, they are going to secure approvals and sell leases to (in all likelyhood) large American conglomerates who will take advantage of the huge subsidies that you and I will fund. The EA meetings are a farce and the locals appear to have no power to stop huge wind turbines turning up within 500 meters of their homes, 1/3 of the regulatory setback required in most european countries. Wind turbines are not going to solve our peak demand issues, yet we will still be paying huge premiums for the electricity they generate. OPG/ Ontario Hydro studied wind resources in detail in the late 90's - earlier this decade and concluded it wouldn't pay. Anyway I know I digress. Here in Canada, it is very difficult to compare our energy consumption to Europe since we have large distances between settlements and in general a cooler climate. In additon making huge gains will be difficult since we tend to be more efficient to start with than many other nations The fact we are producing resources to supply many other parts of the world puts us at a further disadvantage since large energy inputs are required to produce these materials yet they don't get counted in the destination countries who actually use the product. Finally I am very leary about not treating all nations equally as it concerns carbon emissions. Third world countries like China and India already have a huge labour advantage (right or wrong) their industry is in many cases using western capital to build factories and and production, why should they be burning coal to supply them when they could more easily go straight to cleaner technology?

The next debate will be pop, because of child obesity and the very minor link to sugary pop, they want to tax pop. Again people are too stupid to make the decision I made not to drink pop, so they should be punished for their stupidity and MADE to conform to my way of thinking. Despite the fact there is no evidence that sugar actually is killing anyone. I don't see them taxing salt yet, it actually does kill people.

here is one piece of info on the virtue of wind power, make note of their use of coal. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf99.html It would also appear they are subsudising their domestic gas industry through industrial gas prices, thereby encouraging what I mentioned earlier. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/d...arket_dk_en.pdf It also appears that their per capita consumption is not better than the EU on average, worse than Ireland and the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...ity_consumption

Yes but still...The Danes use about the same amount of energy today as they did in 1980. But over that same period of time, the country's economy has grown by 70 per cent. Perhaps they were just horrible inefficient 28 years ago? My guess is that has something to do with it, I also would be willing to bet that industry uses a whole bunch of cogeneration solutions that are largely off grid so does not get counted, this is particularly possible given the exceedingly high price of energy in that country.

Eyeball I actually agree with your MAD assessment, in my view it comes from having an overly formally educated, highly urban population. The arguement is always the same and it goes somethng like this: I, being a highly intelligent and civilized person having utilized my significant cognitive skills, have conluded this activity/ product is dangerous/ undersirable/ annoying and is something that I have no interest in owning/ doing therefore every other similarly intelligent and civilized person should have reached this conclusion as well. Those who have not reached this same conclusion are clearly not as intelligent and civilized as me, or perhaps are a criminal or have criminal tendancies and therefore deserve to have the benefit, if not imposition, of my opinion. Of course this argument is easy for smoking, but if you think about it is exactly the same for gun control, a great variety of traffic/ highway laws, zoning and land use arguments and a large variety of other "safety" initiatives. Over the past few generations we have been so eager to send our children off to University to be "educated" we have taken great pains to protect them from the trudgery of manual labour and the education it affords. Most people now drive a car but have no idea of the systems that make it work or how to fix it, indeed most people would struggle to change their own oil. They live in homes they could not construct or make significant repairs to, have in large part lost the skills to grow their own food, or even the knowledge of where it comes from and many other essential things our forefathers needed to know to survive. This then becomes a scary world which they do not understand and struggle to control, this is the perfect environment for your MAD theory to take hold. This is to say nothing of the idea of civil liberties which require each individual to have equal regard for the liberties of others as of their own which is essential for the concept to survive.

Life by its very nature is a balance of risks, those who wish to eliminate all risk from their own lives have my full support for their perpetual TV watching, healthy eating and generally boring lifestyles. Despite the fact they will be burdening the governement by collecting pensions and using healthcare and other facilities long past their due dates while they continue to occupy space playing bingo and doing macrame. However, I draw the line on my tolerance for them when they expect the rest of society to join them in their quest for safe and boring longevity. Give me liberty or give you death should be on your license plates. I say to all these facist do gooders; "butt out of my life", pun intended.

I think that obtuse prudes who tell others what to do are a danger to society, perhaps when Michael Bryant has resolved his legal issues we could have him come back and help Dalton ban them like he did with Bull Terriers, hell if we can delete a species of animal how hard could it be eliminate stupid morons?

The Americans, believing themselves to be the centre of the world, didn't feel they needed Canada. I think Obama realizes that in the interest of friendship and future support for Canada it's better to exempt Canada from this agreement. Our economies are so intertwined anyways that restricting each other didn't help anyone. Buy American makes sense to keep Mexican and Chinese garbage from putting people out of work. It doesn't make sense when Canada by and large plays on a level field with big brother down south. Obama knows this. Agreed, there is probably a little more to it, traditionally its been the Republicans south of the border who had a better understanding of free trade and less inclination toward protectionism. This deal may have something to do with "fortress America" being more inclusive of Canada on other fronts.

Tax deductible mortgages overheat the housing market and encourage irresponsible lending and borrowing practices and most definately contributed to the real estate bubble and financial collapse in the US. European credit ratios for banks are even looser than those in the US yet Europe did not suffer from a real estate bubble like the US. As for the original point of the thread, sitting on idle money although it perhaps makes those who posses it feel more secure, it is unproductive money not being re-invested in the economy thereby not contributing to economic recovery. This of course is not good for the banks but also not good for many businesses or the rest of us.

Do you really think that a bunch of American Senators were worried about whether Kitchener would buy American widgets for a municipal project, hell half of them figure we live in Igloos and get our groceries by stalking it in the tundra. The other half probably rightly realize we'd have little impact on their economy either way. Obama is doing Harper a favour based on good economic principles and something of a personal relationship, Layton, the BQ and the Liberals played no part other than providing background noise.

Is there something scary about Tom Flanagan's take on the truth? This appears to be his opinion not the Tories, he has not been an advisor to Harper for two or three years now, but is making a good living off their past relationship. Of couse not the way a Liberal would through fat governement advisor contracts but by selling his services to give quotes that people like you find scary.

Mr. or Ms. as it were Nicky, you need to make the distinction between your opinion and facts, this problem is not exclusive to you but many readers of, and the editorial staff of the Toronto Star, but I digress. See this is a fact: The IMF reports that Canada’s debt-to-gdp ratio dropped from 72.36 in 2004 to a projected 58.45 in 2009. Your economic statements are just that your economic statements. Not much to it really. Stimulating the economy through tax reductions and other savings thereby increasing economic activity and hence government revenues is actually a proven ecomonic theory. Taxing the piss out of everyone is Liberal economic theory and usually means there is more federal revenue to steal over the short term. There I go digressing again. Unemployment insurance (I use this term purposely) was always meant to be just that an insurance policy against the possibility of being unemployed, it was not meant to be a source of guaranteed income for those who work at temporary or seasonal jobs, if that were the case those people would pay substantially higher premiums. To do otherwise you are being dishonest because it is just another Liberal wealth redistribution program. Sure every government has claimed the Artic, not many did much, this one is different and they have made their intentions known, all your other comments are really just more mush. The basic arguements are quite simple really, first determine where the continental shelf ends and there be the end of our rightful ownership plus half the distance to the opposing shelf. Second is the use it or loose it concept which we should be able to enforce ie. an arctic presence. As for that incredible waste of my money the gun registry, using information from your squishy left wing friend Michael Moore, there are many more guns per capita in Canada yet gun crime is substantially lower than the US. Long guns are responsible for little crime, the urban crime issues with guns are gangbangers with already fully illegal unregistered hand guns, all the paper and data bases in the world isn't going to make the slightest difference to those statistics. Owning a long gun for hunting is not a crime and should remain so. Revolving door justice likewise isn't working, too many of these urban crimes are undertaken by repeat offenders often on bail or other court ordered babysitting arrangements, they are far less dangerous in a federal cubical. I'm not for holding their hands and singing Cum bi ya to them. Tonight on The Agenda, on TVO they did a whole show on the medical isotope issue, see if you can look up the transcript, this problem is not isolated to Canada, and most certainly cannot be pinned on the Tories. The Tories fired the person in charge because she shot her mouth off and she was wrong, very wrong she had her statistics off by a factor of 100, she should be embarassed, she politicized the issue and the egg is on her face. You may not agree with the governments position on Afganistan, and Khadr, however the Liberals followed much the same tact as the Tories so there is no high ground to be claimed here. The family are supporters of the enemy, that is what Al Qaida(sp) are the enemy, what they have said and done is treason and should be dealt with as such. As for this young man in particular he is being tried by the US government, until there is a verdict we make no action to repatriate him, simple as that, if the shoe were on the other foot and the Americans came howling for one of their own in our justice system I suspect you would be outraged. It would appear you need a history lesson on free trade, I'm old enough to remember the election where the Tories were for free trade and the Liberals against, Mr. Mulroney won another majority in that election and subsequently signed the agreement with Ronald Reagan. Less typing more reading is in order here. This government as hardly been perfect, but on balance they've done a good job in bad times and haven't stolen our money. There have been a few very minor scandals and they have been opposed by three highly partisan parties and a significant amount of liberal media who have attempted to though much mud, to little avail. In the time they have been in power they have not demonstrated any of the baby eating, kitten mauling traits they have been accused of. You may indeed have ideological differences with conservatives in general, but that does not excuse your lack of facts.

Ah the Liberal electioneering talking points start, Harper is boorish because he hasn't hob-knobbed with the fashionable on Soho street or isn't a Harvard insider, I prefer our Prime Minister has Canadian experience. In fact this Canadian government has done a good job internationally, not sucking up to China and pointing out the obvious issues with Kyoto.

The point is that the Liberals have been at least equal in low blows, especially in their innuendo laced rhetoric trying to link Haper to Bush, using terms like "republican style" all the time knowing full well the Tories are well left of the US right wing, then and calling them "neo-cons", a title which clearly does not apply, and intimating there was always a "hidden agenda". These are all expamples of the lowest form of politicing and people have become so accustomed to hearing these unfounded factoids that they forget they are falsehoods. I have little doubt that initially Harper probably wanted to do things diffferently, just like Obama, but faced with partisan politicing like the examples above it proved extremely difficult, so default to what works. The point about Manning was to show that Manning would have turned parliment on its ear, he had some good ideas but many more would have been ground shaking, Harper has no such agenda yet has faced far more scrutiny than Manning. The problem with the Liberals is that although there may be many good people in the party, the upper tier in charge of the party tend to view power as a means to enrich themselves, look at the provincial liberals here in Ontario, they appoint their friends to positions of power then their friends hand out untendered contract for millions of dollars to their insider friends, its just a whole bunch of little adscams over and over and who goes to jail, hell nobody even pays the money back. On balance its a pretty risk free scheme even if you get caught one in ten times.

How 'bout the non-existent majority the Cons desperately crave to try and rid this country of its Trudeauesque underpinnings of the last 4 decades?You know,the one Nanook Guardian of the Arctic has'nt been able to deliver on. The reason? Most Canadians recoil at the thought of unchecked prairie Reformism! By the way,the only reason Sweatervest Stevie is spending anything at all is because the bully got scared last December by the fact that he almost lost his job because of his autocratic and ideological ways!I fear if he did have his way,he would have used "free market priciples" to "fix" the economic woes we still have.If that had been the case,I suspect we would have unemployment hovering around 15% and our "Economist in a tank" about to be soundly defeated in a federal election... Wow I can almost taste the bile from here, but lets read this intellectually stunted diatribe again and parse it for factoids; paragraph one prose with no facts, paragraph two the most compelling of the lot, no facts. Paragraph three do you know most Canadians? Me neither, but I can pretend to speak for them too. Factvoid. Paragraph four, so the apparent bully, has been bullied into spending, gee he's either not much of a bully or there is a bigger bully on the block, should I be confused or was that your intention? Funny I do not recall the Tories platform handing the economy over to free market principles perhaps I missed something since you used quotes there is no doubt you can correct me? I sincerely hope you are engaged in public service using your economic soothsaying abilities to the full advantage of Canada especially the "Most Canadians" you referred to earlier. Still looking for facts!

I`m sorry but I find this statement absolutely comical, those mean Tories use attack ads, oh but the liberal attack ads are somehow defined differently. So anything said by conservatives is bad, perhaps even evil, when said by a liberal its an enlightening truth. BS Even Preson Manning was treated with less speculation, rumour and negative press than Harper. Despite coming within a wisker of a majority, the Liberals refuse to believe that the Conservatives have the right to be in parliment, they have been uncooperative and partisan in everything they have done since. That shoe fits both parties, perhaps even more the Liberals.

So we'll blame the Tory's for underfunded nuclear program which leaves Chalk River (a fourty year old reactor) in poor shape. Weak. Actively assist in wrongful conviction and even execution, hardly. Do not expect the federal government to save your sorry ass for being an axe murderer. The feds can hardly control what every second string diplomatic appointee does. Minor at best. Khadr, few right thinking Canadians have much sympathy for these folks, As far as I'm concerned taking up arms in a foreign country against an allied nation should forfeit your citizenship. Little traction with average folks lots with those who already hate Harper. Presiding over the horrible world economy, people just are not stupid enough to believe crap like this, in fact most folks realize thankfully that we've faired better than most if not all G20 nations. Not going to get much mileage here. Massive patronage appointment? what filling a dozen senate seats to counter balance the liberal majority who block legislation in a wholly partisan fashion instead of being the chamber of sober second thought. Yawn even the Star couldn't keep that headline alive for more than a morning. Deficit, just imagine what it would be if that ridiculous coalition would have weaseled into power. $50B under the current financial situation is modest compared to just about any other industrialized nation. Accomplishments, not like I`d expect you would acknowledge them if they were written backwards on your forehead, but there are some, and given the total lack of cooperation from the other parties any accomplishment is amazing, but I will indulge you. Finally funding the military. Ascerting artic ownership and funding it. Moving to revamp immigartion policy. Holding steady on the economy during tough times. NOT turning EI system into modified welfare. Tougher crime legislations Ignoring the gun registry Promoting free trade. What people like you probably do not understand is that the Conservatives have been paying down our debt up till now: The IMF reports that Canada’s debt-to-gdp ratio dropped from 72.36 in 2004 to a projected 58.45 in 2009. When this recession is over we will be in a positioin Canada has not been in our lifetimes, the cost to do business in Canada will be less than America, that will make us a magnet for business investment. Something that Martin did not forsee despite our economic success.

As has been reported by many scandal seeking Harper haters the PM's office has expanded under Harper as there are more ministers and more central control so no suprise bigger spending. I would be more interested to see if all parlimentary spending increased drastically.

If you recall back when Mulroney left office and Kim Campbell fought the election against Chretien, the Liberals had opposed free trade and the GST and would abolish both. If you recall there had been a recession back then and Mulroney (and Michael Wilson) had inheritted a deficit and made it worse, but had the wisdom to pursue free trade and the GST among other things which set the stage for the recovery. Many of these things were agressively opposed by the Liberals who upon election did a monumental about face and ran with the Tory plan. So once again the Liberals are opposing all things Tory but of course have no alternative plan. If, and I hope they don't, get elected they will likely do the status quo and simply bide their time while enriching themselves as Liberals always do. This batch of Liberals I fear are more vain and arrogant than their predessors and do not deserve to govern.

I would find it humorous too if these Harper haters didn't seem to earnestly believe the tripe they publish. How many years now of the most highly scrutinized minority government in memory and the only scandals they can come up with are a playboy minister forgetting documents in his well endowed conquests house, or a woman who got detained in foreign country because she changed her appearance drastically from her passport photo and some third level bureacrats in Kenya botched it. Not a lot of sticky mud to throw but throw they will.

And they spend like drunken sailors. And the other parties, who are critical of too little spending, would spend like ...? Must be a tough go for the Harper hater, not a lot of ammunition. Whereas it's been easy to hate the Liberals when they steal your money. Or perhaps we could compare the fabled "neo-con hidden agenda" to Iggy's magic fiscal plan which alternatively would spend faster, spend less and make the inevitable deficit disapear like magic. It's kinda sad when the supposed uber intellectual leader of the Liberals is unable to keep track of his own fables.

The Canadian media would mostly prefer to hear what Iggy thinks harper would say rather than what harper would say himself.