Mimas

Because Socialists solve problems with money. We'll need at least another five billion for health care. We'll need several billions more for day care. He's said he wants to double our foreign aid, that's another two and a half billion. He'll want huge investment in public housing, at least a billion there, maybe two or three. Think of all the bedrock NDP causes and an NDPer now in control of the budget. Oh yeah, he'll very quickly find a need to raise taxes. Ok, Ms. Psychic.

3% CPP and EI suggests to me that your income is around $65K. This means that your income tax rate cannot be 33%. At that level of income it would be around 25%. Also you are declaring that you will donate any CPP and EI benefits you receive in the future to the debt reduction fund or something. This topic is not about your taxes in particular. It's about how the Fraser Institute inflates the tax bill of the average Canadian family. Ok, now you've changed it to 4% CPP and EI, which means that your income is around $50K. That means your income taxes would be around 22%, not 33%.

The tables above give the estimates but you have to purchase the publication from the Fraser Institute to get those http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readm...v=pb&id=628.

What? No comments? You don't know simple arithmetic or don't want to admit that the right is lying about Canada's taxes being much higher than they actually are?

Yeah, it's called taking a vote and seeing what the people want to do. And the PCers voted massively in favour. Taking a vote - one person one vote too, minor detail best overlooked when trying to make a case. After MacKay allowed every reformer to buy a membership just before the vote.

Yeah I forgot to put on my tinfoil hat when the "brainwashing campaign" started. Seriously, CNN, BBC, Time, and Macleans, are all respected for their journalism. They report what the US department of defense told them. They reported what leaders in their countries said, not what the reality was. Respected or not they all reported that according to government officials 100,000 Albanians were killed and 500,000 were missing and feared dead. The final figure is around 2,000 of all ethnic groups.

Well, you can't increase spending, cut taxes and pay down the debt at the same time. If he hadn't cut transfer payments and health-care spending, he would not have been able to offer as much tax cuts. He did the best he could given that we live in the real world and he was not a magician. I can hardly imagine that anyone would have done better/ Mike Harris barely balanced the budget for a couple of years. And those balanced budgets were heavily funded by selling off public assets. The rest of the time, including when he left, he had deficits. That's despite the fact that he had as much of an opportunity to turn up surpluses as Martin did. IMO Mike was the embodiment of "fiscal irresponsibility", yet many Conservatives look up to him as some sort of an idol.

Here is what I don't get. Paul Martin implemented all the cuts in spending and services Mulroney promised but didn't implement and more. Martin aggressively cut the budget and provided some of the biggest tax cuts in Canadian history. He paid down the debt. He brought Canada back from the brink of bankruptcy, where Mulroney put it. Under Martin, Canada went from being "an honorary member of the third world" to being one of the few nations turning up surpluses and having its finances in great shape. Martin was the embodiment of "fiscal responsibility". He did what every conservative claims to want - cut spending, give big tax cuts, pay down the debt. Martin was a conservative dressed up in red clothes. Given that, why are Cons so hateful of Martin? As far as I can tell, he should be praised as the best in conservative policy. Instead, he's been called the worst things available in the English language. So why do you hate him?

Why not? They are huge abusers and in the international spotlight right now for a few reasons. The Olympics being one of them... the spy scandals another. The communist Chinese have a notorious record of oppression and violence against their own. I don't think our PM should hold back in criticism of the Chinese. It's not like they can do anything, they need our coal and oil. Making improvements in human rights a condition of export (wouldn't have to be really, just the threat would go a long way) of such materials would be a huge first step in guarnteeing some freedom to the Chinese, maybe even a step towards the end of communism there. And if they said screw your oil, we'll just sell it elsewhere, it's not like there aren't other markets. The Chinese have always been that way. But we've allowed them to be our biggest supplier after the US. Just check where things are made next time you go shopping. Tens of billions of our dollars go to China every year, sponsoring the communist regime. We are bending over trying to sell them our oil, nuclear power reactors, etc. Our companies are bending over trying to sell products to the Chinese and doing what's necessary to satisfy the needs of the communist leaders (think Google's censorship of the internet). It is us who are helping the Chinese communist leaders get rich and it is us who are helping them stay in power. Blabbing about human rights is disengenious when all your actions help the human rights abusers stay in power.

I can't speak for Mike Harris (although I note that he was elected twice in Ontario).The federal government is too big, it spends too much money and it taxes too much. It must regulate less and have fewer employees. This may be so, but the federal government has a huge debt that it needs to pay down. It is irresponsible to cut taxes instead of paying its bills. After all, those bills come with over $20 billion price tag in interest every year.

It's awfully sad that people only care to be fiscally responsible during a recession. Most of the time the economy is growing and recessions are the exception, not the rule. What do people do in their personal lives? Do they move to a tent at the street corner when they lose their job? No, they use their savings or borrow to get through the bad times and then they get another job they pay their debt. Then they save for the days when they won't be able to work anymore - for retirement. But what do conservatives say that governments should do? During bad times borrow. During good times, don't pay down your debt, just cut taxes and continue to borrow. That's what Mulroney and Harris did. The result was record high debts and we now spend 20 cents on every dollar we pay in taxes just to pay the interest on the debt. But NO, we there is no way we should be paying our bills. We should waste our money on trips to the Bahamas and crap made in China. It doesn't matter that the Baby boom generation is retiring and will cost us a freaking fortune. But no, we ought to spend everything right now and when we hit the babyboom wall, we'll think about it then. Conservative governments have the worst track record for being "fiscally responsible", so let's keep it up.

He won't dare raise taxes. Besides he doesn't need to. He is not facing a deep recession resulting in huge deficits. He is looking at a surplus. Why would he raise taxes and risk having his head chopped off?

Let's hope something comes of it. Iraq is a complete disaster and the operation is a complete failure. Hopefully, the Americans will smarten up, pull out of Iraq and put more effort into Afghanistan. If they don't, Afghanistan will end up a complete failure as well. I hope that in the future we'll think twice about sending our soldiers to die in missions that are not properly thought out and are underfunded and understaffed.

Kimmy, do you disagree with the advice or with the people who are offering it?Harper was elected to reduce the growth of federal government spending and reduce federal taxes. I still think that if he followed those objectives, more than anything else, he would get re-elected. Haha! Mike Harris was conservative enough - big tax cuts, budget deficits. His party took a huge beating as a result. It's grand of Mike to give Harper advice.

It's been established that Quebec cannot simply secede, even if a definite majority of "Quebecers" (however one defines that) voted in favour of independence; the Quebec government simply does not have the power to alter the Constitution, and any unilateral move to declare independence and pass some new Quebec constitution would be denied Royal Assent (and thus legal legitimacy) by the Crown. So, though the Supreme Court opined that the federal and other provincial governments would have no real reason to deny the Quebecois people their right to self-determination, Quebec must negotiate withdrawal, not simply declare it. Of course, separatists could try and poo-poo all those inconvenient legalities and simply announce themselves as independent, a la great American Revolution (wouldn’t that be so noble?). But then, how could violence be avoided in such a situation, as those who don't wish to secede from Canada, including the vast majority of the Native population in Quebec, would fight as a resistance against the secessionists. It seems to me that then we'd end up with the civil war that you worry about. I certainly can't debate against that, and for many more reasons that simply what I said above. Well the Progressive Conservative Party's Constitution did not allow for Peter MacKay to destroy the party and hand over its brand to another party, but he did it anyway. You can always find a way around things and just say that what you are doing is legal.

Exactly, if Canada is a socialist republic, the media is left-wing, the courts and public service are liberal lap dogs and taxes are too high, you should go elsewhere and stop complaining. Dosvidania, comrade!

For years Canadians have been bombarded by conservatives with misinformation on how much tax we pay. The right-wing tells us that we pay the "highest taxes in the world" or some of the highest taxes in the world, when in fact our taxes are slightly below the average for developed counties. At the forefront of this PR campaign is the Fraser Institute, which every year makes a lot of noise celebrating "Tax Freedom Day" at the end of June and telling Canadians that we pay half our income in taxes. Given that Canada's GDP is roughly $1,300 M and taxes collected at all three levels of government is roughly $400 M, dividing the second by the first gives a tax rate of roughly 30.8%. This would put "Tax Freedom Day" close to the end of April. Also when taxes paid by Canadians to all three levels of government are taken into account, Canada has a roughly flat tax system running in the 30% to 33% range for all income levels. This would also put "Tax Freedom Day" at the end of April. So you wonder, how does the Fraser Institute inflate our taxes by 60%? Well, here is the trick. Actually there are a lot of tricks employed by the Institute (such as using Average, not Median income in their calculations) but here is the biggest and most ridiculous one: 1) Take average income received by Canadian families (in 2003) and call it Cash Income= $58,782 per family. 2) Add to that all indirect income received by persons and all organizations (such as fringe benefits from employment and corporate retained earnings) in the country, add taxes and divide it equally among all families = $31,676 per family. 3) Add the two and call that Total Income Before Taxes= $90,458 per family. So far so good. What this effectively does is distribute all income in the country among families. 4) Now take all taxes paid by persons and organizations to the three levels of government and divide them equally among Canadian families. Call that Total Taxes = $27,640. This effectively distributes all taxes paid in the country among families. 5) Now divide Total Taxes by Total Income Before Taxes = 30.6%. So "Tax Freedom Day" is near the end of April according to the Fraser Institute's calculations. This is supported by what I said earlier. Not so, says the Fraser Institute. The Institute takes Total Taxes and divides that by Cash Income = 47% and claims that "Tax Freedom Day" is at the end of June. Now, this is obviously meant to trick people. Even a 10-year-old can see that taxes not paid by families are attributed to families but the corresponding income is not. When asked why the Institute divides Total Taxes by Cash Income instead of by Total Income Before Taxes, the Institute says that it would be too difficult to explain to Canadians why Total Income Before Taxes is so high. So effectively, Canadians are stupid. The Fraser Institute is so convinced that Canadians are truly retarded, that they try to cheat us in the most ridiculously obvious manner. Well, how do you explain to Canadian families that they pay Corporate income taxes but Corporate retained earnings are not considered part of their income? It's like saying that my income is my income, but my taxes are my taxes plus the neighbour's taxes. Hmm, they don't even try. They just say that's the way it is and they make as much noise as possible in June to brainwash those of us who don't look at the details. So when next year the Fraser Institute beats the drums that "Tax Freedom Day" is on June 28th, don't get that excited. It isn't true. Income Taxes

quote: In 2005, under the Liberals, the lowest tax rate was 16% until their asses were on the line and they put in a last minute tax reduction to 15%. They actually didn't raise the tax,, they just revised a 1% decrease to a 0.5% decrease. In 2005, GST was still 7%. In 2005, working people didn’t have the $1000 annual tax credit. In 2005, parents couldn’t claim their kids sports. In 2005, trades people couldn’t claim the expense of their tools. In 2005, seniors only had a $1000 tax credit - not it’s $2000 annual tax credit. In 2005, after death bed conversion, Liberals lowered the lowest rate to 15% from 16%. Conservative kept 1/2 of the reduction. So generally speaking, overall, people will pay less tax The fact is that Martin's reduction of that rate from 16% to 15% was implemented and if he had been elected it would have stayed that way. Harper raised that rate from 15% to 15.5%. That's a tax increase! Next, Harper decided to tax income trusts despite promising not to do so. All the tax credits you are talking about affect relatively small number of people. All of them taken together will amount to less than 10% of the income trust tax (in $$). The income tax raise and the GST drop affected everyone and most Canadians got a larger income tax increase than GST cuts - so most Canadians are in the red on that one. As for the change in tax brackets, well they change every year with inflation. No tax cuts there. Overall, Canadians are paying more taxes now compared to before the election. Period!

A recession is defined as a decline in the GDP for two or more consecutive quarters. This occurred in 1990 and in 1992, so it was two recessions. But really, the economy stagnated starting in 1990 all the way to 1993. It wasn't until 1995 that it became clear that the economy was on the mend. It was the worst recession in Canada since the Great Depression.

First, while recessions are part of the normal business cycle, the 1990-92 recession was the deepest in Canada since the Great Depression. Second, Conservative Brian Mulroney didn't handle it much better at all. It took until about 1995 for Paul Martin to "whip Canada into shape". Your claims that dealing with a deep recession is so easy are what's pathetic here. You must have a couple of Ph.D.s in Economics and a Nobel prize.

Ok, Harper asked about the Canadian among numerous other issues in a short, 15-minute meeting. I don't see this as a discussion on human rights in any way. All of Harper's posturing was meant for the people at home and not for the Chinese. He would never even think of lecturing the Chinese on human rights.

That's part of your problem. You choose to get your info from mostly right-wing papers from countries that lead the NATO attack in Kosovo. On top of that, you haven't been reading them carefully, or you are just too young to remember the brainwashing campaign by our great democratic leaders at the time:

What, throw them to the wolves? Let them starve? A few hundred thousand Canadians can barely read but Harper had to cut the funding for adult literacy programs. Great policy. So instead of helping people to get back on their feet, we out to feed them for the rest of their lives. Guess which is cheaper. Easy to say, but the only way the oil market will die tomorrow is if plenty of other things die in Canada and the US tomorrow as well. In the 90s recession a friend of mine had 2 boxes of refusal letters from every office of every accounting firm in the country.

When I was a CA student, my firm paid me significantly less than minimum wage. They know that you need 30 months of experience before you can get your CA designation and they will treat you like a slave until you get that designation. That's disgusting and amounts to extortion in my opinion. After a few months I decided the heck with it, I didn't like accounting much anyway. It was a very good decision but I watched my classmates go through it. It is demeaning and disgusting. If you argue for sweatshops, go work in one for 30 months. I'm going down that path right now Mimas, and I can tell you I'm not being "extorted"... back when accountants weren't in demand I've heard the horror stories... Who'd you article with if I may ask? I'd glady hear any of the inside stories, I haven't made my commitment to any firm yet. The starting wages as published by the big four range from $16-20 an hour in Alberta for summer students, higher for articling students. That's not minimum wage extortion considering the CA amounts to a graduate education... all education 'costs' you, right. I think you'll find it hard to convince anyone that a CA artcling student is being extorted with the long term earnings potential. It's good that you are not being "extorted". You should consider yourself lucky. If you were a dozen years older, things wouldn't have been that pretty. What is really disgusting about CA firms is that there is such a crazy hierarchy there. Everyone is supposed to treat people one level above like gods and people one level below like dirt. It's almost like the cast system in India. I should to be treated with the respect I deserve and I don't want to treat people like dirt just because they happen to be younger than I am. I had classmates who were well into their 30s, worked 80hrs/wk and had to feed their kids on $4/hr. That's shit, man. On one side you got some nut screaming "Are you crazy? How am I supposed to live on $500K?", on the other someone is screaming at you cause they owe the gov't money (and you have no idea how rude some people get when they find out that they have to pay taxes). You should be paid $40/hr as a bare minimum just to take that abuse, not $4/hr. Anyway, what I'm saying here is that just because things are going better for you now, that doesn't mean that they will always be good and for everyone. You never know when the next recession is going to hit. Especially with the housing bubble in the US which may burst any time. Things can change overnight. PS. I was with BDO. Not a bad firm - it's across the country, yet many of it's offices are small enough to give you opportunities to learn. It's not much fun to get stuck for 2 months doing A/R of some giant corp. with one of the big four. That sounds weird, "the big four". By the time you graduate, it may just be "the big two". Anyway, good luck with that.

Do you seriously believe that there are no people in this country who can't get jobs? Those Albertan boom times are really getting to your head. One day, please do visit some other parts of the country. Northern Quebec and NFLD come to mind as a good places to visit and realize that this country is not all downtown Calgary. There are plenty of places where unemployment runs above 50% and people can't even move because they've lived their whole lives there and the only thing they are capable of doing is fish. And the fish is gone. And they have kids and can't afford to move far away to go to through training. And they aren't even able to go through training because they can barely read. It really is quite shocking that there are 3rd world places in this country but they do exist. You think those people can get $12/hr at the DQ in a place like that? Even boom times don't last forever. Do you think you could get $12/hr at the DQ in Calgary in 1991?