blueblood

Manufacturing works when it is to the benefit of the customer. Right now I buy NA made farm machinery because I think it is the best, and it is cheaper for me than overseas built farm machinery. I buy NA made trucks because foreigners don't make diesel pickups, that have my power requirements. However in overall terms of value, imported gas cars are a much better buy than NA made ones, they are cheaper to produce and built a lot better. If NA cars were built better, then their high prices would be somewhat justified, but they are not. If Canada wants to compete with the rest of the world in manufacturing, it must reduce its labour costs, and build better products, and charge at reasonable prices. However labour costs are high because of the energy sector and unionized nonsense.

I don't mind the gov't subsidizing businesses if the long term result is more cash in my pocket, the economy as a whole improves, our exports improve, and in the long run it results in lower taxes. What is frustrating is that many central Canadians are fixated on a ridiculously expensive manufacturing sector that cannot compete. The only part of our manufacturing sector that does somewhat well is our high tech industry and even then that carries some risks. The manufacturing industry has an extremely difficult time in Canada due to the fact of very expensive employment, taxes, and regulations. Not only that, they have to pay wages competitive with that of the energy sector. The energy sector is where it's at, it has made all of our exports more valuable, and has made our society richer as a whole. If Ontarians and Quebecers had a brain in their heads, they would be looking at getting more into this sector than wasting their time trying to compete with cheaper off shore manufacturing.

God dammit, more socialist bullshit... When the government spends my tax dollars, it's mine and everyone's business to ensure those dollars get spent the most efficiently. In other words, high priced union crackpots are told to go piss up a rope. Finland is a democracy because they told the commies to kiss their White behinds. There are other places Finland traded with than the communists. It doesn't say much about socialism when a superpower such as the USSR has to import from a tiny country like Finland. The countries that trade are the ones that run the show. Countries that adopt protectionism tend to have big problems. For the good of the nation, Unions should disband, high price labor is killing the manufacturing sector.

The public does not like the coalition. It hates it. He played the war drums too soon. Had he played that in an election campaign, it would have been a disaster for the coalition parties. The only destruction occuring is the economy. The Tories would have been better off letting the coalition take over, and watching them lead the country during tough times. He can be turfed like Chretien, however party brass will probably look and see if Harper can put the ship back on course.

Like I've always said, party brass runs the show. If they aren't happy heads will roll. I didn't think there would be this much kerfuffle so soon. However Ignatieff being fast tracked to lead the Liberals has turned Canadian politics on its side. The Liberal brass threw a hail mary and it paid off big time. Look for the Libs to win the next election with a strong minority, and the tories in house cleaning mode. Bernard Lord is the tories only hope of returning to power. Tory Brass should not have made such a stink about the coalition. Party leaders are a dime a dozen.

That depends on what side your on. Importing anything from anywhere involves shipping and handling. Canadians compete based on quality (which is lacking from canadian made products these days, except for commodities), Canadian producers can compete, it would involve dropping their wages to below the point where it is cheaper to work here than ship product. I think stuff from China is already tariffed. We just buy it anyway. My Canola takes around a 20% tariff going to China. If Canada were smart, we'd be looking at getting into the energy game. Energy is helping put manufacturing out of work with its higher competitive wages. Let our dinosaur manufacturing die already. I think the unions have to go, it isn't the 1900's anymore and working conditions are excellent.

Canada has an advantage over other countries in steel, manufacturing, etc. It's called freight rates. That is an advantage Canada has always enjoyed and can pay its workers better. However, the ratio got placed out of whack, and now it is cheaper to spend a fortune on freight and buy the product from elsewhere. It's time to take a paycut. It's for that reason, Australians have a much easier time exporting grain to Asia than Canada does.

And what about our shortcomings? Why is it the typical Liberal way to say it's good enough and do everything half assed?

Take that up with the Universities and the CMA. I agree with you, but those two outfits are flat out evil.

Versatility and cost effectiveness.

It's democratic when the majority of people think the wingnuts better keep their traps shut.

Like I said it wasn't too bad. Everybody was dealing with them in the thirties. I don't know if the Americans were dealing with them from 39-41 though...

Couldn't have been too much being as we declared war with them about a week after the Brits did.

I lost all respect for Adler based on his views of the RCMP taser incident. Apparently he'd like to see members bashed with a stapler.

Your wing of the party scares the crap out of people and is why we can't get a majority. A lot of people don't buy what your selling, deal with it. Party brass, and the major MP's have dealt with it. A government is supposed to represent the people, not dictate to them. Tougher sentances are popular with people, opening abortion and SSM is not. Stimulus spending is popular today, the gov't delivers. Previously Low taxes and keeping the books balanced were popular, the gov't delivered. The people also want any deficit to be paid off ASAP, that's the problem that the CPC and potentially the Liberals will have to solve. The essence of democracy is selling out.

And I want your wing of the party to have duct tape around your mouths.

I'd say the next election is up in the air, the Liberals will gain seats in Quebec, a substansial amount of seats there. They do have momentum right now, but that depends on the recession and Harper's ability to deal with it. I'd say look for a holding pattern until the fall/winter if the economy does what the BOC figures it will do. As for saying the Libs are broke, it appears they have their financing back on track and will spend time fundraising. I think the NDP and the Bloc will get smashed by the Liberals.

Another instance of why Unions are poison. Set up a salary cap adjusted for inflation and let private come in alongside public.

Wrong, if enough people want the senate gone, then gone it is!!!

Just like BSE, the americans wanted the border shut, then they realized that their meat price was going to shoot up and their packing industry was taking a butt kicking. Do you think american taxpayers are going to like paying more for high priced domestic steel when they can buy off of us for a discount?

NAFTA has worked out very well for both Canada and the US and both sides are richer because of it. I for one am not worried one little whit about the US protectionism on steel. If the Obama administration and the US steel industry want to soak taxpayers and steel customers with an expensive buy in America policy, they can deal with the outrage from customers having to deal with unnecessarily high priced steel. Also steel manufacturers not having steel to work with causes problems. The US tried this experiment with BSE and the US meat packing industry went ballistic. American consumers were gouged, feedlots were empty and taking a hit on their profits. Needless to say GW Bush told RCalf to go fly a kite. Americans are consumers too, and don't like paying more than they have to.

Yet they were drilling for oil since Tommy Douglas...

Uhh, it's not in our best interests to have poor people, that means less customers and is a lag on the economy. Our society has everybody having a few thousand extra dollars in our pockets instead of people punishing us for getting that extra thousand dollars. A socialist wants to punish success so everyone is in the same boat, a conservative doesn't want to hold anyone back. We ask people to step up, not have our best and brightest step back.

Yet Alberta was still a more attractive place to invest. You also suggest why the Sask party was created. And it was the tories in Alberta that put Alberta where it is. Sask would be far better off under Klien.

Yet the tories didn't win by 10 points now did they? It was a better run campaign, the tories didn't slip up and made policy announcements every day. Over time that did the Liberals in. The Liberals got a healthy boost when Ignatieff and dion were crowned leader. Am I to take that as a tory collapse as well? The polls all throughout the campaign showed the tories slowly wearing down the Liberals. The RCMP announcement was an outlier. Had that affected things like you said, the tories would very likely would have had a majority.