Jerry J. Fortin

I have heard it said that you should be careful what you ask for.

If you give the Conservatives the Throne Speech and then turf them on the budget, you will be handing Harper a stick to beat you with. Why bother? Harper has played out enough rope to hang himself already. It is not as if the opposition can convince him to follow the instruction manual on the rope package, Harper isn't that stupid. Harper thinks the rope is nothing more than bait, FOR THE OPPOSITION. Harper is betting that folks approve of his methods and still don't want an election. He is half right, folks do not WANT an election, but folks think that it might have to happen. He is half wrong too because folks don't approve of his methods. To me, the proper way to go is straight into an offensive mode. Don't give him the chance to even get near an apple box to preach. You don't offer up opportunities for the opponent to come after you, you attack and attack and attack. You don't give the a chance to recover from the first strike before the next hits. Look at all the ammo laying around already! Does anyone think there will be no more between now and the Throne Speech?

No opposition party will let the Throne Speech pass. Its too good of a chance to punch Harper in the nose. The dummies will leak something for sure, that is how they operate by leaking the right stuff at the right time. Its a way of using the free advertising of the media to support their cause without expense. The buggers having done this several times already. That is not to say that the opposition parties haven't done it because they all do, its just the biggest bang for the buck comes from being the government at the time.

Wait two weeks and look at the polls then. That will be the poll of polls at least until a general election nails down the truth. Until then its all just speculation. Just keep in mind that the vast majority of Canadians are normally apathetic, but they could stand up in protest and if that happens its all over for King Steve.

I agree. If he can somehow get the NDP and the Bloc to be seen with him making agreements or better yet attending some function together, as in showing a united front, then Harper is screwed.

The budget effort is a waste of time, the Throne Speech will kill Harper.

There is a zero chance of Harper surviving a confidence motion. All the opposition parties are going to jump him, forget what the contents of any budget are because it doesn't matter. Harper is just handing out the ammo at the moment. These folks already have the gun, the prorogue fills that roll. Harper should consider himself lucky that he will last until then......

IF USS loses the court challenge, then the smart move is to the grab assets in the name of the Government of Canada. From what I have read this is not outside of the realm of possibilities. Roll it over into a crown corporation and open the place for business. Get it on its feet and then sell it off in the form of a brand new IPO, but this time the government should keep a nice fat share, of non-voting shares. Payback is a bitch.

If Harper really did have balls then he would appoint Don Cherry.

Albertas biggest domestic oil company, Suncor, is on track to produce one million barrels per day by 2020. Now that is only one company, there are many more as everyone knows. Do the math, you have to figure that in ten years the price will go up, but just use todays numbers and you get 80 million dollars a day, or what ....29 billion plus a year in revenues? Even at a 10% profit margin that is 2.9 billion. The total of all oil sands efforts should yield 5 times that much production by 2020. So what we are talking about here is well over 100 billion dollars a year of revenues just out of the oil sands. Now does anybody really think that the tree huggers can stop that money from being made. How many pensions are invested in the patch? How many stockholders own shares in the 150 plus companies involved up there? Include into this the royalties and tax revenues received by the government of Alberta and the impact of those revenues on the citizens. Now tell me something folks, does anyone really think there are very damned many Alberta citizens that do not want to go whole hog on this development? Here is the deal, the oil is only a small part of the equation in Alberta. There is natural gas and sour gas out the waazoo here. All of these raw materials have lots and lots of little by-products, things like sulphur and propane and quite literally dozens of other little benefits. What this province needs is a lot more refining capacity, and a lot more pipeline capacity. Alberta should OWN the plastic industry in Canada, period. Yet these things take time, lots of it. The original investors here were for the most part American, but Bay Street always were heavy players. Lots of money made in Alberta does not stay here, way too much for the likings of most Albertans but that is the way things are. That is changing with Suncor, they bought out Petro-Can and now have some retail outlets for finished products. That is a little trend folks need to remember. We are getting smarter over here.

The talk about a coalition has not yet begun, but I think it will by next week.

Deep cuts are indeed what needs to happen, but cutting programs and services will not be acceptable to the citizens. The current slate of politicians have no answers to this problem, but some folks do. Some folks know how to shrink the budget and increase revenues at the same time.

That is how our system works. Its how you pay for all the help you got getting elected. Don't people know that?

That is the reality of waging "limited warfare". The smart move is to get in and get out. Occupation has its own perils. This one is a little different again in that it was never really won, the fight is ongoing. Bad situation created by politicians.

I will say that a lot of people wanted the auto companies bankrolled, and now we face the reality of that move. Its going to cost us.

I would suggest that in a case of a contractual violation the incident should be resolved in a court of law. That said I would be very impressed with the Harper folks if they actually went this way. An NDP government would for sure, under the Liberals, it is very damned likely. For my two cents, I would suggest that if we proceeded legally we would likely prevail. That is to say we would win in court, but there are political considerations to think about.

He can, but he won't. This is Steve's game, and we have no idea what is really going on. The man is not brain dead, he has at least a designed end game if not a planned tactical program to get there. Iggy won't get there this easy.

We can tell you they are not "working" for the benefit of the people right now. That they may be working for their own or their parties benefit is a given, but ours?

Give the Upper House some credit. Every once in a while they find a pet project and actually do some good.

Yes apathy is the big gig. Tap that little group and you win.

I like what you just said! Nice post!

Yes, unfortunately Iggy appears to be playing for time. I tend to agree that the right move is to toast Harper ASAP, but that is just me.

Of course the Swiss don't complain they have a direct democracy. Now there is a system I would wish on this nation. The people are supreme and the elected representatives need a referendum to pass wind.

I was against the free trade agreement if that is what you are talking about. Bad plan in my view.

It changed to put more power in the hands of party leaders. Taking away power is not a common desire for partisan groups. Tell me what group you could see doing it without being forced into it?