Michael Hardner

"Fair" is a relative term. The richest certainly pay less than they have in the past. That money helped pay for infrastructure building, which in turn laid the foundation for a good economy.

They should concentrate on the "fear factor"... promote Martin as a man who will promote economic stability, etc. At this point, they should be trying to stabilize - give up trying to win big and do whatever it takes to get the minority.

Probably less strange than a BLoc/CPC marriage.

That's a VERY tall order. Without Quebec, and a strong showing in Atlantic Canada, they would need to win something like 3/4 of the seats.

It's still early. The Cons need to absolutely trounce the Liberals in order to get a majority, otherwise they have to promise the moon to the NDP (?!) or the Bloc. I don't think people care that much about the curtains at Rideaux hall. Uh... right.

But Liberals and Bloc could.

It's not 'case closed' for millions of Canadians who don't know Harper and don't trust him yet. Layton has stated that his future budgets will be balanced - is that 'case closed' for Canadians ? I doubt it.

Under the new system, this poor treatment will only happen to those who don't pay.

Those are some exceptional examples. I don't think you could play those stories without adding their inherent "colour". This has everything to do with the NDP and nothing to do with the west. And what did they say ? I don't remember any easterners making general comments about the west, which is why the assertion that there's an anti-West sentiment in Ontario surprises me. How many Ontarian candidates for PM have we had lately ?

Still some major obstacles to overcome, like who would support the Conservative minority government.

I've never heard anyone from Ontario say anything like that about westerners. I don't think they think about Canada as regions as much as other regions do.

I'm still banking on a Liberal minority government. Whether the Bloc or the NDP has the balance of power, the Liberals will be able to offer them much more than the Conservatives will. Martin will have a year or two to turn things around in his favour.

I'm from Toronto.

According to CTV, the Liberals and Cons are in a dead heat in Ontario. Is it enough to kill the whole anti-West thing ? Please ?

I think I started a thread once where I showed that the US spends double per capita for about half the coverage. This includes private healthcare. They also have quite a deficit in the US. I think our system is better, but it needs tuning. This calls for a manager, not just a good politician. Who would be the best leader to take on this task ? No one can say they know the answer, as none of the three main leaders have any experience with this sort of thing. The question at the end of the day is - who do you trust ?

If you follow the axis of political ideals from idealistic to pragmatic, you'll find this issue at the idealistic end. ie. It's ideally a good thing, but won't fly politically. Again, the Conservatives aren't trumpeting this issue as a big deal because they would like to win the election.

Right. And the well-off give less of a percentage of their income to GST/PST and property tax, I would say. Uh... Sort of... But anyway... Everyone works more. The question I still have is why is the percentage of GDP taken from taxes higher when rates are lower. The answer seems to be that tax rates are higher for middle and lower income earners and lower for higher income earners. Hmmm...

You can talk about official bilingualism all you want, but your party might have something to say about it if it contradicts offical party policy. The new Conservative party is learning to pick its battles and it has picked taxes and integrity, which are good choices IMO for a party that wants to win.

Auguste - your posts are a delight to read. Let's see here. That means they paid on average 32%. A lot less than the 60% that you said earlier. This supports your point about loopholes, though... somewhat... Err... Where did the other 18 % come from ? Property tax ? GST and PST ? I don't think so. That's at least $40K or more. Consumption taxes are regressive, ie. the rich pay LESS tax per income than the dirty folk. I'm just trying to figure out your personal stake in this argument. Do you make $250K+ ? Of course, you don't have to answer. I'll go on record as saying I'm in the top tax bracket this year, but far under $250K. I say this in case anyone thinks I'm happy about the NDP plan because my <$15K income won't be taxed. Get it ? I think I got into an argument with another smart conservative on this, and since neither of us were economists we had to stalemate at this point. If the tax rates are lower than they were, why is percentage of revenue higher ? Maybe someone could answer this before we continue...

AF: Please get off this idea that the founders of Canada would hate the country as it is today. All you know for sure is that they'd have a lot of trouble navigating the internet.

From "us" from "me" or from "you" ? And there's only so far loopholes can take you. Let's look fondly back on the 1960s and 1970s and the era when we could actually afford to build infrastructure.

The NDP plan seems to me to be moderate and reasonable. We saw far higher taxation levels for the rich in the recent past, and this money was used to build infrastructure - subways, schools, universities and hospitals. Today we can't even afford to maintain the infrastructure we have, let alone build for the future. I don't think middle income Canadians will fret too much about the 1 million $ - plus iheritance tax.

Small businesses - urban ridings. Politically astute move. Anyone standing to inherit more than one million dollars will complain, surely. But I think the 5% figure is high.

Argus, you're going to have to accept the fact that this isn't as much of a problem as you think it is. It isn't a cover-up or conspiracy on the part of the major parties, it's just not enough of a concern for anyone to make it a major issue. It's health care, taxes and the sponsorship scandal this time around.

I don't think re-running the 2000 election will work too well for the Libs. But it might still be good enough to get them a minority. And I don't think taxes are all that high right now either, when you consider that health care is covered.