hiti

Really? Exactly when did the lowest tax bracket drop to 15%? I really would like to know. You seem to have missed the 14.29% reduction is the GST. Where were you during the year 2005 when everyone was paying 15% on personal income tax and the personal exemption had been raised by $500 with more to come under a Liberal government??? As for the stupid GST reduction........I'm not spending $40,000 on GST taxable goods just to save what I saved with Paul Martin as PM. That 14.29% means dick all the the average Canadian. Steve and Flim Flam can shove their GST cuts where the sun don't shine.

Harper has changed Canada's army from reconstruction to war without giving them the tools like rotary wing aircraft. Our military is equipped, just not for a war to please Junior Bush. What Canada's army does have and everyone else wants is armoured vehicles. And just for a history lesson...... there was no choice after Mulroney leaving a $40 billion debt. (Mulroney also bought the submarines) It was balance the budget or die and Chretien choose to balance the budget. Besides during that time there was no need for war toys because there was no war mongering president or pm sending troops off to foreign lands. IF Canada would get back to it's original mission in Afghanistan, reconstruction and quit getting caught up in killing civilians, maybe we could make a difference. Right now all we are doing is feeding the hatred that allows the Taliban to survive. "You cannot bring your Western standards to Afghanistan and expect them to work. This is a different society and a different culture." -Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan June 23/07

Huh? Why the hell does the US owe Canada first dibs on rotary wing aircraft after years of underfunding Canadian Forces? Live with the choices you have made, from (initially) no desert camo to broke-dick submarines. You guys didn't even have enough bombs for Kosovo! The troops pay the price in the end, but the budget is balanced...Yeay! You started the frekkin war in Afghanistan and then hightailed it to take out Sadaam Hussan just so Junior could have his revenge. So why are the Canadians fighting your war in Afghanistan while Cheney siphons the oil out of Iraq? WTF happened to rotations?

If you are so sure it is coming only from fund raising, show us all the proof. Otherwise I maintain that some of the money came from the taxpayer $1.75 Aad even if it is all from donations, those donations are subsidized by tax credits... or out of taxpayers pockets. Other political parties are not paying for expensive pre-election ads, mega election campaign headquarters, headlines on internet news sites and NASCAR cars. I think the funnest wedge issue here is Steve's party trying to paint the NDP as being against cars. That really was ridiculous.

Gotta luv the pre-amble to the questions. Kinda get that brain-washing in.

Maybe two NASCARs will do it.

Since when does a political party need public approval or public opinion poll support to engage in self-interested advertising? If they want to waste their money, it is their perogative to do so - and none of my business. Why is this an issue? Who cares and why? WHEN??? When the money the political party is spending comes out of taxpayers pockets. Bill C-24 in 2003, and Bill C-2 in December 2006 gives a political party $1.75 per vote received OUT OF TAXPAYERS POCKETS. So please don't anyone say that rewarding Bourque by sponsoring his car at NASCAR is CPC party money and not porkbarrelling sponsorship with taxpayers $$$$ Political parties are accountable to the taxpayer for the $1.75 they are paid. That's why this is an issue and why people care. Steve's party has taken taxpayers money wasted to new heights. Cons who think only conservatives watch NASCAR are deluding themselves again. Why must everything be a wedge issue with Steve's party?

Why don't you try reading the material presented instead of instantly disagreeing? Knowledge is power and you just lost the argument with the above statements.

What? That doesn't even make sense. In an attempt to convince working people that Canadian taxes are unduly burdensome, right- wing think tanks and conservative politicians have been exaggerating the level of taxes paid by Canadian families for years.Presumably,they see this as their best strategy for convincing the gen- eral public that they should go along with more tax cuts for the wealthy and more cuts in govern- ment spending programs. http://tinyurl.com/2fwgre That url explains it all.

Except for Adscam. We'll leave stealing taxpayer's money in the past. You'll just approach it another way...... call it donations while you blow it on election-style ads and race cars. What next? The reason Canada lost it's gold standing is because Steve canceled funding to museums, legal aid, literacy, court challenge services, jobs for students, women's rights, housing, and a bunch of essentials services that Canadians count on. Why? Cause he needed the money for war toys and his war in Afganistan.

Canadians do not go to the US for lower taxes. Everyone I know realizes they are paying the same once they include the cost of heath insurance and school fees. The attraction of the US was always the higher pre-tax salaries and the greater opportunities for people in specialized fields. The salary differential has largely disappeared with the high Canadian dollar.The Fraiser institute report is deceptive because it uses all taxes to determine when it's 'tax freedom day' occurs. Very few people pay anywhere close to 50% of their income in prersonal taxes. A single person making 50K/year in BC with no deductions would pay no more than 30% for Income Tax, CPP, EI, GST and PST. This would put their tax freedom day at April 19th - not June 18. That is why it is meaningless to talk about the direct cost to an individual when you compare the US healthcare system to the Canadian system. Employers may pay the cost but it is the individual who pays in the end. That is the logic the Fraiser Instutute uses when it includes Corporate Taxes in its Tax Freedom Day calculations and that logic applies equally to the cost of supplying employees with healthcare benefits. Plus the Fraser Institute does not include the corporate incomes, just their taxes which totally skews their claims. Our tax freedom day was sometime in April.

PROMISES MADE! PROMISES BROKEN!

PROMISES MADE! PROMISES BROKEN! God bless Hansard. Here’s what Deceivin' Steven was saying about the Atlantic Accord and election promises less than three years ago... 38th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION EDITED HANSARD • NUMBER 022 CONTENTS Thursday, November 4, 2004 Hon. Stephen Harper (Leader of the Opposition, CPC) moved: That this House deplore the attitude of the Prime Minister of Canada at and following the First Ministers' Conference of October 26, 2004, and that it call on the federal government to immediately implement its pledges of June 5 and 27, 2004, to allow the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia to keep 100% of their provincial offshore oil and gas revenues. He said: Mr. Speaker,I will be splitting my time with our deputy leader from Central Nova. On June 5 of this year the Prime Minister arrived in St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland and Labrador. The context was the following. Obviously it was an election campaign when the Prime Minister was asked to respond to a longstanding Conservative commitment to ensure that the Atlantic provinces would enjoy 100% of their non-renewable resource royalties. This is a commitment that was made by me in my capacity as leader of the Canadian Alliance when I first arrived here and has its origins in the intentions of the Atlantic accord signed by former Prime Minister Mulroney in the mid-1980s. These are longstanding commitments, our commitment to 100% of non-renewable resource royalties. It was our commitment during the election, before the election, and it remains our commitment today. For the Prime Minister, this was something that he had opposed for 11 years and for most of his political career. But suddenly in the midst of an election campaign on June 5, he met with Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams. He came out of that meeting and said the following: "I believe that Newfoundland and Labrador ought to be the primary beneficiary of the offshore resources, and what I have said to the premier is that I believe the proposal that he has put forth certainly provides the basis of an agreement between the two of us." Premier Williams specified in a letter dated June 10 that: 'The proposal my government made to you and your Minister of Natural Resources provides for 100% of direct provincial revenues generated by the petroleum resources in the Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Area, to accrue to the government of Newfoundland and Labrador and be sheltered from the clawback provisions of the equalization formula--' The Prime Minister said he agreed with the Premier's proposal and he gave his word as Prime Minister of Canada. Premier Williams was asked at the press conference announcing the deal how he could be sure the Prime Minister would keep his word after the election. He replied that as a man of honour, that the solemn word of the Prime Minister was sufficient. Premier Williams said: “It's by word of mouth, and I'm taking him at his word, and that's good enough for me”. Unfortunately, the solemn word of this Prime Minister turned out to be not good enough. The Prime Minister ignored letters from Premier Williams on June 10, August 5 and August 24 urging him to confirm his promise. Suddenly, the Prime Minister and his Minister of Natural Resources fell silent. Finally, on October 24, two days before the first ministers' conference, the Minister of Finance finally replied offering: --additional annual payments that will ensure the province effectively retains 100 per cent of its offshore revenues-- Then the minister added two big exceptions limiting the offer: --for an eight-year period covering 2004-05 through 2011-12, subject to the provision that no such additional payments result in the fiscal capacity of the province exceeding that of the province of Ontario in any given year. The eight year time limit and the Ontario clause effectively gutted the commitment made to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador during the election campaign. Why should Newfoundland's possibility of achieving levels of prosperity comparable to the rest of Canada be limited to an artificial eight year period? Remember in particular that these are in any case non-renewable resources that will run out. Why is the government so eager to ensure that Newfoundland and Labrador always remain below the economic level of Ontario? The Ontario clause is unfair and insulting to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, and its message to that province, to Nova Scotia and to all of Atlantic Canada is absolutely clear. They can only get what they were promised if they agree to remain have not provinces forever. That is absolutely unacceptable. Hon. Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, CPC): Everyone in Canada would be happy if one day our Atlantic provinces could fully benefit from their natural resources, everyone except the federal Liberals. The Liberal attitude is as typical as it is senseless. There is no point pulling back non-renewable resource revenues from a have not province. This is an opportunity and it is a one time opportunity. It is a short term opportunity to allow these provinces to kick-start their economic development, to get out of have not status, to grow this short run opportunity into long run growth and revenue that will be paid back to Ottawa over and over again and that will benefit the people of those regions of Canada for a very long time. This is what happened in the case of my province of Alberta. Alberta discovered oil and gas in the 1940s and 1950s, Alberta was a have not province. From 1957 until 1965, Alberta received transfers from the equalization program. Alberta was allowed to keep 100% of its oil royalties and there was no federal clawback. This is what allowed Alberta to kick-start its economy, to expand and diversify, to build universities, to advance social services and to become one of the powerhouses of the 21st century Canadian economy. Of course the Liberals expended endless effort to limit the growth of Alberta's revenues, culminating in the experience of the national energy program. Now we see already, with this opportunity in Atlantic Canada, the same attempts to limit the opportunity. The Prime Minister's Ontario cap effectively limits the maximum benefit of the offshore resource to $452 per person in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After that, every dollar will be clawed back by Ottawa, no matter how many billions the offshore resource turns out to be worth. The Prime Minister, before he was here, was president of a company that largely depended on offshore activity. Does he not understand that energy resources are finite, temporary and a short term opportunity? The provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia should be allowed, indeed should be encouraged, to improve the living conditions of their citizens and to use this to attract new long term businesses to replace the temporary opportunities provided by the offshore resources. Instead, when the Atlantic provinces rejected the latest federal offers, the caps, the limits and the exclusions, the government engaged in a clumsy divide and conquer tactic, a tactic which gave away its obvious objective of holding back the development of the Atlantic provinces. It has tried to negotiate with one province and not the other, but both Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia have made clear that their positions are the same and that they want to be dealt with fairly and at the same time. Whether we live in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Alberta or anywhere else, we are all Canadians. We all have a right to a better future. That future is not for the Liberal Party to decide to speed up or to slow down, to start or to stop. It is not to negotiate. The Prime Minister gave his word. The terms of his proposal were clear. Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia requested and were promised 100% of their offshore revenues without equalization clawback, period. There is nothing to negotiate. What is at stake is the future of Atlantic Canada, an unprecedented and historic opportunity for those provinces to get out of the have not status that has bedevilled them for decades. What is at issue is very simple. It is the honour of the Prime Minister, and all he has to do is keep his word. http://tinyurl.com/2tyn2p

Reminds me of 1993 when Lyin Brian Mulroney was also unable to control the Troy Senators as they rejected his budget bill. I think we got ourselves another Lyin PM

Steve grabbed onto the Afghanistan issue and made it his very own, using it for photo-ops, playing soldiers, pretending he's the big chief of some big army. He's not giving Afghanistan back to the liberals. Steve, like Dubya, don't cut and run. LOL

They did do it differently. They negotiated and signed the Atlantic Accord which ALL MEMBERS of the House supported and voted for!! "The prime minister (that would be Steve) himself stated in this House on October 26, 2004, that when it comes to the Atlantic accords, there is 'a moral obligation to keep these promises: no caps, no clawbacks, no limitations, no conditions, no big exceptions in the fine print,"'

I'm sure the people of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are not likely to forget the bullying tactics. No and if Steve does it to the East, he'll do it to everyone else. PROMISES MADE, PROMISES BROKEN!

And attempt to offer a critique of Harper policy is a smear against the government and a victory for terrorism. Don't you mean a victory for the Taliban? Betcha Osama bin Ladin is behind Danny Williams being so rude to Steve.

Deflection from the cons with the talking points they are forcing the faithful to parrot will not distract from the real issue...... The issue was whether or not Steve lived up to his word or not and if not, would that have a negative financial impact on the province. The answer to those questions are clearly No, he didn’t keep his promise and Yes it will have a negative financial impact on Newfoundland and Labrador. Study show that while Newfoundland and Labrador may make some gains under the new formula, it will still be far worse off than if Stephen Harper had done what he had led the people of Canada to believe he was going to do, worse off to the tune of $5 billion dollars or more. This is lies, this is hypocrisy, considering the broken promise Harper delivered to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in his March 19 budget. PROMISES MADE, PROMISES BROKEN!!! Here are the options for NFL and NS. 1. Maintain the Status Quo as set out in the 2005 Atlantic Accord contract; 2. Adopt the new equalization formula with 50% of non-renewable resource revenues excluded but capped at Ontario’s fiscal capacity; 3. Adopt the new equalization formula with 100% of non-renewable resource revenue included, also capped at Ontario’s fiscal capacity. "The prime minister himself stated in this House on October 26, 2004, that when it comes to the Atlantic accords, there is 'a moral obligation to keep these promises: no caps, no clawbacks, no limitations, no conditions, no big exceptions in the fine print,"' http://www.thechronicleherald.ca/cponline/.../A33362022.html

King/Byng doesn't real come into play. The Liberals and the Bloc probably won't force an election. Why force an election when the opposition can sit back and watch Steve implode.

Ummm...of course China approved it. It doesn't call for China to reduce emmissions. And none of this makes Kyoto into "international law." I was responding to your "meanwhile China puffs along" comment As for Kyoto being International law, it did so on February 15, 2005 and Stephane Dion had a big part in making that happen at the Montreal conference. It was largely due to his effort that an agreement was reached and he was called a "hero" by environmentalists. A point that Steve's Torys took and twisted in one of their attack ads. China is puffing along. It is allowed to increase its emmissions substantially under Kyoto. I think you'd better read up on what constitutes "international law". Kyoto is a multilateral treaty, like the landmine treaty that everyone, except the countries who actually use landmines, signed. It, like the Kyoto Treaty, is not international law. In order for it to become international law, the UNSC would have to pass a resolution requiring it, in which case most of the world would simply pull out of the UN, or everyone would have to sign it. Even then, it would only be binding for those countries which actually stay party to it. Yea China is puffing along and doing much better than Steve and his buddy Dubya. Updated: 2006-11-17 06:30 NAIROBI: A report released this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference countered claims that developing countries like China are not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The report, entitled "Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Brazil, China and India: Scenarios and Opportunities through 2025," also finds that 70 per cent of China's unilateral emissions reductions had been financed domestically. "Our analysis shows the actions China and Brazil are taking will result in emissions cuts to levels comparable to what the United States is projected to do under its voluntary target by 2010, also equal to nearly 40 per cent of what the EU will do by 2010," said Ned Helme, president of the Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP), the US-based think-tank that produced the report. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-11...tent_735500.htm

Ummm...of course China approved it. It doesn't call for China to reduce emmissions. And none of this makes Kyoto into "international law." I was responding to your "meanwhile China puffs along" comment As for Kyoto being International law, it did so on February 15, 2005 and Stephane Dion had a big part in making that happen at the Montreal conference. It was largely due to his effort that an agreement was reached and he was called a "hero" by environmentalists. A point that Steve's Torys took and twisted in one of their attack ads.

One really should update their knowledge and not keep on sprouting the Cons rhetoric. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji announced on September 3, 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development that China has approved the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/news-ar...o-Protocol.html With 12.7% of the world's total, China is the second largest emitter of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions after the United States. http://tinyurl.com/29dmy3 China is doing a better job than the US

The Senate will not vote the budget down. They may hold hearings, make amendments and sent it back to the House but they cannot and will not vote down any bill sent to them by the lower House. There is precedence for the Senate amending and even defeating budget implementation legislation. This precedent was set in 1993 with the Mulroney government. At that time, the Senate, dominated by Tories, first tried to amend a budget implementation bill to delete a proposed merger of the Canada Council with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The Tory government of Brian Mulroney rejected the amendment so the Senate ultimately defeated the bill. The Senate is not considered a confidence chamber and thus, unlike the Commons, it can defeat money bills without provoking an election. The Liberal Atlantic Canadian senators won't support the bill, regardless of the leader's view on the matter. Steve's rhetoric is confusing and it looks like he is mixing up the Canadian Senate with the American Senate. Now either Steve has demonstrated an appalling lack of basic understanding of the government he currently is the head of or he knows the difference and is being deliberately dishonest and deceptive in creating a false opposition where none can exist. Which is entirely consistent with his rhetoric in Afghanistan when he talked about how Canada would not "cut and run" from the mission, despite there being ZERO members of Parliament calling for anything that could even be remotely construed as such. However it sounds good, sounds decisive, and implies there really is such opposition to which he and his party are heroically preventing from getting their way. This deceptions are offensive. When push comes to shove it is the HoC and the PM which will have the final say, which in turn makes Deceivin' Steve's rhetoric about how it is automatically Liberal bluster in the House if the Senate does not vote down this budget complete and utter horse pucks as well as a false choice open to the Liberals.

Are you purposely ignoring the link from the government website that both I and hiti posted? Too much kool-aid. If the Liberals did nothing why are several of their programs that this "new" government canceled being brought back by Steve and his bulldog? If the Liberals did nothing, why is Baird stealing their programs? The 13 year figure itself is inherently dishonest. Canada never ratified the Kyoto Protocol until late 2002, less than five years ago. The Chretien government did so despite the screams, from the same basic party that Baird now belongs to, that we would face certain doom. While Chretien failed to take action, and should be vilified for that failure, it must be understood that the Reform/Alliance/Conservative Party was very effective at opposing Kyoto. They enlisted their friends in the oil patch and in the US government to bring the science into question, scare the general population into thinking that Kyoto meant certain ruin, and to try to undermine the process. When Baird forgets to mention that, he is committing a lie of omission. The most effective part of that undermining was the pressure placed on Russia, mostly by Steve Harper's good friend George Bush, not to ratify the protocol. Without Russia's ratification the deal would have fallen apart. Russia didn't ratify the deal until 2004. As a result, it became international law in early 2005. Now there is no doubt that the Chretien government should have acted sooner and should have had a solid plan up and running before they ratified the deal, but every time John Baird says something along the lines of "13 years of Liberal inaction" he is lying. He's been around long enough to know that too. The other highly misleading statement that Baird likes to spout from his gaping maw is that Dion is somehow personally responsible for the Liberals' failure to meet Kyoto. That's not true either. Dion did not become Minister of the Environment until Paul Martin's last, very short, term. While Dion may or may not have had input in caucus and in cabinet before that time, it was not his file. Any influence he had would have been limited and it was Prime Minister Chretien calling the shots. Baird knows this, as does every member of parliament. There is one other set of lies that Mr. Baird likes to tell. He likes to try to make us think that meeting our Kyoto commitments would destroy the country financially. Throughout human history there has never been a technological advance that did not increase wealth, or at least the wealth of working people. The discovery of the pointed stick brought us more food. The industrial revolution brought us from subsistence farming and serfdom to a middle class and at least the illusion of democracy. The invention of the automobile brought us wealth as well as mobility. The computer age brought money and knowledge. Technology creates wealth for working people. Mr. Baird tells us that developing and implementing the technologies required to reduce our emissions will bring us poverty. In this case, I don't know if John Baird is purposely lying to us or whether he's just completely ignorant. Perhaps the brain flukes ate that part of his brain too. The other part of Baird's economic lie, is another lie of omission. Members of the EU have already said that they want to levy trade sanctions against countries that aren't compliant with the Kyoto Protocol. If we don't meet our obligations, they will impose tariffs and duties on us. So will the wealthy, and Kyoto compliant, countries of Asia. If Mr. Baird really wants to hurt the Canadian economy, having the EU and Japan impose sanctions on us is a sure way to do it. Mr. Baird never mentions any of this of course, yet he must be aware of the many calls for sanctions. Unless he wants all of our trade to be with the United States, Mexico, and China, there is no excuse for Baird not taking this into consideration. Mr. Baird is currently rolling out a green plan based on the original Clean Air Act that he dragged into parliament dead on arrival. Jack Layton and the NDP asked for that act to be revived in a special all-party committee. The act was rewritten and, according to most parliamentarians and environmentalists, is now a very powerful piece of legislation. John Baird is refusing to bring the act into the House to be debated and voted on. Instead he is continuing his pattern of prevarication, cowardice, and irresponsibility. The opposition parties should insist that he brings the act forward or bring down the Harper government. p.s. anyone who lies as much as Baird must be called Mr. Why Canada's greenhouse gas record stinks "The Conservatives threw out the best of what the Liberals did and kept the worst," Bennett said of the Clean Air Act. http://tinyurl.com/26gn2y