Ricki Bobbi

From John Ibbitson's column in today's Globe. (Sorry no link, from the pay site.)

The two most recent one's, i.e. the one's with the "astonishingly" anti-Harper titles were started by the same poster. Who always starts multiple anti-Harper threads. Maybe to combat this we are better off to start more threads with pro-Harper themes...

Uhhh, I believe breaking the GST pledge would have been Chretien's and or Martin's idea....

That's the sadness with the Ayn Randian libertarian viewpoint. No matter what taxes should be cut is ridiculous. That can only support the belief that there should be no taxes of any kind and government shouldn't exist in any form. Huge accumulated debt? Who cares about paying it off. Better to *never* raise taxes than to deal with our responsibilities here and now.

Maybe he just likes to see his name up there. A little from column A and a little from column B maybe?

April 2008 is waaaaaay too far away. Everything I have heard is spring of 2007. Maybe, maybe if something happens it gets postponed to fall of 2007 but that's it. The election definitely happens in 2007.

With that, I think Hebert's out of the loop. She has turned into a Toronto Star Liberal/PR agent. I hope I'm wrong. English Canada needs a good French Canada commentator. Hebert's fallen flat too much for too long. I don't really get the attack on Hebert here? Harper did take a longer term view with the income trust announcement. Definitely does't help him in the short term. He probably did antagonize more Conservative supproters than NDP, Liberal or Bloc. The anti-Harper set here is just going on about the 'broken promise' ... whatever. The truly angry posts about the economic effects of the change and who will be hurt by them is cominng from your more Conservative posters. What was wrong with what Hebert said on the National tonight?

You really are overstating the case. Take a look at the case of people forced to drive school buses or deliver news papers as a result of the changes to the tax code. Those people would definitely be among the lowest quartile of seniors in terms of savings and income. The increase in the age credit and tax splitting will have a lot more positive effects on those people than their loss of income from income trusts.

Gerry isn't concerned about losing. In his history of posts every stab at Harper, every attack, every jab, every misleading article leaked to is a victory. Forget decency, honesty, the truth, respect or civility. It's all attack, attack, attack from Gerry. Good to see the number of people taking offence to Gerry's never-ending anti-Harperism is growing.

Because the other two threads didn't have titles that were anti-Harper enough for Gerry.

And unless you vote Conservative you can't support someone who will make you better off financially. Did you really base your vote on this one promise? *If* the Liberals had won do you honestly think they wouldn't have changed course on income trusts? I understand you are upset by the situation, but you are really overstating things. You also didn't ignored the point on seniors. The changes to the income splitting rules will help far more seniors than were hurt by income trusts. It will also relieve a lot of the income trust pain. Is your conscience really being effected by the effect on seniors?

The income-splitting change will help a lot of seniors. So who are you going to support now?

How rude, ignorant and condescending can a post be? You post answered that question an an utterly stunning fashion.

Completely agreed August. Or Albertans created a new party when Quebec gets preferential treatment. (Cough cough CF-18 contract.) The ideology/regional question is a little tougher. Albeerta's are more conservative than most of the rest of the country. That's a fact. So is the CPC being strongest out here due to regionalism or ideology? Remember the CPC isn't as strong to the West of us ***OR*** to the East of us.

That has nothing to do with anything at hand. Why not? The only people who lost 'real' money in this were the greedy buggers who took out loans to try and take advantage of the income trust loophole. Losing unrecognized gains in share valuation is a matter of personal choice. Those people gambled the value of their income trust units wouldn't go down. The value went down. Like they did when they supported the Reform movement and the Alliance. Under the old financing laws when Francis Winspear alone gave millions of dollars to the Reform Party the power of a small group of wealthy backers was much stronger. Tougher to have as much of an effect now. If the CPC didn't outright lie to us, maybe we would have had more a chance. When Harper made that promise did you honestly foresee that stampede to converting to income trusts? BCE? Telus? The situation changed. A good leader deals with the hand he is dealt. It didn't make sense for Canada to keep the promise. And how much money Albertans lost. Your going to have to provide more support than that. As someone who has supported the Conservatives in the past, but won't because of this one decision, who will you support now? Even in the two close edmonton ridings you would have to see one out of every five Conservative supporters all decide to back the second place party in that riding to punish the Conservatives for income trust. Everywhere else in the province it jumpst to one in four or one in three. Mulroney was in a similar state... Don't kid yourself. The CF-18 maintenance contract was a far different deal. A western company lost out on the contract, despite a more technically sound and cost effective bid to a Quebec company. Pure politics and favouritism. Tapped into a lot of deep-seated resentment of Quebec here in Alberta. Who were the Conservatives favouring with this decision? What is the deep-seated resentment they are going to tap into? There isn't even a further right wing party for people to vote for. Say what you will but there will be no dire consequences for the Conservatives.

Hundreds of thousands of people are going to lose their houses because of income trusts? Who are you kidding? This isn't going to hurt the Conservatives that badly. Let's look at 1993. Two of the main policy planks in Red Book I were getting rid of the GST and abrogating NAFTA. It was in the best interest of Canadians to break those promises. They won a majority again in 1997. This interest was in the best interest of Canadians. We'll win again in the spring.

Add another $25K for benefits per guard there is $10 million more ... now. Factoring in they are making 50K a year now, do the cost of living and other raises. They will probably be averaging $80k a year by 2017 which is when the $1 Billion projection ends. through in the cost of benefits by then equallng $40k a year. that would probably average out to $50 million a year over ten years. that's half the money right there. Now you need training, the cost of the actual weapons, renovations/construction costs at crossing points, building a training centre, trainers, etc....

Hey, even the CBC isn't being as misleading as you are on this one. The $100 million was originally stated as the cost to set up the programming of arming the border guards. The $1 billion is the cost over the next ten years. tsk, tsk, if you gotta resort to such a blatant misrepresentation to attack the Government on it means they can't really be doing anything really bad.

There is a reason why companies can't add unrealized gains in share valuation to their asset base. The losses were gains in share value more than anything else. Those Alberta execs are going to accept it. How are they going to give the Conservatives 'what they have coming'? People forgot that income trusts was always considered a risky option. If you wanted safe and secure take your T-bill rates and be happy. You go chasing the higher returns you take on higher risk. The Calgary oil community has a lot more sway over picking the next Premier (*cough* *cough* Jim Dinning) than it does over picking the PM. Do you really think they wanted 13 consecutive years of Liberal rule? Kennedy-lead Liberals winning a couple of seats in Edmonton? Hmmm, there are only two seats in the Province that the Conservatives won by less than 15 points in January. But that would swing because of Gerrard Kennedy??? Don't kid yourself about the effect this will have on the Conservatives in Alberta. The Conseratives have tons of cash. They are still running far ahead of the Liberals in fundraising. There is only one seat in the entire province that they aren't guaranteed to win by at least 10 points in the spring.

You forget your credit for books and transit pass to get to skill. Share your tax info and I can show you how you are better off under the Conservatives than you would have been under the Liberals.

How come your complaints are all so lame and uninteresting? You are the only one here defending the CBC. Your defences are weak and purely personal. You'd think a man of your abilities could come up with better!

Uhhhh, yeah. Whatever. The Liberals are going to agree to an election before their leadership convention? That's smart electoral strategy. In reality, you have *zero* idea what you are talking about...

Do you have a problem with arming border guards? If money is such a big deal why not cut funding to the CBC? This is money well-spent.

What is the big deal? You can't say anything to actually criticize the thread other than calling it 'beyind ridiculous'. Good work...

Brison should have gone to jail. Why should they have given such signals? It was obvious to any educated market watcher some action had to be taken. They preserved the integrity of the market by keeping leaks to zero ... where they should be. What would forewarning the market have done? The drop in market value would have come over a few weeks instead of overnight?