Keepitsimple

It does not warrant an election....it warrants an intelligent backlash from the Senate, Provinces and Media to explain the potential impact of such a dangerous precedent......followed by legislation or Parliamentary clarification of what constitutes a money bill.

Stephane Dion has shown once again that there is a huge gap between academia and politics. His musing on the direction of the PQ has given ammunition to Pauline Marois who can now claim that even Stephane Dion agrees with our approach to separation. How sad - and outrageous......no doubt he will be offering a "clarification". Let's see how much play this gets on CBC - none, I suspect. My Bold....Link: http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/309901

Absolutely bang on. This was a gross mistake on behalf of the Speaker of the House (who happens to be a Liberal) in that he did not rule this bill to be a money bill. While it doesn't involve new spending - it involves collecting less taxes. If this ruling is allowed to stand, what is to prevent the opposition parties from reducing or eliminating capital gains taxes - or raising the exemption on personal taxes? Both actions would not involve spending per se, but would result in collecting less tax. Finally, it means reducing Provincial tax revenue as well - and they have not even been consulted on the matter. What would McGuinty think of arbitrarily losing hundreds of millions in tax revenue?

Two issues - one has been mentioned in passing: 1) Let's not forget the Provinces - if up to $5000 is non-taxable, that means that you don't pay Federal and you also don't pay Provincial tax....so all Provinces will be losing significant revenue as well. I suspect we'll be hearing from them shortly.....or perhaps the Senate will go to bat for them (fat chance). 2) The "matching" grant of 20% up to $500 is especially useful for lower incomes. Put in $1000 and you automatically get $200. That's 20% on your investment right away. The Liberal RESP is much more favourable to higher-incomes because they save more tax. The rich get richer. Let's not forget that we're not just talking University. There's trade schools and colleges as well. It's a bad idea. Sounds all warm and fuzzy on the surface but it benefits the rich much more than the little guy, is confusing to manage, and both the Feds and Provinces are stuck with the bill.

Common sense swhould have prevailed a long time ago. Telefilm's mission is to foster productions that reflect Canadian society, with its linguistic duality and cultural diversity. It was really meant to subsidize films that would have otherwise, found somewhat limited pizzaz ande thus have trouble being financed. As National Post recently put it, it shouldn't be used to subsidize films like "Sperm and the Masterbaters". Surely there is some sort of threshold where the use of tax dollars are inappropriate. It's not censorship - the movies can still be made - they just have to stand on their merit and not be using our tax dollars. Link: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=356540

You just don't seem to know that much about Canadian politics.

There are two huge constituencies that in my opinion, vote Liberal by a large margin. They include the Civil Service - people who work directly or indirectly for the Federal government......and I'll stretch that a bit to the Provincial Civil Services. The reality doesn't matter - but Liberals are perceived to be big government, while Conservatives are perceived to be smaller government. That translates to a perceived threat of job cuts or benefit cuts. It doesen't have to be true - but if you are a civil servant with a life-long job, cannot reasonable expect to be fired or laid off, and have gold plated pensions - why would you not be biased in favour of the Liberals. The second constituency is Newer Canadians going back as far as Trudeau......the Liberals opened the floodgates to immigration and those who arrived are thankful to the government who let them in. That's why it's so hard to move that "base" of Liberal support. There's a third constituency and that's Lawyers....but let's not get into that right now.

I noticed that the most offending comments have now been removed from the Liberal Website - they originally appeared under "Harper must come clean about allegations of Conservative Bribery, Liberals Say". The offending section contained statements like: "He knew it was immoral. He knew it was unethical. He knew it was illegal. It was a violation of Section 119 of the Criminal Code" Is it really any wonder that Harper sued the Liberals? You simply cannot let attacks like these go unanswered.

The problem with RRSP's is that most people have come to view them as one-time end-of-year investments that require $500 or $1000 to make sense. Save tax now is the common philosophy. And of course, once you put the money in - you can't easily take it out. Those are the reasons why many people don't use RRSP's - especially low-income earners. These TDSA's eliminate those problems - put in as little or as much as you can - leave it there as long as you can - create an investment vehicle - withdraw the money whenever you want.

The usual critics lined up pretty quickly but it might not be such an expensive proposition after all - based on the preliminary plans. Link: http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/309015

I personally prefer it. It goes to the heart of Conservatism - personal responsibility - helping to build your own future. Tax cuts are mostly invisible in that your paycheque gets a little bigger but you soon forget about it. Saving on the other hand, is a conscious decision - and many Canadians need a catalyst to jump start the process. I think you're seeing the Conservative agenda unfold step-by-step. Increasing personal exemptions to help the low income earners and seniors, income splitting to help seniors, a focus on helping families through the tax system, and now a plan for young people to start saving. It's back to basics - and not that scary. Don't get me wrong, taxes need to be kept in check - but I like the balance that the budget has introduced.

The Star is certainly not a Conservative support but if you took the time to read deep into today's article, you would have found support for Flaherty from a leading economist. Seeing as the Star usually looks for someone to bolster McGuinty's arguments, I guess the pickings were slim. This is really not a small issue. Unless Ontario starts to make itself more business friendly, we'll start to see an exodus of companies like we did when the NDP were in power. Here's the supporting quote and a link to the article: Link: http://www.thestar.com/Article/308811

For those of you who have not actually heard Harper's voice on tape - here's a link to it. Keep in mind that the beginning of the tape is missing which would put the entire conversation in a proper context. Having said that, Harper, as usual, is being frank and honest and you can clearly see (hear) that he has nothing to hide....especially since he knows that his comments might be published in a book. This doesn't necessarily mean that the Conservative representatives didn't make an inappropriate offer - but it does indicate that Harper was not aware that they would do anything "illegal" if they did. Link: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/HTMLTemplate?tf=...archive=CTVNews

That will help a great deal.......I saw the author intterviewed on CTV or Newsworld when the story broke. He actually seemed like a nice fellow and not particularly partisan - the Publisher though, might be another story. The fact that the beginning of the transcript/tape has not been provided to the media is very troubling. I think that in the end, the RCMP will find that Harper's comments were taken out of context because of that omission.......and really, that's the biggest thrust of this "story" - that the Prime Minister knowingly participated in a "bribe". The RCMP should quickly be able to clear that up by gaining access to the entire original tape recording. I have an open mind as to whether the publisher was being partisan - or whether they were just trying to ignite a storm to sell books. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

That's the part that's very misleading. The beginning of the tape/transcript is conveniently missing - the first question is: Zytaruk: "I mean, there was an insurance policy for a million dollars. Do you know anything about that?" Harper: "I don't know the details. I know that there were discussions, uh, this is not for publication?" If you can agree that there must have been a couple of prior questions....then it seems to me that Zytaruk probably asked the general question about whether he was aware that Conservative members had gone to Cadman with a list of offers. If that was the case, then Harper's reply that "he didn't know the details" could very reasonably mean that he didn't know the details of any of the things that were on the list. Why does the transcript not include comments about "the list" that the media talks about? Why not just publish the entire transcript so that everything is put in context? Curiouser and curiouser.

I'd still like to know what happened to the beginning of the tape/transcript. The one given to the media jumps right in to a question about the insurance policy. Clearly, there was a conversation before that question was asked. What happened to that part of the interview?

I should have been more specific. I meant Don Newman on his Politics show. Several times, they have presented an abbreviated version before they started railing on Harper. Surely though, you can see that there 's a lot missing at the beginning - you don't just start an interview by jumping into a question about a million dollar policy that begins with "I mean....".

A couple of good quotes I recently came across: 1) If Global Warming gets any colder, we'll all freeze to death! 2) It appears Mother Nature has joined the ranks of the skeptics.

There are many ways that the Savings Accounts can help ordinary people. The young couple who want to save for a good down payment on a house. They can now make a very viable plan and be pretty sure that they can meet their goal. How about income-challenged people who put away $50 a month and maybe save up for a used car. TFSA's can help people become goal oriented. A simple straight forward plan.

There has been a great deal made about what Harper said "on tape" but let's get one thing straight. Harper is not a stupid man. He asked if his comments were going to be publicized and was told they would be going in a book about Chuck Cadman. Do people really think he would admit to a potential wrongdoing - a bribe as most media put it - knowing that it was going into a book? Absolutely not. In my opinion, his statements - when viewed in the context of the entire interview, confirm that: 1) He already had spoken to Cadman and in his opinion, Chuck was not going to change his mind. 2) He knew that Chuck was going to stand with the Liberals. 3) He OK'd the party members to talk to Chuck but warned them "not to press him" and that their notion that Cadman had financial insecurity concerns was just the party members' "theory". 4) He didn't know the details of what they were going to discuss. As usual, the CBC has presented an abbreviated transcript that puts Harper in a bad light. Here's the most complete transcript of the tape that I could find - and although this is more that the media presents, it clearly is missing some questions at the beginning because it jumps right into a question about the insurance. It's also unfortunate that portions are inaudible. I think we need an even fuller context to understand things but even this transcript seems pretty innocent - at least as it pertains to Harper: Link: http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_20068.aspx

I must admit - the Conservatives are lousy communicators. There were a lot of people making overtures to Cadman - including Liberals. Harper in his "interview" for the book said that he didn't5 know the details of what the armtwisters were going to diswcuss but think about it......if they did get creative and suggest some sort of insurance "top-up", Harper would still have to approve it....and you can bet your boots that he would not approve anything that was outside the bounds of ethical conduct. If people have learned one thing about Harper - it's that he's a straight shooter - look at how he's cut the ties to Mulroney because he might have done something wrong. This is another tempest in a teapot - a sertiousw allegation - bhut one that ultimately will not stand up to scruitiny. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I understand that the RCMP are already taking a peek at it.

The big splash is about the supposed million dollar Insurance policy. It's already been stated that you simply cannot get such a policy if you are already diagnosed as a terminally ill cancer patient. Having said that, it appears likely that the conversations dealt more with somehow maintaining Cadman's MP insurance if the Government fell. That would be done by letting him run unopposed in the resulting election and thereby regaining his MP status. What probably ticked him off....and what he probably told the Conservative armtwisters was "Don't you guys get it? - I'll be dead before I finish the campaign!!!". Who knows how he communicated all that frustration to his wife......but you just can't get an insurance policy like that - and Chuck Cadman would know as well as anyone. Funny how this story "leaked" just before the budget vote. I wonder if the Liberals will think this is their big chance - since someone has obviously intended it to be that way.

Perhaps you should judge him by the person who he married - Laureen Harper. She's well educated, ran her own Graphic Design business, and rides a motorcycle. She's a woman who has blended career, family, and personal development. In choosing her (and she choosing him) for a life partner, I think that says a lot about his attitude towards women.

I think the Federal Government should give only "conditional" recognition to Kosovar. Full recognition should only come after a referendum that expresses a clear majority. That would be consistant with Canada's own guidelines. I know that Kosovar is a different situation but to the best of my knowledge, the Kosovan government was only elected with 46% of the popular vote. A referendum would be an awkward and probably violent undertaking but keeping in mind that this may happen elsewhere in the world, I think it's important that such actions clearly represent the free expression of the people - not just the ruling party.

Two points Dobbin: I guess this means that you agree that there is a minority who do not support it...and that's all I am saying - that's what a consensus is. The minority could be 20% or 30% or even 49% - doubtful for sure but there is not unanimity. That's really not a very smart comment. Your comments continually come off as Binary - either you believe in Global Warming and that it is mainly caused by human activity - or you are a denier. The truth is that many Conservatives (and non-conservatives) believe that Climate Change is occurring and that human activity is playing a part - but we tend to think that it's not the major factor or we believe the jury is still out. These people are not deniers. As someone else previously said, it's rational versus emotional.