noahbody

Good for Dion to support the government on this. Layton equating this to whistle-blowing is about as rational as when he blamed Martin for murdering the homeless.

This is what Harper said in Opposition. "We'll support the government on issues if it's essential to the country but our primary responsibility is not to prop up the government, our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians." Stephen Harper The Opposition's duty is to present alternatives. This is a three part quote. I don't think you'll disagree with the first two messages which to paraphrase are "If it's good for the country, we'll support it" and "if it's incompetence, we won't." This governement, is far from incompetent. Their initiatives have for the large part been ones of common good and practicality. This includes the ones for which they've been criticized the most, such as the environment and daycare. Neither Kyoto or a universal daycare system are achieveable. They are only alternatives to common sense. Harper is far from perfect too. I do fault Harper for the Dion ads. They were likely the idea of some party stategiest who's thinking they would be good for the party. They were not good for setting a tone for working together obviously, not a good example of leadership and not good for Canada. Harper seems to understand policy better than he does people. Unfortuately, some are immediately against his good ideas, because they don't like him. Has he ran out of ideas? No. Better put, the problem is that he has ideas. To paraphase a quote, "if it doesn't make others uncomfortable, it isn't an idea." This is why some consider him scary. Canada is at a time where it does need ideas. We've rested on our laurels for far too long. Or health care system is on its last limbs due to the aging baby boomers. It would be nice to see all parties unpolicize this and stop defending a failing system. I digress. As to the backend of the quote, he also once said, "The Leader of the Opposition's constitutional obligation - the obligation to Parliament - it's the reason we did the merger! - is to make sure Canadians have an alternative for government." He is a traditionalist, but in oppositon in government he's shown he will put Canada first, which is the good. Harper is about taking the bad with the good. You don't have to like him personally to respect that he wishes to make the country a better place to live. He's not evil. Evil is David Suzuki:)

With this is a minority government, the comment about preoccupation with politics is better suited towards the opposition parties. The cons have put forth initiatives such as the crime bill that Canadians would like passed. The game though is that everything has to be rewritten. Not because the original is broken, but so the opposition parties can put their stamp on it. Simply passing bills, and getting things done would make the government look good, which would mean the Libs wouldn't get back in for years. As far as the topic of the day goes, the environment, what the cons have proposed is an example of good government as it considers the economy and all Canadians that would be affected. The opposition wanting to meet the Kyoto commitment no matter what, would, if they were in power, be an example of irresponsible, dangerous govermnent. Please debate this if you wish. And please remember kyoto is a liberal problem, signed by a PM with no intentions of meeting the targets, as Eddie Greenberg now admits. That is poor govenment and putting politics first. As far as the sleazy politics goes, you'd likely shouldn't get into a debate over that one. Just so you know, I had the highest hopes for Paul Martin as PM. I figured if he turned out to be a decent pm, he'd look the the best pm in history as he'd be compared to his predecessor. Turned out I was wrong. Now it's Harpers turn. I'd suggest his biggest drawback is that he believes in merit verses kissing ass. In Ottawa, the latter is how it is traditionally done. He at least puts Canada first. Even if you don't like the guy personally, why not support him when Canada if the benefactor. Isn't moving Canada forward the only thing that really matters. Who different does it make which colours the party wears?

Maybe they can work it off.

He sees Harper as one of the key people who led to the demise of his PC party. In politics, it seems a lot easier to blame someone outside your own party for your failures. Sour grapes. "Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't." Words to live by, if you're content with being a loser.

Not to be a grammer hound, but you should have screamed "OR DO THEY????" Second, the oil sands do have targets. Third, oil sands aren't going to be removed for some time. Fourth, why not say "make it the next government problem like Clinton!" Fifth, better yet, why not say Chretien, since Eddie Greenberg has stated that the Chretien government had no intention of meeting Kyoto targets? Please defend the last point.

I agree, that is a pain. They do that with driver's licenses as well. With the new rules you should have the option to keep your old one and exhange it for the new one delivered to the passport office.

I'll be voting for the candidate who stands the best chance of defeating the Conservative in my riding. As long as Harper remains leader of the party, no CPC candidate would ever get my vote. What is it specifically that you dislike about Harper so much? Do you see reason to be scared of him as promoted? If yes, explain why.

The point of the editorial was that no cabinet minister was taking responsibility or even responding or even pretending to care. Apparently you agree that no one is responsible other than those standing in line. What if a person only discovered today that they needed a passport because of a death of a relative outside of Canada, or a job interview, or whatever? Firstly, it was just on May 11th when they ran a story with a quote from Fabien Langelle, a media relations officer with Passport Canada. This is with whom they should be talking. It's a little silly to expect the PM or senior ministers can respond to every reporter, especially on non-issues. Ask in a media scrum or ask the department set up to comment on such issues. The people you mentioned are all ill-prepared and can stand in line and get a passport in 48 hours should they wish. I'd expect most in line understand they are their because they didn't think ahead. Nobody to blame but themselves though.

The must be using the back door:)

Looks like they got their story they wanted. Let's slam the government for no reason. Here's the situation today: It's been over 3 months since the deadline and the line ups became long and well publicized. It takes 3 months to get your passport by mail. Every single person in the line today has no one to blame about standing in line except for themselves. Do you agree?

Speaking of spending money. You should go out and buy an atlas. Iraq is not in Afganistan. Canada is in a war in Afganistan. Last time I checked anyway. I was referring to your "illegal undertaking" comment. This is a criticism associated with Iraq, not Afganistan.

Speaking of spending money. You should go out and buy an atlas. Iraq is not in Afganistan.

Yes, every time I read something from Mr. Push-Poll, it becomes so much more and more obvious that he's less interested in FACTS and alot more interested in ATTENTION. Just another Troller. Isn't it a bit ironic that you're attempting to assassinate my character because it's wrong to assassinate Suzuki's character?

Suzuki is who he is. He's an environmental lobbyist. Like Al Gore, he is not an expert on the matter and should not be positioned as one by a media that, since the advent of 24-hour news, has been more about creating news and controversy than reporting. Is Suzuki evil? No. Blinded by emotion and egotistical? Most definitely.

to put it bluntly The person is not a whistlebower, he didn't do it out of a sense of doing what is best for the country, but more likely that he was following his own twisted sense of right or wrong. This person was in a position of trust, he likely signed a confidentiality agreement, so he betrayed the trust and agreement. No way he can be construed as a whistle blower. Well said. It is sad so many are more concerned with right and left versus right and wrong.

quote] Didn't the Tories once call these people "whistle blowers" when they revealed information on the Liberal government? After retirement, Jean Chretien spent a great deal of time on political forums, using the name jdobbin. Now you know the rest of the story. I'm Paul Harvey.

To be fair, the raising of income tax was only due to the Liberals lowering it by a percentage point during the election campaign, after the Coservatives had announced their plan.

How many children do you have? I am told that it costs my cousins daughter and her husband $20.000 a year for day care alone. Good job that these are highly paid computer geeks aye. People seem to want to raise a family without sacrifice these days.

So they make a decision based on a stat. Aside from that, isn't there something called parenting?

If that's the case, the Taliban prisioners can live at your house.

This isn't true either. There have been numerous posts on here criticizing Tory spending, including Harper's airplane expenses thanks to transparency. Considering your last prime minister avoided paying taxes in Canada even though he was given about $190 million in contracts paid by Canadian taxpayer and the PM before him stated "What's a few million here and there?" and ran the most corrupt government in Canadian history, this seems to be a bit of a mountain out of a mole hill. I'm sure Layton is keeping his receipts from UltraCuts so he can make a big deal about her getting paid a good sum for "little or no work." This, if you can comprehend the importance of image and market value is nothing but partisan spin. The media will have a field day at the expense of Harper's appearance.

How do you seriously put John A. McDonald on the list? There would be no good or bad Canadians without him. He accomplished some pretty amazing things, including the railroad, for which he was criticized for on the "Greatest Canadian" show due to so many paid Chinese labourers being killed. There wasn't excactly a WCB back then. It was a different time. Aside from the 'lecherous drunk" comment, you've described Jean Chretien.

And this excuses money being spent now by the Tories with no paper trail? All governments and parties dealings should have a paper trail, without question. I would assume in this case there is a paper trail and that she is well paid by the government as she should be. Will the media and Jack Layton make a big deal of the amount? Yes.

Every time I hear something that ridiculous, I have to scream Serenity Now! A few bad apples. NOT the government. That's rich. Almost as rich as Liberal friends. Forgot about made-man Gagliano and meetings in the PMO office already, eh?