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Martin Chriton

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  1. Sure, do this with the senate or a combination of PR and another scheme. Valid concerns, however, today they're always campaigning with hopes of winning a majority, with what I suggest neither of them would likely ever get a majority again. Further, if they can't collaborate I'd be glad to put on the breaks and avoid all the damage that Justin and Wynne are doing. I don't also don't believe any change should be made without a referendum. I don't believe what we have now is perfect but it's much better than what I've heard that Liberal's are thinking.
  2. Bingo. I also believe voting reform should be looked at holistically, i.e.: include senate reform. Consider something along the lines of: 1.) MPs - divided equally by popular vote 2.) Senators - divided equally per-province or per-region (and voted on). They become a good check and balance for regional issues -- and no longer just partisan hacks. This prevents parties with minority of a support from its citizens from unilaterally ignoring the will of the majority. Parties then need to *compromise* and can compromise on a per-issue basis in the legislature. We don't need to give a party with a minority of votes absolute control when most of the people didn't want them to have a majority. Some examples to demonstrate how awesome this would be. Consider Liberals getting 40% of vote for MPs, conservatives with 35% and NDP with 25%. Example A.) Conservatives against large deficits, NDPs against large deficits, and Liberals for large deficits. Under this proposal Liberals need to compromise Example B.) Both NDP and Liberals for some social thing, bill passes The alternative being proposed where Conservative votes is marginalized is frankly outrageous. There is very little else as damaging as fundamentally undermining our democracy.
  3. $80+ million in dirty cash secured in part through the cash for access scheme @ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario-gave-80-million-to-teachers-unions-since-2000-auditor-general/article30074279/ . Need to see resignations and money returned from the Liberal party *now*, and ideally folks thrown in jail. It reasons like this that I object to paying > 50% taxes when our money is being used in this fashion.
  4. Kim Jong-un's approval ratings are likely higher than both Obama's and Junior's (seriously). A bounce after an election is also typical. Doesn't change the fact that the majority of voters didn't want Trudeau with a majority during the election. Further, virtual certainty in the next election no party will crack 50% of the popular vote. A fair system therefore has no party with a majority. Does this scheme ensure that voters for minority parties such as Conversative are accurately reflected? If it results in an even larger majority for parties with a minority of the popular vote it only does damage. How do we prevent re-occurrence of what happened this time where most of the voters voted against the Liberal agenda and they were given a majority? Parties leaders are different where you have to choose only one leader. With legislatures we should ensure they reflect the voice of the people -- i.e.: make up consists of more than just one party. I would *never* live in a country where I'm paying both outrageous taxes and my vote & voice marginalized, that would make us slaves. Pick one (or ideally none). I'm fine no voice or lesser voice if I don't have skin in the game (i.e.: no taxes), however, there is no way anyone should stick around to be financially abused without a voice.
  5. The Liberals won a majority with the minority of votes. The result disenfranchised the majority of voters in this country that didn't want Liberals or Junior to have a majority. I'm show how doubtful they will craft legislation to prevent said majority in the future. Everything I've read indicates they will make the situation worse. :angry: Very little positive coming from these bozos.
  6. +1. I'm stunned at how most of the mainstream media doesn't have grasp on relatively basic math.
  7. Correct, and if they meet the other criteria on my second list they stand a chance of being elected as a politician. Some level of delusion I think is required to be a company founder. For example, Trump is a combination of liar/delusional, however, a horrible orator. If he stuck to a script he could be doing much better w/ general US electorate. His initial announcement that his paid speech writers wrote was actually not bad, he ad-libbed in all the crazy racist stuff.
  8. Running a large and successful organization is extremely challenging; would need most or all of those traits for many broadly successful companies: quick learners - many markets are highly competitive, if you don't learn quick you are out of business. Politicians are typically slow learners relying on lies/spin to the uninformed and can always run deficits when they make mistakes information junkies - successful organizations are highly data driven. If you walk into any senior mgmt review meeting without backing data you will have your rear handed to you. Politicians fortunately can just make up whatever data they want and repeat it ad nauseam. E.g.: repeating '78 cents to the dollar gender gap myth' would be enough to be fired/demoted for if used in a similarly bogus context in industry decisive - CEO/senior leads need to commit and hold to their commitments, both for internal alignment and external contracts. Politicians can just say whatever and have no intentions of meaning it or change their opinion the next week if polls change. For companies in tricky situations you often run into a bet the company moment. Not so easy to flip flop! measured - companies are often run on limited budgets -- when they're spending their own money, need to be careful about how to invest and grow the company. Politicians can just claim recession and spend whatever of other folks money without worry of going bankrupt -- your children will just solve our debt problems, no worries! patient - in business, strategies takes time to pay off, in politics you don't need to worry as it's someone else problem down the road, e.g.: just lower the retirement age it's basically 'free'. passionate - business leaders often spend their entire working lives and perpetually long hours. Politicians can run with little professional interest/success/investment/career up until that point. The skills required for a _successful_ politician where success is defined as winning elections is typically much a smaller list: Good orator - need to be superb at reading prepared speeches. e.g.: Obama Attractive/relatable - e.g.: Justin and Sarah Palin Convincing liar and/or delusional
  9. I don't know much about O'Leary, I haven't seen him say the same ridiculous statements that Trump has. Is there enough policy proposals to even have an informed opinion of him as a candidate? We have to be able to do better than someone like Justin Trudeau, who is entirely average, other than his primary accomplishment of being son of a former PM. I don't get the fascination of wanting to elect someone who is mediocre at best.
  10. Is anyone suggesting oil is the only future? It seems like the only folks naively proposing to limit options are those that are saying leave all oil in the ground. You can have more than one business in a province. It's not easy to diversify if you shutdown your economy. As silly as the arguments to limit GHG emissions by shifting manufacturing to China, et. al. by stiff new corp taxes (carbon taxes). Doesn't solve anything from a world-wide environmental perspective but costs lots of Canadian jobs.
  11. I agree with you that claims about the Harper gov causing permanent damage to Canada were bogus. As you hint at, if all negative aspects were so easy to revert there was not much negative there. In terms of legacy, it appears JT supports some of the more broadly impacting & popular legislation from Harper administration such as the TFSAs. JT has been digging himself a hole that we'll need to unwind asap. Out of step with most other countries on retirement age -- taking us backwards; and other significant issues. I have more respect for Harper now than when he was in power. I wasn't a fan of the starve the beast political strategy, but thanks to Harper, JT's out of control spending is more limited than it otherwise would've been -- is there any doubt that JT wouldn't have spent anymore if he could. Harper will also be remembered, by some as taking the fair/substantive path over optics for many fiscal issues of significance, e.g.: income splitting
  12. I don't think we can justify removing policies because they only benefit a small number of people. We don't allow people to murder same sex couples even if they are a small group of people. I'm also not convinced incoming splitting benefited only a 'small group' of people. Not the majority, but I doubt it's small. Some estimates have 1 million Canadians in the US out of 35 million (3%). Most of the top students in my graduating class moved to the US (engineering). I don't think it's a small number. I don't think this policy by itself would do it; but a combination of bad policies makes Canada not competitive for many that have ambitious career aspirations.
  13. I've been struggling to justify removing income splitting as anything but bad policy. Instead of removing, flaws could have been addressed. The arguments I've seen are typically along the following: Argument for income splitting - http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/vern-krishna-income-splitting-is-fair Argument against splitting - http://www.taxfairness.ca/en/news/income-splitting-huge-tax-cuts-rich-families The arguments for income splitting seem perfectly logical: With income spitting, families with same taxable income would pay the same amount of tax. That is, families with dual incomes earning $100,000 x 2 would pay the same tax as a married family with a stay at home parent and breadwinner earning a $200,000 income. From a legal perspective, the family is earning that money as a unit, e.g.: in the event of divorce it's split Much of the tax code, e.g.: child benefits looks at the aggregate family income. Without income splitting, you run into scenarios, where families both don't qualify for the child credits and pay excessive taxes. Reduces the motivation for tax avoidance, available to only a minority/privileged few, e.g.: running business income through family members. Yet more fairness. The common argument against income splitting is flawed. That is, since the Harper implementation mostly helped select 'wealthy' families we need to throw the baby out with the bath water. If the revenue was a concern, ideally, the change could be kept near tax neutral, e.g.: raising the margin rates in some brackets -- or have separate married brackets like in the US. It likely won't have made for as good of politics for JT but seems like it would've been the most equitable approach. Dual income families in the US don't have a similar loophole in the tax code where they can pay less than other families at the same aggregate income because of the concept of joint returns. For higher income families with disparate incomes, this is one the more significant policy issues that can help justify IMHO emigrating to the US.
  14. For public sector employees the taxpayer foots the bill; any many find these salaries excessive and out of step with private sector realities. Public sector employees are often paid above supply and demand; and retained even where there are better candidates struggling for employment. Some scenarios I've been told about include it's hard to get employed as a teacher in Ontario even for a strong teacher. In the private sector for sectors with such a large applicant pool and limited positions, you would likely see the wages decrease, reducing cost and opening doors for the unemployed. Of course, it's more popular these days to ignore government waste, increase deficits, and wealth transfer.
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