Visionseeker

Well, I guess the point is that the Liberals can attract high profile female candidates. When was the last time that the conservatives drew a profiled female candidate. I am surprised by the short-sightedness of the Cons on this score. I guess they really are just angry and not smart.

LOL! Really, LOL!

Tories fear Obama, and rightly so. Start selling people on vision, communitarian commitment and denounce partisanship and the Tories are left in that ugly designation of fundamentalist dinosaurs. With the Republicans done like dinner, Clinton is the salvation of the Conservative Party.

No doubt they have. And when they use them (in the abused context that angry white males are so good at obviously perverting) they will lose female converts. You go with that. Then we'll all have a DR. Phil moment afterwards and ask : "how's that working for ya?"

Bawhahahaha! And which GOP candidate to you see capturing the the hearts and minds of the masses?

There are a number of things that need to come to light about this: - despite what the media continues to report, AECL, not the CNSC, decided to keep the reactor shut-down by themselves. Never did the CNSC demand that they do so. AECL recognized that the missing pump was a breach of their licence and the principals there properly understood that reactivating under such conditions would be in contravention of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act section 48 c (failure to comply with licence conditions – meaning prison time for the guy who turns the thing back on). - the CNSC tried to let AECL get the reactor started with only one pump by expediting a licence amendment, but the AECL failed to give the CNSC the needed safety case to do so. The CNSC basically said either fix the problem to comply with your licence, or give us a proper application to amend that licence so you can keep running. Further, in anticipation of longer term problems, the CNSC took steps to facilitate the importation of radioactive isotopes to alleviate shortages in supply resulting from any prolonged shut-down at the NRU. Now that’s what I call flexibility. But on the other front, we have a minister going ape. Either unwilling or incapable of understanding that the Nuclear Safety and Control Act (and not the CNSC) is why AECL won’t restart the reactor. He keeps insisting that the CNSC turn the thing back on. But the CNSC doesn’t have the switch to turn it on, only the AECL does. So the CNSC (on the weekend of 8-9 December) explains why the AECL won’t risk restarting the reactor because of the Nuclear Safety and Control Act says that to do so would be criminal under an act of Parliament and the minister runs away in frustration. The government’s behaviour thereafter is quite telling. After the Justice Department lawyers working for the CNSC’s legal services spent the weekend explaining to the minister why the CNSC can only wait for the AECL to follow the rules, the Justice Department mysteriously pulls said lawyers citing a “real or perceived conflict of interest”. Basically, Nicholson’s staff felt that it would be exceedingly difficult to make Keen a scapegoat in this affair if resources for the Justice Department were on staff to defend the Commission. This issue goes beyond Lunn’s interference. It begs into question the involvement of the minister of health, justice and the PMO in a campaign to persecute an officer of a quasi-judicial entity for having done her job. Lunn has not simply overstepped his authority, for this issue necessarily was driven by the PMO and also implicates the Minister of Health. In the words of Rafiki: “it is time”.

This hardly counter jdobbin's point. Martin & Co. announced the reduction in Nov 2005. Never during the campaign did the Conservatives indicate that they were going to raise income taxes to pay for the GST reduction.

The Tories have no cause to fire her. Heads of independent, quasi-judicial agencies are appointed to specific terms, not at pleasure so as to explicitly shield them from political interference in their work. Either Lunn knows this and is abusing his authority or doesn't know this and is therefore unqualified to wield it. It looks like Keen has no intention of taking this lying down. The Tories would be well advised to back-down on this before it gets worse for them. Meanwhile, one might ask what steps are being taken to sort out the mess that is AECL? Maple 1 or 2 are years behind schedule with no sign of them coming online soon. Could it be that Keen is being targeted to weaken the CNSC so they won't compromise plans to privatize AECL?

Uh, maybe I can help here... "The basic personal amount will be reduced by $400 to $8,639 on July 1, 2006 at the same time as the GST rate is reduced." source: Budget Plan, Annex 3 (Budget 2006) Further, they added .25% to the lowest income tax rate in 2006 and then another .25% to the 2007 rate (raising it from 15% to 15.5% in one and a half years). In other words, income tax grew by a combined rate of 2.47% over 18 months. While the bpe was annually rated (meaning only a $200 increase would appear on 2006 tax forms), it still pulled an additional $30.50 from almost every tax payer. For those in the lowest rate, say someone earning $30,000, the combined impact for 2006 alone was a $105.50 tax increase. That means that they saw NO savings on the first $10,550 in GST eligible spending as these were consumed by the income tax increases. When you then consider what's left after taxes (not including propety tax), our $30,000 earning victim has roughly $11,000 for all essentials and any remaining descretionary spending that would spare them the 1% GST. In the end though, it has to be noted that that 1% savings has quickly been absorbed by the market place. Consumers save nothing. Basic economics dictates what price an item will sell at and the equilibrium of supply and demand is constant. If the government chooses to abandon part of its stake by reducing the GST, someone else in the supply chain will inevitably absorb the vacancy and the price paid will largely stay the same.

Bwahahaha! Great standard there. The Charter says women are equal, therefore they are. What freaking nonsense! Having a bill of rights that advances the principles of equality does not intrinsically produce equality in society. In order to benefit from the rights enshrined, disadvantaged groups necessarily need to "fight the system" through court actions that (when successful) oblige a willfully ignorant majoritarian legislature to accept or undertake remedy. Improvements in women's equality have necessarily occurred over the last 50 or so years, but significantly more needs to be achieved for "full" equality to become a reality. On the question of income gap alone, progress on wage equality has stymied and, I suspect, will soon begin to backslide when women find themselves disproportionately responsible for managing the social strains that the "sandwich" generation will have to bare. In reality, there is a growing need for research and support in the pursuit of women's equality. On the issue of incomes, we need to examine how it is that important trades in medicine and education are seeing drops in income at precisely the same time that they are experiencing growth in female practitioners. On a different note, as our country is increasingly drawing its new arrivals from societies that possess some rather archaic notions regarding gender relations, it becomes ever more beholden on us to find sophisticated and effective means to counter repression shrouded behind "cultural" exceptionalism. Cutting the Court Challenges program and funding to Status of Women as well as the National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL) are not simply misguided moves; they are in complete opposition to the notion of advancing equality for women. Ergo, the Conservatives are rightly seen as a party that is hostile to the notion of advancing equality for women.

I see, they signed and now the green crowd can all relax and confidently vote Conservative at the next election. A master-stroke example of building a bigger tent - Not! The Conservatives have zero credibility on this file. Their strategy all along has been to point to "13 years of Liberal neglect" so as to obfuscate their own inaction. After spending 2 years trying to neutralize the issue, they have closed any window to wooing the "green" vote. The Conservatives would have to come out with an extremely ambitious gas cutting policy - out-greening the greenest of greens - to make any gains from those who see the environment as a priority. They of course have no intention of doing this because they don't fear the green movement's electoral clout. For the green vote is inefficiently spread across three parties (4 in Quebec). Their strategy rests on a risky assumption that their primary opponent (the Liberals) will not be able to galvanize the green movement. It might be a good gamble, but they really have no fall-back position and have essentially gone "all-in" on this issue with a very weak hand.

Nice spin. And I suppose the Health Minister should stay clear of harming business interests in the name of public health. After all, one shouldn't let social responsibility get in the way of making a quick buck. The Environment Minister is responsible for establishing environmental policies; industry and trade have their own champions in cabinet. But as the environment has no documented shareholders and is barely on the right's radar, it will never draw effective representation in this government.

Baird’s academic credentials (or lack thereof) don’t concern me much. What concerns me is that he participated in the worst government Ontario ever saw, along with Flaherty and Clement, and yet the good people of Ontario voted again for these twits. Baird’s qualifications on climate change derive from his ability to answer to EnCana, Husky, et al.

Harper's "Made in Canada" solution = let the US decide. Now that what I call defending Canadian sovereignty... Not. We took our beats at this conference and deserved every bruise we got. When traveling in Europe, I suggest you don’t wear a Canada flag on your pack back. It is no longer a welcoming symbol.

He is indeed. But he made two missteps in his testimony that should cost him his $2.1 million settlement and, quite possibly, a lot more than that. Contradictions under oath are a serious matter.

Wow! Did you develop brain cramps formulating this reply? August raises good points in this post. I will say that it is foolish to reduce all political expression in this country as motivated by regionalism, but it is equally foolish not to recognize the immense influence it actually exercises.

Are you speaking from personal experience?

Yes, the Conservatives should’ve been more careful before welcoming him to their camp and, more importantly, giving him profile (e.g. Special Advisor for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs). Not exercising due diligence in vetting your representatives calls into question judgment and competence. However this event isn’t all that serious in the larger scheme of things. Besides, his origins as a Liberal prevent that party from even remotely trying to profit from these developments. If anything, the opposition parties could try to oblique the issue to revisit the question of Khan’s “Grand Tour” and subsequent report of his “findings” to the PM. But even here I think the embarrassment potential is minimal.

The case for correcting BC and Alberta, but deliberately leaving Ontario diminished by almost 10% in comparison, is intellectually unsupportable. The "fix first" argument is vacuous in Ontario. If you're going to fix it, do it right and fair for all three.

I don't think its mere posturing and believe that Schreiber is nothing more than a distraction. I have said all along that, for a variety of reasons, the Liberals don't want an election until 2008. Some of these reasons speak to anticipated developments that would prove embarrassing to the Conservatives; others are more defensive in nature (i.e. avoiding a campaign against a goodies filled budget). The Conservatives had an easy go with their first year. They accomplished most of the easy parts of 4 of 5 main campaign planks while their opposition was leaderless and everyone was in election fatigue. In their second year, the Conservatives have benefited from a number of situational gifts to make positive media lines, but those gifts have now faded and some of their more recent moves are raising questions about their governance. It was an exceptionally long honeymoon, but it seems to be coming to an end and I suspect a tougher road lies ahead. In all the criticism leveled against Dion, we seem to lose track of the fact that, with all of the advantages of the leavers of power, the Conservatives have proven unable to capture the public’s confidence in a manner that would give them a majority. When I look at the political situation the way I look at my investments, I come to this formula: Duceppe - sell (no chance of growth in foreseeable future) Layton - sell (long-term outlook is bleak) Dion - buy (undervalued with good growth potential) Harper - sell (underperforming, growth potential appears heavily constrained)

LOL! Perhaps you might acquaint yourself with the issue. One formula is applied to BC and Alberta while a discounted rate is applied to Ontario. Simpson's column really gets to the heart of the matter. You should read it.

I would suggest that you revise your expectations of Conservative gains in Ontario to that which they will lose unless the government pulls an about face on Ontario's Rep by Pop seats allocation. I don't think you appreciate how much this issue has hit a nerve in the province. Telling Ontario that it is right that they alone stand under-represented and that their vote counts for 4/5 of other Canadians is no way to make friends in the province. I'm told Van Loan's office phones have taken a beating from angry 905 belt callers. If true, it would hardly come as a surprise since Jeffery Simpson's column in the G&M all but invited his readers to do so.

Pandering to communities by attending functions that glorify extremist is often an all party affair: "The parade included children wearing jackets with the rifle logo of the International Sikh Youth Federation, a banned terrorist organization... As for the parade, it was attended by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, Conservative MPs Nina Grewal and Jim Abbott, Liberal MP Sukh Dhaliwal and NDP MP Penny Priddy." Stop glorifying terror, MP urges

Well put.

The thread title reads: “Conservatives Create HUGE conservation are [sic] in the North,” and then described (or editorialized) as “This is the type of environmentalism we need”. That pretty much opens the door to wider questions about environmentalism. So broadening the scope of discussion was invited at the outset. It is indeed good news. Conservation areas are an important part of wider environmental stewardship aims. The Conservatives deserve credit for bringing the project to its conclusion. But I find the omnipotence you ascribe to Harper’s pen rather nauseating. The immense area covered by this deal tells us that bringing this to fruition was necessarily an extremely complex undertaking that took years, no, decades to bring to fruition. To have us believe that it all materialized within the 21 or so months that the Conservatives have been in power is not only dishonest, but a disservice to the thousands of men an women in Ottawa the territories and elsewhere who committed years of effort to make this all happen. Efforts that the Conservatives have utterly and completely failed to appropriately recognize. It brings to mind the idea of a child who, after blowing-out the candles of his birthday cake, tries to claim credit for its baking. Meanwhile at the Commonwealth summit, we stand with a fledgling Australian administration as the only members to oppose binding commitments to address climate change. While the conservation area is welcome news, it is clear to many that the Conservatives are simply using the development as a “greenwashing” exercise.