Moonbox

See my previous quote. I told you exactly what you omitted. I'm also not arguing against the speaker. I'm mocking how you surf the internet what seems to be enormous portions of the day to find anything you possibly can to support the Liberals and criticize the CPC. When you can't find something worthwhile and obvious, you find something trivial, LIKE THIS, and try and twist it into some sort of newsworthy story way bigger or badder than it actually is. I didn't say he's unfair. I'm saying that this is hardly the outrage or worthwhile news you're making it out to be. There's nothing interesting/surprising about a LIBERAL speaker (elected by the majority opposition) reprimanding a Tory MP for calling the Liberal Leader a hypocrite. Again, I'm just mocking how desperately hard you're crusading on behalf of the Liberal Party. Liberal hack is about the worst you'll get from me. The rest of the 'personal attacks' I direct your way generally criticize your conclusions and your deliberate efforts to ignore anything that doesn't support your religion the Liberal party. Take whatever satisfaction you get from thinking you're getting under my skin. The fact is I get a laugh out of watching you squirm/avoid/ignore/plug your ears when people unravel and knock down your often dubious claims and conclusions. Let's look at what you've dug up in the last few days. There was the story of the $27,000 of help a western magazine received (clearly the PM was involved with such a giant sum of money) and now we have the SHOCKING story of a Conservative MP calling Ignatieff a hypocrite after being warned not to....WHAT SCANDALS!!! You're trying so hard, but you're failing so badly. Please man, no personal attack intended, YOU MUST see how silly you're making yourself look right? This stuff you're digging up...it's garbage news...The more of this junk you throw the community's way the less likely ANYONE is going to take you seriously even when you DO have a legitimate and well-reasoned point to make. By now you've so clearly labelled yourself as living, eating and breathing LPC that it's impossible to see ANY objectivity in your posts. With this you lose any credibility you might otherwise have. I don't think you're a dumb guy, I just think your unquestioned support for the LPC is far beyond rational. It's VERY emotional.

I'm mocking your post. YOU don't get it. I'm mocking the depth to which you'll plumb the internet to find everything and anything that can be in any ways construed as anti-CPC, no matter how trivial. You've turned it into a crusade and now you've take to obscuring and omitting relevant facts. You failed to mention here that the Speaker Peter Milliken is a Liberal MP. The Tory MP in question has been warned for accusing Ignatieff of hypocrisy on a number of issues. THAT'S the personal attacks we're talking about here. Like the Liberal hack you are, however, you deliberately left out the sentence where they explained they were only criticizing Ignatieff's hypocrisy, because you'd like to spin that they're attacking his personal life or something. Nice try. The news is thus: Liberal Speaker threatens to suspend Tory MP for criticizing Liberal Leader for hypocrisy. When you give the FULL story, it's even less interesting, but that doesn't do anything to promote your Bible Thumping Liberal cheerleading, so you omit details to fudge the story.

He didn't claim to be American. He said 'we' in an American publication so as to avoid being disregarded as a foreigner in what he was writing about. If Americans thought they were being preached to by a Canadian they would have scoffed at what he was saying. Unless he has American citizenship it's pretty hard for him to claim that. What about him? Is he like...some biblical figure or something? Is it not possible that he wrote and spoke of freedom in an entirely different world and context? What's more important? The right to live in freedom of persecution for your religion/race/sexual orientation or the right to commit it? What a terrible thing for Ignatief to ask a question like that....

I think it's fair to be upset about this law. We give far too little credit in the strength of women to shape society. You can call me sexist all you want, but it's not the women who are committing terrorism. The overwhelmingly vast majority (almost all) of the terrorists are men and they come almost exclusively from countries where women have no rights. Unless women have these rights, terrorism will continue to grow and breed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia etc...If the West is serious about turning this country around this is absolutely an area in which they need to fear. All they're doing otherwise is overthrowing a dangerous, rotten and backwards Taliban government and using our money to prop up and support an equally rotten and backwards government.

More boring, trivial and meaningless 'news' brought to us by our very own Liberal zealout. Next up, Jdobbin will dish out the dirt on the private lives of Tory MP's extended family! Headline: Jim Flaherty's second cousin's daughter got a tatoo! Stay tuned for more!

I think it's fair to criticize Ignatieff as a convenient Canadian etc, but I really think you guys are off the mark labelling him as an 'American'. He lived in the US for a couple of years to teach at a prestigious University. Harper has more pro-American in him than Ignatieff does. Harper's speeches before becoming CPC leader were ridiculous. Only a special type of hack can criticize a man for questioning the US's protection of the right to baseless, ignorant, hurtful and sometimes violent hate.

Please. If anything this BLOGGER makes Ignatieff look good. Ignatieff said most develloped countries are intelligent/reasonable enough to understand where to draw the line on freedom of speech. Namely, when someone publicly starts inciting baseless, ignorant and sometimes violent racial/gay/religious hate, there's absolutely no purpose in preserving that freedom. The majority of Americans, however, have decided that the Constitution is some sort of second Bible and follow it with the same sort of blind zeal. Thus, even though the rest of the civilized world understands how harmful public hate can be and how there are LITERALLY NO benefits to preserving the freedom to commit it, the Americans would rather follow an archaic document that's totally out of context with the reality of today. Spin that guys.

Jdobbin I'm not going to respond again to this thread after this because you're like a broken record. I'm not blaming the Liberals for the deficit. I'm saying that up until now everything the Liberals did, said or promised indicated increases in spending. The increased program spending since 2006 is totally 100% Harper's fault. Stop saying I'm blaming the Liberals because I'm not. What I'm saying is that you CANNOT intelligently and reasonably make the argument that the Liberals would have spent less. If the Liberals were against the spending increases, in the 2008 election they would have said they were going to reign in Harper's extra spending and return to fiscal responsibility. There was ZERO mention of that. All they mentioned was $85B in NEW spending. They spent like mad before Harper and they were demanding spending in December. If I'm speculating, it's based on THAT, whereas your speculating is based on.....nothing. Wait...it's based on the LPC of 14 years ago. I'm not defending Harper. I think he's a fool and I think that more every day. I'm not defending his spending increases. What I AM doing is calling you out for the Liberal party hack that you are. The fact that you would even TRY to say that the Liberals would have cancelled Harper's spending increases to finance their own $85B worth of election spending promises is a perfect example of it. First, the LPC spending promises were FAR beyond anything Harper had already spent. Second, they never mentioned there would be any cuts. It's all just propaganda and misinformation for you. I don't even know who you're trying to fool. It looks like you're fooling yourself more than anything. The 1995-1996 spending cuts are NOT good indicators of Liberal fiscal responsibility today. The '95 Liberals were NOTHING like the Liberals today, just like the Trudeau Liberals were NOTHING like the '95 Liberals. Blindly following a political label is a dangerous and stupid thing to do. All that matters is who's running the party and what they're saying they want to do. When I see people like Bob Rae (a big spender as Ontario Premier) and Dion promising giant spending increases, I'm going to assume that's what the LPC wants to increase spending. You, on the other hand, plug your ears, close your eyes and say they're going to do the opposite of their promises, deliberately blinding yourself to the reality of today and desperately trying to suck everyone in with you. The Liberals are not the government, you're right, but that doesn't mean we can't judge their policy and platforms of the recent past and the present. Those all indicated increased spending.

Whether or not the programs were Liberal or Conservative is irrelevant. Either way the money was spent or promised to be spent. To make the argument that the Liberals would have cut spending to finance their new spending programs you actually need something to base that on. THE ONLY actual facts we have to go on here is that the Liberals were promising spending increases. My claims are based on their party platform. Your speculation is based on whatever you think makes the LPC look better. I didn't. You are again ignoring what I said. I said the Liberals promised, campaigned on and demanded increased spending. You've decided that what they would have done was the opposite.... I'm not speculating. I'm basing my position on the LPC party's platform and what THEY THEMSELVES said. If they were serious about scaling back Harper's spending they would have indicated such during the 08 election. As it turns out the only thing that was mentioned was $85B in new spending increases and STILL you insisted that they're somehow going to cut spending. and the responsibility is duly Harper's. That STILL doesn't mean you have anything to back up your claim that the Liberals would have or even would now reduce spending. Even THEY are not saying that. They promised before and have been promising the whole time to do the opposite. It is a bogus argument. Other than the stimulus spending at least, which they did indeed demand and Harper did it to save his government. When the Liberals turn around and pretend they didn't want the spending and promise to reduce spending, I'll vote for them. I'll know them for the snakes they are but at least I'll have a reason to believe they'll reduce spending. They are the ones promising extra spending with no mention of cuts. Trivial examples with little bearing on the overall picture. The via rail cuts were politically motivated. The military college was a tiny overall spending boost to our military. You're grasping at anything you can hold on to now huh? My partisanship extends only so far as criticizing the bleating of blind sheep cheerleading the party of their choice. When you come up with made up balogna and start misrepresenting facts I'm going to criticize you for it. When Mr. Canada used to post his nonsense I'd similarly call him out on it.

Interestingly enough i agree with everything you're saying here.

It's not lashing out to mock your assertion that we have a separatist conspiracy within cabinet and that these same cabinet ministers apparently read separatist magazines. There's very little anyone can say when you start going down that road. It's far beyond the realm of intelligent argument or discussion. You bring the so-called 'personalization' on yourself.

Posts like these are why the forum community at large has trouble taking you seriously.

The Liberals DEMANDED stimulus spending and threatened to bring down the government over it. Forgot that didn't you? They would have started their own spending programs, as promised in their election platforms. Forgot that too didn't you? I'm getting so tired of this thread now. Every time I've responded to you I've said I'm NOT BLAMING THE LIBERALS, yet you continue to say it's wrong to blame the Liberals. You're not even reading what I'm saying. What I've been saying this WHOLE thread is that if it looks, acts and smells like a pig, it's a pig. The Liberals spent heavily in 2004-2006, they promised extravagant spending in 2006, campaigned on spending increases in 2008 and demanded spending increases in December 2008. I'm basing my criticism of them on THEIR OWN POLICY PLATFORMS. You're making it up for them all in hind-sight and claiming that none of their OFFICIAL positions matter because they weren't in government. Basically what you're saying is that what you've decided the Liberals WOULD have done is drastically different from what they themselves SAID they would have done. You claim they would not have increased spending drastically even though they promised they would. You claim that if they did increase spending, they would have cut spending elsewhere, even though there is ZERO indication from them that this would have happened. You're making up a lot of things on the Liberal's behalf. Like I said before, you're so desperate to preserve the image of the label you've been blindly following that you'll contradict their own party platform and make stuff up yourself to fill in the gaps. You really don't have anything to support any of your opinions. Where was there any indication the Liberals would have reduced spending if they were running things? You can say it doesn't matter, but for you to claim the Liberals want to reduce spending you need the party itself to step up and say so. It's hack partisanship and you know it.

Jdobbin you know how I was saying in the other thread how you'll dig hard and deep for anything, no matter how small you can find, to criticize the CPC? Remember how I said the effort you put into finding even trivial and meaningless articles, no matter how obscure, underlines a VERY emotional and fanatical support for the Liberal Party? Remember how I said you deliberately misrepresent and misinterpret information on a regular basis here? Well THIS is a perfect example. As was previously stated, it was a tiny fraction of the total amount of money doled out for magazine bailouts, although you tried to imply that the CPC was deliberately funding separatists and not normal Canadian media. Barf man. A WHOLE $27,000. It's almost a certainty that Harper was behind this as well. I'm sure high-level cabinet ministers read this magazine all the time and that's why they gave them that gargantuan amount. This is DEFINETLY newsworthy material to be posting here.

I just hope that when that crook Mulroney goes down, he takes his son down somehow with him. Every time I see Ben Mulroney on TV I want to punch my screen.

Come on PT. One promise? How about the GST?

Actually that's exactly what they did. They threatened to bring down the government for not doing enough to stimulate the economy. You have a really short memory. If the Liberals had any desire for spending to be reduced they would have campaigned to reduce spending in October. If you disagree with increased spending you GENERALLY DO NOT promise to increase it even more during an election. I didn't. I voted for Martin in 2004 and only voted against him after the sponsorship scandal. Since then I've supported Harper over Dion/Bob Rae Liberals and ONLY in that respect. I was making fun of you again. It's pathetic for you to claim the Liberals would not have spent in Harper's place when, like I've said before, they spent like crazy under Martin, based an election campaign on huge new spending and then demanded stimulus spending in December. We can blame Harper for the final numbers but it's sad that you'd even try to say the Liberals would have reigned in spending when their own election platform promised the opposite. How are the numbers on TOTAL spending increases NOT more important than a set of numbers you found comparing only a SMALL part of total spending? The TOTAL numbers are the ones that affect the taxpayer's. What if Harper had shrunken the government but increased overall spending by 500%? Would that mean he was better with money than Martin? No! Obviously. I've never argued that. What I'm arguing is your claim that the Liberals wouldn't have spent money like the clowns they have been for the last few years. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING they did, said, promised and campaigned on indicated they would INCREASE spending. You can repeat over and over and over that Harper is PM. That doesn't change the fact that heavily increasing spending has been an undeniable Liberal policy point for the last 5 years. You can pretend it's not all you want but that's taking party hack to the extreme. NOW you're showing just how little you know/understand about the actual numbers. The Liberals decreased spending in ONLY one year and that was 1995-1996. They reduced it by about $9B. They did not cut spending after that. Spending increases followed inflation. I'll give them credit for that, but it helped that interest rates fell through the floor and that federal revenues skyrocketed. You can give as much credit to the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Canada for stabilizing the money supply as you can give to the LPC for balancing our budget. Federal revenue under Mulroney barely kept pace with inflation. Under Chretien it pretty much doubled inflation. I don't expect you to care or perhaps even understand. The fact that you even have an attachment is testament to most of your baseless claims. You're so in love with the Liberal label I doubt you've voted for anyone but since the 1970's. If that's what they campaign on then I'm on board. I'm just not going to pretend that's what they'll do when they're promising the opposite. Hmm...sounds like someone we know. If I were him I would have let the Liberals form the coalition. Signing on to the stimulus was political suicide IMO. I take small concessions from the fact that at least this will remind us of the dangers of over-spending and maybe politicians will learn their lesson. We'll see.

I checked it out but found it not so easy to navigate. It seems more like a big blog page than anything.

2008 just ended. The numbers I showed gave enough data to compare how Martin's spending trends mirrored Harper's. That was my intention. Whether or not Harper dropped a spending bomb in the last couple months of 2008 is irrelevant given that's exactly what the Liberals were demanding he do. I'd be inclined to agree with the PBO that the CPC isn't showing exactly how bad the employment, revenue and deficit numbers really are. With that said we don't have any solid numbers on spending right now other than the stimulus and deficit figures so we're both just guessing right now. Ultimately yes, which i've agreed with 100 times already. That doesn't mean the Liberals didn't demand and vote for the spending, which is the best indication for where they stand fiscally. It's your imagination that Liberals would not have spent like Harper did. At least from my perspective I can back it up with their public policy, election platforms and stimulus demands. You're basing your claim of fiscal responsibility on....nothing? You win for imagination. I was never that good at it. I need my facts man! According to you, because it suits your argument. The size of the bureaucracy accounts for a small percentage of the budget. The total spending numbers are the most important, and from the numbers we do have, Harper hasn't even spent as fast as Martin. I'm talking about spending increase RATES, not nominal dollar values. You can imagine and doubt all you want. The fact that they weren't running the government means you can say absolutely anything you want about what they would have or could have done. At least I'm basing my opinions on the offical positions of the Liberal Party, their election platforms and their record in parliament. You're basing it on, once again, nothing. How does that change that they promised spending increases across the board? It'll be aweful convenient during our next election for the Libs to pretend they didn't but that's more because the average voter doesn't pay any attention. After the initial cuts were made it was a simple matter of riding a big economic boom for 8 years. The 1995-96 cuts as I recall were the ones that made the tough decisions. It helped that inflation rates dropped to like 2% as well. No party can satisfy everyone and nobody can every be 100% satisfied with any party. The sooner you realize politics is a science of trade-offs the sooner you'll be able to get off the Liberal bandwagon and vote for them based on their merits rather than this deep emotional attachment you seem to feel. Again, I'm NOT DEFENDING HARPER'S SPENDING RECORD. It's bad. If, for example, Ignatieff decides in June that he's going to bring down the government and reign in spending, I can almost GUARANTEE I'd vote for him. If, on the other hand, he rides the "we're not the government we have nothing to do with the deficit" wagon for the next couple years and then only campaigns on controlling spending AFTER we've recovered, it's a bit less likely. We shall see but I'm strongly wagering he'll pretend he was in a coma or something until 2011. Is someone willing to make tought decisions NOW, or are we going to see all the Keynesian supporters turn into Friedmans only AFTER the money has been spent? There's going to be an aweful lot of irony and hindsight over the next few years.

What? You showed me that the bureaucracy rose by 14.8% under Harper and 14.0% under Martin. You didn't show me that Harper spent faster than Martin. I showed you the opposite WITH NUMBERS. Here's from Stats Can, Federal Budget That indicates surplus for 2008 so it's probably not right for 2008 but at least it lets you compare the spending part. Actually in a minority government you can't say that. Harper writes the budgets, yes, but it was the Liberals demanding stimulus in December and threatening to bring down the government over it. Just because the Liberals aren't running the government doesn't mean they can totally escape responsibility. Yes, it's ulimately Harper's budget but no, Ignatieff and Dion cannot say they didn't demand the spending and then sign on for it. You can say it ain't so all you want, but they DID demand and sign on for the spending. So what? Why would a Liberal government that promises to spend more be any better than a CPC government that spends more? I DID read it. It said that spending increased after Martin. The dollar value of spending increased. Of course the CTF is upset about that. What I've been saying this WHOLE ENTIRE THREAD is that the RATE of spending increases was FASTER under MARTIN. The CTF did NOT refute that. Spending has increased overall under every Prime Minister ever. Looking at strict dollar values is only part of the picture. Given Martin's rate of spending increases, along with his 2006 election spending promises, you can safely assume he would have blown Harper's numbers out of the water, or at least matched them. There's something to be said that Harper increased spending considerably after spending was already increased heavily, but it would have happened under Martin OR Harper. What I'm saying is that EITHER WAY we would have had a big spending government. Again, EVERY SINGLE points to the Liberals wanting to spend. The Liberals before Harper spent like crazy. The Liberals DURING Harper wanted to increase spending, the 2008 election promised HUGE spending and then they DEMANDED spending in December stimulus. Like I said before there is NOTHING to back up your claims that current Liberals are fiscally responsible. The only thing you're going on is 1995. If the Liberals were promising to reduce spending the last few years, I'd be more receptive to your claim. They did the opposite and you're trying to pretend that they're promised spending increases don't matter because they weren't the ruling government.... I think Harper's done a crap job. I'm not sure I'll vote for him again. Hopefully they'll replace him, or at least they get rid of the Bob Raes and Dions of the current Liberals. I'm not happy with what either party is providing right now.

I need numbers man. You still won't go over them. Don't even bother arguing if you can't give me numbers. CTF is showing $23 Billion over 2 years for Martin and $31 Billion over 3 years for Harper. Martin increased spending faster than Harper. Do the math. Until you do that you're just blowing hot air. You've already shown us how Harper increase spending faster than Martin on a SMALL FEATURE of the overall budget. What you've failed to refute is that Martin did indeed increase spending faster than Harper, which the numbers show he did. It kind of blows your whole "Liberals are responsible" theory right out the window, especially considering how much the Liberals wanted to spend in October and how adamant they were about stimulus spending.... It was sarcasm. I was making fun of you for what time periods you picked to reflect the LPC's strong record of fiscal management. As far as your argument is concerned, Jean Chretien's reduced spending is the only record that we can use to rate Liberal spending policy. Martin, Dion, Ignatieff and Trudeau don't matter? but so were Martin's spending promises, and Dion's. Now we have to wait and see what Ignatieff's plans are. We'll see. Those aren't the total spending numbers. Those are a small part of the overall budget number. This is you squirming and avoiding the real and total spending numbers. You've taken a miniscule part of the overall budget and tried to present it as the final number that actuall affects people's wallets, which it isn't. If I'm wrong, go over the numbers with me. I'll gladly eat crow if I'm wrong. You generally refuse to go over numbers with me, however, because they're harder to play smoke and mirrors with.

Oh please. You've got yourself so confused and fooled up over the Liberals it's not even funny. According to you, $23B spending increases over two years under Martin, a 2008 election platform based on spending increases, December's demand for stimulus spending and then being the ONLY opposition party to vote in favor of $30B in stimulus all add up to mean the Liberals want to reduce spending.... Wait...none of that matters because 14 years ago Jean Chretien balanced the budget and what past Liberals do is more important than what present Liberals are doing....as long as you don't count Pierre Trudeau.... The simple fact is that Martin increased spending by $23B over two years. Harper (according to the CTF), increased spending by $31B over three years. Even if the 2008-2009 spending figures are several billions higher than so far recorded, Martin STILL spend on average just as much or more than Harper. That's WITHOUT adjusting for inflation. Go by the numbers Jdobbin. The numbers shall set you free.

I think people are just upset that the Liberals are able to raise money PERIOD now that Dion is done as leader.

Look at the NUMBERS. PLEASE. Stop merely repeating snippits of commentary supporting your position. Look at the NUMBERS from the CTF showing program expenditure increases. I've already acknowledged your 14% figure. What I'm saying is it's a less meaningful figure than OVERALL spending. OVERALL Martin increased spending from $153B to $175B in TWO YEARS. Harper increased it from $175B to 206B in THREE years. The figures you're providing are almost certainly in regards to the size of the bureaucracy and the actual GOVERNMENT. ACTUAL spending is what MATTERS. It's what affects our wallets. If you look at ACTUAL OVERALL spending Martin didn't do any better than Harper. There's virtually no difference. Look at the NUMBERS. The CTF protests spending increases. Big surprise. What I'm talking about is the RATE of SPENDING INCREASES. Martin's rate was 14% over two years in increases. Harper's was 14.8% over two years. That's less than a 6% increase. Again, you're interpreting numbers in a way that suits your position. I'm interpreting them realistically. Spending is one way the budget is affected. When the budget was made last year they didn't account for revenue falling out from underneath them. Poor planning? Sure. Were the spending increases bad? Sure. Would the Liberals have done better? Well they promised to increase spending also so I think it's safe to say no. I think you're intentionally ignoring everything I'm writing. Harper's 100% to blame for his own mess. What I'm saying is that the Liberals were in on it all the way and it's an absolute joke for them, and anyone else, to take any stock in LPC criticism of Harper spending. You can pretend it's not the case all you want, but they overspent before Harper, promised to increase spending in the 08 election, DEMANDED spending in December and then signed on to $30B worth of stimulus after demanding the stimulus in the first place. You've made fun of Dion like everyone else and you acknowledge that the LPC are in no shape for an election. That's as far as I've seen it go. I've almost never seen you acknowledge their glaring policy shortfalls. Partisan can imply different things. When your opinions deliberately ignore relevant facts to the discussions your partisanship starts to look more rabid and personal. Like I said, I can't and won't try to say that Harper's been a sound fiscal manager. We have a two year record showing he wasn't. On the same note, however, we have Martin's equally dismal record to go on prior to that and then an impotent Liberal opposition showing the EXACT SAME penchant for spending. I'm not speculating in this. This is right off the Liberal platform and their December stimulus demands. You've decided to pull the wool over your own eyes and pretend that because the budget was balanced 13 years ago that means that the more recent past and present don't matter. Okay what are you getting at??? The party with the even worse economic platform lost...great. They still don't have a superior economic platform. I'd be more than happy to start a thread with you on the general incompetence of Parliament Hill in terms of the economy since Chretien. They're all brutal. I'm waiting for a fiscally conservative government. If that's a new Reform, a non Harper CPC or an LPC that abandons social engineering I'm all over that. Put your glasses on. I can't even count how many times I've had to say this. I'm not blaming the LPC. I'm blaming the CPC and saying the LPC was in on it all the way. You're fixated on a small portion of the overall federal budget because you found someone who said something anti-CPC. You've now implicitly refused several times to look at the OVERALL spending figures, which I'll repeat once again are the ones that actually MATTER to taxpayers. I've brought the numbers up like 5 times now and you've yet to acknowledge them. This is what I mean when I call you hack partisan. You won't even respond to FACTS that don't support your position. It's like they don't exist. Again, you're ignoring what I'm saying and refusing to acknowledge VERY CRITICAL points in my argument. Harper made up an environmental plan for the sake of having one. You can't say in an election: We have no position on the environment. I agree that cap and trade is stupid. Carbon taxes are better. The Green Shift was not. As you can see, Harper has not moved on the cap and trade and I fully expect that not to change. You and I can revisit this but I can bet you there'll be no changes until we're out of the recession. It's a moot point. Regardless, the LPC was fully prepared in October to move forward with aggressive new income redistribution/environmental taxes in the beginning of a big recession. That was a catastrophe in waiting. WELL. I must apologize! YOU DID LISTEN! At any rate the environment is DEFINETLY not what's keeping him from a majority. It's the alienation of Quebec and the Martimes. As far as the environment is concerned, my worries are based more on ground and water polution. Tailing ponds and such need to be cleaned up considerably. As for carbon emissions and global warming, I'm really not convinced and I think it could wait for the economy to recover. He did. I don't support Mulroney. I think he was a crook. At the same time he did not run CONSISTENT OPERATING DEFICITS for many years at a time like Trudeau did. Do you know what that even means? What it mean is that other than the first three years he ran nominally balanced budgets. In 1988, for example, he ran an operating budget of $2B. Unfortunately, the cost of supporting the $157B debt (~$130B of which was Trudeau's) was about $31B. Trudeau ballooned our debt to the point where supporting it cost 33% of revenue we collected each year. Realistically, 90% of our debt is Trudeau's fault alone. That's why the Liberals have not broken ground in the West for 30 years. Sh** goes downhill. I could care less. We need immigrants. If the productive ones are being expedited into the country, I'm happy. Period. Everyone has...except apparently NFLD lol. Hopefully Ontario stops getting a raw deal. We'll see. Enlighten me. Donation limits. I don't hate the Liberals. I voted for Chretien and Martin in 2004 and I voted for Mcguinty in 2007 Ontario election. My partisanship against the Liberals ended when Chretien proved he was the fiscal OPPOSITE to Pierre Turdeau. When you see me here on the forums arguing against the Liberals it's generally against silly, biased and irrational foot-stomping of hardcore Liberals like you and PT. I similarly called Mr. Canada out for the partisan hack that he was. I thought it was a joke how much the CPC was getting criticized for calling the election in 08. I thought Dion and the Green Shift was a joke. I thought December was a joke. You have to admit the LPC has been a travelling clown show over the last year and coincidentally that's how long I've been posting here. 'Then why have you and I had that discussion so many times already?

Find us that link because I don't think there was ever a favorable comparison made for Martin vs Harper. At worst Harper continued bad policies and did nothing to fix them. Sure he's spending MORE, but THE NUMBERS indicate barely so. No but they looked just as bad when Martin was running things under the Liberal name. Go by the NUMBERS please Jdobbin. I gave you that CTF link comparing program expenditures vs revenue. The difference is NEGLIGIBLE. To argue that Martin was better than Harper on spending is like saying it's better for you to eat 99 chocolate bars than 100. They both spent like crazy at almost the exact same effective rate. For the Liberals, this is forgettable because Chretien balanced the budget 13 years ago. For Harper, it's a catastrophe? Your criticisms for the Liberals are fairly limited and even then filled with party bias. Please see above. No argument. It was the Liberal's undoing in the 80's, it was the PC's undoing, Martin's undoing, and now it's Harper's. Your posting of news stories is almost exclusively anti-Conservative. Sometimes the news is so trivial it appears certain you're actually spending a lot of time digging up anything you can that somehow makes the CPC look bad. Interestingly enough, we see no such material regarding the many and various Liberal gaffs and disasters. What I'm saying is that your interpretation of federal political events, budget numbers and party platforms is EXTREMELY skewed by what appears to be a very personal dislike of the Conservative label and a deep affection for the LPC and what they did....13 years ago under Chretien...during incredibly good economic times. What I'm saying is that for 2 years the Liberals meekly passed these budgets with hardly a peep and in 2008, instead of criticizing the spending increases, promised additional spending rate increases surpassing those of the previous two years. If the Liberals were against the spending, they would have protested it and promised to reduce it in 2008. ALMOST EVERY indications shows a platform based strongly on spending increases similar or surpassing Harper's since 2004. You've cherry picked another number that looks good on the LPC. The fact that the bureaucracy grew faster under Harper doesn't mean that the TOTAL spending increased that much. Martin's program spending vs revenue ratio was over 83%. Harper's was 84%. Those are the numbers that count. Yes but as I recall you refuted that the Green Shift was also income redistribution, which numbers prove it was. You defended the Green Shift vs the cap and trade when to call it an 'environmental plan' was in itself a giant lie. It was a social engineering project with an environmental plan attached to it. In any event, I'm still waiting for Harper to make any moves on the environment, which he made pretty clear was not a priority. Obama won't do anything anytime soon either. Dion on the other hand based his campaign on it and wanted to implement it immediately DURING a recession. No. In fact the Liberals have the dubious legacy of selling out the country to finance Pierre Trudeau's legend. When he quintopled our national debt over 10 years and ran giant OPERATING deficitis virtually every year (good times or bad) he ran the government, he LED us to the deficit we face today. For most of Mulroney's term he ran fairly big operating SURPLUSES but Trudeau's debt charges forced us deep in the red. We are STILL to this day paying Trudeau's debt. When you say the Liberals have a proven track record you chose a very specific 8 years where Chretien slashed spending across the board and paupered the provinces. The Liberals before and SINCE Chretien were/are big spenders and EVERY indication is that this will continue. THE ONLY argument you have to support this claim is 1995-1996. Keep clinging to those days but you have NOTHING to back up the Liberals today. I'm not speculating. I'm basing my opinion on what the LIBERALS THEMSELVES are saying and doing. When they are promising more spending and DEMANDING more spending and VOTING IN FAVOR of spending increases that they DEMANDED, I rationally assume they want to SPEND. Originally Trudeau. Then Chretien. Now Harper, who was the one who cut off the corporate lobby avenue the LPC milked. I don't have a problem with immigrants. I like and have befriended/dated numerous immigrants. The CPC has tried to make it easier to accept skilled and educated workers. They're being allowed to bypass the queue of millions in favor of the horde of non-english, unskilled and un-educated immigrants who clog our welfare systems and who the Liberals depend on to maintain their GTA stranglehold. The whole idea of 'family reunification' at the Canadian Taxpayer's expense is an absolute joke. This is one of THE most impressive things Harper has done in my books. You're mistaken. Most conservatives don't like the FORMULA developed in the Trudeau years. Most conservatives are all for the decentralization of spending, just not if it's being collected federally and dished out unfairly. Once again, however, that will likely take constitutional amendments to change at the risk of totally alienating the teat sucking provinces like Manitoba/PEI etc. Nope. I just supported on the basis that it wasn't an equalization formula like the Green Shift was and that it was highly unlikely to be implemented anyways. Pragmatism! I didn't say I was objective. I said I was pragmatic. Right we have two parties who've both proven themselves to be bad spenders. Either of them is going to burn a hole in my wallet. One of them isn't entrenched into the bureaucracy after 11 years of croniesm and complacency and one of them is shaking up immigration and election laws in ways that I approve. You can call me partisan, but I've no loyalty to either party. I've voted both ways provincially and federally within the last 6 years and will continue to do so. I'll admit I vote from the right and I'm partisan in that regard, but not for any particular party. I don't make that claim. I make the claim that you cherry pick the news ONLY for what supports your party. My issue with the Star is that it's not a national newspaper and enjoys a symbiotic relationship with Toronto and the Liberal Party. To simplify: The LPC lets Toronto sit on its face. Toronto in turn loves the Liberals. Because Toronto loves the Liberals, the Star sells to mostly Liberal readers and has adopted a VERY pro-Liberal stance. I'm well aware of pro-CPC newspapers, but using the STAR as a reliable source for CPC bashing is about as smart as using the Calgary Herald for LPC bashing, as I've said on many occasions.