Moonbox

You could always purchase stock yourself and FIGHT BACK!

I think Harper and the rest of the world is worried about a violent revolution. That doesn't help anyone. If Mubarak is going to going to commit to stepping down in the next few months to the entire world, let him do that. There are countless examples of dangerous government transitions where people are not only hurt, but completely ripped off. Look at the end of the USSR to see what happened there.

The rates have gone up several times in the last two years only to fall back down again. The banks are speculating with rates. They have to borrow money to lend it out a lot of the time and if the spreads aren't big enough they increase the rates. As the rates go up housing prices will go down. The low rates are one of the reasons why houses are so expensive right now. There's also enough competition with brokers and lenders that people can still buy houses. 3.6% - 3.9% aren't exactly bad for 5 year rates. Don't you worry Topaz.

The HRT sometimes looks more like an institutional abuse of the Charter of Rights than anything else.

What sort of evidence do you need? Do you not feel that having a loving parent at home devoting one-on-one attention to a child is beneficial for both mental and emotional growth??? You're likely right but I'm sure there are plenty of parents who ARE guilty of that.

Yeah I'll second that. I'd rather keep our news than turn it into the poo-flinging intellectual wastelands that CNN, Fox etc are.

I'm not sure I really understand what this is all about. It seems like there's already a lot of false and misleading news out there. Why would they need more room to do that???

No, if anything it was European favoritism, shifting aid from Africa to the the Caribbean and not following along with retarded environmental policies. Only shifting aid from Africa was really Harper's decision. Nobody is. That's just a red herring you introduced because you're not a very smart person. Well then under those terms anything is justifiable for the sake of 'diplomacy'. Diplomacy is nothing but a word. There is a right and wrong for every situation and using the word 'diplomacy' doesn't really change that. I'm not surprised you think so, but you're not that bright No that's really not what he did. The worst thing Smallc has ever really done on this forum is mock and condescend. The assumption that he's attacking your patriotism can be completely chalked up to your spazz tendencies. We're not losing 1.5 billion in trade per year. We'll hardly lose a fraction of that. Compare our trade with the UAE in 2010 to trade in 2011. Nobody will notice the difference. At worst, maybe a few million. Again, this is just you spazzing out and exaggerating numbers. You think the UAE will shut out Candian business altogether over a few landing rights? LOL. I suppose they'll do the same to Germany and anyone else that won't give them their own way? Not only will your worst case scenario never happen, but even if it did nobody would notice. Kind of like how Canada has had trade disputes with other countries before and survived and expanded their economy right? Yeah. You're a dumb kid. I think we're done here. Ironic comment.

LoL. If I'm a die-hard Harper partisan, what does that make you? I mean...I don't even like the guy. In comparison I don't even know what we'd call you. A frothing lefty pogie glutton?

Harper's stance on the environment is that he's not going to sign on to any retarded treaty that will impose restrictions on Canada but not on the world's biggest polluters like India and China. Why would we put ourselves into a position where all we would be doing is making our manufacturers less competitive and ship even more jobs to China, where they don't have the same restrictions?? How does that make sense??? All you're doing is shipping your pollution and jobs to the third world. At any rate, Canada and the US refused to sign a binding accord at Copenhagen which left it as just another toothless and worthless piece of paper. In effect, Copenhagen accomplished nothing. I hope you realize that.

I'd give him a B-, possibly a C+. Most of the credit goes to him not rocking the boat too much and managing a minority. I like his stance on the environment and not signing onto idiotic treaties like Copenhagen. I like his immigration policies. I like his steady hand on the economy and I approve of his arctic ambitions. There is, however, a LOT of room for improvement and I think and I eagerly look forward to the Liberals actually fielding a contender eventually.....

Nicky look into why we lost the seat and get back to us on that. It wasn't anything Harper did. Of course you take the high-end estimate. It's AT MOST (but more likely a LOT less) $3B in trade BOTH ways. Consider the fact that we're at worse only going to lose a small fraction of that (the UAE is not scrapping trade with Canada) and we get right down to how full of crap you are and how much you're exaggerating how much this will impact Canadians. Keep hiding behind that word --- diplomacy. I guess if you label anything as 'diplomacy' it's fair then right? Like...if the US closed its borders to us because we didn't go to war along with them when they asked that would be perfectly reasonable right? I mean...it would be diplomacy right??? Get real. No nicky. That's exactly what's going on. You're getting your underwear twisted, blowing things way out of proportion, freaking and then cussing someone out because they said something you didn't like. You are supporting the position of a bunch of Arab princes who are fussing with Canada. That's what Smallc said. You went apeshit and decided that he was attacking your patriotism. That's comedy.

He's not questioning your patriotism. Grow up. Don't be such a baby. He's questioning how you support the position of a backwards bunch of Arab princes who are trying to extort economic favors from us. Our reputation is fine abroad. I don't think many people are terribly worried about our relations with the UAE. The question is how much trade will we lose from this really and how much would it cost us? Considering we do 80-90% of our trade with our top 10 trading partners, and number 10 is about 1% of our total trade, you're HUGELY exaggerating the effect this is going to have on us. Even if the UAE were to forbid ALL business with Canada (not going to happen) you'd be looking at perhaps $1-3 billion in trade both ways, which is next to nothing. Oh please. We sacrificed $300,000,000 (peanuts) and relations with a so-called friend who tried to extort economic favours out of us at the end of our Afghan mission, at the most inconvenient time possible, and who are trying to do the same thing to other countries with similar results. What a precedent that would set. and here you show your true colours. If you're going to fuss and wet your pants every time someone disagrees with you (which is going to be often because you're an idiot) then you'll probably be happier not visiting these forums. Grow up.

It's not UAE/Canadian traffic anyone is worried about. It's granting favourable landing rights to a carrier trying to turn Dubai into a regional hub and drain traffic to Europe and Asia. There's also nothing in it for the Canadian government. Air Canada hasn't been doing fine since I've been alive. Perhaps, but why offer it if there's no benefit to us? It's funny enough that you're quoting a Toronto Star article, but what's even funnier is the sources it quotes: "But I have a 2006 document in which Air Canada proposed a partnership with Emirates. It called for a coordinated schedule between Canada and Dubai, starting with a daily Dubai-Toronto flight and expanding to other cities. It asked Emirates to operate its own aircraft on the routes. It even suggested flight times to maximize connections with Air Canada" So this guy has a 'document' that proposes a partnership which the UAE declined and which we really don't see the terms to... and "In fact, additional airline traffic always creates more jobs. An Emirates study shows its new flights would add 1,900 jobs and $26 million in taxes." we're relying on an EMIRATES study...I'd love to see how scientific it was As usual we're assuming that Harper would sink a deal that would create 1900 jobs, generate tax revenues of $26 million, cost us nothing AND ruin an international relationship, purely out of spite and because he's an egotistical jerk. That's generally the position you guys take so I'm not sure how to reason with it.

You're right, but what reason do we have for granting it to them? What benefit does it provide us? Why would we put a domestic airline at a disadvantage to a foreign one? It makes no sense.

They work. They work very well. Harper succesfully branded Dion as a wimp and an out of touch leader before Dion even had a chance. Paul Martin did the same thing to Harper in his first election, although to a lesser extent. They work because the electorate is largely stupid and ignorant about politics. It's a lot easier to lie to a moron or to someone who knows nothing about what they're talking about. Think about how many times you've been fleeced by some scumbag on commission at a bank, car dealership, electronics store, insurance brokerage etc...It's the same with politics.

Umm...isn't that what led us to 18% mortgage rates back in the 1980's???

My idols? If you say so. Regardless, I do consider all three of them infinetly more intelligent than yourself and a heck of a lot more witty than you THINK you are. wyly you're missing a LOT of points here. First off, nobody is talking about Air Canada disappearing because of the UAE airlines. All the UAE wants is to be given unfair competitive advantages. They want landing slots that cannot be justified by Canada-UAE traffic, and they are unwilling to offer similar rights to Canadian carriers. It WOULD cost us jobs because the majority of the infrastructure in place to support UAE planes flying people to Dubai and then from Dubai to Europe etc would be working in Dubai, instead of Canada. Sure, you might have a smattering of service people here and there in Canada, but nowhere near what a domestic airline would have. Well what makes a company Canadian. You tell me please.

LOL that was a good line. I get flamed for making fun of that guy, but I'll give you 10/10 for that on lol.

Headquartered, operating from and serving Canada...so a Canadian airline.... First of all, I highly doubt anyone in the government is concerned whether or not know-nothings are on board with their decision or whether or not they care about Air Canada. Second, Air Canada wouldn't be getting additional landing rights in the UAE, thus the competition wouldn't be fair, thus there'd be no real benefit for Canada. All you'd be doing is stepping on your domestically operated carrier and possibly killing Canadian jobs. Right...let's see now....Air Canada and its parent company ACE are both traded publicly on the TSX, are both headquarted in Canada and all of their hubs (thus their employees) are in Canada. Delta...not so much. Try again genius.

Just to add to the earlier discussion, Germany seems to have the same issues with the UAE as Canada does: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/german-airline-enters-fray-bolsters-ottawas-stand-against-uae/article1876058/

Harper's environment policy is practically non-existent and he's not making it a priority. This is him passing the buck off to the Americans, who also don't really have a policy and will do nothing. This is all fine and good with me. The #1 concern for Canadians is not the environment. It's the economy. Harper killed the Liberals in the last election over this, and will do so again if it comes up a second time. Duh...because imposing unilateral carbon emission policies on the Canadian economy would put us at a huge disadvantage and would have about the same impact as a fart in a hurricane.

Igniatieff has spent the vast majority of his adult life outside of Canada. He CHOSE to live outside of Canada as soon as he had the means to do so, and he didn't come back for 27 years. It's hardly coincidence that he came back only when the possibility of leading the country came up. He was a university professor and a journalist. How does that make him any more wordly than so many other MPs? Because he worked in the UK and the USA? I'm not knocking his credentials, but living in the UK and especially the USA doesn't exactly make someone wordly. What's half truth about it? Ignatief hasn't defined himself or his policies. He's done little other than BS and change his mind since becoming Liberal Leader so you could say almost anything about him at this point. Attack ads aren't exclusive to the Tories. The Liberals are all about them as well. As for things to boast about, they have plenty to boast about. The CPC led the country through probably the mildest recession of the developed world and we also look like we're headed for a boom. It's held the longest running minority government in Canadian history and it's largely kept itself squeaky clean. That's a lot more than Ignatieff can say.

Popeye he took the time to point out your glaring errors in logic and was civil about it. You chose to persist in a balogna line of thought and made it rather clear you weren't going to use your brain. That's pretty solid 'ignore' criteria. Welcome to MLW.

Sure, I guess his passport says he's Canadian. I won't argue that. I also can't argue he grew up here. On the other hand, the fact that he chose to spend 27 of the last 32 years outside of the country would suggest he's about as far removed from the beating heart of Canada, and about as out of touch with its people, as a Canadian can be. I won't knock him for his education or intellecualism, but only an idiot wouldn't raise an eyebrow at the fact that he came back to Canada ONLY when the possibility of becoming PM came up. Oh please. Grow up. You and I might prefer the discourse be truthful and honest, but this is politics, and neither side is going to be honest. People as interested in politics as MLW in Canada probably account for 5% of the population. Maybe another 10-15% care enough to read the news and stay informed. The other 80-85% are either too dumb or don't care enough to know wtf is going on anyways, and they're the ones the ads target.