Moonbox

I just think it's really unfortunate for the Liberals to have chosen Dion as their leader. Before he became the Liberal leader they were still a very relevant party with a very real base of support. From what I've seen he's shown himself to be the worst man for the job in a tough time for the Liberals and those two factors together have killed the Liberals just like Mulroney and then Kim Campbell killed the Progressive Conservatives. With that said, even IF the Liberals cease to exist as a party, another right/left fence straddling government will pop up to fill the void much like the Reform and Canadian Allliance replaced the incompetent and defunct Progressive Conservatives. A new leader and a fresh face will do the Liberals a TON of good.

but that's the thing. This was no real accomplishment. I already said it many times. Cutting transfer payments to the provinces, accumulating unjustifiable surpluses in EI and crippling our military to balance the books that largely the same Liberals ruined is like puking on someone else's carpet, cleaning it up and then saying, "HEY! LOOK I CLEANED YOUR CARPET! I DID GOOD!" You act like the monthly accounts matter. They don't. It's the average that counts. Tax cuts are good. Tax and spend is bad. Tax and spend hurts the economy and consumers and the theory has been disproven by economies all over the world. This is just rehashing the previous point. They drastically cut spending on social and healthcare systems to BELOW pre-Trudeau levels because Trudeau sent our country on its way so far into debt that we were headed for bankruptcy as a nation. At one point 40% of every tax dollar went to paying back debt. Why are we congratulating the Liberals for cleaning up their own mess? Don't even try to bring up Mulroney here either because Harper quit from the Mulroney Progressive Conservatives because he found them to be the same sort of crap that the Trudeau Liberals were.

Dr Greenthumb after replying to this quote I'm more or less going to just ignore everything you have to say. There is a lot of partisanship in this forum but at least most of the posters with differing opinions from my own have something solid to offer in their arguments. Your posts in particular make me cringe at how ignorant and biased a partisan opinion can become. I've seen no exception when reading your posts and this is another example of pure and unadultered garbage. You have no idea what you're talking about. You don't even TRY to support your opinions. Your lack knowledge and understanding of basically anything related to politics makes your posts nothing but a waste of time. For the sake of at least supporting what i just said, i'll break down your post. You have DIRECTLY linked the slowing economy to Harper politics but you clearly have no understanding of financial or international markets or anything to do with economies in general. Canada's economy has slowed down for a good number of reasons and pretty much none of them have ANYTHING to do with what Harper did in Canada. Here's why our economy is slowing: 1. The world credit crisis 2. The depreciation of the US dollar and the appreciation of the Canadian dollar in value 3. Rising worldwide oil prices. Now strangely enough, all of these factors are screwing with the economy and at the same time they are making each other worse as well. I'll give you a high five if you could explain any of it but I'm not going to hold my breath because I'm almost certain you can't and doubt you'll even try. The economy is slowing worldwide. As foreign economies slow, so will our own. If you're going to put the blame squarely on Harper's feet then you're going to have to explain how he made oil prices higher, made the Canadian dollar more valuable, crashed the US housing market and then brought the rest of the world's economy down with him. The only thing I'll agree with you on is that 8 years of Bush most certainly HAS made things worse but you can't even really place the bulk of the blame at his feet either. Telling us what you think Harper aspires to be is a waste of everyone's time. You don't like him. We get it. We don't care. We DO want to hear about things he does wrong but we couldn't care less what your clueless imagination can come up with in regards to his dicatorial Darth Vader agenda.

it's a pretty funny idea to think about. With that said, I think you're right that the Liberals will sort of fly off the radar for a good number of years if they get whomped this election. They'll be back when they have a real issue to campaign on.

I think it's the polls more than anything.

You're only making yourself look worse here. I said you can't support your own opinion and that you're just flinging useless rhetoric and scary words at us. You responded with more useless rhetoric and bigger scary words. You're 'observation' is about as useful as a poo-flavored lolipop if you can't provide any relevant support for it. I'm starting to think the more I read your posts that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about 95% of the time you post.

Oh you bet nobody is arguing that Mulroney did a good job either. Like I said before though, interest rates in the high teens, economic recessions and inherited debt from Trudeau DID make things harder for him. I'm not saying he wasn't an idiot and some of the debt shouldn't be blamed on him, but it was Trudeau's tax and spend that set us on that path. Besides, the comparison between the PC and the CPC is a lot less easy to make than today's Liberals compared to Trudeau/Chretien Liberals. yeah harper has diminishing surpluses in an economic downturn. The Liberals didn't really face a serious one from 1993-2006 other than the dot com crash which left Canada largely unaffected. Like I said before, it's good economics to run a balanced budget or slight deficit in a slowing economy. I won't bother explaining it to you because you probably don't care. Your 'spending like drunken sailors' is just colorful language again. Way to exaggerate wildly. We go back to Trudeau for drunken sailor spending. Flaherty indicated he would be increasing transfer payments to the provinces a long time ago. He said the federal surplus was too high. I can't remember who said it but it was aptly stated awhile back that "The money is in Ottawa but the need is in the provinces." What does that mean? It means it's not fair or responsible to reap huge surpluses federally while provinces run deficits from supporting an overwhelmed health care system. Besides, the budget is balanced so you're not really scoring any points there either.

The Liberal Party may be bankrupt but it is far from gone and there are enough of you around to make sure it stays for a long time to come. Maybe it transforms itself into something more relevant or maybe it just has a few quiet years but I think your scenario is getting a little too ahead of itself.

which you yourself constantly fail to do. Your response included: When you start using rhetoric like this, particularly big scary words like 'dictatorial' you lose all credibility to any argument you might have been trying to make. Referring to the leader of a MINORITY DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT under a British Parliamentary system as a dictator is a clear sign of failure in intelligent reasoning and a resortment to passionate and baseless rhetoric.

Harper never wanted her in the debate. She and Dion have quite obviously shown that they have each other's backs and why would Harper want to debate against two very similar positions? Harper still doesn't want her in the debate but decided that since Canadians want to see her speak he might as well not protest it. This is altogether a poor analogy anyways. It's a completely and 100% different situation and I'm surprised you would even try to compare them.

and after two elections in which Harper was demonized by the Liberals, you somehow find it scandalous that he would focus Canada's attention on an assinine Carbon Tax plan that Canada doesn't want and the bumbling fool of a Liberal Leader who suggested it. You're ignoring everything everyone is saying! You CANNOT muzzle every member of your party. Sooner or later one of your representatives WILL say something idiotic for the simple fact that you can't be in all of their heads. EVERY party has idiots making spectacles of themselves and the Liberals have had one recently themselves. I don't call the Liberal Party sexist because one of their MP's was telling his opponent to go back to making tea and biscuits for her man do I? No! I notice that he was forced by his party to apologize. Let his riding decide if they want to vote him back in but don't make broad and baseless conclusions on a whole party just because it suits your political view. That's the definition of ignorance.

Nobody is saying the majority of yanks aren't ignorant just like the majority of Canadians are ignorant as well . If a yank came here and tried to mention how the US has helped Canada (and they have) you'd have Canadians frothing and telling him he is the spawn of Satan's land.

40% is typically the threshold needed to gain a majority. 41% shows if anything a VERY modest majority with a margin of error in the polls.

But your community is presented. There are plenty of reasons why proportional representation is a bad idea the first of which is that it makes politics even more regional than they are now. An elected Senate, on the other hand, is pretty hard to argue against isn't it?

Personally I can't justify it any further than saying it's really just throwing the Liberal tactics of 2004 and 2006 right back in their faces. Like I've said many times, I don't think Harper can claim moral high ground on some of the issues, but I don't think anyone can. The "Dion is not a Leader" tactics I'm betting will work quite well. They're not trying to turn him into a monster like the Liberals tried to with Harper. They're saying he's a bumbling and ineffective leader and they have plenty of examples to back that up with.

Please provide your evidence that Harper is working for big oil. Also, while you're at it, tell us how the Green Shift is going to help us out with fuel prices.

Unfortunately, biofuel is more expensive to produce. It's more expensive and the environmental benefits to it are negligible. Supporting biofuels is nothing but subsidizing unprofitable farming. Actually, I can provide you with probably hundreds of links where economists from places like the World Bank have concluded that biofuel is the DIRECT CAUSE of the increase in food prices and the subsequent starvation in the third world. WorldBank - Biofuels and Food Prices At least his opinions are informed and supportable whereas yours are generally just passionate nonsense. If you would like to start a thread I'd love to debate the benefits of biofuels with you. I can provide you with plenty of evidence showing you exactly how it's more expensive, exactly how it's causing starvation and exactly why it has little to no environmental benefits to offer.

It would 'fall flat' because any drastic environmental initiatives are likely by ANY theory to make doing business more expensive in Canada. Now I'm totally for a greener Canada but making the environment your #1 issue in an election during an economic downturn is not likely to strike a chord with Canadians. Campaigning on the economy will. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greens do better this year, but I certainly don't think they're going to explode like some people think.

You're right that he hasn't made it a priority. The reason for this, however, is that the economy is having trouble, he's doing everything he can do avoid a deficit and most centre or left of centre Canadians are violently opposed to any extra military spending. Increased military spending would upset these Canadians who know nothing about Afghanistan or our military and would probably lose Harper the LPC/CPC swing voter. Once defeated in a minority, the LPC would just reverse whatever changes he's made.

I didn't say his french was ridiculous. I said Harper's bilingualism is miles above most of his contemporaries. Pearson happens to be one of my very favorite Prime Ministers and was a huge boon to Canada. He was from a different time, however, and the things I liked about him are hard to find in the present crop of Liberals. and I'm not so sure he'd be proud about what his successors have accomplished. Things like massive debt, high taxes and strained relations with our neighbours were not really Pearson's legacy.

Technically, you're right. He is remarkable nonetheless in that he's a WASP that can speak non-ridiculous french. My french is better than Dion's English and I'm not running for PM.

I think their message will fall flat as gas prices continue to rise and the economy continues to deteriorate. I'm also 100% certain May will not impress anyone in the debate.

Attack attack attack is something Harper learned through two elections where he was made out to be a dangerous villain with the secret agenda of turning Canada into baby USA. The Liberal campaigns of 2004 and 2006 were just as bad if not worse and I'd love to hear you argue otherwise. Yes, some of the adds and comments by the CPC have been assinine, but that happens with every party. We can go through Liberal foot in mouths if you want too, but that's not the point. It's HIGHLY suspect of you to be going on about CPC mud slinging when this is exactly what your Liberals did last election. To be honest, I would like to see a campaign on the issues themselves. Unfortunately, I think the people on this forum are an exception in at least that we try to stay informed on the issues. Most Canadians don't know anything about anything when it comes to the government. With the ignorance of the average voter, all you're left to campaign on is rhetoric and half-truths. CPC attack adds have shown Dion to be a poor leader. His record hasn't been impressive.

Harper is also severely constrained by the debt that Trudeau, an overspending Liberal, accumulated with the help of Mulroney AFTER he cut back our military spending. It's hardly an effective argument to say that Harper hasn't spent 'enough' money when his opposition's plans are to spend decidedly less or nothing. The fact of the matter is that the Chretien and Trudeau Liberals let our military deteriorate into one of the most ineffective independant fighting forces in the western world. What troops we have are highly trained and effective fighters from what i've read but that hardly matters when they don't have the equipment to keep themselves safe. How sad is it that one of the richest countries in the world doesn't even have a few helicopters to move their troops around in Afghanistan? I think it's despicable that the Liberal government would slash military spending, then send our troops to Afghanistan unequipped and then make a stink about them dying AFTER they're voted out of office. Our troops aren't just soldiers. They're Canadians as well and the sooner people realize how badly we've let them down the sooner they'll allow Stephen Harper to spend MUCH NEEDED money to help them out.

Except most (almost all) comparably modern countries with comparably less resources and wealth than Canada have much more robust militaries than us. I don't think we need a big military, but the lack of spending under the Liberal government and then their subsequent decision to send our troops to Afghanistan with equipment that dates back to the 60's and 70's is a little hard to justify. I would consider that Canada's manufacturing industry isn't competitive even compared to the USA yes. Having pretty much the highest corporate tax in North America in Ontario certainly isn't helping. Trudeau helped win a referendum. Mulroney borked everything up you're right. With that said, Seperatism remained a significant cause from 1993 pretty much until the Harper government. Now most of Quebec doesn't even think it's relevant. It wasn't an argument won with any difficulty. The argument was won (with the help of international lawyers) on some very basic assertions that you or I had probably already come up with ourselves. The Clarity Act didn't defeat the spirit of separatism, nor did a francaphone Prime Minister over something like 10 years. It was a Prime Minister who could show Quebec that they were better off staying in Canada.