Moonbox

The constant problem with Liberal promises for social services, however, is that they never explain how they are going to afford them and for 13 years in power they never delivered them despite promising them. Dion can promise all he wants but his Liberals can be squarely blamed for the drop in social services since the 1990's. NDP promises are so out of this world I won't even discuss them.

I understand all this. What I was saying was that nobody ever said Harper was going to win the socialist vote either way so that doesn't really matter. We were talking about the economy though, and you've again dodged my challenge/question to you. The only thing I got out of that was that you would have rather had income tax cuts than GST cuts. Fair enough but where was the explanation I was asking you for all of Harper's apparently disastrous economic policies?

I really didn't like the way they did this one, or at least how it was moderated. There was FAR too much interrupting and people talking over one another. Duceppe, May and Layton wouldn't shut up when everyone else was talking. It was pretty much a big 4v1 against Harper. I think he did alright and so did Dion. The debate really didn't do anything for me other than make me like May and Layton even less. I liked Dion though. I felt that of everyone in the opposition he was the only other one who acted like a human being and wasn't just blowing hot air and yelling.

You can disagree with all of these things. Harper is not a pandering socialist nor is he socially liberal. We know that. His stance on same sex marriage is irrelevant as it will never affect Canadians. His daycare policy helped families. It may not have been enough for you, but he's never been about massively expensive social programs. You can disagree on him not wasting Canadian time and money intervening on the death penalty for a confessed multi-murderer, but I have more important things to care about. As for the GST vs Income Tax cuts, do you know how that affects you differently, or is that again just you towing the party line?

Seriously?! He called you dobby! You'll survive that verbal atom bomb I promise! And this is your response to my challenge for you to EXPLAIN what you think are Harper's bad economic policies!!? Providing internet links does not magically mean that you're right! All your links were just references to Harper spending announcements. Every government has spending announcements! Every opposition party has proposed even HEAVIER spending increases than the Harper government! Get your head out of the sand!! You said Harper went overbudget. I acknowledged that. With that said, it was a budget HE set in the first place and HE STILL has a balanced budget with LOWER taxes. PLEASE. I beg of you! Explain what his bad economic policies are. Specifically, Jdobbin, what economic policies has Harper implemented that have set Canada so astray and how is the Liberal opposition's proposed spending increases of $80 billion going to help bring the supposed 'overspending' Conservative budget in line!?? Answer the question! If you can't do that, then at least acknowledge that you don't have anything even resembling a clue what you're talking about. So far you've shown us that you can't argue your way out of a wet paper bag.

It's actually kind of funny. I suggest watching it.

No I don't ignore them. I read them, and then I explain to you that increased spending can help soften an economic downturn. I also explain that the Conservatives are a minority government and that they need to be spending to maintain support and ensure the polls don't dive on them. You've now blatently refused to EXPLAIN any of your balogna statements and I'm sure we'll continue to see you wailing on and on about how Conservative spending has been out of hand DESPITE a balanced budget with lower taxes during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. You'll no doubt try to say they're on the way to a deficit, but like I've said it's sound economic policy to run a slight deficit in the first place to encourage spending in a sinking economy. Finally, and we'll leave you with this tidbit: WHY ARE THE LIBERALS CRITICIZING HARPER'S SPENDING POLICIES WHEN THEY ARE PROMISING OVER 80 BILLION IN INCREASED SPENDING!????? Again Jdobbin, I invite you to EXPLAIN your statements and rationalize how you came to them. I fully expect you to dodge as usual but a guy can hope.

Well THERE'S a compelling argument. Elaborate, please. Let's discuss this.

How do you even say this?? Harper knows Iraq is unpopular with about 95% of Canadians. He's not stupid, despite what you'd like to think, and there's no way in a million years he'd go into Iran. To suggest such is just silly scare mongering.

Jdobbin I asked you several times and you ignored me every time but I'd like to know how the Tories are worse managers of money when they've lowered taxes, maintained balanced budgets and when the Liberals have promised over $80 Billion in extra spending with no indication of where the money is coming from. Take a shot at it please.

I challenge you to find ANY specific economic policies Harper has initiated that are in any way similar to those of Bush, because I know that you're just making that up. Tax cuts don't count by the way, because they have nothing to do with the collapse. Because he and his party members would all be thrilled with the idea of acting on unpopular ideologies and committing political suicide right? These are the scare tactics that failed the Liberals in 2006 and they'll do so again. The whole 'hidden agenda' crap is so tired and old and you have nothing to base it on. Kind of like the moron Trudeau who consigned the Liberals to the wilderness for 11 years or something while Mulroney inherited his mess? Do you remember how Harper quit from the progressive conservative party in disgust back in the 80's at Mulroney's policies? Get a clue Eyeball. Nothing you said here has any substance.

*Edit I just watched it. Was kind of goofy but i got a chuckle out of it. The best part is he asks the environmental protestor what happens to his job if the Tar Sands projects are all cancelled.

They are debating tonight and soon after on national television. I am happy to debate with you if you have something to debate. To be honest sometimes in OTHER threads you actually have interesting things to say. That does not change the fact, however, that most of the threads you start are nothing more than you tooting the 'I hate Harper' horn. Keep writing your useless threads. It's your priviledge as a Canadian. Just don't be surprised with the contempt you get in return.

No, there is ZERO evidence of this. There is evidence that the Tories reduced over taxation on the country and that they have consistently delivered balanced budgets while doing so. The present Liberals have NO spending record other than the fact that they are proposing to increase spending by something like 80 billion. You and a lot of the other Tory bashers like to bring this up all the time. You say the Tories are fiscally irresponsible BUT you fail at EVERY chance to explain how the alternatives (who are promising spending increases WAY above and beyond the Tories) would be any more responsible. The fact that Chretien/Martin Liberals maintained the highest taxes pretty much ever, bogarted EI and crippled provincial governments with unfair reductions in transfer payments doesn't really count as a good public record btw.

This is a discussion forum where we debate politics. If you are posting something, we're assuming you want to discuss it. We're also assuming that given your prolific history of spamming anti-Harper forum topics, that you're posting another criticism of Harper. Use common sense. That's because it never has been a significant part of their party platform. This is nothing new and/or interesting. This means nothing to anyone anywhere. My mother has voted nothing but Liberal since Trudeau and is voting for Harper this election. What does that mean to you? Probably nothing, just like this thread topic. We're not attacking you. We're attacking your persistently silly and useless forum threads. Debate with us, argue with us point for point, but please don't expect intelligent discussion if you're just posting for the sake of posting. We already know you don't like Harper and we've already discussed this before.

I think that's a bit of a reach. I don't think the average canuck takes their thoughts that far.

No, that's why Liberal staffers were looking up the speech. Harper wanting to send troops to Iraq is something everyone already knew in 2006 and he was elected PM regardless. The issue Bob Rae is making NOW is that Harper plagiarized a speech which is funny considering his party leader did just as bad or worse and so did numerous high ranking officials within his party (Iggy also).

Wait...are you denying that it happened?????? I already provided links to newspapers confirming it. Harper and his 'minions' did provide an answer too. The writer of the speech resigned and the PM's office said they had no knowledge of the speech being plagiarized. What else do you want? As far as I know with Dion he never apologized or admitted it. He tried to hide it.

When I provided a word for word comparison of both articles it became rather unlikely that I made that up and just as unlikely that whoever I referred to for my search had made it up either. It's simple copy and pasting and a 5 second search would have yielded you the same results. Yes, I understand it's important to reference your opinions and claims but sometimes even I give people the benefit of the doubt. How is it corrected? The speech writer in Harper's case resigned. It's a gigantic stretch to assume Harper would be dumb enough to know he was speaking a plagiarized speech. Where was the correction from Dion, other than yanking the information off his 'official website' and trying to hide his tracks? How is that different? Other than that it was easier for Dion to hide his tracks? It was a blatent rip-off on both sides. At least in Parliament the issue can be easily critiqued. That's a bit of a jump in logic. You're assuming that the position of the official opposition was not already that it was dangerous to leave Saddam Hussein in power. Words being copied by a speech writer does not mean that Harper did not come to this conclusion on his own. The question of whether Saddam Hussein needed to be removed from power is something altogether different. He was a proven mass-murderer and genocidal maniac who used WMD's on his own citizens in an area of the world which the west depends on for fuel. The Bush administration led everyone to believe they had conclusive evidence he had another WMD program in development, and the world (ie Howard, Harper, Blair etc) all acted on this supposed 'evidence'. It turns out we were all fooled, but blame Bush for this.

Myata please note in my opening post that I can't reference Dion's website anymore because it was hastily re-written after he started receiving criticism for it, but here are the sources I used without looking very far into it: Dion and Suzuki Foundation Report comparison Yes, that's a blog. I know it's not a super source, but here's confirmation of it from the Globe and Mail: Globe and Mail on Dion's plagiarism Now that I wasted my time proving it to you, I'm dying for a response. I'm waiting patiently but I'm highly doubting many Liberal supporters are going to venture into this thread. If you close your eyes, plug your ears and hum loudly you can pretend it didn't happen.

Harper's aide plagiarized a speech fairly heavily. Fair enough. Nobody's disputing this. Now, my question would be how does this compare to how Dion plagiarized entire sections WORD FOR WORD in his campaign platform from the Suzuki Foundation? Or his copyright infringement with the Green Shift? Bob Rae is an ass. He's the biggest schmoozer in Ontario political history and I'd LOVE to hear what he has to say about the ACADEMIC PROFESSOR leading his party who plagiarized entire paragraphs word for word from the Suzuki Foundation. Seriously. Nothing is held as despicable in the academic community than plagiarism, but apparently Dion has no qualms with that. Here are some passages by the way: Dion: "In Canada, air pollution causes thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of hospitalizations, and hundreds of thousands of days absent from work and school annually. The Ontario Medical Association issued a report in 2005 saying that every year 5,800 Ontarians will die prematurely because of smog related illness..." Suzuki Report: "Across Canada, air pollution causes thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of hospitalizations, and hundreds of thousands of days absent from work and school annually....The Ontario Medical Association (OMA) estimated that there were 5,800 premature deaths due to air pollution in Ontario alone in 2005." Dion has since pulled all of these off his websites (for obvious reasons) but no citations were ever mentioned crediting the Suzuki foundation. You decide if that's plagiarism and if Bob Rae is not completely and totally full of diarhea.

again, independant, I have to wonder if you have an even basic understanding of politics to have posted this. I mean...what are you trying to get at? Harper really has nothing to gain here and he's already widely seen as the candidate who'll put the smallest priority on fighting poverty. He's getting virtually no votes from the left so why on earth would he waste his time in that area?

I was about ready to repost pretty much all the same things. Thanks for saving me the time. A response maybe Keng?

Greenthumb you spent probably 45 minutes typing up a childish parable every poster on this board bar none is laughing at you for. You can go ahead and make stupid claims about who you think holds the intellectual high ground but your posts almost without exception have been completely devoid of anything even RESEMBLING critical thought. We'll let the rest of the forum decide who needs things 'dumbed down' for him to understand.

The NDP is and always will be irrelevant given how air-headed their leaders and their policies normally are. The VAST majority of Canadians are more scared of what Layton would do with a majority than Harper would.