Moonbox

Danny Williams is a worm with a big mouth. I'd love to see what NAFTA has to say about his big balls too... While I don't necessary disagree with what he's trying, I doubt he'll get away with it.

Mr Harper's numbers are high because the Liberals have succeeded in alienating not only the west, but Ontario outside the GTA as well. I'm not a huge fan of Harper right now. I don't like a lot of things he does and I know he's a social wing nut. With that said, I do feel he's better than the current Liberal clown show. All you have to do is look at the bozos running the party these days and it's REALLY easy to see why nobody is interested in them. Bob Rae ran probably the most unpopular provincial government in Canada EVER. His stablization policy (lol he just threw money towards social services) failed miserably during the last big recession and he left us with record deficits that took years to recover from. Stephane Dion brought us the most ill-conceived and unpopular election proposal we've seen in longer than I can remember. He was totally out to lunch and the Liberal Party followed him blindly into the mess he landed them in. Michael Ignatieff stands for a lot of the same things Harper does. He also supported going to war in Iraq. He's spent more time living in the USA and the UK than he has in Canada. He came back to Canada just recently and now he wants to lead the country? Seriously?

It depends on the company. Some companies have diversified while others will be in for a beating. We shouldn't. Unless the unions are willing to make gigantic sacrifices to earn an actual FAIR wage for their skills and training (similar to Toyota/Nissan/Honda wages), throwing money at the Big Three is an exercise in idiocy. I completely agree with you. I'm cool with a bailout if it's going to create a totally new dynamic for Big Three automakers but unless that's going to happen they can stick it up the arse. Given that our Fed government has approved a bailout I can only hope that the US plays tought with the UAW...hopefully that will make sure we aren't going to be paying for it in the future.

It's a really stupid poll. Depending on where you are, you could find some Christians whose intolerance would rivalled only by the most intolerant of....every other religion. There's moderates and fanatics of any religion. Let this thread die it's retarded.

There is a ton of spill off from the Big 3. For every job lost at the Big 3, there's probably 2-3 jobs lost in parts manufacturing and service elsewhere in the country. Make no mistake, there's plenty of jobs to be lost here. My problem with bailing out the Big Three is about the same problem I have with the ethanol industry. On their own, they're all completely failed business models. They're not sustainable and the cost of keeping them afloat is higher than the benefit they provide. Sustaining the Big Three under their current model is only going to cost taxpayers more in the future. Either they and particularly their unions can negotiate to restructure, or we can replace and restructure them after the creditors go after them. There's a lot of infrastructure and machinery we're talking about here. It's unlikely that the creditors would scrap it for salvage. No, it's more likely some sort of new company would emerge from the debacle, without a militant union haunting it.

I don't agree with jdobbin often, but I'm totally with him on the ethanol fuel subsidy. It's one of the many things that makes me sometimes question voting conservative lately. It's less efficient fuel, does nothing for the environment, and simply increases the cost of gasoline due to its high refining and transportation costs. Ethanol fuel is the biggest and best example of backwards thinking the world has going for it right now.

For once the US republicans have got it right. As far as I see it there are two options available: Either: 1) The CAW/UAW agrees to massive pay and benefit decreases to be more competitive with what Honda/Toyota workers earn, or 2) Let the Big Three sink like the dead weight they are. I cannot fathom why we would want to toss money at these slugs if the unions are expecting to maintain the status quo that makes the Big Three uncompetitive. How can they POSSIBLY expect to not be in the EXACT SAME situation a few months or years from now if their competitors have a 33+% cost advantage for labor? The math doesn't add up and if the auto unions aren't willing to play ball than I'm perfectly content to see the Big 3 crash and burn. I'm willing to deal with the short term consequences as well. I'd rather that than see my taxes gradually increase to support a completely failed business model. Don't prolong the inevitable.

Rae is an absolutely toxic option for the LPC. What a wise choice that would have been to nominate a leader who would be unelectable in the primary Liberal stronghold....

John Stewart's skit didn't even make fun of Canada. If anything, he praised the fact that our Prime Minister can be removed easily from office. He made fun of Harper's hair, made fun of Dion and called him a woman and then joked about how we're a constitutional monarchy. With the amount of attention Stewart gives American Presidents, i don't find it particularly shocking that he devotes a nine minute skit to a country that probably accounts for 5-10% of his viewership which he says basically nothing bad about.

oh and thanks for the completely meaningless lefty hack rant Greenthumb. We can always count on you for that. Once again you've just said a lot of things anyone can say about anything and failed to inspire any sort of rational thought in the people reading your posts. Intelligent, rational thought leads to more intelligent rational thought. I wonder what your thoughts lead people to...other than guffaws.

The story 'suggests' exactly that. The problem is that it was completely misleading and omitted the important information that would have proven this. The Toronto Star mislead people on what the money was spent on (most of it was management contracts for things like Student Loans and Corrections Canada) and relatively speaking the 'consulting' contracts amounted to very little. The problem is that because we don't know the nature of the Conservative contracts or the previous Liberal Contracts that many of these would have been renewed from, we really have no idea who spent more per year and that's the only number that matters. Like I said before, the Star is BLATENTLY trying to mislead people here. It may be that the Conservatives ARE over spending compared to Martin's Libs. I can't say they're not, because none of us can make any meaningful comparison.

I thought the most misleading thing about the article was that it only talks about contracts signed...not money spent. If the Liberals paid $500 million over 5 years, let's say, and they inked their contract in 2003, that means the Martin Liberals would have probably paid 100 million annually. Under the Toronto Star's infantile logic, if the Conservatives signed a 10 year contract for $500 million for the same services, that means their spending is double that of the Liberals even though it would really be 50% less. We don't know the numbers. Anyone taking this sort of article seriously needs to give their head a shake. The pathetic intellectual integrity of the Toronto Star should always be questioned.

Who's quiet now???

I'll bite. If this is true than I certainly can't say I'm impressed. I've been fairly vocal in my acknowledgement of Stephen Harper's blaring hypocrisy, despite having voted for him. With that said I'm always VERY skeptical of anything the Toronto Star publishes when it comes to politics. Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I do believe the Toronto Star is WIDELY acknowledged as one of the most biased newspapers in Canada (always to the benefit of the Liberals). Check this line out: "The Star found that, in its first two years in power (2006-08), the Conservatives signed consulting contracts worth $917 million. That’s a 42 per cent increase over the $534 million in consulting contracts signed in the final two years of the Liberal government (2004-06)." Like the hack newspaper it is, the Toronto Star is trying to fool ignorant readers into thinking the Tories spent 42 more on consulting etc. That's not what they found, however. They found that the Tories signed CONTRACTS worth 42 more than what the Liberals signed the last two years they were in power. The Star fails to indicate which major contracts were expiring and needed to be renewed, and how much spending PER YEAR increased. Per year spending is the all-important figure. If Corrections Canada, for example, had a 10 year contract that expired while the Conservatives were in power, this is going to skew the numbers hugely against the CPC and for the Liberals as per the Toronto's Star MO. If it's another 10 year contract, the dollar value of the total deal is going to be high, whereas the per year cost may actually be lower than what the Liberal's were spending. I'm not trying to be a CPC hack and defend everything they do. I'm just pointing out that this 'investigation' as it was presented means absolutely NOTHING. It's a perfect example of how completely worthless the Toronto Star is as a newspaper.

Thank freaking god. Now that Dion and Rae are out of the leadership picture I can actually sleep easy. I wouldn't be horrified by the idea of Ignatief leading the country.

OH THE IRONY! The province that complains about handouts is now being complained about by the provinces who normally receive handouts because that province is now asking for a handout....... Anyone follow that?

Actually no not at all. Personally I think it's hilarious when Alberta threatens to leave. It's a province entirely dependent on ONE industry and would flop without it. 25-35 years from now, when we don't really need any oil anymore, what's Alberta going to do? A landlocked province far from any meaningful economic hubs is unlikely to thrive without oil revenue to depend on. Maybe this is why nobody but the loonies are actually serious about the idea. Overall I agree with the idea of 'Albertanism', however, and generally accept their views on the whining leeches our social welfare net provides for. Oops...I didn't mean to say it like that. Sorry.

Ha. I'd have to strongly contest that point Granted, the recession had little to do with Bob Rae. You can rarely lay the blame squarely on one politician for that. With that said, his RECORD Ontario deficit, increased spending on social assistance, and tax increases certainly CAN be blamed completely on him. He basically did everything you're NOT supposed to do in a recession (economically speaking) and the province suffered for it. Nowadays Canadians go apeshit at the prospect of a $9-10 Billion federal deficit. Bob Rae did that in Ontario ALONE SIXTEEN YEARS AGO. It takes a particularly inept leader to do that. His approval rating was 6% when he was ousted as premier. George Bush can't even touch those numbers.

I supported the Liberals prior to Harper taking over the CPC. I even voted for Martin in 2004. I like the right wing Liberals of Chretien/Martin. I'm 100% completely revolted by the return of Trudeau'esque Liberals under Dion and Rae. Totally barf.

I'm just wondering what people think about the numbers that are coming in from some of the polls out there. Apparently it looks as though even MORE Canadians are supporting Harper since the election rather than the other way around as a lot of people here seemed to think. CBC/Ekos Poll

The Bloc will still hold the veto. I doubt there's any reasonable way to make whatever agreement they sign legally enforceable. When your political responsibility (legally speaking) is to look after the well being of Canadians/Quebecquers, how can ou sign a binding agreement that that basically waives that right/responsibility? The whole thing just doesn't work out. The fact that the Bloc 'signed' something, however, obviously does a lot to reassure Liberal/NDP'ers who don't know how wet the piece of paper will be that they sign on.

Haha. Well said. That made my day.

CBC's bias is well documented and well understood by anyone but the most fervently partisan Liberal. That's why nobody watches CBC news, why nobody listens to CBC radio and why it wouldn't survive without subsidies.

The coalition will not last even if it does go through. The majority of Canadians didn't vote for Harper, you're right, but even fewer voted for a Liberal/NDP coalition. Combined the two parties still have less seats than the CPC. I don't think YOU really understand how parliament works if you think the coalition is going to be stable and if you think the Bloc is not being given extraordinary power if the coalition is allowed to go through. They signed an agreement they wouldn't vote against confidence issues? Is that kind of like how Harper signed to fix election dates? Do you seriously believe that the Bloc isn't going to demand concessions from the coalition? Do you seriously think they would avoid voting against something they felt was bad or (lol) not completely and totally tilted towards Quebec? That agreement is worth about as much as a fart in the wind. I would LOVE to see how strict the courts are with parliamentary agreements. One clue: They're NOT.

Lobbyists and large corporations were where the vast majority of Liberal funding came from. Conservative funding comes largely from individual voters. Since Chretien implemented gag laws basically preventing large businesses from contributing large amounts of money the LPC has gone broke. Hahaha. Go figure.