Moonbox

I don't dislike Dion as much as a lot of people do. I think he had good intentions and gave it an honest try, but his priorities were different from most Canadians. The main problem I have with him is how he complains about Conservative propaganda against the Green Shift, but his entire Green Shift campaign was propaganda. If he would have went out and honestly said, "Yes, the Green Shift will make things more expensive for most people and your income tax cuts will mostly not offset this, but this is necessary to save the environment." I would have had more respect for him. Instead, he spins that the Green Shift won't cost Canadians a dime and that revenue neutral means that everyone will get back what they pay in taxes. Unfortunately for him, this was an outright lie and he was called on it. To whine about being caught BS'ing is deplorable.

The Arrow was costing tax payers so much money it wasn't at all worth it. The fact that nobody could find foreign buyers for the project really shows you how much spin Canadian media put on it as to the merits of the project.

The best way for Ontario to get a fair shake is to make it a campaign issue during an election. Vote for a party that is going to help Ontario out. The Liberals and Tories will always be in contention for your vote so if enough Ontarions are vocal about it the promises and pledges will start flying. Ontario got the rawest deal of all under the Liberals. This is why the vote has swung so dramatically away from them.

This will cost us nothing extra. We will likely make money on it. There is a risk we could lose double what we were on the hook for to begin but if the lowest risk mortgages in Canada go down then we'll have a lot more to worry about than the 25 Billion from this plan.

The money goes to whichever party receives votes. It doesn't make sense that the Liberals or Conservatives should be the only ones getting money. I'm not green supporter but under current legislation it's almost impossible for a party to break out into the open and it'd be even harder without this fair and equitable form of funding.

A report done by the Finance Department under the LIBERALS indicated that the Income Trusts were costing the federal and provincial governments hundreds of millions. This is why Income Trusts taxes were re-evaluated. Appointing Senators is status quo then huh? Well good thing for the conservatives then that Trudeau and others set the precedent in appointing senators to cabinet. It's a terrible thing when Harper does it though...just terrible. What's also particularly hard to swallow is that you are outraged at the conflict of interest in Senator/Cabinet appointment but somehow it's okay because the 'system was set up' so that the major check and fail safe on our ruling government is run by people who were appointed by the ruling government. This is one of those cases where I'm not impressed with Harper. Drummond implied, but went pretty much as far as saying that the consequences of cutting government spending in an economic downturn would be a bad thing to do. He didn't argue against a short term deficit. He argued against long term deficit running a la Trudeau/Mulroney. There will not be another election for at least another 1.5-2 years. Who will oppose them? I don't think he cares if he makes friends in a whiney parliament when he knows he doesn't have an effective opposition. Why would he play nice? He practically has a majority government now and the threat of the Liberals doing something is very unlikely to materialize any time soon. The economy has been slowing since mid-2007. This is when the banks started showing huge losses. This is when the Canadian dollar started approaching par. The economic crisis has come as no surprise to a lot of people. As for the spending, it doesn't have to be directed at manufacturing to be effective. Throwing money at manufacturers only encourages them to be inefficient. The important thing is to just get money flowing in the economy. More money in the economy means more spending. It was cancelled in the first place because money was hidden and siphoned through it for the sponsorship scandal. It didn't look good on Paul Martin's books to be increasing funding for an organization party to corruption. Haha. First off, he's predicting a budget deficit four years forward with no spending cuts. If Harper runs multi-billion dollar deficits 4 years in a row he'll have lost my support as well. As of yet, we haven't seen what his 2009 budget is and we don't even know if he's going to keep his recent spending promises. You'll probably be outraged if he doesn't keep his spending promises though too. For a few years, yes. For many years? No. Referring back to Chretien Liberals of the 1990's for their good fiscal management also loses some of its effect when the current Liberals are promising to do a bad job themselves.

I agree they should get the per vote money. I don't understand how anyone could dispute that. I don't think they deserve any seats though. If you can't garner enough support for even a single community to elect you in a federation then you'll continue to strike out.

The income trust was a giant tax loophole for corporations. It was unfair to leave it as it was and anyone who held onto these investments recovered their money in short order because the law didn't take effect immediately. As for appointing Senators, the Senate right now is dominated by partisan Liberals right now. It would be silly to leave the Senate that stacked for the Liberals. If we were to have an entire new Senate elected that might be a better idea. He basically encourages the spending. I said I'm being pragmatic. I mean that I acknowledge Harper's failings, realize he is a hypocrite, but vote for him anyways because his policies have benefited me and the opposition was promising less money in my wallet and just as much if not more spending. The Liberals had been threatening for a year to bring his government down. It's not 'bullying' to call these threats out as cowardly rhetoric and advance your platform in the face of an extremely weak opposition. We will see more of the same. The Canadian economy depends largely on the manufacturing sector. It has been slumping for years now as the dollar has risen. The only thing that was 'bubbling along' in the Canadian economy was resource based. As for the 'outrageous' spending increases you've mentioned, the only one I agree with is the UFO museum. Total waste of money IMO, but for some reason there are fools out there (hey Quebec) who think this sort of crap is important. As for military colleges, if you can link how much that is costing us maybe we can discuss what it's worth to have well-trained officers for our soldiers risking their lives around the world. VIA-Rail spending is NOT new spending. It is reinstatement of Liberal funding that was planned but cancelled under Paul Martin because of the sponsorship scandal. Could some of it had been spent better? Likely it could have been. The Dion/Martin Liberals certainly wouldn't have done any better. A deficit over the next few years is good economic policy. Don Drummond says so and so do most economists out there. I find it interesting how you'll quote Don Drummond as an expert supporting your opinions but then when we read further into what he's saying and find something contradicting your point of view, all of the sudden he's no longer the expert and you disagree with him.

That's your opinion. Harper has to contend witht the fact that he's still running a minority. You can disagree all you want with Drummond, but he's one of the finest economists in the country and I'd love to hear why you disagree with spending in an economic slowdown. You regularly cite him as support for your opinions but you tend to leave out the full story of what he's actually saying....such as with the Green Shift...but we've already gone over that at length. No, and that's the difference between you and I here. I have agreed that a great many things Harper has done have not been good policy. I preferred an income tax cut to a GST cut. It's simple math that makes me feel this way. I find his personal views on abortion and gay rights narrow-minded and stupid. I'm dissapointed in some of the hypocrisy he displays and I shake my head at how he's been throwing money at Quebec in attempt to procure more votes. In that sense he's showing he's no better than the Liberals have been for 30 years. The reality, however, is that I disagreed more with the policies of the other party. I'm not a hard-core Tory. I have voted Liberal in the last 4 years. I voted for McGuinty (who I despise) in the last provincial election because I felt John Tory was a buffoon. I see the story both ways. I have admitted on many occasions Harper has made mistakes. You seem to be of the opinion that EVERYTHING he does is wrong. Things weren't good for very long. The economy has been slowing for over a year. He ran a 9 Billion surplus last year. Like I said, I think he could reign in spending a little, but I would not at all be upset if he ran a deficit this year, because I know how an economy works.

The government isn't buying our banks at all. They're buying specific investments the banks hold and giving the banks cash for it. That equates to 0% new government control over the industry.

You act as if it is somehow shocking that a politician would make promises that he doesn't/couldn't keep. "...but Harper said!" is not a good argument against what is generally considered the wisest course of action by economists. Your esteemed Don Drummond indicated a deficit is probably the best and an unavoidable course of action. The economy has been slowing for over a year now. Increased spending, like I said, is GOOD policy, as long as a surplus in a good year would more or less erase a deficit in a bad year. It's called stablization policy, and every economist worth a lick advocates for smoothing short term shocks to the economy. Your consistent and repeated declarations that Harper is bad because he breaks his election promises is noted. We are filing it along with the broken promises of every PM we've ever had. Harper is a politician. Thus far, I'm finding his decisions to be entirely pragmatic and mostly beneficial to me. That's how I vote. I prefer to leave emotion out of the equation because it generally makes fewer good decisions.

The Merrill Lynch economist you're quoting is generally considered to be one of the most consistently pessimistic out there. Further, when he was doing his deficit projections for the year, he basically assumed that Harper would continue to announce spending increases like he has an would not tighten the wallet. Don Drummond said that Harper would have to either cut spending or raise taxes to avoid a deficit. This is not breaking news or rocket science. Also, Drummond almost went as far as to recommend a deficit. I don't have a link to show you but if you really want to see it go pick up a Globe and Mail because the article is in there. Like I've been saying for months: A deficit is probably a good plan right now as long as it's reasonable. As long as we're not running Trudeau/Mulroney sized ones then the long term impact of running a deficit would be negligible but the short term benefits would be tremendous.

Bob Rae would be a disaster. He ran Ontario's biggest deficits ever and had the lowest approval rating of any premier in Ontario ever. It wasn't that long ago. We all remember. Making Bob Rae, who is held in contempt by the majority of people in the Liberal heartland, leader of the party would put the nail in their coffin. Maybe the Liberals would do well again in Toronto, but that'd be about it.

Harper called the election because it was politically advantageous to do so and because parliament was a joke as it stood. It ensured he stays in as PM for likely another 2 years. Nobody is going to be eager to bring him down now. Who cares? If they didn't vote then they don't get a voice, and neither myself or the conservatives care whatsoever. It's their own stupid fault. A better indication would be that the Liberals got largely shut out everyone EXCEPT the big cities. I wonder which matters more. Until the Liberals stop thinking they can 100% ignore the west and expect to do so they'll not be forming a majority anytime soon....or a government for that matter. There are enough people in Ontario who identify with western Canada to continue the trend we've seen in the last 2 elections.

That's sarcasm right? Either way, a tax cut is a tax cut. I liked Martin's tax cut better than Harper's in the 2006 election and voted for him in 2004, but at least Harper cut taxes too. This is better than higher effective taxes under Dion IMO. This is kind of an worthless point. The Martin Liberal government was the highest spending government prior to that. It seems there is an upwards trend. Hopefully that gets reversed but I think it was unlikely to happen under Dion/Bob Rae Liberals.

This is exactly why it failed in Ontario. The big cities get pandered to enough already.

We weren't talking about the US. We were talking about Canada. The banks stopped lending to each other cheaply here because it was no longer affordable to do so. There wasn't enough cheap ways to finance in the ECONOMY anymore to support it. You don't understand how the system works. The credit crisis throughout the world is because of AMERICAN banks acting idiotically and tying titanic amount of money into securitized mortgages that the banks lended to idiotic Americans. Just because one country is full of greedy idiots doesn't make the market bad at chosing winners. A government system run by idiots is just as bad as a market system run by idiots. You act like the banks somehow have endless supplies of money. None of the banks in Canada were in trouble. None of them needed to be bought out. It's the economy right now that's in trouble and that's because our biggest trading partner nuked itself. The government in Canada is trying to provide cheap liquidity to the Canadian ECONOMY to soften this fiasco.

If there isn't a single community in the entire country that wants the Green Party to represent them in parliamant, then they don't deserve to have an MP in parliament. This is the foundation of a federation. The Bloc has 50 seats because Quebec wanted Bloc MP's in parliamant, just like things turned out in Alberta and Toronto. Under proportional representation, the balance of power is fractured to such an extent that someone like the Greens, with 6% of the popular vote, could effectively hold the balance of power and be just as powerful in the House of Commons as a party with 120 seats.

Maybe the use of the word 'secular' was wrong but the fact is that the Liberals garner the vast vast vast majority of their support from Toronto and Montreal. Is it not remarkable that nearly HALF the Liberal seats in the country came from TWO cities? It speaks volumes about where the Liberals are in terms of the spectrum of Canadians they connect with. This was not always the case, but as Canada's priorities and ways of thinking have shifted, Liberal ideals have remained entrenched. 'Liberals know best' is a phenomenon that western Canada has completely and totally rejected, along with Ontario outside of the 416 and 905. This is not going to reverse itself. The conservatives have a long way to go as far as wooing regions that the Liberals have typically coddled, but at least they're breaking ground there.

You're right in a sense. The bank act IS largely responsible for the soundness of our mortgage industry. That did not, however, prevent them from investing in bad paper. With that said, most of the Canadian Banks didn't get into the US subprime mortgage market DESPITE the Bank Act not regulating those sorts of out-of-country investments really whatsoever. CIBC was hit hard but the rest of the banks were barely scratched compared to the rest of the world. My argument with jdobbin in the quote you highlighted was a criticism of his position that the banks tightening lending practises amid a credit crisis was somehow a bad decision for the market.

you're absolutely right...The only problem is what can you do about it? Nothing I'd say.

We don't hate Harper. Large ethnic communities vote Liberal because they have been pandered to by this government for the 13 years leading up to the election. Metro Toronto and surrounding areas support the Liberals. The vast majority of the rest of province support conservative governments. The Liberal Party is the most regionally secular government in Canada....I would go almost so far as to say moreso than the Bloc. The Tories won and will continue to win as long as the Liberals feel they can tell non-urban Canadians what they want.

Your unsubstantiated way of thinking is what lost the Liberals the election. The 'hidden agenda', 'just like Bush', 'neo conservative' and 'bullying' Harper rhetoric was rejected by Canadian voters twice in a row now. When that's all you have to your campaign, and you've recycled it for 6 years straight, you end up with poor results. Dion, being an intellectual, could have argued intellectually and probably done better. Instead, he couldn't resist slipping back to the grossly exaggerated emotional appeals that assume people aren't going to think any further than the words being said. The conservatives are guilty of this too, but at least there was some 'meat' to their campaign. The Green Shift would have raised taxes and in uncertain economic times that's the last thing the economy needed. There's not a lot of 'history' for your trend. You're looking at cycles of 20+ years, and Canada's not that old. On top of that, to suggest that Canadians today haven't changed much from Canadians 75+ years ago is a deep error in reasoning. The political landscape has completely changed.

Go over that math with us. Indulge me. Explain how you'll end up with more money in your wallet considering basic costs of goods and utilities are going up 10+%. Again, I want NUMBERS, not just yours or Dion's claim that ''tax cuts will offset the carbon tax'' and explain how you'll make ''changes'' that will offset all costs. The MATH indicates this is impossible. The only way you'll end up with more money in your pocket is by cutting consumption (spending), which is pretty much a no brainer. Explain to me, with NUMBERS (which you seem eager to dodge) how you'll end up wealthier under this plan than you would otherwise. Precisely. While China and the rest of the world continue to spew forth pollution at volumes that make Canada's unoticeable, I think the facts speak for themselves in that this is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that we cannot solve without international cooperation. Hold everyone to environmental standards or don't bother at all. To not do so is to unfairly disadvantage domestic industry.

Dion said it would mean more money in our wallets. The math you and I have just gone over confirms that it will mean the opposite. Dion is campaigning on the claim that people will be better off financially under his plan when that's false ANY way you look at it. You're right. I AM focused on the tax. It's a tax overall. Less money in most our wallets means that it is a tax increase. We will NOT be getting the money fully back in income tax cuts and anyone's MATH proves this. The Liberal argument, and yours, has focused on how the claims that it will increase taxes and costs to Canadians is a lie. This in itself is a lie of epic proportions. Nobody truly believed it would or claimed it would. Ah now we get down to the meat of the argument. Now that we know Liberals were lying about not increasing costs and taxes to Canadians, we have a choice to make. Do we want to focus on the environment or the economy right now? Personally, I'm more interested in the economy. This is what's going to affect most of us the most and the jury is still largely out there on global warming. Nobody is arguing the economy isn't in trouble. If you're going to propose a radical carbon tax plan, at least make the proposal honestly to Canadians. You can chose higher taxes for the environment's benefit or you can chose lower taxes and wait a little while to do anything with the environment. I'll take option B thanks.