Moonbox

I'm more inclined to notice it about yours. You tried to draw a comparison between Harper and Dief (who only had that they were conservatives in common really) based on the naming of an Icebreaker of all things. We were kindly provided with the rationale for the naming of the ship, even then you tried to make that into a partisan issue. Dancer's reply to you was spot on.

I don't think that's fair to say. Yes, much of the CPC's support comes from the same place as the reform, but much of it comes from the rest of Canada. The CPC is altogether different than the reform in that its policies appeal to all of Canada rather than just the west. As far as I'm concerned, it's as if the reform party never happened.

The Liberals may implode, but it won't be as bad as it was for the post-mulroney right. It will just be a bad couple of years maybe. I don't think they'll win this election, but I think there is enough people in Ontario to keep them alive and relevant in the years to come.

ah good to know. Never even thought of that.

No. I can almost guarantee Harper wouldn't support a mission against Iran. Why? Because he knows that Canadians (almost 100% of them) wouldn't support that either. Regardless of what you think, he's not an idiot. Bringing up an issue like that is just another fear mongering tactic to provoke a negative response. Harper hasn't done anything with gay or abortion rights has he? He says he doesn't really believe in them himself, but he's smart enough to know that the PM should not govern contrary to what Canadians at large want or feel. Try again?

What??? I mean really....WHAT??? Ontario would become Michigan? Toronto would become Detroit?? Why would that thought even occur to you in this thread? I can't even begin to grasp how we went from my quote saying the US is way more right wing than Canada to yours where you talked about the annexation of Ontario. Wow. Now as to Ontario Loyalist, you can compare Canadian parties to whoever you like. The rationale behind these comparisons, however, is weak at BEST. Comparing the Liberals and NDP to communists IS stupid, but I can do it easily by saying that the Liberals and the NDP are just tax and spend socialists who are anti-big business and want to turn the country into a welfare nation. That sort of assertion is JUST as fallacious, ill-informed and weakly supported as 99.9% of the comparisons made between Harper and Bush. The fact of the matter is that all of the parties in Canada are so far removed from either communism or the American right wing that these comparisons are pointless. All they are is stupid rhetoric invented to provoke emotional responses from an ignorant audience. The right says: "NDP and Liberal is like communism. You all know communism is bad. The NDP is therefore BAD." The left says, "CPC is like Republican. You all hate Bush. Harper is like Bush. You should hate Harper." The problem is that when you get right down to the issues and differences between Canadian politics and any of these stupid comparisons, they don't float any better than a boat full of holes.

I'll just take each post one at a time. As for Afghanistan, yes, it IS hard to leave once you've invested time and lives into it. If you invade another country, topple its government and hope to set up a democracy, you can't just leave halfway through the job. If you do leave before things are stable, the insurgency you have been fighting takes over and you end up with a government that's even more hostile and dangerous before. If that happens, then 100 Canadian soldiers, who likely believed they were fighting for a reason, will have died to make things worse in another country. Tell THAT to their families. Again, the Conservatives didn't send the troops there in the first place. The liberals did. The CPC is just looking at the situation from reasoned perspective rather than knee-jerk partisanship like the Liberals would. As for Mulroney deriving support from Quebec and the West: Umm...Okay? I thought the idea was to gather support in important areas so that you can win the election...Saying Harper is similar to Mulroney on that basis is like saying Dion is similar to Paul Martin because they focus on Ontario. Yes, politics are regional. What is your point as pertaining its relevance to this thread? Finally, yes, it was definetly tacky IMO to name that ship the Dief.

They may be angry, but the Income Trust tax structure as it was previously held couldn't really be justified. It was unfair and again, was basically just a loophole for investors to pay less taxes. It was abused by seniors and large corporations alike. Any reversal of the changes to Income Trust laws would be nothing less than a crooked pander to big business and seniors to the detriment of Canada. How do people even really try to justify Income Trusts as they stood? Really? I'd love to hear someone try because I've never actually seen/heard it before. I don't fault anyone for taking advantage of them, but I do fault any government that tried to justify it.

Actually I think we can rule out the NDP. Layton is an idiot. He's so full of hot air and rhetoric it's not even funny. Sure, he talks like your average Joe and makes promises out of his wazoo, but the vast majority of Canadians know he's 100% full of balogna. He can promise whatever he wants knowing he won't form a government...and he does know he won't. Anyways: Conservatives....153 Liberals...............100 Bloc Quebecois....25 NDP................... 30 Green...................0 Total.................308 I think the Bloc is going to slowly peter out and the NDP will take its place in Quebec. I don't predict a conservative majority but I wouldn't be surprised if your prediction is more accurate than mine. I know Dion's blowing it for the Liberals but I still think there are enough people in Ontario who vote Liberal no matter what to ensure they still have an okay showing.

Comparing Canada's CPC to the USA's Republican party is about as out of touch with reality as would be comparing Canada's NDP or Liberals with Chinese Communism. The US is so right wing that even the democrats would be 10x more conservative than Canada's Conservative party. With that being said, only an idiot (Jean Chretien/Pierre Trudea) would make special efforts to antagonize what has been our strongest ally, trading partner and friend for the last 100 years. When 70+% of Canada's exports go to the US, it might be wise to at least stay cordial with them. Trudeau/Chretien, however, found that they could score points with lowest common denominators in Canada by purposely souring relations with the US. What did this do for Canada? Nothing. It didn't impress the rest of the world. It didn't score Canada points anywhere else. All of it was cheap theatrics that impressed the less intelligent and made it harder to do business on our own Continent. Do I think Canada should support Iraq? No, but our Prime Minister should be looking out for Canada, not playing stupid games that get us nowhere and anger our friends.

The income trust crap had to happen. That sort of loophole was pretty crooked in my opinion. You can go on all you want about trust, but the alternatives you'd provide us are not any more trustworthy. How about the Liberals campaigning to the left and then governing from the right all the way through Chretien/Martin?

The Bloc is a separist party. They are irrelevant to this poll. Guys let off on the technicalities.

Too bad that they only account for 50% of Canada's population. The west is the new Quebec now. I live in Ontario and I'm THRILLED about that. The only reason that Ontario is Liberal is because of Toronto and its gigantic ethnic community. When you have a Liberal government that panders to reunifying unqualified immigrant families, it's unsurprising that the places where they almost exclusively settle vote entirely red. Sadly for the Liberals, focusing exclusively on Toronto and Quebec has and will continue to bite them. Quebec doesn't even like them anymore and Ontario outside of the GTA votes mostly conservative. It's music to my ears and I will be singing/skipping to the polls in October.

I think your comparison for Harper to Mulroney is baseless. I would also say that the only reason for your comparison is that they were both right wing and the opposite to whatever left or centre left party you vote for blindly. BTW the Liberals sent Canada to Afghanistan. Once there, it's hard to get out. So what you're really saying then is that the Liberals were sucking up to the USA right? Harper is rejecting new immigrants because they're not white? How about how he is going to be fast tracking foreign students and people with work visas into the country ahead of other immigrant applicants? Why spend money getting unqualified workers jobs when you can get the qualified ones here on a temporary basis to stay for good as permanent residents? I think you don't know what you're talking about and are just blowing hot air.

Surely he is going sell us all into slavery to the Americans...

I didn't think it was any secret that there are strategists behind most political leadership candidates. That's what they're there for and everyone knows it. Dion probably has a strategist teaching him english and how not to be such a whiney pushover, and Layton probably has a carebear coaching him. One man/woman can't know everything about what Canadians think and how they feel. If you have a good strategist, all that means is that you have someone that knows what Canadians feel and want.

and that's really the whole idea of the Carbon Tax. It's just another big Liberal social program for the have-nots.

entire Opening Post quote deleted by moderator The Governer General is more or less an obsolete position in Canadian politics, much like the Queen is still our head of state. The GG effectively has zero choice or power in the matter.

No we don't. That dubious honor belongs to Australia, and the Americans actually emit more per capita than we do too. This is as of Nov 2007: BBC News Worst Carbon Polluters Per Capita. That link just shows the stats for generating power, but I can bring up other ones as well. We're third, which is obviously not great, but we also have one of the most geographically dispersed populations living in one of the coldest countries in the world. As far as expectations go, we SHOULD be the worst but the Americans and Australians have one-upped us despite our disadvantages. I have seen the Arctic. I see the ice shelfs melting. With that being said, the annual increases in China and India's CO2 emissions ALONE by far outpace any reductions the modern world is making thanks to the Kyoto protocol. What I'm saying here is that unless China and India play ball, what we do here literally makes 0.00001% of a difference. We only make their industry and manufacturing more competitive in comparison to ours which will just encourage them to increase their industry and CO2 emissions even more.

Hey Topaz. If you're going to say something like this back it up. Until you can actually look at it without a 100% bias (like you're doing now), and break down to us which laws have actually been broken, you're not really convincing anyone of anything. This is about as intelligent as me saying, "The Liberals were responsible for killing more babies/puppies/kittens under Jean Chretien than any other government in the last 100 years." It's easy to just make stuff up.

Yep. Harper is Darth Vader in disguise. Another four years of Conservative rule will have you shackled in chains digging for oil with your bare hands...because that's where Canada is headed with all the evil tyrannical laws Harper has passed at the House of Commons....while Dion twiddled his thumbs.... While we're on the topic of completely made up fantasies with no real rational thought behind them, I'll come up with one of my own. Here goes: One day, instead of preaching his ignorant, unsupported and completely far out political dogma, OntarioLoyalist will stop angrily pounding on his keyboard long enough to actually think about what he's typing. If we're lucky, he may even one day come around with a rational, well though-out and well-supported argument. I think it's pretty fair to say that you're not going to be convincing ANYONE of your point of view if all you're going to do is repeat yourself like a broken record and stick your fingers in your ears.

I can only shake my head at that. I attempted to provide a reasoned argument. Your concise answer was nothing less than a childish thought that the average first grader could have communicated with a crayon and could only be perceived by an adult as a smart ass remark totally devoid of any sort of wit/humour. and if could go ahead and surprise us and stretch that thought any further, you might come to grasp the idea that Canada's carbon footprint relative to the rest of the world is about as significant as a fart in the wind. I'm all for not ruining the environment. On the other hand, the clothes you're wearing right now were likely manufactured in world's worst offenders in terms of carbon emissions. For every added cost of doing business in Canada, you move yet another factory overseas to China, where there is ZERO regulation for carbon emissions.

Dual Income with No Kids.

Because if the Conservatives are going to bash Dion's plan they'd more than likely be expected to come up with an alternative plan. Saying, "We're not really worried about the environment," is less abrasive than coming up with an alternative plan that may or may not ever be implemented. There may very well be the odd fringe voter out there who cringes at the thought of Dion leading the country, but who may also care at least a LITTLE about carbon emissions. Yes...it's politics!

No, it's not. I'm not calling you a troll for disagreeing or arguing. I'm calling you a troll because you didn't even read my post before you came up with a one-line balogna response that added NOTHING to the discussion. I think this thread dissproves that. Actually, I can disprove the logic of your response such as it was presented. No environment = no people. Sure. There will, however, always be an environment, and thus no environment is not a possibility in the first place. See? Logic is fun! Now provided you're willing to read any further than that, we can also go back to the meat of my opening post and say that Canada's carbon emissions have a negligible effect on the world environment and regardless of whether or not we meet Kyoto protocol reductions or any similar standards, we will still have an 'environment' .