Moonbox

I think it was a really really unbelievably simple question to understand. It was asked more than 3 times in the CLEAREST possible language. His english isn't good, but it is plenty good enough to debate in English. He heard the question. He began answering it. He bumbled with some stupid 30-50 plan crap and then realized he sounded like a tard so he asked to restart. Then, even AFTER his aide explained the question, he still couldn't answer. It's not like there was any complicated english. From my perspective, you can take this two ways. Either Dion really has no idea what he's going to do with the economy and got called out on it, or he's a total moron who can't understand a question phrased in the simplest of language. If Dion wasn't just avoiding a question he had no answer for then for some strange reason the simple concept of imagining what he would have done in Stephen Harper's place was completely beyond him.

Manwithnoname your post was way to long to quote but it's so full of balogna I don't even know where to start.

Jdobbin those taxes don't matter! The business income taxes are irrelevant when the businesses are losing money and closing up shop! We need businesses to START UP in Ontario. There are industries closing up in Ontario that are NEVER coming back because we will NEVER be able to compete with Chinese labour. We have a skilled workforce and the rest of the world knows this so again, WHY ARE WE TAXING PEOPLE MORE THAN EVERYONE ELSE FOR INVESTING IN ONTARIO??????? I CANNOT ask the question any clearer but feel clearly to skirt around the question and ignore like you usually do.

There are advantage in corporate revenue taxes relative to the rest of North America yes. That advantage erodes very quickly when companies are not making money...kind of like now. A high capital tax rate discourages companies from starting NEW BUSINESS because it's more expensive to do so here. When entire industries have been shifting away from Ontario for 20 years now why are we discouraging new ones from starting?????

Historically volatile?? What? What's your starting point for history? It's ALWAYS been volatile and anyone buying equity knows this. There will be huge buying opportunities moving on. The market will go back to it's historic high over the next few years and the people buying at the low point (myself included hopefully having secured lending facilities and savings for this specific market correction). The average person invests the most retarded way possible. They get excited when the market is flying high and jump on the bandwagon only to realize they bought over valued stock and then when the correction happens they jump on the panicwagon and sell when it's low. If people would keep a level head they will realize they've lost nothing until they liquidate and selling off everything right now after a 30% dip is probably not a great idea.

You cited the CTF in another thread where they compared Harper's spending increases to Martin's. The difference was less than 1% higher for Harper. Go back to your CTF reference and see what they say about Dion's Liberal plan. The CTF offers scathing criticism for Dion's Green Shift and confirms what we all know. It will increase taxes for the average Canadian. I already said I like income tax cuts better. The Liberals aren't offering that. They're offering a net INCREASE in taxes.

I really did try to keep an open mind about the Green Shift. I went to their site and actually played with their calculator, thinking they'd probably put an emphasized positive spin on it. The calculator on the Liberal website itself shows that it will ONLY provide net benefits to the VERY POOREST of our population with multiple kids. It will increase taxes on business and the average Canadians and basically every third party economist/agency/analyst/group confirms this in their calculations. If the economy were booming along, I probably wouldn't cry about it, but with the economy crapping out on us the very last thing we need is to shock what will eventually be a recovering economy.

Because Ontario has the 4th highest capital/investment tax rates of any country/state/province in the WORLD. Dalton McGuinty is a joke and so is his government. He can thank John Tory for hilariously self-destructing last election. Ontario, taxation-wise, IS one of the VERY WORST places in the world to invest new money. This is a FACT and I've explained this to you on numerous occasions. I'll do so again if you don't understand what capital taxes are but I doubt you'll take me up on that offer. Dalton McGuinty and the people supporting his government can cry all they want about what Flaherty said but when foreign companies are looking for places to invest they see for themselves how bad the investment capital taxes are. THAT is what is going to affect their decisions, not some silly feud between Flaherty and poor wittle Dalton. If we're bleeding jobs why on earth would you over-tax companies looking to invest new money and create new jobs???????????

Cheers to you New Brunswick.

I think I might have seen that. Was that the low-budget and balogna debate on the CBC between relative nobodies? He blew it by overestimating the intelligence of voters in Ontario and Quebec and underestimating their ignorance in terms of anything politcally related. Actually, he and Gloria Kovach already have my vote thanks to the advanced polls. I've never been able to vote for someone so attractive before. Gloria's pretty cute.

I'll agree with that. Personally I voted for Chretien the first term and I voted for Martin the first time as well. I think they did a decent job balancing the books but I prefer the lower taxes under Harper. Other than the Liberals running big surpluses with higher taxes and Harper running lower surpluses with lower taxes, I really saw very little difference in their competence economically. If it wasn't for the Green Shift I'd probably still feel the same. I'm totally happy with a Liberal or Conservative right of centre government. I'm just not sold on a Liberal government promising tax hikes and income distribution which would undo a lot of what Martin, Chretien and Harper have done.

A good find. Basically every objective third party expert in the world is saying we are on the right track. Harper's doing a good job. Don't expect my friends in Central --> Eastern Canada believe that though.

I'm scared. I'll go on record right now saying I think that we are more likely to see a Liberal government than a Conservative one. Harper's campaign has been terrible. Dion's hasn't been great but Harper completely blew it by speaking honestly about current economic conditions. That might sound funny, but it was a huge mistake to tell people the Canadian economy is doing fine and that they should be looking to buy in the stock markets right now. Personally, I was way ahead of him on that one and have secured credit and savings so I can play vulture on the stock market, but it's certainly NOT what Ontarions and Quebecquers wanted to hear. To be honest, I'm not even sure what my fellow Ontarions wanted to hear. Did they want to hear Harper would spend into deficit to maintain liquidity in the market? A dip in the red would likely have the average Canadian pulling their hair out. When fiscal (government spending) policy is proven to be (along with central bank interest rate adjustments) the only effective ways to absorb short term shocks to the economy, what is ANYONE going to be able to do about the economy? Nothing, but most people don't know that and I don't expect them to. Take heart from knowing that Canadian Banking regulation over the last 30 years has been extremely strong in Canada and will continue to be.

So....the business-friendly Harper government has HURT the economy. I see. I had it all wrong!

This has been your argument in about 800 different threads. Harper's spending increases pretty much kept pace with Martin's spending increases. You quoted a source from the CTF the other day I think that confirmed that. I will agree with you that a 1% income tax cut is better than a 1% GST cut as far as people's wallets are concerned. The 2% GST cut, however, is quite a bit better than a 1% income tax cut and that's what the Liberal's promised last election. These are not the only tax cuts from the Tories either. What Harper did was return power and money to the provinces. THAT was his real spending increase. The provinces were hurting and needed that money. Education, Social Services, Health Care etc are ALL provincial services so why should the provinces hurt for money while the federal government over taxes us?

Could it POSSIBLY mean that the effect of 'Harpernomics' as the Liberals like to say has been twisted, misrepresented and completely exaggerated? Could it possibly mean that his policies may have had a cushioning effect on our market? We're better off than the entire rest of the world DESPITE being the most closely linked economy to the USA's. I THINK that's a good thing and I THINK that might mean that Harper really hasn't done a bad job at all. BTW, I think, you might, need to go back, to punctuation, class. Sorry I couldn't resist.

What the public 'buys' is their perogative. I'm on these forums arguing that the centre or centre-right voter is making a wrong choice voting Liberal this election. The Liberals and NDP are most certainly fanning the flames of panic. Our economy has slowed, that's for sure. What the question now is what can realistically be done about the situation? The economy of the US, where 75% of Canada's exports go, is tanking. Demand for Canadian exports will similarly tank. Carbon taxes are not going to encourage recovery and growth. Increased regulation AFTER the fact is not going to encourage growth. NDP corporate tax increases will DETER growth. Anyone thinking that a Liberal or NDP government is somehow going to improve the economic situation given their platforms is way out to lunch. They have no plan either, at least none that means anything. They're just blowing hot air and trying to emotionally appeal to the worried voter. Harper may seem insensitive to you but that's because he's trying to calm people down and not exaggerate the situation. Investor and consumer panic hurts the economy just as much or more than the actual market conditions themselves.

What do Jack and Dion have to say about that?

Wonder what wayne easter has to say about that....

Jdobbin your arguing on this forum is getting a little silly. You've been stumped and the best response you could come up with was to request a direct quotation. For the sake of logical argument, the requirement for an actual quote lies squarely on YOUR shoulders. You need to prove that Harper said what you claimed because it's impossible for us to directly quote someone not saying something. If you're going to ask someone to put the effort of a direct quotation, at least make the effort of refuting the points they've made. Pretty much every point you've made in this thread has fallen flat. You're making some really worthless assumptions here and if I asked you to explain your position on what the Conservatives have specifically done to harm the economy and HOW any proposed Liberal plans would make ANY difference at this point you'd miserably fail. I don't think many people are arguing that the Green Shift wouldn't be good for the environment. What everyone is arguing is that an income redistribution tax which makes life and business more expensive for the VAST majority of taxpayers and businesses will NOT encourage economic growth at this point and help us in ANY way to avert a canadian financial meltdown. Explain to me what you think Dion has proposed that's going to do anything at this point to help anyone in Canada avoid a financial crisis that originated in another country. Please. Enlighten me. I don't want to hear your random one liners and your emotional appeals. I would really love to hear you go point for point explaining specifically how anything Dion has planned here is going to positively influence any of the forces slowing our economy down right now. Give it a shot. I'm of the opinion that we do need to take steps towards helping the environment. What I question, however, is the unveiling of a dramatic new taxation scheme in the middle of one of the biggest financial crises in world history.

I don't think environmental taxes and increased cost of living is going to help us out in our current economic situation. If you really want to protect the environment, invest in tech development for clean energy etc. Don't tax the only affordable source of fuel Canadians have right now and make it more expensive for them to live during a recession.

Perception and reality are often very different things but Party Leaders one and all are ALL arrogant. If you're voting based on body language from a bunch of stiffs in suits you really need to wake up. Maybe you should move down to the USA and vote based on which leader is more catholic or what type of dog they have. Personally, I don't think I really even like Harper. He's dissapointed me on a good number of occasions and I think his campaign this year was an absolute failure. With that said, I like that he's cut taxes and I love what he's done to immigration policy and I think what he's DONE while in government have been very good for the economy and that along with health care is the most important thing for me in any election. I know from my own extensive and personal research that the Green Shift will end up costing me and everyone but the very poor a good deal of money. It's not good for business, it's not good for the average consumer and if you want to put that sort of added strain to the economy under the current circumstances then go ahead and vote Liberal.

Regular people 'predict' where the economy is going all the time. Sometimes they're right and more often they're not. What a woman predicted a year ago about the americans losing their homes is irrelevant considering that the bad stuff had ALREADY hit the fan by then and everyone already knew EXACTLY what was going on and banks were already posting multi-billion dollar losses. Finally Topaz, what 'this woman' predicted and what you heard 'two guys' say about the economy sounds about as reliable as Russian car. The case in point here is there are hundreds of millions of 'regular folk' wetting their beds these days about the economic crisis because they had no idea what was coming and had no clue what the various indicators and signals meant. They had NO idea.

None of that even makes sense and ignores basically every function of logic possible.

That's a little far out I think. I agree that corporations are inherently greedy and whatnot and should be regulated to an extent but you went a little too far there....