Moonbox

I can appreciate how expensive home care and the like are as I recently had to help a very old grandmother arrange it. The only problem with this is that it is PROHIBITIVELY expensive to provide it to the entire low-income senior population. I fear because of how much it and similar services cost the low income Baby Boomers are going to be in for an unfortunate surprise when our senior population balloons over the next 10-15 years.

I just think it is an interesting choice for leader of the party. Being fat is a lifestyle and the 'image' it exudes is the opposite of environmentalism, which is what the Greens are all about.

It will be amusing to see public opinion drop for the Greens after they get a good look at Elizabeth May. This will probably be taken as hugely offensive and I don't mean it to be a judgement of character but I find it somewhat ironic to see someone leading an environmental crusade who clearly eats more than her fair share. Eating too much food is also not good for the environment.

It was their decision to make. It was also their decision to fire her. There's something to be said about the 'arm's length' argument the opposition makes, but when you have an appointed official from the previous government deciding to close down a facility vital to world health on concerns that were ignored for many years before by the SAME OFFICIAL and discarded by the same previous government who appointed her, you have to question her motives. In this case, there's substantial reason to believe that this was a partisan decision by an arrogant bureaucrat to embarrass the current administration. She made a completely misguided decision that put tens of thousands of Canadians DIRECTLY at risk on the basis of another concern whose risk was negligible and completely unjustified by almost any expert's opinion. If the Canadian government is NOT responsible for making life or death decisions like this and we should be leaving them to petty officials with politically motivated agendas then I think I might move to Iceland.

Oh well that's a compelling response. Blame God I guess right? You're the one throwing blame around without any idea what you're talking about. Liberal Ministers were quoted saying that Walkerton was a tragedy that no government could have realistically prevented. The water inspector was a drunk and he was forging documents. To some extent, you have to trust that your watch dogs will not need watch dogs otherwise there'd be no end to how much regulation would cost. The head of Maple Leaf foods has stated that the Lysteriosis outbreak was his company's fault. You can't have meat inspectors on the floor 24/7 and thus again, you have to trust the companies to some extent on their own. Finally, Chalk River was only made into a big issue because a Liberal appointee made what is widely considered a politically motivated decision to close down a facility that I've now read provides desperately needed materials to hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide because of a less than 1/10000000 chance that something bad COULD happen. I've already countered all of your arguments. Your post was lame, biased and without any substance whatsoever. Try again.

Answering my question with another question and then some nonsense rhetoric about evil Harper and his dictatorship leads one to believe that you are just blowing hot air and have no idea what you're talking about. I'll ask the question again. How does recognizing Quebec Nationalism make ANY difference to you or me or anyone else?

The US election is bullshit and even worse bullshit than our own. If you think that American politics is somehow compelling than you should also check out: The Hills because it's all 100% drama put together by a bunch of suits campaigning to an electorate so dumb the rest of the world can't help but shake their heads. Why would anyone care which presidential candidate is more devoutly religious? Why are the main campaign issues whether Barack Obama thinks himself smarter than everyone else or not, or Sarah Pellin's pregnant daughter? How dumb does a country have to be to make a big fuss because someone won't wear a freaking pin on their jacket? The idealogical divide that you say makes US politics so interesting is nothing but political indoctrination to a degree that you see in VERY few other nations. There are a few 'swing' voters that do vote based on the issues and those are the ones campaigns are directed to, but 90% of the US electorate votes the exact same way every election because they grew up being told by daddy that democrats were evil socialists or republicans were run by evil corporations. George Bush has been one of the most disastrous leaders of the Western World in modern history. His bungles internationally and domestically rival those of leaders like Chamberlain and yet it's VERY possible that the American people will re-elect the administration that ran his government. Why? Because when you grow being told what to do and what to think your talent for making excuses and refusing logic/reason becomes lengendary. The majority of Canadians are pretty ignorant. The majority of Americans are so ignorant that you probably need to invent a new word to describe how ignorant they really are. Watching the American elections makes me sick.

and you fail to look a little further into the issue and realize that Chalk River was a problem that the Liberals had been ignoring for years before the Cons were elected. Shiela Frasier, the auditor general at the time, corresponded with Liberal Health Minister Herb Dhaliwhal warning that Chalk River was not up to snuff and that safety concerns were over time becoming significant. Dhaliwhal poo-pooed the exact same issues and said he thought everything was fine. Linda Keen had her job from 2001-2008 and these problems were made apparent well before the Conservatives were ever elected. I wonder if there MIGHT have been a little bit of political motivation in her choosing to raise a stink over the issue under the conservatives when she did absolutely nothing for the previous 5 years when the Liberals who appointed her were governing.

The tories aren't competing with the Green or NDP. Any gains they make will be at the Liberal's expense. Go green. Go NDP.

and how does accepting Quebec Nationalism affect you specifically? Is this maybe kind of like Liberal pandering to urban ethnic voters and immigrants? Yeah I thought so.

Walkerton happened because the water inspector in the area forged and cheated his inspections. It had nothing to do with a lack of funding. Next? You've failed to provide the link where you actually explain how it was the result of Conservative management that the public food inspections were inadequate. For all we know the problem might have happened under Liberal government as well. You need cause and effect to lay blame, not just effect. Otherwise you're just ranting partisanship. It is good management. On the one hand, you CERTAINLY endanger tens of thousands of lives worldwide and in Canada, condemning many to unnecessary death, and on the other, you run the almost impossible risk of a big earthquake which would endanger a few thousand working in and around the plant in the time it takes to complete the retrofits. You either default on an international responsibility that tens of thousands depend on for their lives or you run the 0.00000000000001% chance of an earthquake devastating Chalk River. The earthquakes in the area are barely felt and even if they're like 2.0 3.0 richters. You'd need a 6.0 or 7.0 for any damage to occur and even then it would be light. Linda Keen's assessment of risk was also WAY off according to most nuclear experts and completely out of touch with reality. Here's a former senior safety commissioner and current advisor of R&D for the CANDU: Linda Keen's Balogna Read that and tell me she made a wise and objective decision to close the plant down. Haha.

Oh I remember Chalk River I think. Was that the fiasco where an appointed Liberal, acting as a nuclear regulator, ordered the closure of the plant that produces most of the world's medical isotopes and thus would have been directly responsible for almost assuredly tens of thousands of lost and endangered lives worldwide? What was her reasoning again? Oh yeah. This plant, almost 200 kilometers north west of Ottawa, wasn't earthquake proof. Now, let's think this through. Should you: A ) Close the plant and most assuredly leave tens of thousands worldwide without medical material needed to diagnose cancer (which will lead to deaths) or B ) Keep the plant running, make the necessary repairs and improvements while it's running and run the 'danger' of a freak Northern Ontario earthquake (haha) large enough to endanger the plant and the town's tiny population. Gee I dunno...

I know that Mike Harris balanced the budget of Ontario after a $9 BILLION deficit (the biggest ever) under Bob Rae and then Flaherty balanced the budget EVERY YEAR he was finance minister until Mike Harris resigned. You can say what you want about Ernie Eves and what he did because even PC supporters feel betrayed by his legacy, but when you talk about Flaherty's record in Ontario why don't you ask Dalton McGuinty why he's whining about budget problems after something like $24 Billion worth of spending increases along with higher taxes since 2003. Hmmmmmmmmmm..............

When I think Bob Rae, I think, "Worst Premier of Ontario EVER" and so does most of the rest of Ontario. Rae recorded Ontario's biggest deficit of its history and he did this before the federal liberals cut transfer payments to the provinces. I'm pretty sure that Ontario will remember how he and his NDP screwed the province over and killed the NDP provincially ever since.

FPTP is not archaic in a federation. It's used for a reason. Just because you don't understand or refuse to doesn't make it the wrong system to use.

No it's not. It's not a fact either. If the Queen commanded anything of us the Commonwealth in its entirety would laugh at her.

I've actually met Bob Rae and he's a very smart and charismatic guy but I doubt he'd do any better than Dion for the Liberals. Why? Because he was one of Ontario's worst premier and what he did to our province is still fresh in everyone's mind. Bob Rae as PM would alienate the one and only province the Liberals have a strong presence in.

Oh? From what I've seen in the polls and previous elections the conservatives and the liberals (who of recent have both been right of centre for the last 25 years) have decimated the left alternatives (who've never controlled 50% of parliament) in every election. The NDP and Green Party, like I said, are irrelevant to all but the far left and the vast majority of Canadians and the rest of the vote is split between the red and the blue. Current polls show that between the cons and the libs that accounts for almost 70% of the popular vote. Now the Liberals certainly weren't a left leaning government under Chretien/Martin but Dion has them leaning further that way than they've ever been since Trudeau. What does that tell you?

What are you trying to say? I totally don't understand what you're getting at....

I think the left wing parties in canada are completely out of touch with what Canadians actually care about. The Green Party campaigns for primarily the environment but as we can see that's not really something Canadians are putting much priority in during a quasi-recession. The NDP and it's leader are the biggest joke in Canadian politics right now. They'll fall flat on their faces again this year and never be an official opposition let alone a government. Their policies are so directly focused on pandering to have-nots, unions or government funded workers that anyone anyone outside these groups would never even dream of voting for them. The Liberals killed themselves by following Dion down the road back to the Trudeau-era way of thinking.

I'm not ignoring that he sold off assets. Yes, I know that helped. Personally I think the 407 sale was a bad move. With that said, he DID make the most drastic expenditure cuts the province has really ever seen. Budget balancing takes time and in this case they set Ontario back on track after Peterson and Rae. The Ontario Liberals are wildly exaggerating their claims that Harris mismanaged finances. The finances just didn't work into the Ontario Liberal's plan and that's just too bad for them. Go play with the Green Shift calculator on the Liberal website. The savings are directed almost entirely towards the VERY BOTTOM income earners. It's crap for anyone with anything better than a job at Mcdonald's or without two kids. Seriously. Try it out.

Jdobbin I've already discussed this with you i'm pretty sure. I don't think Stephen Harper has any intentions of implementing ANY plan while he's in office. He made one up but I think it was just something to say. Personally I'm not going get upset about it.

I was just playing around on the Liberal website and I came across a calculator where they told you to 'calculate' your savings under the Green Shift. The Green Shift I fiddled a bit and found that if you are a family with 2 kids and a combined income of $20,000, you end up saving over $2000 under the Green Shift. If you do not have children, however, or if your income is above what a high school student makes at McDonald's those savings erode VERY quickly. Someone with 2 kids with a family income of $60,000 saves only about $1000 a year under the Green Shift and someone with no kids saves almost NOTHING. Considering now that it's widely accepted that carbon taxes WILL pass on costs to consumers, how much do prices really need to increase before your non-minimum wage Green Shift savings erode into the negative? People, this is from the Liberal's own website. Nobody can argue after playing with the calculator that this isn't just another social income equilization tax. Even if you're poor yourself this isn't going to save you a lot of money. You have to be at the very bottom of the barrell as far as income is concerned (as in pitifully low combined FAMILY incomes of $20-30,000) and have multiple children for this plan to look good to you. Nobody is exaggerating how bad this plan looks to the AVERAGE or WEALTHY Canadian. Now the question should be: Are hardworking Canadians excited about the idea of subsidizing Canadians that can't manage (for numerous reasons likely) to find a job that pays more than minimum wage?

Go to the Libera's Green Shift website. It has a calculator right there telling you how much you'll save in taxes. For a family with a combined income of $20,000 and two children it would save you $2148 in tax rebates. Pretty impressive huh? On the other hand, if you make $60,000 and have two children, you save less than half of that. With no children, you save practically NOTHING. Those with middle or higher incomes and those with no children will NOT save enough money to offset the carbon tax. I'm all about progressive tax brackets, but what I'm seeing here is just another Liberal tax and spend plan looking to take from the 'haves' and give to the 'have nots'. Personally, I have no interest whatsoever in supporting a 25 year old single mother with 4 kids. None at all.

This is true. In fact, Canada's military budget is 1/3 the size of CHINA's. With that said, we've seen a 27% increase in spending since 2001, and a LOT of that money has been spent refitting a military that has been crippled by spending cuts and military sell offs. In years to come our military IS on the road to modernization and full independant capability, but we fell so far behind for about 25 years that right now the spending increases aren't buying a lot of new equipment. Rather, it's repairing and making serviceable what we didn't maintain from before.