marksman

I don't understand that criticism. Politicians make the list of candidates in each riding so what's the difference between the list of candidates in the ridings and the list of candidates used to make the seat totals proportional to the vote totals?

And in your world European history is wrought with chocolate candy and cute fluffy bunnies is that it?

I agree but what happens when everyone does the same thing? The other day I was on the Conservative webpage and it had more pictures of Dion than of Harper on the 1st page. I just checked it now and at least now there're 3 pictures of Harper compared to 2 of Dion. Even now they've got a graph showing how Dion mentioned the green shift less in his recent speeches. Heaven forbid a political leader have more than 1 policy in their platform during a federal election. Both the Liberals and Conservatives need to get their heads out of their butts before Canadian voters feel they have something to vote for rather than something to vote against.

You've got it right. All this type of campaigning does is make people tired of listening and caring. Every party does it and then wonders why voter turnout is low.

I didn't say looking at actual numbers was not an issue of substance. I said trying to attack the name of a policy was to prioritize form over substance. Especially when that name is a common 1 in the industry. That's what you did in the 1st post in this thread and that's what I responded to. Even in the best possible light your 1st post might rise to the level of a petty partisan attack. But it certainly wasn't looking at the substance of the policy. Gee where've we heard that before. All you needed was a picture of a soldier standing on a street corner and an ominous voice saying "we did not make this up". The "oh my gosh that guy is so scary" argument was rightly criticized by Harper supporters when it was aimed at Harper. It carries just as much weight when aimed against any other leader. I'm not sure how you went from me saying that I was responding to 1 of your posts not all of them to my feelings being hurt. Don't worry though. I don't have an emotional investment in what happens here on mapleleafweb. Anyone who does should probably take a break from the internet. Also for future consideration when someone points out a flaw in your argument and you respond with a totally different point you should know that doesn't count as a defense of your original position.

If you've got webpages with a tally of each party's figures post them please. It seems like you're saying don't vote for Dion because he knows we're on the brink and his spending will destroy us. But that assumes we're on the brink and if that's true then Harper is the 1 who brought us there and you're now telling us to vote for the person who doesn't even realize he brought us to the brink with his spending. So your argument on why we shouldn't try to deal with climate change now with a carbon tax - offset by income taxes and not just a tax to the gills - is because future generations will need to deal with climate change? Someone's been listening to a few too many John McCain ads. I reject the implication that if I don't vote for Harper I must be a traitor. That type of thinking generally doesn't play too well in Canada.

I don't understand. You're saying that the Greens are a fringe party and your 2nd piece of proof is that they kicked out a candidate that might've said inappropriate things. That sounds like the actions of a mainstream party not a fringe party. If saying inappropriate things is your definition of fringe then there's an agricultural minister that meets your criteria. To partially agree with you though I've got no doubts that if you questioned every candidate from every party and they actually answered honestly you'd find a lot more fringe people in every party.

Coyne made the very accurate point that just because you've put a spending program into the tax system doesn't make it a tax cut at least not in the way that tax cuts have normally been understood. Example you can give a $300/year baby bonus in multiple ways. 1 way is to just send a cheque to parents for $300 at the end of the financial year. That's a spending program. A 2nd way is you could give parents $300 at the end of the financial year by letting them reduce their payable taxes by that much. That's 1 form of a Harper "tax cut". A spending program hidden in the tax system is still a spending program. These programs are called "tax expenditures" in other words spending. When the GST was cut I don't think Coyne included it in his spending calculations because that was a real tax cut. Your other points are also clear examples of spending. It doesn't matter why they spent the money because they still spent the money. Saying that money wasn't spent because it went to pay the debt doesn't make sense. He pointed out that the overall level of spending had increased by a huge amount. And he was right.

How silly of me for pointing out that people should look at the substance and not the spin. What a ridiculous claim I've made that I think we should expect our politicians to be professional rather than twisting facts so that they can then mock their opponents. Your support for prioritizing form over substance is why politicians think they can get away with that useless behaviour. You opened the topic by mocking the name so I pointed out that I think Canadians and our politicians should rise above such behaviour. I'm not replying to every post you've ever made in these forums. I'd like to see a list of priorities and how much it'll cost from every single party. In the meantime what Dion's suggesting doesn't seem too different from what Harper's been doing since he was elected.

That perfectly describes the blog entry in the 1st post.

1 candidate doesn't necessarily represent the whole party. Reform, Conservative Alliance and Conservative Party all fought these same accusations.

I think their press release called it "a new plan for catastrophic drug coverage". Politics is bad enough as it is I don't think we need to criticize someone's policy because someone else might try to mock it. Maybe you should start expecting some decorum from the political opponents who mock the names of things rather than criticizing those who come up with policies worthy of being discussed. Looks like you've got your priorities mixed up and would prefer to discuss form rather than substance.

Probably no more than Harper planned on taking over provincial responsibility when Harper talked about wait times. I think the goal is to have a national minimum standard for covering catastrophic drugs. Provinces that don't have this get cash to do it and provinces that already meet that standard get cash which frees up the money they're currently spending. Seems like a good idea for everyone.

I can accept that you think some targeted things are bad and some good. I'd interpreted your 1 post to mean that you were against the Liberal Green Shift because it targeted groups and was an example of social engineering without acknowledging that every platform has targeted groups and contains examples of social engineering. Sorry for any confusion. Debating which types of social engineering to vote for is a much better debate than the arguments that many people on this forum start where they'll accuse 1 party of something while ignoring that their favourite party does the same. Your statement is true and I find it very ironic since almost any economist will tell you that it's better for people to have their income taxes cut than cutting a consumption tax. But Canadians did like it last time around. I don't know if it'd be such a bad thing to talk about raising the GST assuming you have a carrot to go along with that stick. With actual communication I think Canadians would be smart enough to see the benefits of an income tax cut offsetting a higher GST but I doubt anyone would get elected if they proposed a GST higher than 7%. That's definitely true but I think it'll still overall benefit higher income Canadians more. That's my guess since I'm not sure there're stats that show who claims what credits based on their income. No offense taken then. I'm still trying to figure out who here treats other members the way they would in real life where a statement like that is just a phrase with no malicious intent compared to members who feel the internet gives them license to be rude and arrogant and mock others without having the slightest clue what those others are really about. The same phrase'll have 2 different meanings depending on who writes it so sometimes it's easy to mistake an innocent phrase for a malicious 1.

You complained that the Liberal plans were targeted to specific groups. All I'm saying is that so were Harper's plans last time around. I haven't read his platform yet for this time but I'm not expecting much different. All parties target groups. The dollars saved by lower income Canadians wasn't significant. It's been discussed in other topics but lower income Canadians don't save as much as you'd think because basic necessities aren't taxed by the GST at all and lower income Canadians get GST rebates. The GST cut benefited high income Canadians disproportionately to lower and middle income Canadians - it was targeted for a specific group. A sports expense is targeted to a specific group which is what you're complaining about - it was targeted for families with children who play sports. It's a very specific credit even more specific than some of the groups you were complaining about. You've complained about farmers being given special breaks but don't you see how families with kids who play sports is also a targeted group? While your justification for the sports credit doesn't have to do with it being a targeted credit it's still important to say that it doesn't benefit lower income Canadians more than higher income Canadians. In order to get the credit you've got to spend a certain amount of money on sports fees for your kids with the maximum being $500 per kid. It's more likely that higher income Canadians can afford the full $500 resulting in a savings of $75 per kid. Lower income Canadians are less likely to be able to afford the full $500 and even if they did would receive the same $75 benefit as everyone else. It's not apparent that lower income Canadians are more apt to benefit than higher income Canadians. It's the exact opposite that's true. It's unnecesary to imply that I don't have a basic understanding of the tax system.

And that's the problem with the Greens isn't it? They're a 1 dimensional party. No matter how much you care for the environment governing a country takes more than an environmental policy. What I've so far read from them on any issue that isn't environmental doesn't convince me they'd be a good choice to vote for.

If you're going to clog the topic with complete rubbish then at least try to make it consistent. Are immigrants losers who find excuses to avoid work or are they stealing jobs from Canadians? The only people trying to water down Canada's democratic voice are people like you who're ranting against other Canadian citizens and their democratic rights. You've got no right to complain about people ruining Canada and no right to boast of your knowledge of Canadian history if the best source for Canadian history you can come up with is George Washington. A constitution written and debated by Canadian elected officials means we're British subjects?

I'm quoting 2 of you at once because you're making the same point I think. You're saying that the income tax cuts are only going to a specific group of people in the Liberal tax plan. But if you voted for Harper last time then you voted for the exact same thing. His GST cuts benefited higher income Canadians way more than lower income Canadians and all of his income tax cuts were aimed at specific groups of people. I hope you complained about wealth redistribution and social engineering last time around. Harper's income tax cuts were aimed at people with kids people with kids who play sports and so on. I didn't have any interest last election in supporting a rich family with 4 kids but it happened anyway. If I'd have to choose between the 2 options I'd rather help the single mother since she probably needs the money more.

Wasn't it the Harper government that wanted to limit what you see by withholding tax credits for productions that it deemed inappropriate? Blaming censorship only on leftists isn't accurate. Let the ads show what they want. Canadians should be smart enough to punish the ads that don't contribute to the discussion of the issues. Of course when everyone engages in the lowest common denominator behaviour then I guess we're all just screwed.

Yes we've all heard of the "big green" lobby. Those poor oil companies are really on the run. When will they get a voice in politics? There're a number of problems with that list. The massive damage to the economy if you tried to eliminate all debt in the shortterm is 1 problem. Wanting aboriginals to overcome their past of being forced to integrate by forcing them to integrate is another problem.

The name of a plan has nothing to do with the substance of a plan. They could've checked the name in advance and decided on something different but none of that means anything for how well the substance of the plan was thought out. For example we have "fixed election date legislation" that doesn't actually create a fixed election date. Bottom line is I don't care what a politician names their plan I only care about what the plan actually does or doesn't do.

More information is better than less information and that goes for ads polls and almost anything else. Even media biases generally balance each other out. It's too bad that most of the information we get in these ads shows us how sad politics is in Canada.

Examples of moving goalposts include saying that hindcast models don't give "any indication of how the models may perform in the future" and when that was pointed out to be obviously false you "clarified" that what you really meant was that models shouldn't be used for public policy decisions. Those are 2 very different arguments. I've repeatedly said that models will be validated with future data. You've repeatedly ignored that. What I've got a problem with is when you make a different claim saying only that we don't know if these models are true because there are so many parameters. These claims of yours don't include anything about future data and are pointless. You can make those claims about any climate science if you wanted but somehow this criticism only falls on those models that show human caused climate change. Even when presented with a clear example of 1 of your favourite sources explicitly manipulating parameters for a model you avoid the issue by switching to the argument that he wasn't really claiming that his model showed the IPCC models wrong while at the same time saying that the same work shows how the IPCC has ignored his valid contributions which would show the IPCC models wrong. It's a contradiction to say the least. You keep leaping to conclusions with these black and white examples even though black and white aren't the only 2 options. 1 explanation is that it could suggest data collected since 1960 is better than data collected prior to 1960. Also your 1st premise is again wrong. The IPCC results are based on studies of the entire 20th century not just from 1960. 1960 also isn't a special year since there is no substantial difference in the predictions before 1960 from the predictions after 1960. They fit loosely the same across the entire century's record. They aren't "almost exactly right" and they don't miss anything significant. You appear to simply dismiss everyone except those who say that the IPCC either missed something or is corrupt. Never mind the fact that there is no such thing as an "IPCC model" since the IPCC just looks at studies done by scientists around the world. Yet another example of how in 2007 when the IPCC was preparing its latest report it should've looked into the future to prove to you that it was unbiased.

As much as I'd like to let it go the fact is I don't misrepresent you or ignore your so-called detailed explanations. You like to move the goalposts when your positions are criticized or you ignore the basic facts. For example All complex science of this type is done in this way so you're arguing against the scientific method. It proves nothing since the argument applies to all science whether it supports human caused climate change or not. When people use this method to reach a conclusion you agree with you use it as evidence for 1 course of action - do nothing - but when you don't like the conclusions then the method is flawed so we shouldn't take a different course of action - do something. They reproduce the trends within a range with reasonable certainty values. Once again you've tried to set up a situation where you say the models are invalid if they match the data - see your 1st point - and they're invalid if they don't match the data - see your 2nd point. The same models were used before and after 1960 so you can't have it both ways. The results have not been discredited. They've been supported. Mann's work involved a questionable statistical method which even those criticizing the method said didn't prove the results were wrong. The fact that the IPCC chose to look at all of the studies and reach the conclusion supported by those studies shows that they can be trusted despite the misinformation that's out there. The only political objectives being carried about are by those who focus on one piece of work and then mischaracterize its flaws and then attempt to discredit an entire body of work based on their misinformation. No detailed explanation changes the fact that your basic premise - that the results were proven invalid - is wrong.

You expose more and more of your ignorance with each post.