willy

It did and is likely to be renewed in the next budget. The prorogue of parliament was used four times under Chretien. Not a big deal. This is a card the government gets to play. A new speech from the throne and a new budget with the majority in the senate. The prize for being government for the past four years. The EI plan can be brought back in with the new budget so no need to get the nickers in a knot just yet. Been a while, Willy

Last number of posts are arguments of theology and not fact. How you view new and old testament, who Jesus was and who God is, as a result can differ dramatically. One consistent theme - Jesus does change many things. Good time of year to think about that. As for the start of this thread - not very well thought through. The Conservatives have had a clear message and they have reached out to faith based communities. I would argue that the other three parties in the house have not done a good job of this as of late. They have been offering secularism not pluralism. That is why the traditional numbers are changing for the Liberals. Commentators have recently called them the party of urban elites and young women. As for who would Jesus vote for. That would be a great discussion. I don't think he would fall in our typical left right discussions. Definitely for peace but also for justice. Definitely for helping the marginalized but also for self transformation. I think he would be what they call a compassionate conservative. His issues would be those of the left but the implementation would be the responsibility of individuals and not government. What do you think?

It is easy to say just about anything when you have no power to make it come true. For Layton to say abolish is fine, he is not in a position to make it happen. For Harper to do the same thing it would mean entering into constitutional talks with all the provinces etc. Protest party = pie in the sky. Governing should and is tempered by practicality. For all those who said Harper was an ideologue you should be happy he has shown to be very pragmatic. I.e. auto loans, deficits in recession, appointing without consultation etc. All good Liberal policies. Can the opposition say they would have done different or would they still say more is needed?

This is not unique to the party in government. They are sent out by all MPs. Four times a year an MP can send out a house holder which every household in the riding will receive one. These tend to be a few pages long and cover more information. The other mail outs you may receive are 10%ers. Everyday of the year, every MP is able to send out a short mail out postcard that to approx 10% of a riding. It does not have to be their riding. The rules state that 50% of the content has to change on each 10%er. Thus the short very political surveys mixed in with single message points. All MPs have access to this. My Liberal MP regularly sends out very poorly written communications that are over the top partisan. As they say, don't hate the players, hate the game. I am a Conservative and I wish all parties would use these communication tools to inform and not in a crass political messaging spam junk mail kind of way.

crocodile tears! The government pays attention to the oppositions speeches is not a new story. All parties and MPs have staffers and I would bet they have all been to speeches by other parties. The fact this was on utube does not make it news or scandalous. If the Liberals make more noise about this they better not send any spys out to other parties functions. For example the Liberal Party president attended the last Conservative convention. Was he spying on the Conservatives. Of course, you need to know what the competition is up to and if they have good ideas, steal them. This is so stupid.

I totally agree God does not need our gratitude. God is Omnipotent, Omnipresent and complete. But consider this.... Maybe God has communicated with us. Given some advise about how we are made and what our internal struggles may entail. Being open minded to this reality is a great expedition. There is nothing to lose to exploring an alternate view when you start from a place of non belief. Hope, faith, love and grace are all topics worth exploring. The alternative is very boring. Altruism for its own sake is not that great of a motivation and without altruism we would have an even more desprit world than we do right now. The Church is full of hypocrite's because it is full of people. This fits the Christian metaphysical reality of a fallen world. Saturday night thoughts after a Canucks win. Go Canucks.

Stephen Harper addressed party faithful tonight. He laid out who they want to attract to the party. Does this group represent the majority of Canadians? Highlights: I like this quote but it has nothing to do with this topic. It just made me giggle. Happy St. Patrick's day. Time to go drink a green beer and watch the Canucks kick some Detroit butt.

Baird comment is true but also clever. He said we will do more over then next five years than any other country. Most countries started a number of years ago. We didn't. Baird carefully was referring to progress based on todays numbers not based on the benchmark of 1990. Our benchmark is probably going to be 2003. This is how he can be aggressive but yet responsible. It is not responsible to suggest we will meet the 1990 target in four years.

John Ivison, National Post points out a few key things: These costs will be passed through to the consumer. Higher power bills. The short term nature of the cost may cause nothing more than a cash drain from energy companies. CEOs will be less likely to invest in Canadian operations because their will be a tax on growth.

According to the opposition the Conservatives have been cutting everything. Yes, in some areas it has.

"Dion did not announce a carbon tax. " Yes he did. When the government takes your money and decides how it will be spent, it is a tax. Who are "these people" Don't be a hater. I

Smaller government, justice and populism. Vote Conservative.

“It is probably because intensity based caps resulted in increased emissions.” Intensity based is an efficiency cap. For instance if they improve the emissions from cars the result would be better intensity. A target then would be to reduce each cars emissions by how much. If next year you sold more cars your absolute emissions may go up but each car would have lower emissions. Industry prefers this method because while they improve they can still grow. Most public businesses are founded on the principle of sustained growth. If you can not provide growth markets react badly. If they move to a hard cap system, the cost of production because of the levy would go up and the investment climate would cool. If you have a chance to manage cash flow in a business, you realize what Dion did today might as well be a tax. If you remove cash from a business for two years it can cripple their ability to invest and grow. Not good. Duffy mentioned some steel companies in the Red, many pulp mills are in the red and if they take cash out of these companies it may act like a dominos and put them out of business. For those that don’t like the electric bill. This is also an external tax to coal burning power plants. Yes, the cost is passed on to more business and our homes. This is an inflationary measure and will have a very negative impact on our economy.

The economy will slow with the American economy. Nothing the government can do about that. Dale Orr, is not an external economist. He in my opinion is not a very good economist. He focuses on a very narrow and short term indicators of performance. Transfer payments to the provinces don't go into a hole. The provinces will spend the money. In BC we need many infrastructure improvements. New roads build an economy. In the Quebec debates this week crumbling bridges were used as a political wedge. Liberal cuts have resulted in an infrastructure deficit. It is philosophical but the Conservatives give the money to the provinces to spend on their responsibilities. The Liberals and Dippers prefer to act like big brother and control all the spending. They don't trust the provinces and in the end they don't trust us the tax payer. We may not know what is best and they do Example the best chance to continue growing our economy will be to expand our distribution channels to Asia. We are. The Ports in BC are under major expansion. The construction is underway and the roads and trains need to follow suit to increase capacity. This is a 5 - 10 yr process. Look at the budget over a 5 year time frame and expect todays spending to pay off in the future. Spending to outcome has a lag time. This budget will impact the years ahead. Governments can sure kill jobs but they don't create them. They also don't create productivity. The actions of the Conservatives in the 80's created an environment for growth in the 90's. The Liberals to their credit did not get in the way. They also benefited from falling interest rates that we still are benefiting from. If those rates were to jump, no government could keep us out of deficit. So while we look at the economy, Dion today announced a carbon tax. Many of these industries he talks about are not currently profitable. Our pulp and paper sector has been in the red for a number of years. They are holding on. A carbon tax could put them under and that means thousands of well paid people out of work. Dions economic plan scars the pants of me. Funds like the Ecotrust fund are great ideas. One time funding that is paid for with current moneys. Harper is only spending what they have in the horizon that is predictable.

So which part will they vote down? The extra spending on the environment The extra money for Quebec - fiscal imbalance More transfers for education The tax cuts - which will be aimed at families He will make it very hard for anyone to vote against this budget. If they do vote against it, wow time for a majority.

Alberta will need the money. The environmental clean up from the development and refining of oil and the gas production will add up. If the rest of Canada takes the money, will they fund the substantial effort it will take to maintain a livable Alberta environment. BC for instance could have off shore oil production but they are unwilling to pay the environmental price of development. Should they benefit from the sacrifice Alberta takes? Alberta is paying that price and should keep the money to clean up after. This is one argument that continually ignores the billions the federal government is currently collecting from the oil industry. They benefit every time the industry grows and every time the price of oil increases. The feds are also the reason the industry has not grown quicker. Navigating the regulations and compliance on oil sands development alone is a big risk for any new entrant. Many investors have already failed and lost.

Sideshow, I would ask if you think the service you recieved is sustainable. Currently most provinces are spending around 40% of their budget on medicare. With new technologies, increase drug costs, aging population, skilled worker shortage this number will go up. Can we really keep doing the same thing and expecting a good result?

By the fall that max will be $1000.00. How much swing will they have under the new financing rules of the accountability act. During the election the Conservatives raised around $8 million. The Liberals only managed $2million. The average donation to the Conservatives was just over $100.00. The Liberals was in the close to $4000.00. Your assertion is correct the Liberals have survived on large corporate donations. I.e. $5000.00 a plate dinners at 24 Sussex. But, the game is changing and the Liberals to survive will have no choice but to discover what grass roots look like. My numbers are based on memory. Too lazy to go find my sources.

Like rent control in the 70's the Liberal plan will not increase actual seats. They may transfer existing seats to government subsidized seats. (Seats just refers to individual space in daycare) The Conservative plan still offers $250 million in tax incentives to have the private sector add capacity. Early child hood development may be a noble goal but can we start with access. Right now we don't have enough daycare spots. The Conservative plan will go further to adding new spaces. Real choice in child care. We need a scalable plan that parents can access. A new wait list wont help me.

Bitter grapes. If PM is his first job, he still did best in the interview process. What does that say about the competion. This level of debate is sad. Name calling. So sad. How quick we forget Parrish, and Kilgour and Desjarlais.

Concerned, this is a lesson for voters. If you vote for individuals based on party affiliation, you are going to be disappointed. Emmerson's view have always been blue. They voted for those views. If you say they voted for Martin and his leadership. He stepped down. We don't know who the Liberal party will become. For Emmerson his view will fit right into caucus with the Conservatives and like it or not voters vote for people and not parties. If voters don't do the homework, they should not complain.

A white horse falls in the mud. Liberal dirt is a much better example. It comes out a few years latter and is dismissed, covered up and then goes to committee until a faction of the party troughs the other side under the bus. Now that is real dirt.

If the move produces better government then it will pay off. The challenge is to evaluate this having the talent in the cabinet. We won’t know what job would have been done with out them. They were brought in for their depth and talent. We should be thankful Mr. Dithers is gone and the PM is now making decisions with our best interests in mind.

Vancouver King, you mentioned the poll and a plus minus. You did see the same story I did. Much of the sample questions showed a response of 62 participants. This is a focus group not a poll. Stick to the facts, this was not a popular move and amateur spin is unbecoming. A point of notice Mustel is an NDP poling firm.

How much child care will $100 a month buy. At $20.00 an hour with no benefits. That is five hours for one child. Maybe one person can take care of 5 children. That means the $100.00 would pay the wages for one worker for one morning for five children. Now we also have to lease a safe facility, equip it, insure it, heat it, light it, phones, computer, regulate it, manage it, administer it, promote it and evaluate it. How much money would it take to provide the government provided spaces? I would not say that $1200.00 a year will be the major fix but at least parents will receive it. National childcare program sounds like a waiting list. Hey at least after the last government we should have a good system of calculating the size of the waiting list. Tax credits are more likely to provide the maximum amount of new spaces by leveraging new investment. Quantity should be our first goal. If we can’t access it, what is the point?