nicky10013

See, the problem here is that Harper is ALREADY PM. He's a known quantity. Mulroney wasn't. He was opposition leader...like Mr. Ignatieff for whom this analogy fits quite a bit better. For good or bad, the PM is always more popular. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/opinion/life-cycle-of-an-opposition-leader/article1848365/

I'm 99% sure what you heard was Nik Nanos. It came out in the beginning of December but Tory numbers, especially in Ontario, have gotten worse since then. Could it work? Sure, anything is possible. However, I doubt it. If he couldn't win a majority with Stephan Dion as a foil, I don't think he'll be able to win one period. Though he's already been written off, what we're forgeting is that Ignatieff can actually speak english. When giving speeches he's very passionate and very articulate. His expectations are so low that he's going to shock people in a campaign. I'm not saying he's going to win, but at this juncture, also considering the fact that Conservative popularity still hasn't rebounded since the second prorogation and the amount of undecideds out there, the Liberals will pick up seats. It's just a matter of how many.

PS - if the Tories want to actually wage a campaign based on keeping scheduled corporate tax breaks - tax breaks that will have absolutely no bearing on ordinary Canadian's lives, go right ahead. However, it only makes the majority talk that much funnier. We already have some of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world before the scheduled cut takes place. So what Harper and Flaherty are essentially doing is basically taking out more debt and handing Canadians cash which ordinary folks pay interest on directly to companies which unforutnately aren't hiring more people. Combined this with the spending fiascos of the census, the fake lake, 16 billion dollar fighter planes and 10 billion dollar prisons? I think Canadians would respond to the "tax hike" rhetoric if it was an income tax hike or a GST/HST hike but it isn't. It isn't even a hike. The Liberals are just talking about suspending this cut and people will see through the Tory rhetoric which tries and make it look otherwise. We're talking about corporate welfare. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/tories-draw-line-in-election-sand-over-corporate-tax-cuts/article1868330/

The only people dreaming are those thinking Harper can actually win a majority. It's very possible he'll win a minority government, but a majority? The gains in the GTA they're banking on to do it just aren't there.

So are today's Liberals.

Oh I know. I find it hilarious that someone like Scalia would say what he did in that article. 60 minutes ran a really interesting piece on his life story and his thoughts on constitutional law. He's a person who thinks the US constitution is a dead document and that it's interpretation can't be based upon what the founders thought or what it means today but only in what is physically written down. Yet, in the excerpt of his decision, he does exactly the opposite of what he preaches.

Most ludicrous thing I've ever read. In Canada you're not allowed to own assault weapons yet I'm just as free as any American. Furthermore, that's not what the constitution says. Within the context of a Well Regulated Militia people shall have the right to bear arms. IE - THE FUCKING ARMY.

The work on Bloor needed to be done. The road was barely driveable and now it's a dream. First the City didn't do anything, but when it turns out they actually were, they were doing too much! Classic example of moving the goalposts. So? Well, if the guy is supposed to save us as much tax money as he claims, he'd leave everything mostly where it is. The costs of cutting contracts would be so horrendous it would set the city back years.

Well, I'd term it as 30% came out of the cave, decided they didn't like what they saw and retreated back in, but whatever, call it what you want. Even then, it's still only 30%.

So far it isn't about what taxes he has slashed (he has cut the Vehicle Registration Tax, btw [cost the city 67 million dollars]) but the combination of tax cuts and supposed service increases he's promised while simultaneously claiming he can cut a billion of waste out of city hall with absolutely no specifics. Never did I say that he has already accomplished something, I'm saying if he does accomplish what he wants, Toronto is in for a world of hurt. All that waste added up to what? 57 million? That's about 950 million short.

It seemed that way at first but Canada lags way behind in terms of recovery.

I think right now that's most likely, but Ignatieff's handlers are either incompetent or the best handlers on the planet. The expectations around him are so incredibly low that in a general campaign all he'll have to do is be able to walk properly and he'll impress the shit out of people. The fact that he's an incredibly eloquent speaker and will destroy Harper in a debate only adds to the intrigue. In politics there's no better place to be than on the bottom. When you have no expectations you exceed all of them.

Note from today's budget meeting.

Absolutely. However, no matter how horribly his plans fly in the face of conventional wisdom, the masses will follow...until the massive tax hike. Probably even after that. More and more I'm getting the sense that Conservatives don't really care about conservatism or even pragmatic policy, it's all about the team. It doesn't matter what the team does (even if it flies in everything you believe in), you're a part of that and that's final.

Bingo. 10 cent fare increase plus a whopping 5 dollar increase in the metropass. This is going to cost transit riders between 50-60 dollars a year extra. Interesting coincidence, that's how much drivers are going to save for the vehicle registration tax. Now, I've heard much rhetoric over the "war on the car." However, I've yet to encounter any policy that confirmed such suspsicions floated by Conservatives. Nor have they backed any of their claims with, you know...any proof at all. However, jacking up TTC fares to pay for a car tax break? How can that be viewed as anything but war on public transit? http://www.thestar.com/news/transportation/article/919082--ttc-fare-hike-riders-lose-what-motorists-gained?bn=1

You must not live anywhere near Toronto. I flatly refuse to drive into the city in the summer because road construction - doing they very things you say they aren't doing - is so bad. As an example - something you've yet to provide - Bloor between parliament and Avenue was reduced to 1 lane for almost 3 years. What is this even supposed to mean? I'd say you're right on subways if it wasn't a subway no one would use. No one uses the Sheppard line as it is and an extension won't make things better. The current Sheppard Line actually only uses 4 subway cars as opposed to the 6 used on the YUS line and the B/D Line and in the height of rush hour the trains are only half full. So, he's robbing the suburbs, the place he supposedly represents best, of better transit to build a line no one will use. Now, if he cancelled some projects to build a subway across Eglinton, or the Downtown Relief Line - subway projects that have been planned and actually are really needed to relieve congestion along YUS and B/D, I'd agree with it. He isn't though. This planning is the absolutely height of stupidity.

Notice how nothing is ever a conservative's fault? Funny, yet delusional.

I think the great hype about Tory gains in Toronto are vastly overhyped. They hold about 4 GTA ridings right now and the only one which is safe is in my opinion is Peter Kent in Thornhill and even then Susan Kadis is a known element in Thornhill so it might be close the next time around All the speculation has really come out of Julian Fantino who won by only a 1000 votes in a byelection with only about a 30% turnout against a no-name Liberal candidate. In a federal election where the turnout number could go up by 20-30% and without the support of the entire Tory campaign staff and the Prime Minister, I think Fantino's chances of holding onto that seat come a general campaign aren't that great. In my riding, the Conservative MP Lois Brown had a fairly easy time against a Liberal candidate who had just finished losing a mayoral contest and thus wasn't popular to begin with. The upcoming candidate is a very well known family man who is incredibly eloquent and I could easily see him winning especially since the only time she's been on Hansard is questioning the patriotism of the LPC while also calling them anti-semitic. The 3rd riding - Oak Ridges-Markham, Lui Temelkovski, who held the seat for 2 elections and only lost by a percentage point to the Conservative is running again and fortunes could easily switch. As for the rest, the Liberals picked up a strong candidate who was a former provincial minister who'll run out in Mississauga so both the east and west ends are fairly covered and there isn't any way a Conservative will win in the actual 416. The few contested ridings, the competition is between the Liberals and the NDP rather than the Liberals and the Conservatives.

Yup. I mean, it seems to me everyone is so angry over everything, especially in politics. While I'm not saying it happened in this event, in regards to the question you asked me earlier, I could see someone getting so angry over a blog post as to pick up a gun and do something crazy. The problem isn't whether I'm sane, it's whether the political climate incites someone not as balanced as me to go out and do exactly what you said. I think the usage of things like "don't retreat, reload" is apart of that but I view it more as a symptom of the anger rather than the cause of the anger. When I say I hope that everyone tones down a bit, I certainly don't just mean the language but the constant stirring of the shit pot everyone in politics and certainly the media is actively engaged in. It's hurt legislative efficiency, it's split the country and is reducing the US political system to nothing more than a sideshow carnival of who can say the most ridiculous thing the quickest.

I don't mean to tie any one individual or party in, however, I think it's an excellent opportunity for everyone around the table to take stock of the political situation and tone things down a bit.

I don't think they're inciting anyone to murder, but I do believe they're purposefully inciting people to widespread anger. Anger is what get's people out to their events and what eventually getting people to the ballot box. The divisive nature of the stuff they preach (let's be fair, people like Maddow and Olbermann do it as well and I find it just as distasteful despite being less successful) polarizes the country and really cheeses people off. The question we have to be asking is this: what about the people who are unbalanced who take their anger to extreme levels. I don't know and I doubt if this is what we saw here, but it's a valid question. Lest we forget that democratic congressmen have had their offices were vandalized. One's office was shot at. Even if this isn't related, anger has been taken way too far already.

There certainly is no proof, but one HAS to ask the question. Considering the climate of anger in the US and the fact that this was an overtly political act, there at least has to be a discussion about feeding the anger in the country and what effect it can have on mentally unbalanced individuals.

I didn't see anything written in the press but I absolutely 100% heard it from the Sheriff from Tucson being interviewed by Wolf Blitzer.

Of course the internet hypes everything up and that's part of the problem in my opinion. I'm not saying this is the fault of a certain group, I think it's the fault of the climate of anger both sides stoke. It's of my opinion that the right does it more than the left but both try to score points doing so and both sides are wrong. There is no person or party or ideology responsible for what happened. The person did what he did. Yet, I don't think it's wrong to ask what kind of effect the media in regards to politics has had on this crime. It was an overtly political crime. Most people see the stuff on TV and laugh it off, but there are some of us out there that are quite mentally unbalanced and who knows what type of rhetoric will drive people over the edge. What seems to be the most compelling argument is that obviously this person had way too easy a time getting a firearm. He had a criminal record and a history of mental illness yet was able to legally purchase the handgun. The sheriff himself said on CNN not 5 minutes ago how whacked that situation is and lamented about how there is a law before the Arizona congress about mandating guns in school.