crazykai

Don't forget, EI premiums are taxed again for employers at 1.4 times the employee rate. Of course, these payroll taxes are often indirectly passed onto employees. When you take that into account, the mariginal tax rate between the lower-middle and upper middle class isn't much different. And tax increase only on income earned belowed $42,300... how regressive. Almost unheard of, oh wait, Harper raised the lowest mariginal tax rate when he come into office. Talk about an unbalanced tax policy, tax cuts for the rich, tax hikes for the poor. And it's not like we have a massive braindrain or capital outflow problems, on the contrary.

The extent, effects, costs and nessecarly adaptions to man-made climate change will always be debatable, but the basic science isn't. It's as clear cut as smoking causes cancer, liquor makes you drunk, and you can't breathe water. Ever notice the people who don't believe in climate change also don't believe other basic common scientific consciouses, like sex ed reduces abortions, poverty, crime, welfare use, population thus cost of living and so on; the theory of evolution and so on. And it's always because some corporation or church spreads lies to protect their own interests. As a side note, one of the good things, and the biggests economic effect of the HST is shift taxes on fossil fuels that will reduce climate change. Now we have something to bargain back with at on the international stage, all thnaks to the Liberals and no thanks to the Conservative. Of course, they can always admit it was their idea all along.

Do I want the NDP, who will endlessly pork barrel government money into unionized fields, whether or not it will benefit the public. Or the Tories, who are stubbornily ignorant to the nessecary role of government, either for church, out of paranoia or one's own self-centredness. Let's just say I wouldn't vote, unless one party got really out of control and distructive.

The Tories, Liberals and NDP will never merge. They are three seperate ideologies, representing different interests. I can't think of any examples of any large political parties merging. In other countries, often parties with 5-10% of the vote merge together but often have a short history, weak base, or inconsistent platform. Given the public reaction to the coalition experiment, I doubt that will ever happen again federally. I am predicting minority governments as far as the eye can see.

Doesn't anyone release if Harper called an election today after polling the narrowest of majorities he would lose the election to Ignatieff. Why? There is a reason why the Liberals are polling so low all of sudden. I still think Iggy is planning for the long-term, drainning the Tories of attack ad spending, making the NDP and Tories alienate their hardliner through bipartisanship, and looking tough and principaled, not a weak flip flopper. I think everyone knew Iggy would lose support in the short-term for being all election gun hoe, but I believe he will come out stronger come 2010/2011, when people will actually want an election.

Good luck finding a tax free country... unless you want to work for an oil shiek or pay off your local warlord. Even those "taxhavens" are not all what they are cracked up to be, they make up taxes elsewhere to attack a certain residents or industries.

If you are so against taxes, then get out of my country because you obiviously don't want to be part of it. Good luck finding a tax free country... unless you want to work for an oil shiek or pay off your local warlord.

I think Ignatieff started the rumour himself. Harper routinely sends out two messages, one to the grassroots and one to Tory-Grit swing voters. The "no new taxes" appeals to the large segement of Tory-Grit swing voters he desperately needs but the "adult conversation" appeals to grassroots and Greens. I say Greens because they statistically have much in common with Liberals when polled, they are younger, more educated, economically centrist and socially liberal. Contray to popular belief, polling has show Green supporter are for the most part actually not strident environmentalists but people upset with immature, dialetic and sloganistic nature of Canadian politics, hence Ignatieff presents a "mature conversation". It is just as essential Ignatieff gets them onboard as taking votes from the Tories, a lesson learnt the hard way by the Green Shift, though to be fair, carbon taxes were so 2007... now it's as popular as disco. How will this "mature conversation" go. I for one don't want healthcare or education cuts. So what is left? Ending the unpopular war in Afghanistan, there is a few billion, then you have the Harper "childcare" plan, $100 a month to familes regardless of income. When it comes to family policy, it's a catch-22. Money for parents smooth out lifetime earnings while increasing family sizes reducing our children's burden of caring for the elderly by splitting it with more children. At the same time, more children will have to split the same limited resources in the future, particually land for housing. Here is the catch-22, this supposedly redistributive policy just drives up prices, creating new inequality and a society based more on inheritance than merit. So, cutting that is a couple extra billion dollars. You can privatize some of the auto sector, there is a couple billion and "cut" programs that were going to expire anyways. As for tax increases, I am all for them. Why? Federal government debt burdens the public with heavy interest payments to the wealthly debt holders meanwhile I want universial healthcare, a modern education system, the social supports to provide opportunities for people to escape poverty and modern 21st century infrastructure. Higher taxes now means lower taxes and higher standard of living in the future for all in the future. Politicans claim our debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest in the G8, but ignore the fact Canada is unique because of our massive provincial debts. Then, compare ourselves to economies more like our own. Australia had been public sector debt free for over a decade until the recession. All of the Scandinavian countires have very little debt and were running massive government budget surpluses until recently. Obiviously, Canadians need a mature conversation on fiscal policy.

Canada was part of the British Empire, thus colonialism. Canadian soverignity from colonial powers was slow to be achieved. For example, we didn't have a foreign affairs department until 1931 and a constitution until 1981. We were forced to fight in the British Empirial wars, ranging from putting down Indian rebellions, War of 1812, the Boer War and World War I. Our early involvement in World War II compared to the United States was out of colonial obligation as well. Canada's policy on undermining aboriginals, the invasion of their lands, their mariginalization, abuse and attempted assilimation, that's colonialism. Aboriginals are still suffering from that legacy and will for many generations, despite even the best intensions. If Harper comments came from Vladmir Putin, and you substitute Canada with Russia, nobody would dispute the hypocracy. I can't believe we are even havign this debate. It's like debating whether or not the Holocaust happened. To quote Barney Frank "Arguing with you is like arguing with dining room table".

"We also have no history of colonialism..." – Prime Minister Stephen Harper http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun...olonialism.aspx Are you kidding me!? Do I even need to mention basic history that Harper has obiviously forgot or doesn't know. How can he be that dumb and ignorant!? Harper's comments reminds me of the comments that cost Gerald Ford the presidency in 1976. "there is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford administration." Sadly, I see his popularity steady and most shocking of now, me, an avid political follower and quick to find anything wrong with the Tories, have only found about this a number of days after the fact from my wife on the Wedding Bells message board. The fact this seems burried in the back of media just reinforced my belief of Conservative media bias in Canada, along with the factors like Lukidnik Aspers running Canwest and the Tories holding the pursestring of ad revenue, tax credits and the CBC budget.

As policy is partisan, thus government policy adveritising can always be argued as partisan. Yet, much of it is harmless. No probleming the Conservative government saying "hey, you can file for the new Universial Child Care Tax Credit" or the provincial Liberals saying "hey, you can retrain if you have been laid off, call this number.. etc". But these Economic Action Plan ads are blantant party propaganda without any mention the party or leader name for legal reasons. Full of the typical vague mainstay conversative policy pitches, rhetroical slogans and fearmonger we have all heard a million times from the Harper Tories. Only "the fundamentals of the economy is strong" line from John McCain was missing, probably because when unemployment is near double digits and at a 15 year high and 19% of those between 18-25 are unemployed (18-25 most likely to vote Liberal over Tory too), it's now a much harder arguement to win. These remind me the Harris government paid ads in the 90s with the wires everywhere shorting and Harris turning the swtich on a more simple circuit, promoting the merits of his new efficient smaller government. Such ads using government money are illegal, and should be, in many democracies, like the UK, or just unheard of because of the public outroar of it's similarities to propaganda from brutual dictatorships. Then you have actionplan.gc.ca and conservative.ca, notice the similar page layouts. GC.ca websites have government mandated layouts. This one doesn't.

Somebody has to say, I am sick of all this "support the troops" and "red fridays" propaganda, because that is what it is, military and grassroots conservative propaganda that wants endless sums of money to fight an endless list of wars. Much of our tax dollars even pays for it. These slogans also distract the public from the real issues. As we can see with the US Healthcare debate, if you don't have a good position, screaming simple slogans that may or may not makes sense is always an effective strategy. I think it works as people with neutral or somewhat anti-war views are quickly silenced by questions of "patroitism", being targed by pro-war hardliners or avoid the issue because of social awkwardness. It sickens me. Not to mention the attitude of the military that they always know what to do and our opinion does matter. Well, frankly it does because it is my tax dollars. The other myth I want to debunk is Canada's military is underfunded. That is because we always compare ourselves to the US. Other middle global powers like Japan, Ireland and Austria have roughly half the share of GDP in military expenditure that we do. Many economists say this was a factor in the Japanese and Irish economic miracles and why Austria remains one of the wealthier countries in mainland Europe. All of these countries are seen as safe, soverign, and internationally respected. Interestingly enough, all three of these countries have a 20th century history of war that I think majority of the public want to keep in the past.

Much of Harper's creepy and robotic nature is more because he hates people. You put him around his family or some kittens, he suddenly seems normal.

The whole War on Terror is a reaction to many Americans conscious, and subconscious, need for armed vengance and deep seeded racism. Conservatives used fear and negativity to stoke these reactions, ending millions of lives and costing billions and probably trillions of dollars. Nothing has been accomplished in the last 8 years, it's time to end it.

Gilles Duceppe looks cool. Jack Layton's mustache still wierds me out a little. On one hand, I shoudn't judge people with mustaches and I can't see him looking better without it. But still, it's creepy. Iggy has that dimple between his eyebrows that makes it look like he has a unibrow. He can't help it. Steven Colbert said it best. "The world doesn't need another lesbian president. Canada already has Steven Harper".