Bryan

It's fair game for NDP supporters to celebrate their recent upturn in the polls. CPC supporters do the same when the numbers are in their favour. As long as the NDPers temper their glee by remembering that both Dion and Ignatieff had surges in the polls when they were installed as opposition leaders. This far from an election, polls don't mean much other than a morale boost for whatever team is currently ahead. I'm particularly interested to see if the surge in the polls also results in more donations for the NDP. If it does, that might actually mean something long term.

No it doesn't. You don't know what the higher earner's expenses and liabilities are. 60 grand is a LOT of money, anyone who pays that much in federal income tax is already more than paying their share. No. $60,000 is more profound, regardless of what income level it's drawn from. People who work hard to create more income should be rewarded for it, not punished. They'd still be paying a lot more in actual tax dollars if the percentages were the same, they should not have to also pay a higher percentage on top of that.

Even there you are conceding far too much. #3 is a fact in that warming in itself would be climate change. #1 and #2, however, are theories that have yet to be proven.

Conservatives haven't done or said anything on the matter that I can see. This is Post Media, the same people who have been trotting out fake scandals against the CPC for quite some time now. Looks like they got bored of falsely tarring the Conservatives, and feel it's the NDP's turn. Is it bad etiquette for either the media or political parties to dig up things like a guy's mortgage? Absolutely. This is not something that Post Media should have published. That seems to be their standard M.O. these days though. Now that it is public knowledge, it's a carrot just hanging there for someone to grab, but I can't see any reason why the CPC would use this for any purpose. The worst I would think would happen is if Mulcair gets too aggressive about attacking the CPCs budgeting, an MP might shoot back with "excuse me if I don't take fiscal advice from someone who has had to re-mortgage their house 11 times". If I were them, even if I was planning on using it like that, I'd probably save it for an election campaign.

$60,000 is a lot of money for one person to pay in income taxes, regardless of what percentage that might be.

There are a lot of dead spots in Manitoba, even inside of Winnipeg. There's no service at or near my work, no service at or near my house, no service at or near the hospital where my 88 yr old FIL is (the place I most frequently have to pay for parking and use vending machines), no service inside most arenas, pools, or community centres. I love all the fun things my smartphone can do, but if I had to rely on it for, well, anything. I'd be in trouble.

I'd wait before passing judgement. The other opposition/MSM accusations against him so far have turned out to be false. The chances that they're telling the truth this time is so remote, it's not worth wasting time thinking about anymore. They have a knack for adding in fixed costs for gotcha effect.

If we had the kinds of things happening here that have actually happened in other countries over the last year and a half (that is, trying to violently overthrow the government), then I would wholeheartedly support our government shooting those protesters. I'd volunteer to do it.

No, real bullets. Just shoot them in the knees.

The reason it's not surprising is it's the correct decision. It's very refreshing to finally have a speaker who has integrity, and doesn't cow-tow to increasingly ridiculous attacks from the left.

The opposite happened to me, and to many people I know: RBC called us up and offered us substantially expanded lines of credit.

It's already been mentioned, but it bears repeating: if there was a split among conservatives, and/or a new conservative entity formed, it would be because the current Conservative party of Canada had veered too far left, and one to the right of it would emerge. Any notion, even as a hypothetical, that a conservative party that is more centrist than the CPC would happen is utter nonsense. To play the game though, I never voted for or supported the federal PCs in any way. I doubt I ever would.

Federal 1988 - Liberal 1993 - Reform 1997 - Reform 2000 - Alliance 2004 - Conservative 2006 - Conservative 2008 - Conservative 2011 - Conservative Manitoba Provincial 1988 - Liberal 1990 - PC 1995 - PC 1999 - PC 2003 - PC 2007 - PC 2011 - PC I've done the final counts in several elections, I've never seen either counted at all.

It's not nonsense. There's a distinct difference between private and public care, even when both are fully funded by the public system. When governments take over private facilities, the standard of care and efficiency goes down, while costs go up.

Count me among those who would not want to work a unionized job. I've done it before (both in public and private sector jobs), and it's always a negative experience. Waste, inefficiency and sloth are rewarded, efficiency and hard work is punished. The last straw for me was when I was working at a hospital, and I was given an official reprimand for cleaning up my own mess when I spilled my coffee. You know, because only the person whose union classification is cleaning is allowed to use a mop. Labourwatch may well be a "union busting outfit", but to me that would only enhance their credibility. Anyone who is opposed to unions is OK in my book. It's disgusting how unions are allowed to hold business owners hostage, and they should be 'busted'.

Indeed. I'm a whiskey whore. I love trying every kind I can find. As blasphemous as it might seem to scotch-snobs, I actually think that many Canadian and Irish whiskeys are better. There's a smoother almost caramel and vanilla type flavour to them that you don't find in Scotch. I keep a bottle of Glenlivet 18 on hand, but I'd much rather have a Jamesons or a Wisers. I had a excellent whiskey from Spain when I was in Cuba in February, wish I could remember the name (it wasn't DYC).

As usual, you're simply making something up that I didn't say and arguing against that.

No, but apparently you're the type of person who like to argue against strawmen instead of what someone actually said.

The history of Alberta provincial politics would say otherwise. Periods of stasis punctuated by wholesale change is how they do things. When they boot a party out of power, they tend to do so permanently.

A person can have surgery and take hormones to APPEAR to have changed their gender, but that doesn't mean they really have. Talackova is not really female, he just looks like one as long as he keeps taking those hormones. Can I have surgery and hormone therapy to legally change my AGE? Why not? I could make myself look significantly younger if I really wanted to, how is that different? What if I say I "identify" myself as a younger person?

Harper has articulated the complex nature of his position on drugs several times in the past. He's never taken the stance that all drug users should be locked-up, or anything remotely like that. He's always said that in theory he supports a certain degree of decriminalization, that adults should have autonomy over what they put into their bodies. The problem is, he also wants to make sure that drugs are not being given to sold to children. You're kind of stuck if you want to take both of those positions seriously. I've always thought the correct approach would be to make using drugs completely legal, carrying around small personal use amounts a very minor offense, but manufacturing and or selling them a very serious offense. You smoke weed? No problem. You got caught growing a few plants for your own use? A small fine, no criminal charges. You sold a bag to a kid? 10 years.

Hormones, steroids, EPO, other performance enhancers?

If they were really pro labour, they would not be so vehemently opposed to initiatives that would actually create new jobs, or to companies already providing them. If you're pro labour, you want more labour. If that labour is there to be had in a place like the oil fields, you'd be wholeheartedly in favour of that. If lower taxes can increase the profitability of companies that provide jobs, you'd be all over that too.

They aren't fit to govern in Manitoba either. Their fiscal track record is abysmal.

Good examples. While Cuba is more socialist than not, it is still very much a mixed economy. Plenty of capitalism going on there. This does confuse a lot of people.