Bryan

For me, it's a small price to pay to keep the Liberals away from Government.

People have been mislead into thinking Harper has made tactical errors many times before. Each time he's ended up in a better position than he was before. If we get a one on one debate, it'll be because Harper not only wants it, but he already knows how he's going to win it. What is Ignatieff going to win any points on? Have you seen his platform? No matter what he claims makes his position better, it is immediately nullified by one of two things; a) Conservatives already proposed that. If you're so in favour if it, why did you vote against it? Liberals have been promising that since 1993. They had consecutive majorities. If they were really going to do any of this, they would have already. So he'll be able to preach about the subtleties of our parliamentary system and bore people to tears about contempt, and.... what else? Without lying, I mean.

We have a lot of deeply partisan supporters of the various parties on this board, but I thought it would be interesting to get a feel whether people are just talking a good game, or if they put their money where their keyboards are. Myself, I'm a Conservative Party supporter in word, deed, and money. I'm a card carrying member, I volunteer my time for my local candidate, and donate both to my local candidate and to the federal party. I get fairly close to my $1100 limit for each, but in smaller $100 or $200 at a time increments over the course of the year.

There never was any such coalition. If you want people to take you seriously, not lying would be a good start.

Actually, your own quotes there prove that Ignatieff is lying. He was given the option, he rejected it, Harper accepted his rejection, now Ignatieff is changing his mind retroactively.

% swing? She got as many votes as the LPC and NDP candidates combined. What's the criteria that makes it within range for a swing? Or is it just a list of ridings that have previously changed hands, regardless of the circumstances?

So do I, Ignatieff is the one who has a track record of saying one thing, then contradicting it, only to return to the first story. Coalition anyone?

I'm wondering if we are starting to see the limits of the small sample sizes these polsters use in the age of cell-phones and the internet. The wide ranges could be explained by luck of the draw WRT who happens to a) be home, b.) have a home phone, c) will actually answer that phone, and d) are willing to answer a survey. There was a day when that would be a lot of people, these days it's very few. Might be different enough that their margins of error are larger than they are willing to admit. Angus-Reid was the most accurate last election. Their polls are conducted online (by invitation). Properly managed with registration for each respondent, it's quite possible that it more accurately reflects a cross section of todays public.

The salary still comes out of tax revenue. If a public employee gets $1000, and his taxes on that are $300 , he didn't add $300 to the tax pool, he removed $700 out of it. I wouldn't argue against that. It's still the private enterprise that generates the tax revenue. Money goes in to the tax pool.

Harper opens up daylight on Liberals, as NDP make gains: EKOS Poll CPC - 36.9 LPC - 26.2 NDP - 17.2 GRN - 8.7 BQ - 8.5 GRN - 8.7 OTH - 2.5 http://ipolitics.ca/2011/04/01/conservatives-open-up-daylight-on-liberals-as-ndp-make-gains-ekos-poll/ Lots of breakdown graphs on this site.

There IS a licence in Manitoba, but it is not required. There are plenty of daycares that are not licenced, and plenty of parents that would not put their child in a daycare that was.

Just to be clear, I am not claiming in any way that public sector job are all useless. Many of them are performing a service that does contribute, and some of those services are essential. But you could also make prisoners do many of those same jobs, get similar benefit, and not have to pay them union salaries. I'm strictly talking about whether public sector employees themselves personally actually "pay" taxes. Because they don't.

Liberals balked at one-on-one debating http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1236078.html

If you think you need stats, you need to read it again, because you've completely overlooked the point.

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=18462

Do public sector employees contribute to tax revenue? This deserves it's own thread, because the subject derails the tread it was started in. The side discussion between myself and Blueblood went like this: Which was followed by exactly what I predicted; a simpleminded left-wing inability to just think for a second to understand the math. So here it is. Private sector employees and private businesses pay taxes. That is where the tax pool that governments do their spending comes from. That is where the salaries for public sector employees come from too. Public sector employees do not contribute to the pool, they only withdraw from it. When these people "pay their taxes", they are not contributing to the tax revenue, all they are doing is returning a small portion of what they took out. The result is still a net negative to the tax pool. If you are a public sector employee, "your taxes" don't pay for anything, because you don't actually contribute to the tax pool. The net effect is, you don't really pay taxes at all, you just spend them. Is that clear enough?

He always answers question, at every stop. He's very forthcoming with the answers too. He just limits them to five. The journalists know this coming in, and they have plenty of time to get together to make those questions count. It's a smart way to keep journalists on task. They often spend the whole election asking the same questions over and over again. This makes them decide if it's really worth wasting a question on that one again if there's something else they actually want to know. Keeps the pressers short so that he can get on to the next stop too.

Forget St-Boniface, Shelly's going to win that one with a bigger margin than last time.

I will spell it out for you if you really don't get it. But seriously, just think about where tax revenues comes from for a minute. It probably deserves its own thread if you CAN'T figure it out.

Will your broker get you a 45% year end refund if the insurance company makes larger than expected profits? http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/manitoba/2011/04/01/17832831.html

Same here. If you are going to have the government deliver support for child care, the UCCB is by far the best and most fair option. Everyone with kids gets the same benefit, the parent still gets to make the decision on what kind of care the child gets, and the government can actually keep track of the real cost of the program. A national daycare program is one of the most terrifying things I can imagine a government doing in Canada.

NO! Keep the corporate donations out of it. Harper won't want them anyway, because they were the biggest advantage that the Liberals and NDP had over the right leaning parties.

Or contribute to the economy. It's funny that some people (mostly lefties) don't understand that Public sector jobs don't contribute, they only take. Tell a CUPE member that they don't actually pay taxes, and watch their heads explode. Draw it out, show them the math, and they'll still argue vociferously. It's crazy.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/04/01/harper-vows-to-kill-political-party-subsidies-if-given-majority Now this is more like it. I like two parts of it: 1) the removal of the subsidy will force all parties to do a better job of connecting with their grassroots. Taxpayers shouldn't have to prop up a party that can't get enough support on it's own. Hopefully this is just the first step in scaling back the other subsidies that political parties get (election reimbursements, etc). 2) I really think the "if we get a majority" qualifier is a smart one. Not just because the opposition has already shown its card on this matter, but also that it makes it clear which things he's just going to do, and which things he only could get done if the opposition wasn't constantly shutting down conservative policies. I'd like him to keep two list going forward "what we'll do with a majority" and "what we'll introduce anyway".

Not ones that contribute tax revenue anyway.