Bryan

Not to mention, Harper's original proposed budget was to NOT have much of a stimulus, and the opposition freaked-out (threatening coalition, etc). The Action Plan exists specifically because the opposition in a minority parliament demanded it.

If that were even remotely true, you wouldn't think that Harper was a far right extremist.

Blue Canada = Blogging Tories forums. Craig from Blogging Tories keeps doing these secondary sites where he's basically mirroring the forum content from BT under a new name. Each time he hypes it like it's the 'new home of the conservative community', only to lose interest and shut it down in a few months. Apparently there is an issue with the forum software on the BT site that has necessitated this latest move, so perhaps this one will be permanent. I was never comfortable with the Blogging Tories name. To me, the Tories were the old PC party. They don't exist anymore, and I never liked them anyway.

Tax structure is much more business friendly now too. From what I've read, at the time the Jets were paying more in taxes than all of the other teams in the NHL combined.

You can't explain the difference because there isn't one.

I don't think people advocating from the left side understand just how wrong they are about this.

Nobody exceeded their limits, that's why they did the transfers-- so that they could bring their spending UP to the limit. And they all did EXACTLY the same thing.

You're the one with nothing to back up your claim. I gave several examples showing the other parties doing exactly the same thing.

You won't find any love for Mike Harris from me.

I'm not sure why you think it's funny. When the rules were changed to disallow corporate donations to political parties, it's the Liberals who were hurt the most. Conservative donations were already predominantly grassroots, so there was very little change. That's the reason why CPC fundraising is so far ahead of the Liberals.

Personally, I'm actually very impressed with their performance. The Elections Canada witch hunt bothers me, how Harper has dealt with them does not. I'm paying a lot less in taxes than I did under the Liberals, and the both the fighters and the jails are badly needed. We're in very good hands from my vantage point. I'm much better off now than I was 5 years ago. The country is much better off than we were 5 years ago.

Of course he's going to wins seats. He's just going to win LESS seats than Dion did, that's all.

They did do it though, that's the issue. Why the witch hunt against the CPC when they were only doing the standard practice that all parties did?

The challenge has already been made, and WON by the Bloc though. The precedent was already there.

Though it's not quite that simple, If your finances are in an legitimate "emergency" situation, you pretty much can abdicate your debt. Michigan essentially is bankrupt. If they can't afford the union contracts, yes they should be able to walk away from them.

Keep you up do date on the current slang? Texting acronyns?

I've posted plenty of it, and so have several other members in the other threads about this topic. Here's one of the posts: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=18143&view=findpost&p=635050

How about a "no" option for this poll?

Me too. It's an absolute iron clad fact that all parties financed their campaigns this way. For Elections Canada and the media to continue to claim otherwise is one of the most blatantly dishonest things I've ever seen.

The man who oversaw the best managed economy in the world over the last couple of years. Serious.

If they were both unproven candidates, that would probably be true as far as campaign strategy goes. The problem is, the basis of the "attack" is fear of the unknown in the electorate. The Reform = scary game worked for the Liberals because Reform had yet to be in a position to prove or disprove the allegations, or to show distance from previous remarks. Even once Harper was PM, that still worked for a little while. Now that he's been PM for over five years, we know what we've got, and fear of what he MIGHT do (even with a majority), has diminished greatly. Ignatieff, on the other hand, has got nothing but the things he's said in the past. For the right now, there's nothing there to judge other than the inability to track what he means from one day to the next. If the entire next election was fought based on nothing but previous quotes by Ignatieff and Harper, Harper will win big because we've all heard the old stuff, and already know him. Ignatieff is the question, and the question will always lose the battle of the mudslingers.

Actuaries lie. Seniors SHOULD have the highest rates. There is nothing more frightening than a 70 year old behind the wheel.

I agree. The "Tim Horton's ER" event is not a tragic event, it's a success story. Instead of just giving up and telling patients "sorry, we're full", or "sorry, no money", they did whatever it took to make sure everyone got the care they needed.

Indeed. I'm paying a lot less now than I did before the CPC came to power, and it has been getting better every year.

Sure. Scribblett and August have repeated some of it in the last few posts, but I'll repost the links with some quotes in case you still missed it. Lets start with the Bloc. They are the ones who coined the phrase "in-and-out". Elections Canada didn't like it, but the Bloc sued and won not only the right to use "in-and-out" financing, but also the right to force their candidates to do it. In the process, the Bloc won the right to force their candidates to pay THEM the difference between what is actually spent on the campaign and what could have been spent had they accepted the in-and-out money. Montreal Gazette: the-original-in-and-out-election-financing Steve Janke's "Angry in the Great White North" Blog has extensively documented how both the Liberals and the NDP have also used the same practices for many years. He's even got scans of the cancelled cheques, receipts, and emails. Evidence of how the Liberals and the NDP engage in their own In-and-Out funding efforts Paul Martin used a whole bunch of these techniques in the 2004 election, including having his name and face on every campaign sign across the country, having local candidates reimburse the national party for federal ads with no local content, immediately following the transfer of the identical amount to that local campaign: The NDP did this too: The Liberals are still doing it today to help their donors contribute above their allowable maximums: Liberal MPs own little in-and-out scheme exposed Now your reaction to most of these (even if you read all of the links), is probably "that doesn't sound so bad". It's just semantics as to what part of the ad budget during a federal election campaign is truly federal and what part is truly local, right? But that's exactly the point. It's specifically what the Conservatives are being accused of: spreading their expenses around to make sure that everyone meets their maximums. There is no scandal, just a difference of opinion with regards to accounting.