Bryan

I call shenanigans on those stats. I can hardly find a damn thing in my house that is made in Canada or the U.S. Even things I thought were Canadian (like my Sorel Glaciers or my Danier leather jacket) are "designed in Canada", but made in China. I thought FOR SURE that my New Balance runners were made in the USA, but they're Chinese too. Even my goalie equipment, what's more Canadian that that, right? My older gear is Canadian, but anything that's newer than a few years old is all Chinese. Besides, that CIA data is based on dollar amounts, not number of household products. Are billions of consumer products getting offset by a single large government purchase? You can buy cleaners, clothes, and food for a whole town for the cost of one fighter jet for instance. Walk into any place that carries a LOT of consumer household goods, like a big box power centre, or a mall. Just randomly grab anything off the self while you stroll the aisles. It would only take a few seconds to find things made in China. It's the next closest thing to impossible to find anything that is not made in China. It's a large majority of everything. Try the same thing, looking specifically for things made in the USA. Now that is a serious task. It could easily take you the whole day to find even one American made household product. Sure, you might have some previous knowledge of a specialty boutique that you could go to, but that would only reinforce what I'm saying here.

I'm glad this thread has been resurrected, I missed it the first few times. A lot of great insight here, even from those who's conclusions I disagree with. I started out politically very much a leftist. I was an NDP supporter, and not only thought that Ed Broadbent should be Prime Minister, I blindly believed he could win. I was a Liberal supporter during the Mulroney years. Throughout that time, my perspective was gradually shifting conservative, but I didn't like and didn't trust Mulroney. Then Reform came around. When I read their initial policy manual, it was as if I had written it myself. I found myself shouting out loud in agreement with nearly every proposal in it. The Conservative Party of Canada I'm far less enthusiastic about, because they are not nearly Conservative enough for my liking. So what happened in that time? When I was an NDP, I was a kid. I had nothing other than what my parents gave me, and I feared the idea of being left to fend for myself. By the time I was a Reformer, I was going to University, owned my own home, and work to pay my bills. There are still some left-wing concepts that I strongly support though. I guess that's the Mennonite in me. You'd be hard pressed to find a more conservative group of people, and yet they are very much socialists at heart.

Someone should let the Province of Manitoba know this, it's going to save them a lot of money.

Don't need to with polling this good. Better to Govern like it already is a majority, and force the opposition to vote down something that will burn them in an election that they force on themselves.

What's to excuse? People's lives are getting better despite government interference, not because of it.

Lots of things were different 250 years ago.

You need to stop reading the Red Star, and read the actual transcripts. Oda very clearly and concisely answered McKay's questions. If anything, it's Mckay who is lying throughout that interview by deliberately twisting her responses and rephrasing them to give a different meaning. She did not alter the document. That is a fact. She did order the change, that she has never denied. She did not recall on the spot who had made the change in her absence, but steadfastly maintained that she takes full responsibility for the decision. The only thing in question is wether or not she could remember who actually made the change that she requested. Considering the thousands upon thousands of decisions a minister makes, that many of them are "signed" on the minister's behalf by staffers, that this decision was made two years ago, and that Oda herself was out of the country at the time this particular document came through her office, it would be remarkable if she could say for certain whose hand made the circle.

See, I HAVE read the transcripts. I'm wondering if those who are claiming that the lied actually have.

That's what the opposition and the PPG are claiming, but it's not what happened. Again, the lie is theirs, not hers.

Instead of raising the minimum wage, if we really cared about the poor, what we should be doing it eliminating them. Minimum wages kill competition for labour, and keeps everyone's wages artificially low. Personally, I much prefer to get paid piecework, rather than a set wage. that way I'm the one in control of how much I make.

I have serious qualms about such things. If it ever happens, I'll be the first to call for the minister to resign. In the Bev Oda case, the people doing the lying are the opposition and the PPG.

The left has to latch on to these faux outrages because this government hasn't done anything that's actually scandalous. An opposition's job is to oppose. If what's really happening is actually good (so much so that publicly opposing it would hurt rather than help your position), you need to make up things that can be made to sound bad if you torque them enough.

If this is the start of an actual trend (we'll see), then I like it. We get it that you don't like the Conservatives Esq, but there are many of us who do. I'm very impressed with what Harper has been able to get done in the last five years in a minority setting with a united left-wing opposition. In my book, he's the best PM we've had in the last 40 years.

A slightly smaller percentage of a much larger number is still an increase.

Those tax rates are already law, and the Liberals voted for them to be so. It's done. As already stated, what the Liberals and NDP voted for this week was to RAISE taxes. It was a motion they knew in advance that the Conservatives would ignore, because any sensible government would. What the Liberals and NDP have really done is write the next campaign ads for the Conservatives: a vote for Ignatieff is a vote for higher taxes.

$1100 isn't that much if you donate smaller amounts regularly.

The entrance ticket to Disneyland (and Disney World) already includes unlimited rides.

From the Manitoba website: "Diagnostic wait times are reported as estimated maximum wait times rather than averages or medians. In most cases patients typically wait much less than the reported wait time" also: "Patients who require emergency care are not placed on a wait list" http://www.gov.mb.ca/health/waittime/diagnostic/mri.html

DP

Sure they were. The limits are a fairly recent thing. I have no cap on my Shaw account, no limits was one of the basic features of Shaw's cable internet system when I signed on.

The posted wait times are not the actual time you will wait, nor are they the averages. They are the maximums.

Just to throw in another personal account that happened this week regarding me still not seeing where these waiting lists are: I've got a low back injury, and it's not responding to the treatment that the doctor and physiotherapist were giving. The X-ray (that I got within 5 minutes of the doctor sending me for one) didn't really show anything, so the Doc referred me for an MRI. Now, this is one place where we are conditioned to expect a long wait. Everyone has heard the stories about waiting lists several months long. I was expecting the same, but was blown away when the call came from the St. Boniface Hospital MRI department telling me that I was scheduled to get mine done in six days. If this was a one time thing, I'd call it a happy aberration, but in my 43 years living in Manitoba, I've literally never seen any of this waiting for medical care that people talk about. I always get what I need when I need it, in a timely, efficient, and professional manner.

The reason I don't use CFLs is I don't like the light they give off. Things look weird, and they give me a headache.

I'm still wondering where these attack ads are. I haven't seen any. I have seen some well reasoned ads that calmly and accurately listed some of the things that Ignatieff has said about Canada.

There are more than enough ridings that they only lost by a couple percentage points (or less!), that they easily could get a majority. As for why we'd want one? So that he can actually start running a conservative government instead of having a gun to his head forcing him to keep spending more.