Bryan

I totally agree. The false indignation over arts funding to me was the last straw. They get the freaking world handed to them, and it's never enough. Harper bends over backwards to appease them, and they just spit in his face. Pretending that the criticisms of Dion's inability to answer a simple question on the economy has anything whatsoever to do with english being his second language is just icing on the cake. Screw them. Let them keep chewing on their own faces and never have a voice in Ottawa.

I'm not sure that those links mean what you think they mean. The Conservatives paid down almost $40 Billion on the federal debt in two years, a savings of $2 billion a year in interest payments alone.

Two experts say it is edited, one says it isn't. The one who says it's not "doctored" still admits that it is not the raw footage as the author claims (the tape definitely does have stops and starts). And the hearing on the tape is still scheduled for next week. And the hearing is just regarding the defamation lawsuit, not any charges against Harper. So, no, this is not anything that changes anything. ...Yet.

http://mynews.ctv.ca/home_election?siteT=election Now this I like. I've been one of the strongest opponents to Elizabeth May (and other fringe candidates) being in the national debate, but that doesn't mean I don't think there should be things in place that can allow them to be in the public eye until they do get enough public support to be legitimate front runners. This is a concept I would really like to see all the major news outlets not only develop further, but actually promote. It would be really easy to tie it into mainstream reporting too. Something along the lines of: "we also asked these questions of representatives of the x, y, and z parties. For their answers, please go to our website", Etc.

Very little of radical republicanism is actually conservative. That's a big reason why the Bush-Harper attacks don't stick, they don't even make sense. It's like saying tomatoes are exactly the same as monkeys. At least video with tomatoes and monkeys would be funny.

I don't know, but as a Canadian, I'm loving it. When your dollar is high, I can charge less than my competitors, and still end up making more when I make the exchange. It's beautiful. It's like getting a 20% raise. We export a lot of stuff to you guys. Now it's going to cost you less to buy it. That is good for both of us.

Are you going to stake a claim that he was the only Liberal to admit that the carbon tax is a bad idea? http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=KDn1T6T096c

By that logic you are claiming that John Deere factory workers were making LESS than minimum wage, because they are making more now at Tim Horton's, part time. Bravo, you must be consulting the same economic experts as Dion and May.

He wants someone to tell him what to do, because he has no clue. I'll take the guy who knows what he's talking about. Clearly Harper has proven in the last few days that he knows more about the economy than these so-called experts that Dion and May keep talking about. I don't doubt that they care, but they really need to start talking to different experts. There really are some amazing buys out there right now. Jobs are increasing at record rates. Our economy is the best in the world, and the ability to make a lot of money is just sitting there. Not everyone is in a position to buy, just as not everyone can take advantage of every sale in a store. The value is still there for the taking even if you don't buy it.

It's 4.6% across the board, not just the minimum. Well ahead of the cost of living increases. It means, on average, everyone is making more than they did last year, even after inflation, even after changing jobs. The biggest labour problem we have in this country is a shortage of workers. There are thousands and thousands of good paying jobs going unfilled because we simply do not have enough skilled people to do the work.

No he isn't. He continued to babble the same incoherent, "We have a plan. We will talk to some people to get a plan, that we have, and we will get that plan in 30 days, but we have a plan. But you'll have to wait. It is a plan." He then followed that up with more "Canada has the worst economy in the G7" bullshit when he knows damn well that we have the BEST economy in the G7. He does not understand even the basics of economics. I wouldn't trust him to balance a cheque book, never mind the economy of the country.

Are you kidding? Have you ever done media interviews? They print/broadcast whatever bits they like, including the parts that they insist weren't even on tape to begin with.

It's not noted by others, it's a complete fabrication by Liberals. They're banking on the fact that people don't know anything about politics, and they believe what they're told. It's the same story with the claimed arts cuts (when there were increases), the job losses (when there were increases), that Canada has the worst economy in the G7 (when it has the best), etc, etc. The Liberals have been flat out lying most of the time during this entire election, and Harper's biggest fault is that he's been too NICE, and hasn't lashed out at the Liberals for it.

WOW. Considering the fact that the same Statscan report says wages have increased 4.6 per cent over last year, Tim Horton's must be paying a lot!!!

He is a hockey historian. It is a well known fact that he has been researching and writing a book on the history of the game. Of course he's been looking at old newspapers to see what was being written/said at the time. What exactly are you claiming he's lying about?

A lot of people are panicking for a lot of different reasons, but a lot of people are also stupid. Only an idiot thinks buy high and sell low is a good idea, in any market.

What attack?

Naw, they just ran their whole campaign vilifying Stanfield for his economic plan, only to go ahead and implement it once in power.

I understand the Liberals need to spin this, but seriously. Nobody, not even the most Liberal faithful, actually believes this has anything to do with making fun of Dion's english skills or his alleged disability.

I'm sure that the Liberal spin will either be that many of them were part time. Thing is, many jobs ARE part time. A lot of people who enter the workforce are looking for part time work. The original estimates of 12,500 were total jobs, full and part-time. This is a lot more! Not only that, job increases are everywhere. Quebec and Ontario saw MORE employment, not less as Jack and Dion have been claiming. Manufacturing saw 20,000 more jobs too. MORE, not less. Between this, the IMF's report that our banks are in the best shape in the world, the Statscan report that wages have outpaced inflation, World Economic Forum coming out and saying that Canada's finances are the strongest in the world, the official report from the Department of Finance that we are comfortably in surplus (the ONLY G7 country to do so), at least now we know for a fact one thing that most intelligent people have always suspected: Dion is either a pathological liar or he is completely inept.

Harper was absolutely correct about bargains. I was actually thinking the same thing a few days before he said it. Sure, not everyone can afford to invest right now. Doesn't mean it's not a good time to. A big sale price on something you can't afford is still a big sale price. $5,000 off a $25,000 car? Huge deal. Doesn't help anyone who can't afford the 20k, but lack of cash doesn't mean the $5,000 off is not a great opportunity for those who can. There are a number of exceptionally strong companies whose stocks have fallen with the overall market due to nothing more than panic. How do you think rich people GET rich? Buy low, sell high. While the rest of world is freaking out, Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world (also one of the most philanthropic) is buying big. He knows. Could he lose? Sure, if (when) markets fall more, he could lose some short term. But he also knows no matter how low they go, they'll be coming up eventually, and they'll go a lot higher than where they are now.

4- They're being cautious. Things are good here, but they're bad just about everywhere else. Be carefull, don't make any rash moves, and make sure things STAY good here. I know my bank already gave me a half percent off my mortgage 6 months ago. They just offered, no strings attached, I was not up for renewal, and I did not have to sign on to a longer term. Why would they cut another half point or quarter point now?

That is actually a good example of collective will gone terribly wrong. Human rights is a good thing. Problem is, everyone has a different idea of what that means and how far it should go. Taken too far, one person's rights inevitably infringe on another's. When you craft legislation that tries to become all things to everyone, the law of unintended consequences rears its ugly head, and you end up with epic failures such as our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the CHRC.

Bingo. This "sound fiscal policy" was a brand new thing for the Liberals, plucked directly from the Reform Party policy manual. Reform was no longer just a western protest, and were growing frighteningly fast. Chretien and Martin has no choice but to change their tune on finances to take that plank away. They were afraid that if Reform's rise continued, they'd end up overtaking the Liberals. The Liberals had to make sure they had a leg to stand on fiscally so that they could keep up the "scary, scary" attacks on Manning instead (one of the least scary guys to ever run for office). I'm still not convinced that the Liberals even understood what sound fiscal management was (especially because of their views on surplusses). I think they just looked at what Reform said they would do, and tried to do that. All the while telling their faithful that they would never do such things. In a way, it was remarkably similar to the way that Trudeau mocked Standfield's ideas for improving the economy, only to implement them once in power. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Reformers now ARE in government, they have been even better stewards of our money than the Liberals were, and yet we're still hearing the constant bleating of "scary, scary". Reform policy was "one-member-one-vote". Their principles were dictated by the members, and began as a grassroots movement. They were a party for/of the people instead of the elites. That's populism by definition.

There's a huge difference though. The Conservative attacks have been at least based on reality. Spin and idological opinion, sure, but still a specific attack on a specific real policy or action. An increasingly larger proportion of the Liberal and NDP attacks have been made up out of whole cloth. Especially the comparisons to GWB. Harper seems right wing by Canadian standards, but he'd be reviled by even the most moderate Republican as extremely left wing. The Conservative Party founding principles (http://www.conservative.ca/EN/4679/) would put them to the left of even most Democrats.