Bryan

Neither. He should be commended for both his honesty and his resourcefulness.

I've been there. When my son was born 15 yrs ago, my wife and I were both students. We were working part time jobs. The economy in this country was far worse than it is now, wages were far lower, jobs were harder to come by, and the influx of Walmart and dollar stores and Chinese made products has not yet flooded our markets with really cheap goods, so most things actually cost more than they do now. Somehow we still managed to buy a house, feed and clothe our son, and put him in the activities he wanted to do, That included multiple sports, and playing multiple instruments. You want to talk about figuring out how to pay for expensive activities, try having a kid who is a goalie and drummer at the same time. There's your equipment expenses, your transportation, your time, etc. If it's important, you'll find a way.

Actually, that IS a great idea. The questions in the House are little more than a kindergarten screaming match.

Then we can't trust any of them, because they all are promising this.

No mea culpa required. There were discussing the same events, and going over similar concerns. I'd be shocked if some of the wording did not line up. For a couple of sentences within the framework of a several minute speech to sort of sound slightly similar is no evidence of anything other than the Liberals are getting very desperate.

You'd have gotten $1500 for the three kids in sports. Every little bit helps. For those with a will, there is always a way. For those with excuses, nothing is ever enough.

CPC has plenty of great people, just for some reason some of their best people like Flanagan and Finley prefer to work behind the scenes. And Morton appears to be happy with provincial politics. I'm just saying I'd like to see these guys promoted to cabinet wether they ever run as MPs or not.

Sure I do. I have two kids.

Didn't Fortier already step down from the senate? I'd be just as happy if Harper ignored who has a seat and who doesn't, and just appointed cabinet posts to the best people for the job, even if they are not MPs or senators. I'd love to see Tom Flanagan and/or Ted Morton brought in especially.

What are you talking about? Arts programs do not have to be prohibitively expensive for parents. Yes, it's a little tight sometimes, but that's the point of the tax credit: you get it back at the end of the year. Then the next year is far less tight, because you already have the money for the program from the tax refund.

What flip flop? The CPC increased funding to the arts by 19%.

I think it was plenty dumb to begin with.

Of course it requires double blind placebo controlled studies to prove it works. If a placebo gets the same results, then obviously the difference had nothing to do with the herb. How do you determine what that effective dose even is, if the studies can't even show it works at all? I'm not totally anti natural remedies. I use some. But I'm very carefull to keep abreast of the scientific data. If the data doesn't support effectiveness, I'm not spending dime one. This is not true either. Doing "something" is not better if there are more cost effective ways. It also requires that there actually is ""something that can be fixed, and that "something" does anything to specifically address it. Carbon tax does nothing to specifically address pollution. It's nebulous. The funny part is, While people complain that the CPC are not doing enough to address the environment, they are the only party with actual specific pollution controls in their plan. The amount is small, but it's an actual figure, in legislation, not an ethereal projection based on potential tax income vs tax cuts.

Which respected economists are saying Canada is in a crisis? Most of the ones I've seen are saying we are are in pretty good shape compared to the rest of the world.

You thought that this was the point of the story, didn't you?

I think you are on to something here. Perhaps the whole structure of how revenue is accounted needs to be looked at. Certain taxes could go directly towards funding certain departments/programs, and not be available to general revenue. Then nobody has a leg to stand on with respect to blaming each other for lack of funding or wrong spending priorities.

I'll be watching our Leaders debate, but taping the US VP debate.

If the NDP want to claim that they know how to "fix" healthcare, they need to stop implying that this is strictly a federal issue, unless they want to take it away from the provinces' jurisdiction entirely. I can't decide if that would be a bad thing or not. If we want to follow more along the lines of how some of the more successful programs in Europe work, it seems to me that it would have to be centralized. I just don't believe, being given central control over healthcare, that the federal NDP would do anything other than make it worse.

Not true. You need to read things in the context, not just pull one verse out while ignoring the rest of the passage. Christians are overwhelmingly exhorted to be very judgemental. They are just supposed to make sure their own houses are in order if/when others turn that judgement back on them.

Sure, Stelmach's ship is not as tightly run as Klein's was, but with an absolutely booming economy, an unemployment rate that is a negative number, and no debt, the other provinces can only dream of being run "any where near as bad as Alberta". Does Stelmach have problems that need addressing? Yup. But man, are they ever good problems to have in comparison. Having the country run exactly the way Alberta has been run for the last couple decades would be the best thing that could ever happen to us as a nation.

Anyone who thinks an extra $100 a month is useless is welcome to send theirs to me. It certainly has been very helpful to me. It was the one part of the 2006 CPC plan that I was most supportive of. Between that and the rest of the tax changes, I had more in my pocket every month than I ever did during the Liberals, and I got significantly more back on my returns at year end. For me and my 4 yr old daughter, it has been at least as good as promised if not better.

And yet, their so called "base" is significantly larger than those who follow your opinion. Seems to me, if you are going to call anyone a "whacko", you look to the fringes, not the mainstream. The only people with an axe to grind, and a desire to force their beliefs on others are the ones actively campaigning to impose carbon taxes on everyone. I don't subscribe to their doomsday cult, so why don't they stop trying to impose their religion on me?

This is a common misconception. Sure, the Liberals ran a large surplus, they'll proudly proclaim that. What they won't mention is they did that by cutting tens of billions in funding to healthcare, provincial transfer payments, military, border security, etc. I could claim to have great sums of money in the bank too if I just stopped paying my bills. The "big spending" the Liberals keep claiming the Conservatives did was primarily due to being left holding the bag for things the Liberals left unpaid. What Flaherty was able to do was restore funding to these programs, cut taxes, pay down the debt, and still run a nearly $3 billion surplus.

I find it curious that I (as a hardcore member of the Reform for its entire existence and strong supporter of the CPC) have no knowledge of any kind of any such "hidden agenda", yet some how you do. Where can I get a copy of this secret manifesto? If anything, the CPC's main problem is they have basically abandoned everything the Reformers fought so hard for, and moved far too much towards what the old PCs were. There is barely any resemblance (public or private) to The Reform Party.

Wow, I did not know any of this. No-one on these boards has ever talked about the pros and cons of a carbon tax. Nope. No threads in progress about this topic at all.