Evening Star

This might be because Indians were forcibly expelled en masse from Uganda in 1972 and were therefore the people who were seeking refuge? It's a bizarre comparison whatever one thinks about this issue.

Hard to laugh, Michael. Hard to laugh.

I'm not a fan of the policy but I would have never assumed that the low-income vote would be guaranteed to the Liberals, actually. That's generally NDP territory (and, contrary to some posters' beliefs, they are two different parties). If anything, my feeling is that it was more cynical: 'tax break for the middle class' sounds better than 'tax break for higher earners'.

Lol @ blueblood the leftist.

I would probably scrap the child care benefit altogether but I agree that means-testing it is an improvement. (I'll concede that I hadn't factored this in when I was running my numbers, not having kids myself.) I'm not sure that a tax break is justified for the higher end of what you're calling the middle class (say people making $90K-$200K/year). But maybe by scrapping income splitting and rolling back TFSA limits, they will make up the revenue. If they scrap the Tories' boutique tax credits (and especially if they taxed capital gains more highly), a cut to the nominal rate might actually be justified.

I think the people who benefit most from this might be better off than the term "middle class" implies.

So, in order to not lose too much revenue, they're giving a tax break to only the top 1/3 of income earners (except the highest 1%)? How is this defensible (unless you really believe that high earners are overtaxed, in which case, please come out and say that this is what it looks like when you grow the economy from the heart out, Mr. Trudeau)?

As Smallc notes, it's a tax on income earned within the 44.7k-89k bracket, which means that it benefits everyone who makes over 44.7k (except for the top 1% of income earners who make over 202k, because of the new bracket) and no one who makes less than 44.7k. This is why I think it is a terrible policy.

I didn't think the Green Party of Canada had many ties to international Green Parties.

If I were voting on the basis of the leader and platform, I would have voted Green. Their candidate in my riding was a nobody and the NDP incumbent was a great MP so I voted on that basis.

Well, if you look at party affiliation as the only thing that matters, your interpretation is correct. But there are other ways of looking at it. In STV, everyone's vote can count towards a representative, and their order of preference is taken into account.

Um, yes, I do take issue with this, and took issue with it when Chretien was PM as well. At least the LPC has said they will reform the electoral system and the level of autonomy of MPs in the House. Whether they keep this promise is one thing I will definitely judge them by.

To me the most interesting thing about this election is that Quebec voted Liberal for the first time since 1980: since then, they have always either voted for separatists (BQ) or for a party (Mulroney's PCs, Layton's NDP) that offered some kind of asymmetrical federalism and Constitutional reform. They chose to go with the ultra-federalist party of the Clarity Act this time, even when both of the other options were available to them, and they have a Liberal provincial government no less. This has to be some kind of low point for Quebec nationalism in the last 50 years or so.

Actually, the premise of STV is that no one's vote is wasted. If there is not enough Green Party support for a Green candidate to win a seat, those voters' second preferences would be counted.

Yeah, that's not just a technical point. I've been a DRO and there is a difference between these things. Declined ballots are counted and they do mean something, probably as much as one extra vote for the Liberals in Ottawa-Vanier counts for something.

He's also fairly hawkish on foreign affairs. One would have to be a completely blinkered Tory partisan to describe Coyne as a left-wing hack.

Ah. An interesting kind of strategic vote.

Yeah, same here.

Oh, I could see C-51 being the reason.

Wow, I'd love to hear his explanation of this. I'm starting to wonder if he just supports third parties on principle.

The NDP seem committed to MMP; I'm not entirely sure why. This is one area where I prefer the Greens and Liberals.

There is nothing terribly inspiring about having a balanced account sheet in and of itself, unless you are actually in crippling debt. It's a good thing, in general, but it is not much of an ideological goal on its own. My suspicion is that the NDP believed, or at least are terrified of, their critics who said that the problem with Bob Rae's provincial government (20 YEARS AGO) was that it was irresponsible and ran up too much of a deficit. (A defi Since then, they seem to be somewhat obsessed with proving that they are not really like that.

Yes. My vote for Paul Dewar was largely for him as an MP. I have significant beefs with the Liberals on C-51 and their willingness to work with Bill Blair, and I don't like their tax or trade policies as much, but their policies on democratic reform are great and much better than the NDP's imo.

I believe you're thinking about the actual CPC cabinet here.

The very first section of their actual printed election platform is all about health care. It includes: developing a national universal public drug coverage plan, hiring over 7000 doctors and nurses, building 200 clinics, expanding home care to over 40,000 seniors. None of this got talked about nearly as much as balanced budgets, abolishing the Senate, and a federal minimum wage (that affects a tiny number of workers). Also: zero-interest student loans, a programme for paid internships and apprenticeships for youth. They didn't even really talk about the TPP until the end of the campaign.