Evening Star

WTF? Because of the actions of some student groups, all students' rights should be disregarded? (Some of the comments here are swaying me a little to the idea that this is at least a little closer to routine... Would want to see more documented evidence though. Plus, part of the issue is that these students were not even official Liberal workers or even volunteers. They just had Ignatieff in their Facebook profile pictures.)

Not defending Chretien but these students weren't even protesters.

I think the Opposition is pushing the Bruce Carson comparison a little hard but this seems like a blatantly indefensible action on the part of the CPC, appallingly so.

This is fascinating. Thanks! I dunno, in all the urban/suburban ON ridings I looked at, voting patterns seem to break down pretty predictably according to class/income (which I do think reflects party policy more than self-image). The NDP/CPC divisions (with no Liberal polls) in Windsor are interesting though.

And if Hudak also wins in ON, just think what we have to 'look forward' to...

It's a brilliant strategy, don't get me wrong!

The Liberals have basically unexpectedly adopted many of the strongest planks of the NDP platform and are campaigning effectively on them. Until the last couple of months, I didn't even see them as a left-of-centre party. Now, as a left-of-centre voter, it's hard to not agree with much of what they're saying.

But we don't vote directly for a head of government in our system. We vote for local representatives who are supposed to be responsible. Any government that can achieve the support of the majority of those elected representatives has derived a democratic mandate. Maybe I could see where you were coming from if the party with a plurality had won a majority of the popular vote but that's not even close to being the case.

But it's not undemocratic! That is how Parliamentary democracy works!

I'm not convinced of this, especially considering that a huge portion of the NDP's base is also in urban, ethnically diverse communities (e.g. the two Windsor ridings, Layton's and Chow's ridings, East Vancouver, ...) The two parties co-operated in the 60s and 70s and in ON in the 80s. (PET even offered the NDP a full coalition in 1980.)

Actually, I've wondered why we don't have as many different tax brackets for corporate taxes as we do for personal income taxes.

Depends which of the two he needed more... If he was freezing in the winter, he might appreciate it...

OK, any tax creates some level of immediate adversity for the taxpayer and the optimum business climate would probably be 0% tax and minimal regulation. However, in order to fund government programmes and services - many of which benefit business - and in order to balance our books, we need to charge taxes. (My suspicion is that you and Dancer just want to have less of these services anyway.) And the least painful way to do this is to charge more from those who have more to tax. You're all mainly focusing on the corporate tax cut rollback and mainly neglecting that a significant tax cut is also being proposed for smaller businesses, which should still have the stimulating benefits that you extol. And I have to assume that despite having to pay a little more in taxes, some companies will still make money and need to hire new people. The proposed tax break simply gives an incentive to hire in Canada. Having said this, I'm not saying for sure that 19.5% is the best corporate tax rate, just that it doesn't sound like a blatantly disastrous idea.

I meant that I'm not sure that tax rate would necessarily be a crippling or insurmountable adversity for major corporations. (I'm guessing the "Chin who walks like a man" is Mulroney but I'm still puzzling out the Admiral one...)

Who would you credit with this, out of curiosity?

I'm not sure that bringing back corporate taxes to 2008 levels is actually causing adversity for big business though. Big businesses seemed able to get by before then as well. They're just talking about balancing the tax burden in a slightly different direction and directly promoting domestic employment with a tax incentive for hiring Canadian workers.

Yeah, this doesn't seem like an obviously stupid idea to me. We take progressive taxation as a given when it comes to personal income tax. And we had those corporate tax rates just a few years ago so it doesn't seem like a radical proposal or anything.

Especially now that the LPC has basically adopted quasi-NDP economic policy, this seems to make the most sense. Ignatieff has more or less sworn off a coalition already though. Do you think people would swallow a flip-flop on this?

I always thought they should take this approach! It seems so wasteful for the LPC to put so much effort into e.g. contesting Outremont.

Tbh, in practice, imo the BQ is basically a social democratic party that looks out for Quebec's interests. What have they achieved for the cause of separatism in their existence? Harper was willing to reach out to them and even put forth that BS 'nation' resolution. And, as Jack likes to note, it was Mulroney who really cosied up to separatists in the first place. I'd have reservations about them being partners in any formal coalition but not with them providing support to any sort of governing party.

Not Harper but national CPC campaign chair Guy Giorno repeatedly states that it would be problematic and "undemocratic" for the party with the second-most seats to govern with support from other parties if Parliament lost confidence in the party with a plurality of seats: http://watch.ctv.ca/news/powerplay#clip439858

"It would really surprise me if the Liberals didn't get the most seats... The way I think the Liberals are eventually going to lose office... is they're going to fail to win a majority... And that's where I think someday you're going to face a minority Parliament with the Liberals maybe having the most seats. What will be the test then is whether there's any party in Opposition that's able to form a coalition or a working alliance with the others. And I think we have a political system that's gonna continue to have three or four different parties or five different parties and so I think parties that want to form government are eventually going to have to work together." Seems pretty clear-cut.

My perception of the quote still hasn't changed either.

Sorry, didn't notice it had been posted already. How do you explain these comments (from 1997, I believe)?:

Why would it be unconstitutional?