Evening Star

I actually like Justin Trudeau more than most people I know but there's no way he's smarter or a better speaker than his Dad.

I'd quite possibly vote for them (especially if Layton is going to make a BS deal with Harper). Also, yes to the question below:

Like, I'd question the blogger's analysis because CIDA is not a ministry. It is a government-supported agency that reports to the Ministry of International Co-operation. So "CIDA decision" would mean "a decision made by the people (bureaucrats) within the Canadian International Development Agency" to me, not "a decision made by the Minister for International Co-operation". I would refer to the latter as a "Ministry [for International Co-operation] decision".

xpost to ToadBrother: If you go to the links to the official transcripts and read the commentary, he does challenge the notion that she was misleading Parliament though. I don't know what I think of his analysis but it does seem to complicate things. Having said that, don't you think it seems a bit strange that altering a signed document, even if the Minister is doing the alteration, can be standard OP for government officials?

That's right. The vote of no confidence passed 171-133. The NDP had 18 seats. Even if the whole party voted in favour of the sitting Martin government, the motion would have still passed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_federal_election,_2006#Events_during_the_38th_Parliament http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38th_Canadian_Parliament And I'm being swayed over to Rovik's view of this negotiation. Anyone who thinks the NDP are communists or even socialists in the classic sense is delusional btw.

As someone who mostly votes NDP federally, is this list of demands really that reasonable if taxes are also going to be lowered and we have a serious deficit to deal with?

Two other people had already signed it prior to the alteration.

At least this small-c conservative doesn't seem to have trouble parsing the situation: http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/02/16/a-test-of-our-democracy/

I actually agree here but then it should be official policy not to fund religious groups. And I would have a bigger problem with e.g. the ON government funding Catholic schools. Maybe you're right, Wild Bill. Both are cases of politicians abusing their position unethically but maybe the sponsorship scandal was worse.

Oda's action is utterly contemptible but August may be right in terms of how this will play out with the general public. While I would say this is on the same ethical level as the sponsorship scandal, Oda's action didn't cost taxpayers money and, unfortunately, the victim might not inspire that much sympathy in much of the public. Who knows, though?

The "knowingly" part isn't what concerns me, scribblet. It's that there would now be a requirement that in order for action to be taken, not only would the news have to be false or misleading but it would also have to “endanger or [be] likely to endanger the lives, health or safety of the public.” False and misleading news should be avoided even without this requirement.

In what ways? I don't have much of an opinion on the pitbull ban but my dog-loving gf loathes it. The expanded Greenbelt designations sounded good to me but I don't know the details there (so I didn't mention them earlier). I should admit that since coming back to Canada, my hydro has always been included in my rent so I've never had to pay an electricity bill.

It's similar to what you describe in MB, Smallc.: http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/pub/ohip/eyecare.html

Actually, one thing I do have against McGuinty is dropping OHIP coverage for eye exams. I somehow don't think the PCs would reinstate this though.

Seriously, I wouldn't wanted elected untrained judges any more than I'd wanted elected untrained doctors.

Topaz, I agree with you about corporate taxes but I kind of have to agree with Smallc about this vote. We can't really expect Harper to base his policy on a non-binding resolution from the Commons.

(Green energy wasn't the only thing I mentioned btw.)

I see what you're saying. This is the MicroFit programme you're describing, then?

I meant the details in Iowa and NS. I do know that ON's plan is based on subsidies. That's pretty much the only way I could see a transition to green energy working, actually. I assumed that some of the subsidies were also contingent on the producers employing people in ON? How would we do this?

I think many people are against green energy or, at the least, are against actively switching to it when traditional energy sources seem to be working fine and inexpensively for right now. I'll be honest that I also share some of your concerns about the Samsung deal - I would have preferred that the province support domestic producers, especially small-scale producers. I guess my position is simply that, despite these concerns and some of the clumsy handling, I think it's very important that we do move towards cleaner and more renewable energy sources and do it reasonably quickly. As such, I think this government has shown leadership in making a fairly ambitious transition that goes significantly further than what most other governments in the country had done. Like, there are actual wind farms that I can actually see that are actually producing electricity. It's too often that governments talk about doing things without achieving evident results. Perhaps you're right that the drawbacks/costs outweigh the benefits? I dunno. Are there other jurisdictions that have done a better job with a similar project that I should read up on? Iowa or NS? (Serious question. I don't know that much about the details of what those governments have done but their programmes didn't sound that different to me from what I did read.)

The minimum wage and green energy plan are exceptional for this country.

A $10.25 minimum wage, doubling the number of community health centres, reduced primary class sizes, investment in higher education including expanded medical school spaces, and, yes, green energy.

The "government" part of your comment is important. The government represents and is funded by the public and is expected to act in the public interest. These telecommunications phone/cable networks were partly government-funded. It is not thus unreasonable to want the government to intervene to an extent. As I said before, though, I'm not clear where I stand on this particular issue and haven't signed the petition. I tend to find the Citizen column convincing. If anything, I would lean towards actual socialization of the ownership of the 'last mile'.

One can recognize that and still believe that the Internet should remain affordable and accessible.

I guess maybe he raised taxes as well as cutting spending instead of cutting both?