Evening Star

I don't deny these things at all. I guess what I'm saying is more that I was initially expecting to see virtually no difference between urban ON and urban NY or MI; To my eyes, there still are noticeable and significant differences that seemed more striking because of the tiny geographic distance and the similar cultural diet... The demographics and associated racial politics even in non-"ex-slave states", characters of urban vs suburban regions, things like attitudes towards what the place of a labour union should be (even among pro-union people), the role of the government in the cultural sector, a wide range of things in the academic sphere (all the way from the grading systems to the relative rates of pay for sessional instructors to little things like e.g. the way that my American friends are blown away to hear that Canadian students often address teachers and professors as "Sir"). I guess it depends what things you're looking at... Even with something like accent and dialect: The difference between upstate NY and West Virginia is massive, no doubt, but the difference between Detroit and Windsor or Toronto and Buffalo is still pretty striking imo considering how close they are. ( http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=114 sounds typical of upstate NY to me; This is pretty close to how I speak and seems noticeably different: http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=541 . This is from Windsor fwiw: http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=407 .) (This may be largely a function of the Great Lakes/Midwest Northern cities vowel shift though... The difference between Toronto and Denver or San Francisco doesn't seem as sharp oddly... And the difference between Toronto and small-town Nova Scotia might be great as well...) I've deviated pretty far from the original article. I guess all I'm saying is that, while Northern or East Coast states do seem very different from Southern states, they also don't really seem 'Canadian' to me. Or, at the least, the difference is more than I expected it to be?

There's no deceit involved at all. The NDP openly identifies as social democratic on their party website, in Layton's writings, campaign literature, speeches, ...: http://www.ndp.ca/vision/economy If anything, provincial NDP governments have probably been less social democratic in practice than the party's literature tends to suggest.

Interesting... It was only after living in a 'Canadian state' that I did notice most of the differences...

Is it really that hard to understand, considering that the US is our neighbour and largest trading partner, has 10 times our population, and is the most powerful country in the world? (On a personal level, my connections to the US go well beyond this so I do maintain an interest in US politics.)

But how do you see this playing out in the long term? Endless Liberal majorities and nothing but? Seems more likely that people would switch back and forth if we had a two-party system, doesn't it? As the centrist party in the postwar three-party/multi-party system, the Liberals were able to benefit most often, both by positioning themselves to voters as the centre and by virtue of the fact that the left-wing party was more likely to back them in a minority Parliament. And the NDP aren't splitting the vote! They are a distinct party with a distinct platform! Even otherwise, I have not seen much evidence (although I don't have numbers on me) that there are that many CPC ridings at all where the CPC candidate would have lost if the Liberal and NDP vote was united behind one candidate. (And you can not assume that every NDP voter would become a Liberal voter, especially in rural or Western ridings.)

When has the Liberal Party advocated 'social solidarity', especially of the sort that would preclude other groups from adopting different stances on issues? They have always primarily advocated, at least in principle, for individual freedoms. Classical liberals and social liberals took different views on how to best provide for individual freedom. Even the current party's page on "What We Stand For" ( http://www.liberal.ca/issues/ ) states: and does not mention anything about solidarity. For that matter, even the NDP states ( http://www.ndp.ca/vision/social-policy ) that: Individual fulfillment, not 'social solidarity', is seen as the ultimate goal. They do advocate a society where people support and protect each other - which is a kind of 'solidarity', yes. That does not mean a society where two parties with some common goals cannot disagree about other issues. If anything, the ability to advocate for different perspectives would seem to be part and parcel of "every member reaching their full potential".

The Liberals and NDP advocate markedly different policies in many significant areas. They come from different philosophical stances and have different bases of funding/support. Just because they both seem broadly 'left' to you (along with Stalin and Trotsky or Obama and Pelosi) doesn't mean that they need to or should be expected to agree on everything. (And they do agree on some things. The two parties have co-operated in the past, just as the Liberals and Conservatives co-operate on many things now.) Nor do their disagreements in and of themselves prove some kind of failure of 'left-wing' ideology. From the point of view of a right-wing Republican, Stephen Harper's government might seem left-wing as well. I didn't think any of this would be hard to understand for someone who votes for Duceppe's BQ, whom even I consider a genuinely left-wing party.

Why would it not? Because it is unlikely to win an election?? Minority governments seem quite likely for a while, allowing the NDP to potentially wield influence. This makes no sense to me. The NDP is the party in English Canada that is advocating policies that are distinctly different from those of the government, particularly when it comes to Afghanistan but also when it comes to the environment and economics. It would make more sense to ask if the Liberals have a reason to exist. (And I would still answer "Yes. Just with a new leader.")

Oh, now I'm more awake and I see that you were probably arguing against having a long-form census in the first place because people can abuse it. OK, no, I don't agree at all. Tend to agree with Shakeyhands.

Also, personal attacks are against the rules of this forum.

That's almost my point though. Even if one or two people were to falsely claim that they have additional people in their households, how much of a difference would that make in terms of transfer payments? I thought this is what you were advocating for in the first place?

Is this really that easy? The government already has a registry of who actually lives where through other means, including tax forms, don't they? And wouldn't it require a fairly large number of people to falsely declare that they have additional people in their households in order for it to make much of an impact on federal transfer payments? That said, I wouldn't be opposed to taking stricter measures to ensure honesty and accuracy when people fill out the census. I don't know how we'd do that though. Agree here.

And, of course, these are democratically determined conditions that apply, or should apply, to everyone. This is not the same as one individual choosing to illegally take another individual's property, which would certainly be theft.

But property ownership and property rights are in themselves only things that are defined, protected, and enforced by the government. Your right to e.g. claim ownership of a piece of land and charge other people rent to use it or have someone prosecuted for trespassing on it is made possible by e.g. government deeds and public legal institutions that will protect and defend you (maybe by using someone else's tax dollars). The concepts of "property" and "theft" are only meaningful in this context. And as part of the social contract that makes it possible for you to safely own property, the government also sets conditions on property ownership, which include the payment of taxes in order to maintain democratic institutions.

I was joking about logic, yes. I think it's clear enough that there is a level of taxation after which it is counterproductive to raise taxes any further because the taxes themselves will discourage investment and earning. This is the Laffer curve. I'm just not sure that we have reached that point in Canada, and am not even sure that we did under Bob Rae.

Wild Bill: While I don't know if I agree with all your claims, I do actually agree that Rae's government was a bit unprepared, clumsy, and less effective than they could or should have been. However, I originally thought you were using the example of his government to argue the claim that raising (or even maintaining) corporate taxes will inevitably lead to the departure of business and a loss of tax revenue. That is what I was questioning. Logically, if we eliminate taxes altogether, we can maximize government revenue!

Maybe...? I'd need to see some numbers. My parents came here in the 70s (which in itself was made easier, if not possible, by the Liberal governments of the time). They're not especially political: They do have somewhat conservative (but not Christian!) leanings on social issues but they are also quite left-wing by North American standards when it comes to economic and foreign policy. They mostly voted NDP in the 80s and 90s. I'm not entirely convinced that most immigrants have Conservative values when it comes to e.g. pro-US/pro-Israel foreign policy or even economic policy. Some of these things are probably changing with newer generations though...

And Chretien's Liberals signed NAFTA. Ignatieff's policies are very pro-free trade afaict. Fair enough. I just gathered that that was mostly what Bill meant by 'the classical definition', based on his posts. Maybe I was wrong. (xpost to Dancer)

Even King's and St Laurent's Liberal parties created Crown corporations and expanded social programmes. The 'business liberal' C. D. Howe was proudly responsible for public institutions and state-run industry. Were they ever all that libertarian of a party? As far as I can tell, the Liberal party of the past 20 years, especially today's Ignatieff-led party, is as 'fiscally conservative/socially liberal' as they've been in ages, going well back before the Pearson/Trudeau era. Maybe Dion was a bit of an exception.

Right. I already more or less acknowledged that I was wrong to form a conclusion from the figures for a couple of years. I am pretty convinced by msj's arguments that a comprehensive economic analysis is needed and I'm certainly not the guy to do that. Having said that, as I mentioned earlier, I find the example of Bob Rae's government unconvincing for similar reasons. The first part of his term was also a recession, and a slightly worse one in Canada: http://www.thestar.com/business/recession/article/795766--canada-s-great-recession-not-according-to-statscan .

Fair point, msj. August, I'm not sure how well that analogy holds. Our cigarette taxes are pretty steep but I'm not sure that our corporate taxes are in the same way, even compared to the United States'.

Ah, so revenue was in fact greater in the last year with the old 21% tax rate.

Do we really have flat corporate taxes, without even the brackets that the US has? Hm, I didn't totally realize that until now.

It's worth remembering, though, that Rae took power during a nationwide recession, which he certainly did not cause, one that was significantly worse in Canada than the most recent recession was. Ontario was heavily hit, with our manufacturing sector crashing. NAFTA did not help this. I wouldn't claim that Rae's government handled the situation brilliantly but I also don't think that the economic troubles of the time can be blamed entirely on his government, let alone their tax policies. And how high were corporate taxes under Rae anyway? I can't find the rates anywhere but it was never my impression that he raised them to extreme or unprecedented levels. As far as I remember, the changes in economic policy were fairly modest. Btw, looking just at the rates, corporate tax in the US seems steeper than ours: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_tax_in_the_United_States#Federal_tax_rates What am I missing? Is it the combination of federal and provincial rates?

Ha. Unless you're from Montreal or maybe Vancouver, I'm not feeling too bad.