Chimera

In my experiences travelling to the US for business/vacations, it seems to me that AN American is similar to a Canadian, while Americans as a whole do have vastly different beliefs. I am assuming you live in the GTA, you should try travelling to a little town just outside there called Smithville.

writing to reach you, If you're looking for a decent breakdown of the issues, herre is a good source: http://www.ctv.ca/mini/election2006/static/issues/index.html Of course, you should never rely on just one source, so here is a couple of others: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/leadersparties/ http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/CanadaVotes/home.html There are others out there as well. I would suggest you attend the local candidates debate. Maybe take some notes, decide which of them you feel you would want representing you in Ottawa. And finally, don't let any of the "arguments" on this board sway you. IMHO, their really is no one worth voting for in this election. The Liberals lie. The Conservatives lie. The NDP lies. In reality, the only goal of ANY politician is to attain, or stay in power. Regards

BTW, under the liberal plan, Daycare would receive approx $1B/yr. Using a (IMV) conservatively guesstimated number of 200000 families having children under 6, this equates to $96/wk or $14/day.

Melanie, You make some very good points. However, I worry when PM PM says that childcare is now a right, like healthcare. Given what is happening in healthcare, I would prefer not to have my children involved in a similarly run program. Also, this would mean that the standards level for the caregivers would possibly vary greatly between the provinces as it will be them to set standards, dole out money, etc. Manitoba may be very good at this, but I suspect my home province of Ontario would find a way to F@ck it up even if the responsibility came with idiot-proof instructions.

Indeed. The institutionalization of daycare by the government is reminiscent of the Russian system, you know, take away the kids at an early age, put them into kindergarten gulags, educate and brainwash them. Put them under the tutelage of social engineers paid for and indoctrinated by a government whose lack of scruples was evident by the Adscam and a record of broken promises, is this what we want for our children? Stephen Harper's proposal is a welcome antidote to the Liberals' Nanny-State approach to day care and gives parent choices and maybe an opportunity to stay home. Next thing you know, the Liberals will ban stay at home moms, heck doesn't the nanny-state know best !! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Now we're just getting ridiculous. Comparing government funded daycare to russian gulags is simply assinine. Why not make an accurate comparison. It will become like a mix of our public education and public healthcare systems. Both of which are underfunded and in shambles.

The CPC would never try to dictate what's best for Canadians, unless it about telling Canadian women they cant have abortions, or that homosexuals can't marry each other, or that it is ok to hate homosexuals..... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> or that we should put young people in jail and give them criminal records for the rest of their lives because they possessed a gram of marijuana. Surely even CPC supporters would agree that Harper's finally crossed the line by opposing something as benign as decriminalization. But hey, when someone thinks the 1920's approach of decriminalizing alcohol and criminalizing marijuana is logical, they're irrational anyway. But I will concede that he'd have made a fine Prime Minister in 1925. The Liberals, NDP and BQ, as well as two thirds of the Canadian population favour decriminalization but CPC knows better and believes jail time "will teach 'em". Nope, CPC would never try to dictate what's best for Canadians. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Holy off-topic Batman!!!

What seems to be missing from this debate, from mpov, is that the people who cannot afford daycare (the ones the Liberals say the plan would benefit most), would likely not even be able to use the gov't daycare. My reasoning is this - lower paying jobs are generally not m-f 9-5. These parents will be working shift, and unless the gov't daycares are open 24-7 (a VERY expensive proposition), no benefit will come to these people. Now, $100/month will not solve the problem either, but as a future parent, it would be my choice.

In Ontario, we tend to define ourselves as Canadian more by being NOT American than by anything else. The Liberals (and the media) play on this by pointing out how American the conservative policies appear to be. They still mention that Harper would have us in Iraq, and participating in BMD. They make claims of Harper wanting American style healthcare, and that he would simply ignore the softwood lumber dispute. This has been going on since Harper became party leader. Of course Harper actually saying he would have sent troops to Iraq didn't help him either. Despite all of the CPC's good policies, many Ontario voters will associate Harper with Bush and the US. This of course, is seen as a bad thing in Not-America, err I mean Canada.

But if your car is over 20 yrs old (pre '85), your car is exempt from this test. The whole drive clean program really is just a farce. And BTW, Ontario does have a similar program, though the incentives are not quite as good (tax receipt for charitable donation I believe).

I'm not so sure his "rant" is at all politically motivated. He stated that the country has been on a decline since '68. He did not state since '68 except for a brief time when the conservatives were in power. I don't know where to find the numbers, but what was voter turn out like in the first half of the last century. It is abysmal now. Why fight to defend a country where over half the population can't bother to take 30 mins out of their day, ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS, to contribute to.

Supply and demand. This would be the free market in action, n'est pas?

So anyway.... How is the average voter going to see this. Is this going to be seen as Liberals trying to buy votes or as opposition parties impeding progress? For the many people that get their political info from 30 second sound bites on the six o'clock news, $30B in tax cuts is going to sound awfully good. Hardcore cons are saying the libs are evil, hardcore libs are saying cons are evil. Predictable. Their opinions don't really count for much as far as elections go though, because it is the swing voters who will decide the outcome. So how will this mini-budget be viewed by these people?

Yeah, you're probably right kimmy. I think also Greg needs to add a new font for sarcasm as some people seem to be completely impervious to this (as well as humour).

Looking at this Liberal mini-budget, what are some of the consequences that it could have on the upcoming election? Here is my take on it. 1. The Liberals fought the last election on essentially two fronts - healthcare, and Harper is a scary, bad man. I don't think they can fight this election on Healthcare now. The system is still a shambles, and the mini-budget ignored it completely. $30B would have gone a long way to help the system, and without any added private sector resources, having the extra money in your pocket won't help you on the health front either. So now they will have to run a liberal campaign on conservative ideas (tax cuts). Oh yeah, and Harper is still a scary, bad, BAD man. 2. The deal they made with the NDP in the spring was undone in this budget. This seems to add to the party's dishonesty record. This will likely ensure the soft NDP voters do indeed vote NDP instead of Liberal. Of course, the reinstatement of these tax cuts has kinda been just glossed over, so it may have no actual impact. 3. The personal tax cuts are the real unknown here. The question is if it will anger voters into believing Liberals are trying to buy their votes. We all know hardcore cons will charge this, hardcore libs will deny it. These opinions don't really count as it is the soft and undecided votes that will determine the election outcome. Most people will not take notice that the middle income tax cuts do not take effect until 2010. Lot's of time to reneg on those later. 4. The Conservatives ran the last election on tax cuts. Do they have anything else? They will not win an election on Gomery alone. They need to ignore the attack strategy they tried last time and focus on policies. They can not get into a spin war with the libs, the libs will always win as they are the masters of this it seems. Now of course comes the BIG question. Assuming the libs win the coming election, will they even actually follow through on this propsal, or will they find some way to wriggle out of it (GST anyone? NAFTA?). Whatever your political leanings, you gotta give these guys credit. They're good. And just remember, they're not even "playing political games" yet.

Okay, but as I said, I have a terrible memory. What was that deal? (honest question)

Everyone keeps talking about how the NDP "burned" the Tories & Bloc in the spring. I don't really have a very good memory, but I thought that the NDP had made it clear BEFORE the confidence motion that they had struck a deal with the Libs, and would be supporting them.

Today's G&M poll Look at the numbers at the very bottom. The interesting part is that the Green Party is actually benefitting from all these main party posturing shenanigans. The Conservatives are shown to be DOWN 3% IN THE WEST!!! The Greens meanwhile, are up 4%. That is of course, if you actually believe in polls.

So then the best possible outcome here for the CPC would be if the Bloc were to table the confidence motion. That way, the public wouldn't be mad at Harper for calling a Christmas election, and Layton would have to follow up on his word or else risk losing voter confidence, and with the reported atmosphere in Quebec right now, Duceppe could take a train trip throughout Quebec, giving them all the finger, and still win hands down.

He has said that his party will not support the Liberals in a confidence motion. And technically, they haven't "propped up" the Liberal government since the confidence motion in the spring. What I find interesting is that now Harper is saying that the conservatives won't table a confidence motion on his opposition day, that now he wants Jack to do that. The last time the conservatives were this high in the polls, they were clamoring for an election. Looks like a bit of wisdom from the right in not wanting to piss off the public with a holiday election.

What about Switzerland? Politics of Switzerland I have also been told that there are other European countries that typically function with minority governments.

However, I think (and this is just my opinion) that by trying to make the minority government work, that they might start to come off as a reasonable alternative, and sway some of the swing voters to their side. They at least will have some accomplishments to point out come election time. They won't get any support from liberal-haters, but they would be unlikely to win that support in any circumstance.

That doesn't really leave him anywhere to turn then. At least by propping up the Lib's in return for concessions, the NDP comes off as the only party trying to make this minority gov't work. I would think that should help them win a few more seats when the election finally does come.

There's a whole country below sea level in Europe. Mankind will always try to conquer nature (and quite often lose).

I recently heard it third hand (purportedly from a Petro-Can exec) that Petro Canada actually has enough gas in stock for two full years!! Knowing what happens to gas left in my lawnmower over winter, I kinda find this hard to believe, but.....

So what about the accusation of Trudeau being a separatist? I seem to recall reading somewhere that he was involved with the separitists while in university, but I've never seen empirical evidence for or against. Anybody?