Scotty

Why would a party have 'nutter' MPs? What constitutes a nutter?

I don't believe Trudeau had much to do with the organizing and planning of this election campaign. This was done for him, and done very well. He has come off as fresh, well-spoken, and charismatic, but then almost anyone would compared to Harper. Still, that helps a lot, as does the sentiment for change. I have seen no indication he appreciates the complexities of most issues facing the federal government, and seems to view most things through an ideological prism.

I think Kelly MacParland's endorsement of the Conservatives on behalf of the National Post is sane, sensible, and lacks the histrionics we so frequently elsewhere. We seem to be doing pretty well by these measures, but you wouldn’t know it from the Vesuvian eruption of opprobrium that has rained down on the government of Stephen Harper through the course of the election, and the months before. So appalling has Harper been portrayed – so lacking in any redeeming feature – that a visitor would have to wonder how the guy ever got elected in the first place, never mind three times in succession. Are Canadians nuts? http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/kelly-mcparland-the-case-for-re-electing-stephen-harper

What do you think constitutes a 'nutter'? Do you mean people who disagree with you on social policy issues?

My friends often disagree with me on certain political issues. There is no political issue which seems to make us emotional enough to yell at each other and call each other names, however. Perhaps being largely a self-selecting body, we tend to agree on most of the traditional social issues anyway. We don't agree on who to vote for, however.

That's the sort of question we ought to be able to discuss intelligently based on a reasonable person's analyses of proposed program and policy changes. But I find that many such topics seem to rouse people to even higher than normal degrees of hostility towards those who don't share the same views. This used to only be bad when discussing social policy. In Canada, the four subjects which can not be discussed with insults are: abortion, official bilingualism, gay rights, and immigration, with gay rights having replaced what used to be the fourth subject, the death penalty, largely because no one really talks about that one any more. Added to those are now new subjects like global warming, which ought to be able to be discussed rationally since it's based on numbers, and government surveillance, which again ought to be able to be discussed rationally, but never is. We also seem to be developing an almost religious fixation on the Supreme Court so that anything they pronounce on becomes the word of God and can't be rejected on any rational or moral basis. I agree with this. The 'scandals' I've witnessed on the federal scene over the past ten years have seemed relatively minor to me in comparison to what I've seen in the past, but the media, and a lot of people here seem to be shocked and outraged by them nevertheless. For motivating he base and terrifying swing voters, I think we can trace to the Liberal Rat Pack of the Mulroney days, who set about a deliberate policy of calling Mulroney a liar at every opportunity, even getting themselves thrown out of the House on numerous occasions for doing so. It wasn't that Mulroney was any more dishonest than his predecessor, but that they were deliberately seeking to disparage his name to voters by repeating something often (an old propaganda ploy). They have admitted as much since, by the way. It was a determined attempt to create doubt in swing voters who don't follow politics much, but would have heard screams of 'lies, liar' often on news summaries and sound bytes. I believe this was the real start of the downward slope in political dialogue.

You don't talk politics with your friends and relatives? Maybe a lot of people are just so turned off that they're not interested. But when I talk with friends on politics I find they often have very harsh opinions of whatever party they don't support, mostly not based on any particular reason aside from that being the climate in which we live.

The type of dialogue we have as a community is defined by our values and our acceptance of what is and is not allowable. Politicians operate within those guidelines. But we, as a society have allowed our policing of that dialogue to broaden over the past quarter century to allow virtually any type of hostile, derogatory, inaccurate, dishonest attack on others. Politicians, being human, being given permission to use whatever style of dialogue they think will win them more votes, have become coarse, and taken advantage of this, to relentlessly attack each other rather than engaging in any kind of cooperative dialogue. What's worse, we, as a society have then in turn come to accept that sort of behaviour among ourselves, as well.

You made yourself quite clear. Those who opposed this scheme want to see people starve and die, and so are evil. You, on the other hand, are good and kind and wonderful and caring since you do support this scheme. How could anything be more simple? Or simplistic? Yes, I have very little interest in political dialogue with someone who insists on reflexively demonizing anyone who disagrees with him. No, they are not. You either know very little about the scheme or know very little about CPP. Just as a starting point, the fact this is NOT CPP, means that any payments to pensioners will be calculated as income and result in cutting back of payments under the GIS and clawbacks for the OAS. For poor contributors, the contributions are much more difficult, reducing their take-home pay, and yet at the end will likely not result in any additional income. In addition, the CPP was designed to ensure enough income to sustain one in life, that is, to feed, shelter and clothe a person. The provincial plan is based on the presumption that this is not enough, and that people need to save more in order to preserve their current lifestyle - a decision which is absolutely not up to government to make.

You guys should probably point out in the OP just what province you're talking about. I assume it's Manitoba, but only because of the reference to 'this NDP government" in a followup post.

I can remember when political discourse was a more congenial affair in Canada. That was true for both the politicians and for ordinary Canadians. There was more acceptance that two people could have roughly the same goal, but different opinions on how to go about reaching it. There was also more acceptance that two people could simply have different goals, more spirit of compromise and a lot better manners in public life What brings this to mind is a column in today's G&M, which was a little shallow, but did provoke this topic. Federal elections in Canada have become ugly affairs. The dirty tricks, the endless mudslinging, the deceitful propaganda – all designed to get your vote but just as likely to make you not want to vote. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/our-political-discourse-has-become-belligerent-cynical-and-un-canadian/article26855652/ In truth, the problem with even discussing this topic is that those on the Left will blame Conservatives, and Conservatives will blame those on the Left. I think I can safely say that almost no one has performed admirably in this election. No party has been completely honest and free of hypocritical and untrue claims about the others. No party has been above the targeting of voter segments at the expense of others. But I'm not so much thinking of the election, but of political discourse in the country in general. It's become far more shrill, abrasive, accusatory, and hostile on all sides. The government of the day ignores everything said by opponents, even if sensible. Opponents engage in the political equivalent of 'gotcha journalism', looking for any little thing which can be blown up into a 'scandal'. And that is reflected on this site, where intelligent discourse free of insults, sneers, innuendo and put-downs is quite rare. There seems to be very little tolerance for political viewpoints which contradict that of individual posters, and, as with politicians, a constant need to attack, attack, attack. And it's virtually impossible not to get drawn into it. When I first came on this site I was determined to above that sort of thing, but that seems largely impossible. You get drawn into it by the relentless poor behaviour of other posters intent on attacking and demonizing those who disagree with them. I don't really have any idea how to repair this breech of polite and intelligent discourse. I don't see any politicians on the federal or provincial scene who seems likely to change things. The media loves abrasive, outrageous commentary, and we, the public, have become so used to it we accept it, and the accompanying lies as perfectly normal, and now reflect it ourselves sometimes when discussing politics with others.

No, what you stated was that there was your way, the caring kind, considerate way, and then evil, heartless scummy way of those who disagreed with you. That's stupid. You aren't nearly smart enough to be 100% right on any given subject. There are nuances which seem beyond you. Do you notice a lot of people engaging with you? Nor do I notice you 'engaging' with many others. You can bugger off for all I care.

The CPP doesn't have reduced fees. It's fees have been drastically rising over the past seven years since it went to a philosophy of active management. However, it has not managed to outdo what it used to make with passive management. Of course, now that there's active management, a lot of people are making enormous amounts of money off the pension plan through broker fees.

And many do have. The CPP is designed to provide a minimal level of income in old age. Combined with the GIS and OAS it has virtually eliminated poverty among seniors. Low income people sometimes actually see an increase in their income when retiring. Wynne's intervention to add this new mandatory pension contribution will force more money out of people who can ill afford it, for pensions they don't need, and there's no guarantee the pensions will, in the end, be worth what they're being forced to contribute, let alone what the companies are. This is especially true given this will conflict with the federal GIS to the effect that poor people will NEVER collect what they put in. I am curious about the mentality of this sort of shrill attempt at shaming those who disagree. You seem to believe that your judgement is like the tablets Moses brought down from the mountain, and everyone who questions it is evil and properly destined for hell. There are many things wrong with this plan, and your attempt to portray everyone who brings those problems up as wanting people to starve and die is infantile and stupid.

So cowardice is the new paradigm? And you're saying this is what you approve of?

White collar jobs are not working class jobs. Why is this so difficult to figure out? It's not based on compensation but education. Teachers and most other public servants are not working class, cops and firefighters are, but are paid far and away too much for the skill set and education required for their jobs.

Which is hard, grueling physical labour. And they wouldn't be getting that pay rate if there were fifty applicants for every job, as there is with police and firefighters.

What evidence do you have for this? We are paying teachers more to produce students who are more poorly educated, and who fair worse and worse on standardized tests. And since we can't fire teachers for poor performance, the problem gets no better. So your position is we cannot ever judge anyone's compensation as adequate, inadequate or too generous? Ever? There is a simple formula for determining if a given profession is overpaid. That is, how many qualified people are applying for the job at the listed salary? Do you have far and away more qualified applicants for every available job than are needed? If so, then you are paying too much. We could fire every teacher in Ontario tomorrow, lower their pay by 25%, and fill every position the next day with the huge number of 'teachers' we graduate every year. Why are so many people going into teaching? Because it takes no particular skill, that is, it's within easy reach of almost anyone who wants to do it, and the compensation is overly generous. Not to mention it's almost impossible to fire a teacher for poor performance.

And the OPP ran pro-Liberal election ads last election as a reward.

Most of the money always goes to the administrators and employees. Remember Paul Martin's huge gobs of cash going to the health are accord over ten years? All pretty much for nothing. It wound up enriching doctors, nurses, administrators and other health care workers, but not helping Canadians. As long as there is no private sector the beneficiaries extra money spent on health care will be those given charge of that money. Ontario was given billions extra and the Liberal government squandered it on buying off the unions, ignoring the needs of the public. access to care has not substantially improved and patients are not reporting that their care is better integrated or more patient-centred. And we show largely disappointing performance compared to other high-income countries, some of which have made impressive progress. http://www.scribd.com/doc/202844661/Where-You-Live-Matters-Canadian-views-on-health-care-quality-Results-from-the-2013-Commonwealth-Fund-International-Health-Policy-Survey-of-the-Gener

The way to asses whether people are being paid adequately is to look at the level of specialized skills needed for the job, and how many excess applicants there are. Now for teaching, the first is very low and the second is extremely high. The same goes for police and firefighters. There are lineups a mile long for these positions. If we cut their salaries by a third and slash benefits there would still be lineups a mile long. The number of students continues to decline, their performance on mandated tests continues to decline, yet the cost of teaching them continues to rise higher than inflation due to burgeoning teacher salaries and benefits. And I am still waiting for someone to explain why teachers are the only people who can't be fired, regardless of their laziness and incompetence. Why do teachers have tenure anyway? Who else has tenure other than the senate?

Okay, but I was replying to your idiotic rhetoric, so phhht.

Another guy who didn't bother reading the cite. If you did you would have seen that the quality of education has no linkage to the generosity of teacher salaries and benefits. Why do you hate children, Cyber? Why do you want to take away all the money for education in order to give it to a lazy, privileged minority?

So you didn't bother to read the cite before reacting. I see. I get that people who don't bother to acquire much knowledge can be sympathetic. I mean, they're teachers, right? They teach our children. Why begrudge them their meager $100,000 pay cheques, long, lazy summers, and benefits which would make most public servants green with envy? The problems with education in this province, in this country, are enormous, but they start with that attitude of yours, which allows teachers a sense of entitlement at all levels which knows no limits. There are some really talented and dedicated teachers, after all. They're in the minority, but they exist. Most teachers are mediocrities who didn't have any real calling and didn't really have any idea what to do with their lives but just wanted a well-paid job with great benefits and summers off. And we've made it so they can't be fired, however poor a job they do. Why is that again? What is the purpose of tenure? No other profession on earth has it. So we have lots of overpaid, mediocre teachers who couldn't earn half as much in the private sector who are literally stealing money from children's educations. Because the higher their pay and benefits, the more crowded class rooms have to be, and the less money there is for things like computers. If you actually cared about children's educations you would want to get rid of tenure, start firing mediocre teachers, and cut back on their far too generous salaries so there's more money for the classroom.