Harper cabinet shuffle

[William Ashley]

So the news was reporting Harper would shuffle cabinet over the month long winter recess.

Also the budget would be a "suprise budget"

So is Flaherty making the budget?

Who exactly is being moved in cabinet --- are yet even more cabinet seats going to be made -- what started as a small low cost efficient government has doubled in size since Harper started managing it.

Is the - we ain't able to do a good job with the number of people running the show so we got to hire more mentality going to give jobs to every Conservative Party of Canada card holder?

The big thing is.. will this budget and cabinet shuffle save a non confidence vote?

Personally I am wondering why harper waited till the recess to shuffle the books, could it involve a change of scenery for the Vic Toews and Julian Fantino?

Could it be as simple as Fantino on the roster and Toews to Environment?

What else... any bets?

Edited December 18, 2010 by William Ashley

[charter.rights]

So the news was reporting Harper would shuffle cabinet over the month long winter recess.

Also the budget would be a "suprise budget"

So is Flaherty making the budget?

Who exactly is being moved in cabinet --- are yet even more cabinet seats going to be made -- what started as a small low cost efficient government has doubled in size since Harper started managing it.

Is the - we ain't able to do a good job with the number of people running the show so we got to hire more mentality going to give jobs to every Conservative Party of Canada card holder?

The big thing is.. will this budget and cabinet shuffle save a non confidence vote?

Personally I am wondering why harper waited till the recess to shuffle the books, could it involve a change of scenery for the Vic Toews and Julian Fantino?

Could it be as simple as Fantino on the roster and Toews to Environment?

What else... any bets?

I think his real concern is that he his still dealing with wide mouth reformers whom he has to keep under wraps or risk the next election. He only has a limited supply of capable people but like the old army trick of moving people around rapidly to fake out the enemy, he has to move people around before they are discovered to be the incompetents they really are.

[blueblood]

It's wishful thinking, but I hope Toews gets punted to the back bench and out of caucus eventually. I don't like people like him who have the potential to poison a brand. He's cancer and the party would be better off with him punted.

Harper has enough power in the party to dump clowns like this and not risk a caucus revolt. Toews time is up and the sooner he goes the better. The CEO of HP got canned for less.

[scribblet]

Like you all really know what's happening, none of us do..suppposition all of it.

Never mind, Iggy will huff and puff and blow the house down, without even knowing what's in the budget. LOL

[DrGreenthumb]

It's wishful thinking, but I hope Toews gets punted to the back bench and out of caucus eventually. I don't like people like him who have the potential to poison a brand. He's cancer and the party would be better off with him punted.

Harper has enough power in the party to dump clowns like this and not risk a caucus revolt. Toews time is up and the sooner he goes the better. The CEO of HP got canned for less.

What did Toews do to piss off a partisan Conservative like you so much that you want him to go sit beside Helena? They need to "punt" Rob Nicholson, John Baird, Christian Paradis, Rod Brinooge, Stephen Harper, and 95% of the party. Or the voters could do it for them.

[eyeball]

What did Toews do to piss off a partisan Conservative like you so much that you want him to go sit beside Helena?

That's the very first question that crossed my mind too.

[Topaz]

The Minister for Indian Affairs had to have heart surgery, so his doctors may tell no stress for a while, could he be replaced.

[William Ashley]

The Minister for Indian Affairs had to have heart surgery, so his doctors may tell no stress for a while, could he be replaced.

Stephen Harper has been pretty buddy buddy with them lately eh, could it be a move that could save the party?

Edited December 19, 2010 by William Ashley

[scribblet]

You mean the Liberal party that needs saving, from itself LOL

[William Ashley]

You mean the Liberal party that needs saving, from itself LOL

Actually I'm quite convinced the Liberals have more support than the conservatives - the only thing that is making them appear to have less support is Ignatieffs low popularity rating. Many people vote for leaders - this does not actually reflect to the "real situation" in regard to party popularity.

If you asked people who they would vote for, if it didn't relate to who would be the prime minister, I am willing to wager $20 it would be the liberal party.

Part of the issue also rests on the "left of center vote split". Direct popularity doesn't directly correspond to seats because of the split. The conservatives barely got half the vote polling 10 points higher than the liberals last election. Arguably they did do well in 2008 compared to 2006, however they are well below their 2008 level. The vote came mostly from western Canada - and Tory support in western Canada has thought to have been weakening somewhat over the last year.

The conservatives really don't have much "core support" anymore. They actually alienated a number of their own riding associations.

The liberals have just finally paid off their debt from the last election - this makes actually running an election much more viable now financially, as they had to pay off debt and were getting less funding than the tories. The tories made a lot of major tax cuts for "wealthy" groups (as well as targetted cuts to families with children, and the gst thing - instead of giving socialized daycare and paying off the debt) so it is pretty easy to see it as a form of kickback for the party by cutting taxes of the rich. None the less the campaign finances are pretty minimual overall - a really small amount of money gets put on the books, making it mostly neglibile. A few million really ain't a lot of money.

But there is a shift occuring - only because of massive partisanism over the last 3 years.

It is interesting to note now that the cost to the taxpayer in Ontario is double now due to not getting socialized daycare - because now it is being ramped out in part - within the education system and overall for less use - that is now early years centers and jr kindergarden, and prekindergarten. Likewise the debt is spiraling towards a trillion dollars and will take an extra 4 years to pay off - since each 1% reduction increases the debt by 1.3% so nearly 60% the value of the GST reduction will be added to the debt, so if GST reductions saved taxpayers 10 billion - it added to the debt by 16 billion. And the government is running deficits for years into the future on their projections --- this means that the debt will just multiply and multiply.. meaning a bankrupt government - that is already positioning to sell most of its hard assets. It is horendous really. You need to pay off the debt agressively to lower taxes and the opposite is happening meaning it was just a "weaker" stance for the public because it wasn't backed by a way of reducing debtload - the reason for the GST.

.

Then you wonder why pensions like CPP and OAS could evaporate. They arn't against taking from trusts. And they were more than keep on selling out to loan makers over pensioners with Nortel - you be the judge. Nortel was like a byelection on the governments treatment of pensions and disability payments.

The government itself has lied about a bunch of issues, the biggest being the 2011 withdrawl date from Afghanistan.

I am leaning on a high probability of an election and the tories have lost support - how much and will it translate into seats is the only question. There were around 10 very close ridings last election and even more in 2006.

Depending on the campaign I could see the tories as low as 100 seats tied with the liberals -- giving the liberals a chance for a minority - but this is only if things go really really well (example 5 to 10 seats picked up west of ontario, and 10 seats picked up in ontario and a few here and there. . there is the gambit though with corrupt and idiotic Canadians who don't care about corrupt dishonest heartless governments, that is the real risk. The NDP though weakens the potential liberal vote - since they are up around 4%.. meaning they could have even better results than the last election --- but where... It only matters if they are tory seats. - and that could mean BC

Projections have it sitting at about 125 to 95 con/lib at the moment, but I feel the trend will continue to shift to the liberals cause harper isn't getting back his lost popularity - it is not issues when you have long term dips, it is people who don't like the guy. Ignatieff has been sitting level more or less meaning --- the tories are on their way down. Some projections have the liberals able to pick up 105 or more seats.

It is harder for them to get seats because of "the western vote", but I don't think the conservatives will continue to maintain all of the west as a divine party - they quite frankly alienated large groups of their former supporters. For instance sask. potash where the government was willing to do the deal even without provincial support if certain conditions were met, calgary was willing to elect a left leaning mayor ethnic minority (this was one of a handful of seats that the corporate headquarters vetoed local candidates popularly elected by the riding associations in favour of the corporate picks - without a vote- the list goes on the allure of the olympics is over - and it only broke even (but it really didn't once infrastructure costs were added to the vanoc costs) - while about half of that break even went to security firms. You also need to take into account Harper supported HST in British Columbia - BC hates harper sales tax.

The real issue is "corrupt government" dirty tricks - because upwards of 60 billion has been paid out to the military industrial complex and paramilitary groups.. that is a number canadians who really do care about democracy should pay attention to - you might say not in Canada but there is a long list of things - potential assasninations, vechile tampering, hits, etc.. that have occured against the left over the last few years.. you got to question the 200 billion dollars paid out to various groups for "things like make work construction (known to be inflitrated by organized crime historically), the banks, and the military industrial complex (including private security firms)

another tell tale sign is that the money to those groups has hit a high water mark.. buying strongmen and elitists is not going to be nearly as big as it once was - if they truely are going to attempt not to run 50 billion dollar deficits that are required to stave off growing criticism from the massess.

And no I'm not saying direct orders - but somewhere in the money chain it is happening.

Edited December 19, 2010 by William Ashley