Who is the greatest Prime Minister of all time?

Evening Star · December 25, 2011

That a boy Evening Star!

Your attitude is synonymous with phrase "attempting to succeed is the first step in failure".

Set the bar real freekin low and you'll come out smelling like roses buddy!

Bob Rae is a corporate ass kisser now man.He's no better then "how high do you want me to jump" Harper!

I heard him on "Power and politics" with Evan Soleman the other day and he's freekin twisted around so bad he must have freekin nightmares!

WWWTT

I'm not really sure what you're on about tbh but

i) I also mostly vote NDP federally. I do not, however, have any illusions that every NDP government is great and every Liberal or Conservative government in history has been terrible.

ii) My point was just that it's silly to say "Rae's government in Ontario is a good indication of what a federal NDP government would be like" when Rae governed 20 years ago under different conditions; there have been many other NDP governments one could use as a reference, many of whom enjoy better reputations than Rae's (including two that were just re-elected with majorities); AND Rae himself is no longer in the NDP but is in fact leading another party. Moreover, I'm sure that jbg knows this.

Having said this,

iii) I tend to believe that Rae's early-90s provincial government was actually better than many like to give it credit for anyway.

Edit: Ha, somehow I thought Nova Scotia just had an election too. My mistake: there are two NDP majority governments but only one was re-elected this year.

Edited December 25, 2011 by Evening Star

jbg · December 25, 2011

ii) My point was just that it's silly to say "Rae's government in Ontario is a good indication of what a federal NDP government would be like" when Rae governed 20 years ago under different conditions; there have been many other NDP governments one could use as a reference, many of whom enjoy better reputations than Rae's (including two that were just re-elected with majorities); AND Rae himself is no longer in the NDP but is in fact leading another party. Moreover, I'm sure that jbg knows this.

Even though the national and local NDP's are one party, there is a huge practical difference between the NDP as it has functioned in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and how it has functioned in BC, ON and federally. One has worked fairly well; the other an unmitigated disaster. I'd add Glen Clark of BC to Bob Rae's pantheon.

WWWTT · December 25, 2011

I'm not really sure what you're on about tbh but

Sorry Evening Star.

I was itching for a rant

WWWTT

Wild Bill · December 25, 2011

Even though the national and local NDP's are one party, there is a huge practical difference between the NDP as it has functioned in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and how it has functioned in BC, ON and federally. One has worked fairly well; the other an unmitigated disaster. I'd add Glen Clark of BC to Bob Rae's pantheon.

Agreed! If the NDP were to allow the Manitoba provincial party to control its federal cousin they might actually be able not only to win but to do a reasonable job!

Bryan · December 25, 2011

Agreed! If the NDP were to allow the Manitoba provincial party to control its federal cousin they might actually be able not only to win but to do a reasonable job!

Things are not nearly as rosy here either. The NDP has grossly mismanaged funds and resources. Under the PCs we had balanced budget legislation. Real actual surpluses were banked and put away BY LAW. The NDP has burned through all of that and racked up a $billion in on the books debt, in addition to mismanaging Manitoba Hydro to the tune of several $billion, and more than doubling the welfare rolls. WRHA has been a bottomless money pit too.

It's going to be an absolute mess to clean up after these idiots. They just light piles of money on fire for no reason. There's a reason our previous finance minister was called a "Weapon of Math Destruction".

cybercoma · December 25, 2011

Things are not nearly as rosy here either. The NDP has grossly mismanaged funds and resources. Under the PCs we had balanced budget legislation. Real actual surpluses were banked and put away BY LAW. The NDP has burned through all of that and racked up a $billion in on the books debt, in addition to mismanaging Manitoba Hydro to the tune of several $billion, and more than doubling the welfare rolls. WRHA has been a bottomless money pit too.

It's going to be an absolute mess to clean up after these idiots. They just light piles of money on fire for no reason. There's a reason our previous finance minister was called a "Weapon of Math Destruction".

That's funny because Harper's Conservatives have done the exact same thing, but you defend them.

Bryan · December 25, 2011

That's funny because Harper's Conservatives have done the exact same thing, but you defend them.

It isn't even close to the same thing.

The Liberals left our finances in a total mess, and the bills had to be paid. Once that was taken care of, and the more measured budget was presented, the united opposition (in a minority parliament) put the proverbial gun to the government's head and ordered them to spend. Even with the amount that they did spend, they still kept bitching that it wasn't enough. Even NOW as they have a majority and actually CAN make their own monetary decision (and are making plans to reign in spending) the opposition is STILL bitching that they aren't spending enough.

In contrast, the NDP here always had a majority, and the opposition was always opposed to the spending increases, and the wasteful programs.

Jack Weber · December 25, 2011

It isn't even close to the same thing.

The Liberals left our finances in a total mess, and the bills had to be paid. Once that was taken care of, and the more measured budget was presented, the united opposition (in a minority parliament) put the proverbial gun to the government's head and ordered them to spend. Even with the amount that they did spend, they still kept bitching that it wasn't enough. Even NOW as they have a majority and actually CAN make their own monetary decision (and are making plans to reign in spending) the opposition is STILL bitching that they aren't spending enough.

In contrast, the NDP here always had a majority, and the opposition was always opposed to the spending increases, and the wasteful programs.

Budget surplusses a "total mess"...

Who knew?

cybercoma · December 25, 2011

So nobody knows how to handle provincial or federal finances other than the Conservatives, eh? That's a rational position.

jbg · December 25, 2011

Agreed! If the NDP were to allow the Manitoba provincial party to control its federal cousin they might actually be able not only to win but to do a reasonable job!

Only two problems:

There is no "provincial NDP" anywhere, to the extent that the BC Liberals or ON Liberals are separated from the LPC. There is only one "NDP"; and
The NDP is in thrall to unions and commmitted socialists. The MLA's and their leaders in the Prairies are just more pragmatic.

jbg · December 25, 2011

.In contrast, the NDP here always had a majority, and the opposition was always opposed to the spending increases, and the wasteful programs.

Do you want to "Filmon" (pun intended) me on on how the NDP has "always had a majority"?

na85 · December 27, 2011

I guess Sponsorship and Airbus are your cup of tea.

How do you figure?

Wild Bill · December 27, 2011

Only two problems:

There is no "provincial NDP" anywhere, to the extent that the BC Liberals or ON Liberals are separated from the LPC. There is only one "NDP"; and

The NDP is in thrall to unions and commmitted socialists. The MLA's and their leaders in the Prairies are just more pragmatic.

That may be true officially but in practice it's just not so. I've been following politics here for 40 years. The NDP liked to present that picture of unity, distinct from the structure of the other parties. In practice, they were no different from any other party.

Except of course when they wanted to distance themselves from Rae's Ontario term! They then would insist loudly to the high heavens that they were separate and different!

I would think that the only communication between a Manitoba NDP government and their federal cousins would be a Christmas card.

Bryan · December 27, 2011

Do you want to "Filmon" (pun intended) me on on how the NDP has "always had a majority"?

Good catch, but you know what I meant. The NDP have been in power since 1999 and they have not been in a minority situation. Everything they've done is 100% on them, as no opposition was in a position to influence it. Filmon's PC's before that did have a minority stretch, however.

Evening Star · December 28, 2011

Even though the national and local NDP's are one party, there is a huge practical difference between the NDP as it has functioned in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and how it has functioned in BC, ON and federally. One has worked fairly well; the other an unmitigated disaster. I'd add Glen Clark of BC to Bob Rae's pantheon.

I don't know that much about Glen Clark but I think the difference between Rae's NDP and Doer's NDP (or Dexter's NDP) was mostly one of confidence and preparedness as opposed to a major ideological difference in terms of policy. Both Rae and Doer were centrist New Democrats. I don't see any major reason why Rae's government is a more likely indication of what a federal NDP government would look like than Doer's is.

Here's a question for you: do you think Rae's government was more of a disaster for Ontario than McGuinty's (who just won their third election)? If so, why? I'm guessing you dislike both. I've defended both but I'm not sure that McGuinty's policies have been obviously better in any real way.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Evening Star

Evening Star · December 28, 2011

Iraq. End of story.

As American Woman pointed out on another thread, that might not be the end of the story: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8110

I think I actually have more respect for Mulroney's government's opposition to US involvement in Nicaragua and their response to Ethiopian famine.

Wild Bill · December 28, 2011

Here's a question for you: do you think Rae's government was more of a disaster for Ontario than McGuinty's (who just won their third election)? If so, why? I'm guessing you dislike both. I've defended both but I'm not sure that McGuinty's policies have been obviously better in any real way.

Oh Star, Rae's term was worse, far worse! He was totally unprepared to win! Some of the steps he took to address the recession would have been funny if the effects weren't so sad.

I'll give you some examples with which I have first hand knowledge.

Within a couple of weeks of Rae's win, we had a situation in Hamilton over what is now called the Red Hill Creek Expressway, which was to provide a rapid highway link between upper and lower Hamilton, connecting at one end to the 403 and at the other down to the QEW at Stoney Creek.

Although polls had always shown overwhelming popular support for the project,well organized protest groups had managed to block the expressway from being built, with claims that it would cut down several millions of trees and have asphalt pavement from one horizon to the other, with squirrels and small animals trapped in the tar with their asses sticking up, to be run over by wicked automobiles.

Anyhow, at that time the Ontario NDP was a champion for such groups. When you don't expect to win and deliver you can take your support from anywhere, I guess.

Anyhow, the project had finally been approved, building contracts issued and bulldozers had begun taking out scrub cedars and other trees. Contrary to the propaganda of the activists, the trees involved were anything BUT giant sacred native sequoias.

After only a week or two in power Rae's government suddenly cancelled the project! The people of Hamilton went ape! Thirty years of delay had made traffic a genuine pissoff in Hamilton and had been a major obstacle to attract new business to the manufacturing plants that had been closing down and leaving the city, taking their jobs with them.

Rae's spokespeople seemed to have no idea of the consequences of their action, or the negative reactions of the Hamilton townspeople. I saw Rae's transport minister on television, saying "We will investigate alternatives, like perhaps Highway 27."

Leaving aside the mistake in citing Hwy 27, which is in Mississauga, when he meant Highway 20, his statement revealed his ignorance that all alternatives had been studied 10 times over during the 30 year delay. There WERE NO other practical alternatives!

Worse yet, the contractors all were holding signed contracts which had been arbitrarily cancelled. The lawyers threw a party for themselves as they commenced litigation against the government.

The public outcry eventually grew so loud that Rae's government held a public meeting at a banquet hall in Stoney Creek, which I attended. Our new MPP, Mark Morrow, was there. Mark was a rookie who rode the wave into office. He had had maybe two election signs, which I think his mother put in for him. Yet there he was, our new man! It was similar to the last federal election in Quebec, I guess.

They put up a microphone at either side of the room, saying that people on both sides of the fence could line up and take their turns alternately at the mike. We were warned quite severely that a person would only have one opportunity to speak at their microphone, so make it good!.

Well Star, immediately I started to chuckle! There must have been 400 people, lined up and out the door, to speak at the microphone for those opposed to the NDP's action. Meanwhile, there was less than a dozen speakers who supported it! I witnessed this with my own eyes!

After a while the moderators had a problem. They ran out of NDP supporters with hundreds of those on the other side still waiting to speak! So much for "you better make it good!" They decided to let both sides alternate and those few who supported the government got to take turn after turn after turn.

It was an obvious put-up job trying to mollify the populace. Mark Morrow made the greenhorn political mistake of obviously paying no attention to the speakers. At one point a woman attacking the decision stopped and started to demand that Mark at least pay her the courtesy of listening to her words! Mark acted like he didn't understand why she was upset, like a teenager who hasn't yet learned proper courtesies and graces.

It's not hard to understand how the situation came about. I can imagine a plausible scenario. I doubt if Bob and his people had any idea of what was happening in Hamilton! Why would they? Hamilton has always kind of been "Nowhereville". They hadn't even had time to set up their desks and find the washroom when some of their Hamilton eco-warrior activist supporters call Bob up and say "Bob! They're killing trees down here! You better come down and stop it! They're HURTING THE PLANET!"

I'm sure Bob was not completely a rube and would have asked "Are you sure there won't be any negative political repercussions?"

"Don't worry!" the eco-warriors would have told him. "The whole city is on our side and will love you for it!"

So poor Bob and his crew would have been rushed into a hasty decision that exploded in their faces.

When Bob's term was finally up, construction of the Red Hill Creek Expressway immediately started up again. The project was finished and few drivers in Hamilton would ever want to go back! Recently, several large enterprizes have come to Hamilton and given in toto nearly 10,000 new jobs. All of them cited improved transportation links as one of the reasons they decided to come here.

Another thing I witnessed was new policies at the Highway Dept. I had a personal friend who had worked there for years and had climbed a fair way up the ladder. He told me that Rae's people had decided the Highway Department had to hire several thousand casual workers, immediately! These workers were only to be kept until they had accumulated enough paid weeks to qualify for EI.

The problem was that this left insufficient time for safety training sessions, which had always been mandatory for any and all new hires. Rae's people waived it!

Also, they had no work of value for them! So the word came down from Queens Park that they were to be put on crews building and repairing concrete overpasses along the QEW from Hamilton to Niagara.

Star, it was the dead of winter and well below freezing! Hardly the time to pour concrete! By spring all the work was so frost damaged it had to be done over.

It was about that time that my friend had enough and went back to the family farm in Binbrook. Before that he and the other old hands had always assumed that although they could always expect a bit of political silliness it was understood that the roads had to be kept plowed and the bridges in good repair. Rae's people showed them that their political masters considered such ideas to be irrelevant. Large numbers of other workers like my friend quit at that time.

Rae's NDP also showed total ineptness with how finances and businesses worked. Before Rae, companies were required by law to match employee pension contributions in large, unionized businesses. Due to the recession going on at the time, the NDP decided to give companies like Stelco some cash flow relief, in order to retain jobs. Stelco was allowed to let their contributions "slide" for an unspecified amount of time. 10 years later Stelco was nearly bankrupt and up for sale. It was discovered that one of the problems with being sold was that there were hundreds of millions of dollars delinquent in outstanding pension contributions! Potential buyers didn't want to assume that debt!

Then there were the Rae Days! To try to balance his books, ole Bob came up with the idea for everyone in a government job to work a few days for free each year, to afford some necessary savings. It would also mean that fewer workers would have to be laid off. Rae seemed to expect that his good report with CUPE and others involved would mean they would cheerfully accept the idea.

Instead, they went screaming yellow zonkers and refused to comply!

And on and on and on, Star! I'm willing to grant their hearts may have been in the right place but they were total boneheads in how they governed! They never expected to be in power so they had no preparation or experience to apply.

No Star, McGuinty has done some goofy and expensive faux pas but he's nowhere in the Bob Rae/NDP league!

Edited December 28, 2011 by Wild Bill

fellowtraveller · December 28, 2011

Except, Tommy Douglas is widely considered one of the greates Canadians of all time and his mandate in Saskatchewan was adopted by the federal government.

and in the same vein, Ralph Klein was widely considered by people outside Alberta as an idiot yet Chretien and Martin adopted his chainsaw approach to the civil service. Chretien is lauded weekly here for that for stealing the reform ideas that were actually acted upon first by Klein , while Klein comsidered an assclown by the ideologues. The major difference between the two is that Klein did not download all the costs to subordinate govts and claim credit for some deep economic thinking, which is what Martin and Chretien did do.

Go figure.

If Tommy Douglas were alive today people like you would be howling about his fervent belief that God created the earth in 7 days.

Edited December 28, 2011 by fellowtraveller

cybercoma · December 28, 2011

If Tommy Douglas were alive today people like you would be howling about his fervent belief that God created the earth in 7 days.

If Mackenzie King were alive today, I would be howling about his belief that Hitler would be, and I quote, "the Joan of Arc of his people" (Mackenzie King's Diary, Sunday, March 27, 1938). What's your point?

PIK · December 28, 2011

As American Woman pointed out on another thread, that might not be the end of the story: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8110

I think I actually have more respect for Mulroney's government's opposition to US involvement in Nicaragua and their response to Ethiopian famine.

And thanks to the airborne that they single handed stop a famine in somalia, and what did they get out of chretien, disbanded. Edited December 28, 2011 by PIK

Wild Bill · December 28, 2011

8 full pages of posts and still not a single vote for Brian Mulroney!

:lol: :lol: :lol:

"Elder statesman" of the CPC! :lol: Advisor to Steven Harper! :lol:

Bryan · December 29, 2011

"Elder statesman" of the CPC! Advisor to Steven Harper!

???. A complete rejection of Mulroney by the majority of conservative voters is the reason why the CPC even exists. He's never even been a member of the party.

Wild Bill · December 29, 2011

???. A complete rejection of Mulroney by the majority of conservative voters is the reason why the CPC even exists. He's never even been a member of the party.

A complete rejection? True! But if you were around and paying attention the CPC had barely been formed when we saw some kind of "refurbishing the image" program happening. Soon we were led to believe that Brian was some kind of party "elder statesman" that Harper consulted often! To a Reformer, this was totally ridiculous! Brian had been Satan himself, as far as we had been concerned. And Steven Harper had said all sorts of terrible things about him.

I was struck by this at the time. Obviously it was payback for something to do with how the wheels had been greased to allow the new merged party to be formed.

I had just stopped laughing as the idea had become rather stale when the Air Bus scandal broke! There went all thoughts of "elder statesman"! Harper immediately started to distance himself from Mulroney, so that what had hit the fan did not stick to him as well!

Now we take a poll and the man who had won the two largest majorities in our history can

t get a single vote! Deservedly so!

TimG · December 30, 2011

Now we take a poll and the man who had won the two largest majorities in our history cant get a single vote! Deservedly so!

To be fair I think accepting cash from dubious characters in hotel rooms is what has forever tarnished his image even if he technically did nothing illegal. If he was simply judged on his record (GST, Free Trade, Meech Lake etc) then he would have faired much better. Edited December 30, 2011 by TimG

waldo · December 30, 2011

To be fair I think accepting cash from dubious characters in hotel rooms is what has forever tarnished his image even if he technically did nothing illegal. If he was simply judged on his record (GST, Free Trade, Meech Lake etc) then he would have faired much better.

whaaa! Ya, ya... that's it, that's the only reason! :lol:

hey cybercoma... is there an option to turn this poll into a visible option... I'm curious to see how many new members have just registered and voted - you know... Harper PMO guys!