Should Stephen Harper resign?

[cybercoma]

"entitlement spending"

They gave a crapload of money away to the entitled alright.

[TimG]

Martin and before him Chretien had managed pretty well prior to Harper. Do you recall how much the Liberals handed him?

I recall Martin's spending promises in the 2006 election. Whatever discipline he had when Chretien called the shots was long gone. I suspect it was never there and his boss Chretien deserved the credit.

[On Guard for Thee]

I recall Martin's spending promises in the 2006 election. Whatever discipline he had when Chretien called the shots was long gone. I suspect it was never there and his boss Chretien deserved the credit.

Paul Martin was finance minister under Chretien, remember? Those are they guys who produce the budgets.

[Argus]

When the government itself decided to burn revenues to the ground through tax cuts and so many credits that the codebook doubled in size, then you can blame the government for running deficits. If we were in the hole from the recession, they dug that hole even deeper.

You will not find me supporting tax cuts, either to the GST or to corporations. So I acknowledge the gist of what you say. Yes, the cuts to the GST in particular made the deficit worse. Nevertheless, my point remains. Had it not been for this sudden (VERY sudden) recession they would have been unlikely to have slipped into big time deficits. People forget Chretien ran huge deficits the first several years of his reign. It was the resurging US and world economy which pulled us out of our own recession and allowed the government to have those surpluses. You cannot divorce the government from the international economic situation it finds itself in.

[Argus]

Read Cyber's post from above. They blew away the Liberal surplus in short order and have never recovered. They claim they may next year. Justin time for a revival of surplus budgets.

To be fair, if you look back on what the Liberal's election platforms promised, including Paul Martin's, they would have blown away the surpluses in short order, as well.

[Argus]

Yeah and I'm really convinced of that when I see the costs of his dumb ass ads during the playoffs about a system that does not much more than just that: cost taxpayers money. Martin and before him Chretien had managed pretty well prior to Harper. Do you recall how much the Liberals handed him?

The Liberals didn't spend money because they didn't need to. They had no fears of losing the next election with a divided opposition. However, as soon as they perceived a threat, ie, as soon as the tories and the alliance joined together, the spending taps were turned full on, and Chretien spent and committed a huge pile of money at the tale end of his reign. Paul Martin, during his election campaign, promised even more, and probably would have brought us into deficit within a year or two of that election.

[cybercoma]

You will not find me supporting tax cuts, either to the GST or to corporations. So I acknowledge the gist of what you say. Yes, the cuts to the GST in particular made the deficit worse. Nevertheless, my point remains. Had it not been for this sudden (VERY sudden) recession they would have been unlikely to have slipped into big time deficits. People forget Chretien ran huge deficits the first several years of his reign. It was the resurging US and world economy which pulled us out of our own recession and allowed the government to have those surpluses. You cannot divorce the government from the international economic situation it finds itself in.

You're absolutely right. The international economic crisis undoubtedly wiped out the surpluses and probably put us into debt, but to go and put us further into debt by giving handouts to corporations as people struggle... I don't even know how anyone could think that's good governance.

[overthere]

Again the US recession began Q4 2007. The negative effects on the Canadian economy started before even that. You're just as wrong now as you were before.

Real estate market in Alberta crashed in June 2007.

[overthere]

The Liberals didn't spend money because they didn't need to.

Yes, the $200 million that Chuck Guite, Rogue Bureaucrat, handed out to impoverished Montreal ad agencies without need for receipts was all an illusion. A hologram generated by that spawn of Satan Harper.

[Argus]

You're absolutely right. The international economic crisis undoubtedly wiped out the surpluses and probably put us into debt, but to go and put us further into debt by giving handouts to corporations as people struggle... I don't even know how anyone could think that's good governance.

I "think" but am not going to do any research on it, that this sort of thing used to have a salutary effect on corporate/business spending. The theory is you cut their taxes, that increase their profits, so they expand and hire more workers. It was a reasonable theory at one point in time. I just don't think it is any more. Now business takes those profits and socks them into the bank, or ships them overseas to expand production in some country with cheaper labour. I've seen no evidence the tax cuts caused Canadian business to increase hiring or production in Canada or caused anyone to move here and set up shop. It's possible they helped to offset the rise in the Canadian dollar and thus prevented some companies from closing up shop, but I haven't seen that claim.

Edited July 29, 2014 by Argus

[cybercoma]

It should be obvious to everyone by now that the way you give businesses money to expand is by giving the money to consumers, who then signal through demand what businesses need to do. They'll give the money to the companies if they have it. They don't right now, so companies are doing exactly what you say until they're signalled to do otherwise. There either needs to be tax benefits to the working class, which frankly won't do enough, or there needs to be an expansion of the civil service, giving people jobs and money to create demand for more goods and services. But everyone thinks the civil service is a drain on the economy,

[jacee]

Agencies on Harper's "enemies" list targeted for tax audit.

-canada-revenue-agency-s-political-targeting-of-charities-under-scrutiny/

OTTAWA - The Canada Revenue Agency says it pays no attention to pro-government or anti-government political leanings when it chooses which charities to audit for their political activities.

But charities targeted in the first wave of agency audits were largely opponents of the Harper government's energy and pipeline policies, an analysis shows, suggesting bias in their selection."

...

The head of the charities directorate, Cathy Hawara, said last month that political ideology was indeed a factor, telling a Toronto newspaper: "We also gave consideration to ... what you might call political leanings, to make sure that we weren't only focusing on one side of the political spectrum."

Hawara later said she had mischaracterized the CRA's selection process.

"What position a charity might take on any given issue, what views they might have, what perspective they have on a particular policy issue, isn't really of concern to us and isn't a triggering factor," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

...

She said the agency also considers any formal complaints from citizens, lobby groups, MPs or even cabinet ministers. Such external complaints were taken seriously enough to have generated some 30 "leads" for further investigation, though the CRA will not provide details.

[TimG]

"We also gave consideration to ... what you might call political leanings, to make sure that we weren't only focusing on one side of the political spectrum."

These conspiracy theories ignore the ratio of "pro" vs "anti" government charities. I don't have specific stats but I suspect the number of charities that complain about the government far exceeds the number who are happy with it. Therefore any impartial audit will target a larger number of "anti-government" charities since there are more to choose from.

This Freudian slip by the CRA official gives me more confidence that the CRA officials want to be perceived to be impartial and, if anything, may have investigated more "pro-government" charities than would have been warranted given the numbers.

Edited August 3, 2014 by TimG

[On Guard for Thee]

Joe Oliver kinda blew the lid off things when he made his statement saying environmental groups were nothing more than foreign funded radicals. Lots of backlash so he had to be moved from that portfolio, but at least he kept his government position unlike Vic Tawes after his radical statement about child pornographers. However I suspect Joe's statement may have given Harper an idea, once the dust settled, about how to go after all those wascally wadicals.

[PIK]

Joe Oliver kinda blew the lid off things when he made his statement saying environmental groups were nothing more than foreign funded radicals. Lots of backlash so he had to be moved from that portfolio, but at least he kept his government position unlike Vic Tawes after his radical statement about child pornographers. However I suspect Joe's statement may have given Harper an idea, once the dust settled, about how to go after all those wascally wadicals.

He was right.

[Keepitsimple]

Joe Oliver kinda blew the lid off things when he made his statement saying environmental groups were nothing more than foreign funded radicals. Lots of backlash so he had to be moved from that portfolio, but at least he kept his government position unlike Vic Tawes after his radical statement about child pornographers. However I suspect Joe's statement may have given Harper an idea, once the dust settled, about how to go after all those wascally wadicals.

Don't kid yourself - 'ol Joe is pretty smart. You probably will just ignore it - but here's a good money trail for Environmental funding in the US - and believe it....a good chunk of that money finds its way into Canada. Just reading the Executive Summary will give you a good idea of what's going on - conveniently ignored by the MSM......

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=8af3d005-1337-4bc3-bcd6-be947c523439

[eyeball]

It's odd how the MSM so consistently ignores such a wide spectrum of causes and concerns that folks like you have issues with, shouldn't the MSM be your prime concern?

Speaking of money trails, the MSM is composed of the biggest TV networks and newspapers in existence, most of which are owned by humungous often multinational corporations that are often horizontally integrated with other humungous often multinational corporations that, amongst other things, exploit and degrade the environment.

Like I said, it's odd...

[PIK]

Don't kid yourself - 'ol Joe is pretty smart. You probably will just ignore it - but here's a good money trail for Environmental funding in the US - and believe it....a good chunk of that money finds its way into Canada. Just reading the Executive Summary will give you a good idea of what's going on - conveniently ignored by the MSM......

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=8af3d005-1337-4bc3-bcd6-be947c523439

Ezra has all the facts on the foreign money. The anti- everything people are allowing this to happen. Take off the blinders before it is to late.

[waldo]

Ezra has all the facts on the foreign money. The anti- everything people are allowing this to happen. Take off the blinders before it is to late.

I suggest you and Simple... and your good buddy Ezrant inform CRA that the following lawful/legal allowances have been exceeded... that is your claim, right?

CRA has a 2003 dated policy statement related to registered charities 'political activities'; i.e., the "10% rule"... to retain its charitable status, a charity can't allocate more than 10% of its total yearly resources to political activities. The following graphic extract also speaks to caveat allowances that can be applied for "small charities". The prior link also includes updates related to the 2012 "tightening restrictions" applied by Harper Conservatives, to ensure compliance with the 10% rule... this reflects significant 2012 budget allocations to the CRA to ensure appropriate monitoring processes/resources are in place to enforce this CRA policy. Of course, this all reflects back on the flap raised by the Harper Conservatives offshoot "Ethical Oil" campaign and it's "enemies of the state" vitriol spoken by various cabinet ministers, most notably Harper Conservatives Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver:

[waldo]

Don't kid yourself - 'ol Joe is pretty smart. You probably will just ignore it - but here's a good money trail for Environmental funding in the US - and believe it....a good chunk of that money finds its way into Canada. Just reading the Executive Summary will give you a good idea of what's going on - conveniently ignored by the MSM......

http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=8af3d005-1337-4bc3-bcd6-be947c523439

c'mon Simple... clearly there's no bias in a senate minority report, right? It's only been released a few days back so not much time for any critical reviews yet.

if you're so concerned about the flow of U.S. monies/influence from U.S. brazilionaires I suggest you aim higher... where the big money heads! See Donor's Capital Fund and Donor's Trust:

[havok]

Just take a look at the blog post from my website: http://wpatmosphere.blogspot.ca/2014/08/harpers-empire-aboriginals-part-i.html

This explains the grim future that our Canadian government is putting forward

[Keepitsimple]

Just take a look at the blog post from my website: http://wpatmosphere.blogspot.ca/2014/08/harpers-empire-aboriginals-part-i.html

This explains the grim future that our Canadian government is putting forward

Just more whining from people who won't accept the past. The Conservatives would not have bashed Liberal leaders if they had managed to choose anyone with some credibility - but they were so worn-out and corrupt that the good ones - like John Manley and Frank McKenna - left the political scene because they knew that the party had a lot of cleansing to do. So what did we get? Stephane Dion....no bashing required at the personal level - but his "Green Shift" took a beating. Then they anointed a saviour - with the Toronto Star salivating over this high-browed intellectual. Sure they bashed him - and rightly so - he didn't know Canada and was just visiting. The biggest brain the room. The biggest ego in the room. And where is he now? Back at Harvard and the bashing proved to be totally accurate. So now on to Trudeau junior......and although the bashing has not been effective so far, it again is accurate - he's got the best hair but as of yet, he's shown absolutely no substance. Time will tell.......but it really wasn't the Conservative bashing that was the problem - it was the leadership choices that the Liberals made.

[waldo]

Time will tell.......but it really wasn't the Conservative bashing that was the problem - it was the leadership choices that the Liberals made.

classic Simple! Harper Conservative truth attack ads against the Liberal Party/leaders would never happen if... if... conservatives had been chosen as Liberal Party leaders!!!

.

[PIK]

classic Simple! Harper Conservative truth attack ads against the Liberal Party/leaders would never happen if... if... conservatives had been chosen as Liberal Party leaders!!!

.

Or if the liberals and media did not attack harper from the 1st day he came onto the scene. They can give it but they can't take it.

[waldo]

Or if the liberals and media did not attack harper from the 1st day he came onto the scene. They can give it but they can't take it.

c'mon... don't mess with one of Ezrant's go-to's; the "Media Party"!!! Think of how many columns, how many broadcasts, how many words you would deny the Ez!