Finance Minister Jim Flaherty Resigns

[cybercoma]

Again what are you talking about? Canada never paid off its debt and isn't about to. It's over $600B.

You'll have to forgive PIK. Apparently he doesn't know what the difference between debt and deficit is.

PIK, let me help you out.

The debt is the overall amount of money that Canada owes.

The deficit is the amount that the current budget's spending surpasses the amount of revenues the federal government has. Each deficit adds to the debt.

Your Dream Team, the CPC, keeps adding to the debt by running deficits. They're not running deficits because they're spending more than the other parties. They're running deficits because they stupidly handed out tax cuts, destroying the revenue stream, when the country went into a recession. When countries go into a recession, they have to spend MORE on social services to mitigate the damage caused by the sinking economy. To use a metaphor, their rent went up and they decided to quit their job for one that pays less. That's how smart your party is and what a brilliant Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was.

Edited March 22, 2014 by cybercoma

[eyeball]

This was a lefty, social-engineering type strategy that is about to, predictably, backfire.

It was a CPC strategy that was ideologically astute as their GST cut, which is really what blew their budgets out the window.

[Keepitsimple]

It's always easy to say someone could have done better but there's an interesting comparison to be made between Harper and McGuinty/Wynne in Ontario. Over the same period of time,, the Federal government introduced a stimulus package in a manner that did not create an ongoing structural deficit - and therefore, our return to a balanced budget has been relatively painless. Ontario on the other hand, has not only created a large structural deficit - but they have burdened business and taxpayers alike with their Green Energy fiasco. The many strategic miscalculations (and corruption) by the Ontario Liberals have put the province at the precipice of disaster. In many ways, good government is a government that "does no harm" - because Lord knows, it can really foul things up. The Ontario Liberals are the poster child for incompetence - and guess what Wynne is trying to run on now? That's right - she's claiming to be the steady hand at the tiller. Be thankful that the Conservative government - for all its warts - has done no harm

[PIK]

You'll have to forgive PIK. Apparently he doesn't know what the difference between debt and deficit is.

PIK, let me help you out.

The debt is the overall amount of money that Canada owes.

The deficit is the amount that the current budget's spending surpasses the amount of revenues the federal government has. Each deficit adds to the debt.

Your Dream Team, the CPC, keeps adding to the debt by running deficits. They're not running deficits because they're spending more than the other parties. They're running deficits because they stupidly handed out tax cuts, destroying the revenue stream, when the country went into a recession. When countries go into a recession, they have to spend MORE on social services to mitigate the damage caused by the sinking economy. To use a metaphor, their rent went up and they decided to quit their job for one that pays less. That's how smart your party is and what a brilliant Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was.

I already said I put down the wrong word, it was s simple mistake. And take a good look around the world and see what happened especially in america with the great lefty governments and then look at canada and then thank god for being here. Flaherty did a great job, a steady job. Edited March 22, 2014 by PIK

[Smallc]

It was also wrong either way.

[The_Squid]

I already said I put down the wrong word, it was s simple mistake. And take a good look around the world and see what happened especially in america with the great lefty governments and then look at canada and then thank god for being here. Flaherty did a great job, a steady job.

Can you elaborate which "lefty" governments that you're talking about?

[Michael Hardner]

Can you elaborate which "lefty" governments that you're talking about?

PIK is a shoot-first ask questions later kind of poster, as evidenced in our exchange here. Nothing wrong with that, but it isn't conducive to dialogue when one member just knows everything and everybody else is wrong.

I think Flaherty was one of the brighter spots of the CPC. Non-Conservatives can't have it both ways - they talk about the extreme Harper government but Flaherty took a very Liberal approach to the recession. If we were all working for the Liberal party we could criticize everything that the Conservatives do whether or not make sense, but I have a more nuanced view.

There used to be this thing called a 'Progressive Conservative' that was able to negotiate its way through parliament. Flaherty came from that tradition, as evidenced by his brave support of transgendered rights in parliament.

[eyeball]

The thing that is extreme about Harper is his slavish pursuit of power. The GST cut wasn't conservative it was political so I think it's fair to suggest that much of Flaherty's approach was too. Unless it's bailing out banksters and big corporations and such isn't the conservative approach is to simply let little people and business' sink or swim on their own when times get tough?

[Keepitsimple]

The thing that is extreme about Harper is his slavish pursuit of power. The GST cut wasn't conservative it was political so I think it's fair to suggest that much of Flaherty's approach was too. Unless it's bailing out banksters and big corporations and such isn't the conservative approach is to simply let little people and business' sink or swim on their own when times get tough?

Perhaps you can elaborate on what you mean by "bailouts". Canada was just about the only country that didn't have to bail out their Banks......that's not due to the Conservatives but rather, to banking regulations that have been in place for a long time. The Conservatives did however use some creativity to free up capital for the Banks to keep giving credit. They gave the Banks cash in exchange for secured mortgages - cash which could be used to help smaller businesses to get credit. That's not a bailout - simply an exchange of assets.

As for big corporations - other than a continuation of various tax credits to resource companies that has been ongoing for decades - and mostly at Ontario's request, partnering with them to bailout the auto industry - what did you have in mind as far as "big corporation" bailouts is concerned?

[cybercoma]

take a good look around the world and see what happened especially in america with the great lefty governments and then look at canada and then thank god for being here. Flaherty did a great job, a steady job.

I see a lot of "lefty" government in Northern Europe that have done quite well. It seems Iceland also pulled itself out of the hole without deep austerity measures. Face it, your government pissed away a huge surplus by cutting the GST. They torched revenues in the face of increasing unemployment and one of the worst economic downturns in history. So not only did they axe how much they were taking in through their own doing, they should have known that they would be getting less revenues from the unemployment and financial crisis they were facing. It's about the worst decision they could have possibly made. And it wasn't just cutting the GST, but adding hundreds of income tax credits and exemptions. So while people like you, who will never admit that the CPC does any wrong, will say the economy is what threw them into deficits and caused them to piss away the surplus they inherited, the fact of the matter is they destroyed their revenue stream. The Conservative Party started the fires and now they're looking to take credit for putting the fires out.

[Accountability Now]

As I explained in another post, the LPC paid down the debt with surpluses. CPC brought it back to early to mid-nineties levels.

You comment on why the CPC has had it tough during the global recession but yet you make it out like there was no outside influence during the Liberal surpluses. All you need to see is that during the those surplus years, the US also had four years of surplus....which is quite impressive as they've had about 10 surplus years in the last 100! If that's not enough for you then look at the exchange rates during those years which again showed a strong US dollar which made it much better for Canada as an exporting nation to thrive. Compare that with the parity dollar the CPC government has had. The bottom line is that as much as we want to believe any party is doing a good or bad job, it really needs to be addressed in the context of how the US is doing.

[westguy]

Topaz- r u saying that the libs did not download some of the deficit in order to eliminate the deficit?

[Big Guy]

There is no mystery to eliminating or increasing either the deficit or the debt. There is no magic formula, secret recipe or magic bullet. As a government, when you bring in more money than you pay out over a year then you have a surplus for the year and if you direct that surplus to the national debt then you decrease the national debt. Conversely if you spend more than you take in then your run a yearly deficit and the total national debt goes up.

The challenge is how you collect that money and how you spend that money. Each government has a vision of what they would like to see in the quality of life of those they are elected to represent. There are many ways to collect money and you can target any socio-economic group. There are many ways to decrease spending and you can again target any socio-economic group. Foreign policy also has a very large influence on spending.

Some people feel that those who make most of the money should be sending the most into government coffers and those with little money should send none. Others think that everybody should be paying the same percentage of their income to government. Still others think that every Canadian is entitled to a minimum income on which to live and the rich should give to the poor - the Robin Hood approach.

Fiscal policy of any government is the practical application of the social domestic vision of those in power at the time.

[Smallc]

Topaz- r u saying that the libs did not download some of the deficit in order to eliminate the deficit?

Well, that depends. Were those things federal responsibilities to start with? Wouldn't the conservative position involve returning to those things that are constitutionally a federal responsibility?

Edited March 24, 2014 by Smallc

[cybercoma]

Well, that depends. Were those things federal responsibilities to start with? Wouldn't the conservative position involve returning to those bongs that are constitutionally a federal responsibility?

Given what the Harris government did, it's pretty rich seeing a Conservative criticize the Liberals for "downloading" expenses.

[Smallc]

How my iPhone got bongs out of my misspelling of things is beyond me.

[eyeball]

Perhaps you can elaborate on what you mean by "bailouts".

What the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives means by bailouts.

As for big corporations - other than a continuation of various tax credits to resource companies that has been ongoing for decades - and mostly at Ontario's request, partnering with them to bailout the auto industry - what did you have in mind as far as "big corporation" bailouts is concerned?

As far as I'm concerned the tilted playing fields governments create for big corporations i.e., relaxed regulations and less protection of the environment, favourable licencing and quota stacking arrangements, tax breaks (which you mentioned), foreign worker programs - which IMO only depresses wages and widens the income gap - are even worse than a bailout given how they directly impact real people.

[Michael Hardner]

What the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives means by bailouts.

Sure, but by that definition if you mortgage your house to buy food then the bank is bailing you out.

[eyeball]

Okay, and by our implication the CCPA's position is correct, the bank (the mortgagee) was underwater (needed food) so the government (the bank) bailed them out.

BTW would you expect a bank to give you a mortgage just so you could feed yourself? If you were that desperate I would expect the loan officer to direct you towards a food bank first.

[Michael Hardner]

Okay, and by our implication the CCPA's position is correct, the bank (the mortgagee) was underwater (needed food) so the government (the bank) bailed them out.

If I bail you out and *I* profit from it, would you later thank me for bailing you out ? Do pawn shops bail you out when they buy your family jewelry at 50 cents on the dollar ?

[eyeball]

If I bail you out and *I* profit from it, would you later thank me for bailing you out ?

Not if my need to be bailed out was the result of falling off the playing field you tilted.

Do pawn shops bail you out when they buy your family jewelry at 50 cents on the dollar ?

No, they take advantage of you.

[Keepitsimple]

What the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives means by bailouts.

As far as I'm concerned the tilted playing fields governments create for big corporations i.e., relaxed regulations and less protection of the environment, favourable licencing and quota stacking arrangements, tax breaks (which you mentioned), foreign worker programs - which IMO only depresses wages and widens the income gap - are even worse than a bailout given how they directly impact real people.

That report is a pile of crap - it's a Left Wing think tank that hates all things Conservative - and it's one author's obviously amateur opinion. It's totally speculative on what would - or could have happened to the Banks with data that was a "best guess". That Banks were totally underwater is laughable - they were profitable right through the recession. But you - and the report are missing the point. Left to their own devices, Banks would have stopped offering credit to many businesses because of the therir clients' financial stress - so the US and Candian governments took steps to increase liquidity - the ability to keep loans flowing. To distort that concept even more, the report throws the US Federal Reserve in there - but that wasn't for Canadian Banks per se - it was for their US subsidiaries which were operating in the US - a different climate altogether Did you expect them to refuse the liquidity injection? Here in Canada, every penny that came from the Bank of Canada was repaid by 2010 - and for the record, even the US subsidiaries repaid their loans in the same time period. As explained previously - the CMHC "cash for mortgages" was an exchange of assets. All told, the entire Banking exercise was far from a bailout - it was a strategic and staright forward, short term liquidity injection.

[eyeball]

That report is a pile of crap - it's a Left Wing think tank that hates all things Conservative

So says the conservative that hates all things left...is it safe to assume you love the other things I mentioned the government does?

[Michael Hardner]

No, they take advantage of you.

Yes, and the government took advantage of the banks when they bought financial assets from them in this period, that's my point.

[eyeball]

You're saying the government tilted the playing field away from the banks? I guess that explains the 27 billion dollar in profits the banks made when they were taken advantage of.