So this is why I'll be voting Conservative

[On Guard for Thee]

I've already said that what the Conservatives need to do is emulate the better working European health care systems, all of which have strong private sector components. Why do you believe we should stick with a system shared only with Cuba and North Korea?

Actually Cubba has a very good health care system. But mostly I don't want a system that resembles the hodge podge the US has/had.

[Argus]

Actually Cubba has a very good health care system. But mostly I don't want a system that resembles the hodge podge the US has/had.

Nobody wants the US system here, but on the other hand, the European system appears to work better while costing less. And ours is not keeping pace with an aging population. Changes need to be made. Why are none of the parties talking about any major changes? The NDP and Liberals have wedded themselves unshakably to the existing Canada Health Act, and won't discuss ever changing it. The Tories, meanwhile, are afraid of accusations of trying to bring in US style health care ,so they're not changing it either.

[WIP]

Here I disagree with you.

If our population is to useless to produce anything, I'm not going to tag that on the back of Harper. People need to get their lazy hands out of their a$$ and simply start making stuff for themselves, instead of buying all their stuff from China.

Who, under 40 years of age, knows how to sow a pair of pants anymore??? The problem is in that fundamental question. Our young population has a hard time cooking a KD box of noodles.

These are mostly because of decisions made which we have no say in! Who's going to sew a pair of pants when you can just throw them away and buy a new $10.00 pair made by slave labour in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka?

That's the grand design of modern captains of industry to give us the throwaway society, rather than make most of what we need locally.

[Freddy]

These are mostly because of decisions made which we have no say in! Who's going to sew a pair of pants when you can just throw them away and buy a new $10.00 pair made by slave labour in Bangladesh or Sri Lanka?

That's the grand design of modern captains of industry to give us the throwaway society, rather than make most of what we need locally.

How is that Harpers fault? We are the market, and we have spoken. We want crappie chines crap Edited August 5, 2015 by Freddy

[jacee]

Ask those small business owners what they think of unions......then you might understand why your "lots" is a little, shall I say - misguided?

That's a very outdated stereotype.

Where do you think all the new support for the NDP is coming from?

It's nonunion private sector employees (finally figuring out that they have more in common with other workers than with their wealthy bosses) and people with small businesses (finally figuring out that what's good for big businesses is not always good for them).

The NDP platform includes a 2% cut to the small business tax rate.

[bush_cheney2004]

Nobody wants the US system here.....

That's not true at all....it is easy to find a few Canadians who do want and use the U.S. system on a regular basis.

[ReeferMadness]

No politician is honest. Voting is a matter of choosing the least worst. But in referring to an increase as a cut, that's simply dishonest. You can say it's a smaller increase, you can say the rate of increase is being cut, but you can't honestly say health care transfers are being cut.

Just keep telling yourself that, buddy. It's OK if I vote for liars and crooks because they're liars and crooks that will put a few more shekels in my pocket.

Nice.

[jacee]

"It's money from wealthy bosses that supports the Conservatives, not from working people."

del-mastro-'donors'-offer-to-speak-to-election-canada-if-given-immunity

Edited August 6, 2015 by jacee

[jacee]

Oh is THAT what we're talking about? And you define 'rich thieves and scoundrels' as anyone making good money...

Pots of money ... while underpaying their employees.

.

[jacee]

What do you call wealthy?

David del Mastro.

[Hal 9000]

David del Mastro.

Seriously, give me a number! 50,000 per year, 100K per year, 200K, 300K per. maybe top 20%, 10%, 5%? Lets put some value on wealth.

[Argus]

That's not true at all....it is easy to find a few Canadians who do want and use the U.S. system on a regular basis.

Only because private medical care isn't available in Canada. But they don't want the US system here. Nobody sane does anyway. What they'd like is a system such as they have in most European countries, where private sector care is available.

[Argus]

"It's money from wealthy bosses that supports the Conservatives, not from working people."

Are you aware the maximum any person can give is $1500?

Or do you consider that anyone with $1500 is "wealthy"?

[Argus]

I think I'd like to expand upon reason 4, sucking up to Quebec. Both Trudeau and Mulcair have promised to strengthen bilingualism and make it a requirement for higher level positions like supreme court judges.

As someone who once lived in Quebec, and then moved to Ottawa, I know a good deal about bilingualism. I know it's massively expensive, and that it hugely discriminates against Anglophones, for example. Whenever I had to work customer service jobs, or jobs which emphasized bilingualism, I was always very deeply in the minority in terms of how many employees were English vs French. Usually it was something like 10-15 Francophones to 1-2 Anglos. That is true in government, as well. When I was initially hired as a clerk for the the federal government, and despite the fact this unit had zero contact with the public, there were 2 Anglo employees out of 14 in the office.

As pressure grew in Chretien's term to enforce bilingualism provisions, the number of anglo managers began to decline. Those anglo managers who did manage to push ahead were those who ignored their duties and responsibilities and spent enormous amounts of time (government time) working on their French skills with (government paid) tutors. I would say as a result of all this that the quality of managers declined very noticeably. When I joined the union as a rep I saw it repeatedly, managers and directors, both English and French who had zero leadership skills, zero people skills, and only an uncertain knowledge of their jobs. But they had passed the bilingualism tests, so they were good.

I would also say that the only people I ever met who were really fluent in both languages were those born with the advantage of living in an area like Montreal, where both languages were so common, or who had mixed parents. It's worth noting that both Trudeau and Mulcair were born to mixed parents and so grew up learning both languages at home. Both grew up in or near Montreal. Both have been pretty arrogant about their presumption that bilingualism is easy, and those who don't become bilingual are just stupid or lazy. Neither has ever acknowledged that they were born to considerable advantage in this regard.

Basically, as a few columns in the Post have recently stated, what this amounts to is a system whereby the linguistically lucky from a couple of sections of the country assume the mantle of elites, taking all the important jobs and positions in government without regard to their actual capabilities. It leads to second rate, barely capable people pushing ahead of the brilliant, simply by screening the better qualified out due to a usually unnecessary language ability. I worked for years in government and my lack of French skills was never a job issue. Almost no one who has a bilingual job in the public service ever deals with the public any more than I did.

Bilingualism costs billions, is unfair to most of the country, and beyond the ability to provide services to the public in both official languages, which I approve of, serves no useful function whatever.

So what Justin is proposing is that a certain elite group who, like himself, have come by their bilingualism through lucky family circumstances or who are from Quebec or Ottawa or New Brunswick, where real bilingualism is easy to come by, should be the beneficiaries of affirmative action, even if it means sidelining many more highly qualified unilingual jurists who have not had the hundreds of thousands of hours necessary as an adult to becoming fluent in their second language.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/barbara-kay-of-course-justin-trudeau-wants-bilingual-judges-hes-the-product-of-bilingual-privilege

Of course, a consequence of artificially designating our mostly-unilingual country as bilingual for government purposes is an immense employment advantage for those who speak both languages naturally. These people either have both a French- and English-speaking parent, or grew up somewhere like Montreal after Bill 101, where Anglos have had no choice but to learn French.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/jackson-doughart-official-bilingualism-is-absurd-but-not-because-french-is-too-hard-to-learn

Official bilingualism is the worst dysfunction of Canadian democracy. Just as the lawyers of England continued speaking Latin long after everyone else because it proved an intimidating class barrier, over-privileging French fluency has turned Canada’s rulers into a linguistic aristocracy.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/j-j-mccullough-bilingualism-is-the-demand-of-canadas-linguistic-aristocracy

[cybercoma]

With a 3% minimum - and how is he wrong?

How is he right? There's been no consultation with the provinces to determine what's best for Canadians.

[cybercoma]

That's not true at all....it is easy to find a few Canadians who do want and use the U.S. system on a regular basis.

It's even easier to find Americans who are so desperate that they'll risk their lives by paying for surgery in Mexican alleys.

[Smallc]

How is he right? There's been no consultation with the provinces to determine what's best for Canadians.

He said they know what they're getting going forward. Nothing said so far disproves that.

[cybercoma]

He said they know what they're getting going forward. Nothing said so far disproves that.

How is 3% the "right" amount, if there was no consultation to find out provincial needs?

[cybercoma]

Just to add, the CHA has a mandate to ensure equal services from coast to coast to coast.

[hitops]

A lot of them are predatory leeches who are 'successful' by stomping on others and taking more than they deserve ...

Did you not read about the IMF report?

.

Jacee you have, as usual, not a hot clue what you are talking about. It's cute that you ask if anyone read that report, since you obviously did not and just regurgitated a few facts somebody fed you. The report certainly does not say that in total.

You live by an ideology where if somebody has less, that means somebody did something bad. What a sad existence. Not supported by shred of evidence.

Standards of living are up everywhere in the world by huge margins with few exceptions. Because of evil rich people who you hate, expanding goods and services to huge portions of humanity who could never before access them.

You are typing here because evil capitalists put up money for this site to exist, for the software to make it exist, to build the servers that host it, to build the equipment you use to use it, as ifinitum.

Your life is enriched by the people you hate. It's irony that you will never see.

Sorry that you don't have any more useful skills than people on the other side of the world have, who can outcompete you. Sorry others bring more relevant increase to others lives and are compensated for it, and you are not.

If you want your life to get better, then go make it better for somebody else. Here's the part that will shock you about that.....that means YOU go do something or get skills that others want, so they compensate you, not just complain until somebody else (the taxpayer) is forced to do it for you.

Quit whining about what others deserve. You have no clue what they deserve, you don't even know what you deserve. Maybe you deserve nothing, since somebody somewhere is starving, right?

It's not your money. You lose nothing when CEO's make huge wages. Those companies pay them what they want, you don't. If they did not think they were worth it, they would not pay them. It work be a terrible business move unless they brought that value. If they succeed, you succeed because you can access new products/services. If they fail, you lose nothing.

You are paying those CEO's when you consume stuff. Every time you buy an iPhone, a coffee, an Internet service package, a book or anything else....you are casting your vote for a CEO somewhere to get more money. YOU create the conditions that lead to their pay. Do you get this? Are the lights on anywhere in there?

Edited August 7, 2015 by hitops

[poochy]

That's a very outdated stereotype.

Where do you think all the new support for the NDP is coming from?

It's nonunion private sector employees (finally figuring out that they have more in common with other workers than with their wealthy bosses) and people with small businesses (finally figuring out that what's good for big businesses is not always good for them).

The NDP platform includes a 2% cut to the small business tax rate.

So, you're here telling people how more or less evil business owners are, espousing your more or less communistic views, while supporting the NDP, and telling people that they shouldn't be bothered by the NDP's far left view point, lol.

[waldo]

a quick scan of the thread... several cryptic posts that imply "scary" Opposition party policy positions; however, "scary" never seemed to actually be followed up with anything that spoke directly to the supposed policies that were... just so "scary"! Of course, this includes posts from the originator of this thread - go figure!

[Argus]

a quick scan of the thread... several cryptic posts that imply "scary" Opposition party policy positions; however, "scary" never seemed to actually be followed up with anything that spoke directly to the supposed policies that were... just so "scary"! Of course, this includes posts from the originator of this thread - go figure!

Maybe you just operate on such high level you aren't capable of understanding the descriptions of the positions and why they weren't liked.

We're just not good enough for you, Waldo. Best go back to rabble.

[waldo]

Maybe you just operate on such high level you aren't capable of understanding the descriptions of the positions and why they weren't liked.

We're just not good enough for you, Waldo. Best go back to rabble.

sorry to point out your "scary" routine... you keep speaking to your review of the Opposition parties policy platforms - they're so "scary" you somehow can't manage to highlight the scary/scariest and speak to why you're so... "scared"!

[Argus]

sorry to point out your "scary" routine... you keep speaking to your review of the Opposition parties policy platforms - they're so "scary" you somehow can't manage to highlight the scary/scariest and speak to why you're so... "scared"!

Did I say I was scared? I think I pointed out four major reasons right at the start of this topic on why I would be voting for the Conservatives. Pick one to natter on.