The Liberal Love-in

[Argus]

Hardly a discouraging word to be heard on Martin's disastrous time in office, thus far. A government which is drifting pointlessly along with no apparent ideas or aims seems to be just what the Liberal grass roots want and need.

Health Care? Despite long line-ups and burgeoning budgetary deficits in every hospital in the land Martin has "solved" this issue for a generation. Apparently.

Fisheries? In the dumpster, with no plans to help it.

Agriculture? Very close to the dumpster, with no plans to help it.

The Military? Rusting out with no plans for improvements and no additional funding on the horizon.

Security? A non issue. An underfunded RCMP, underfunded CSIS, no real coast guard or patrols along any of our borders.

Immigration? Wide open to fraud and misuse, with criminals and terrorist sympathisers arriving weekly, if not daily and no real ability to either screen for them or easily get rid of them. But who cares, eh?

Violent crime? Hey, we've got a gun registry. What more could we possibly want.

Corruption? Huh? What? I see noooothing. I know noooooothing!

Openness? More funds dumped into those secret trusts of Martin's, billions hidden from the auditor general and the access to information laws. Continued secrecy, continued lawsuits against its own Information Commisioner.

Repairing our relationship with the Americans?

Environment? Despite money in the budget to encourage conservation and continued commitment to Kyoto there is no way in hell this government intends to, has a plan for, or can afford to meet its obligations.

But never mind that. Let's talk about important stuff! Like how tolerant we are to promote homosexual marriage!!

[The Terrible Sweal]

The Military? Rusting out with no plans for improvements and no additional funding on the horizon.

!! Missed the budget speech did you?

Argus, I agree that many of your criticisms are valid, but that one undermined your credibility fairly badly.

[Newfie Canadian]

With all due respect Argus, I got exactly what I expected.

We will probably see the same type of thing in a couple of weeks from the CPC.

[Stoker]

Violent crime? Hey, we've got a gun registry. What more could we possibly want.

You know for a quarter of the cost of the long gun registry, we could have purchased the most state of the art Kevlar bullet proof vests for every memeber in the RCMP............I wonder if we would still have four dead Mounties on our hands......

!! Missed the budget speech did you?

Argus, I agree that many of your criticisms are valid, but that one undermined your credibility fairly badly.

Come on.......it's a joke.......500 million this year! 600 million next year......it won't be until the third year that DND will see anything above a billion dollars........Do you not think that there will be an election within the next year or two? Will a Liberal majority maintian these comitments? Will the Quebec wing allow them to?

This "12 billion dollars" is nothing more then pandering to the media and the CPC.

Even Liberal Senator Kenny (head of the Senate defence review) has stated that at least an additional 1.5-2 billion are needed annually, right away......not in three years.

[caesar]

Health Care? Despite long line-ups and burgeoning budgetary deficits in every hospital in the land Martin has "solved" this issue for a generation. Apparently.

Health Care is administerd by the provinces; The feds have given them the extra money. It is now the Provinces who must step up to the plate and spend the mney wisely. Fat Chance of that happening> ( When they want the money with "no strings attached" has a bit of a fishy smell)

The Liberal minority government has only been in office a few months; what exactly do you expect? Miracles. The Liberals may not be perfect or even good but I am sure feeling safer than I would with someone like the Bush follower Harper at the helm.

[Hawk]

Health Care? Despite long line-ups and burgeoning budgetary deficits in every hospital in the land Martin has "solved" this issue for a generation. Apparently.

Health Care is administerd by the provinces; The feds have given them the extra money. It is now the Provinces who must step up to the plate and spend the mney wisely. Fat Chance of that happening> ( When they want the money with "no strings attached" has a bit of a fishy smell)

The Liberal minority government has only been in office a few months; what exactly do you expect? Miracles. The Liberals may not be perfect or even good but I am sure feeling safer than I would with someone like the Bush follower Harper at the helm.

Ok

1. The Liberals have been in office for 5 terms now, and we are worse off than ever... is that what I expected? Yes, which is why I voted for Harper. Seriously, when the finance minister for a corrupt regime suddenly takes over the party MOST people would think for themselves and figure out that, hey, this isn't good.... but for some reason Fiberals can't wrap their minds around this, they seem to think that Martin is a 'new man' and so on. BS.

2. I have yet to see a single good supporting fact that proves Harper would be more dangerous/damaging to Canada than the Liberal party. Prove me wrong, I dare you. If you can't though, then you admit your ignorant =)

[Redneck Yokel]

Beautifully said Argus.

Caesar, what do you believe a Harper government would do to detriment our great country? The previous liberal 'regime' has basically set our country onto such an economic and social self-destructive path that it would go to reason that any succeeding government could do nothing but improve the state of it all. However, the current Martin government has done little in the way of damage-control. I would much rather have an untested government in place than one which has proven itself to be incompetent.

[ticker]

Prove me wrong, I dare you. If you can't though, then you admit your ignorant =)

That is a loaded question Hawk.... caesar can't resist to put his lefty spin on it

[Iknowbest]

Health Care? Despite long line-ups and burgeoning budgetary deficits in every hospital in the land Martin has "solved" this issue for a generation. Apparently.

Health Care is administerd by the provinces; The feds have given them the extra money. It is now the Provinces who must step up to the plate and spend the mney wisely. Fat Chance of that happening> ( When they want the money with "no strings attached" has a bit of a fishy smell)

The Liberal minority government has only been in office a few months; what exactly do you expect? Miracles. The Liberals may not be perfect or even good but I am sure feeling safer than I would with someone like the Bush follower Harper at the helm.

Health Care Provinces only? BS !! There was a Federal/Provincial agreement many years ago that stated:

The Federal Government will contribute 50% of all dollars for Health Care in Canada. Each Province will provide the remaining 50%. When idiot boy Paul Martin became Finance Minister ( he invoked 49 tax increases while he was that minister ) reduced the 50% down to the current support of 16%. Nice eh! Vote Liberals and watch your parents die because of lack of support from the Liberals.

One cannot for any reason believe anything the Liberals say or agree to. No wonder pinocchios nose was miles shorter than Liberal politicians.

[Argus]

The Military? Rusting out with no plans for improvements and no additional funding on the horizon.

!! Missed the budget speech did you?

Argus, I agree that many of your criticisms are valid, but that one undermined your credibility fairly badly.

Martin has said approximately $12b but over 5 years. Over the first two years, which is realistically longer than his government is likely to last, the additional funds for the military are barely enough to cover the operating deficit they are working under due to costs associated with Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, etc. So in effect there is no additional money there.

The additional money would really only come in 2008-2010, provided (according to the budget) there is still a large budget surplus. And, of course, this would be after another election, where priorities change. Even then it is half what a Liberal dominated Senate Armed Services Committee said the Armed Forces needed to build back up to a respectable service.

Note there was no mention of money for any of the big ticket items the military desperately needs, such as transport aircraft and ships, new APCs, helicopters, etc., nor additional money to buy the equpment associated with the 5,000 extra infantry Martin has said we will be inducting.

[Argus]

Violent crime? Hey, we've got a gun registry. What more could we possibly want.

You know for a quarter of the cost of the long gun registry, we could have purchased the most state of the art Kevlar bullet proof vests for every memeber in the RCMP............I wonder if we would still have four dead Mounties on our hands......

Actually, for what we paid for that registry we could have had teams of mounties tasked to getting illegal guns off the streets. Right now you can buy a gun fairly easily. Wander into a few bars and ask around. You'll get one. If you had the cops doing that and stiff penalties for people selling illegal weapons they'd soon be a lot harder to get.

We could also use considerably more enforcement along the US border, where most of our illegal weapons come from.

This "12 billion dollars" is nothing more then pandering to the media and the CPC.

Even Liberal Senator Kenny (head of the Senate defence review) has stated that at least an additional 1.5-2 billion are needed annually, right away......not in three years.

They are in a minority position. Given another election, if they're a majority, they can go back to ignoring hte military and thumbing their noses at the opposition. That is what they hope will happen.

[Argus]

Health Care? Despite long line-ups and burgeoning budgetary deficits in every hospital in the land Martin has "solved" this issue for a generation. Apparently.

Health Care is administerd by the provinces; The feds have given them the extra money. It is now the Provinces who must step up to the plate and spend the mney wisely.

You can either choose to believe all eleven provinces have screwed up their health care, or blame it on the people who set health care funding and priorities, as well as administering overall policy through the Canada Health Act - the Liberals in Ottawa.

They went through a useless study where the only recommendations made were to hire more bureacrats and spend more money. They needed to shake up how health care is delivered and look into bringing in more money through some privatization and they did nothing.

The Liberal minority government has only been in office  a few months; what exactly do you expect?  Miracles. 

You have a short memory, obviously. The Liberals have been in power more the last 13 years and have done nothing but watch health care delivery collapse.

[Shakeyhands]

wow... three days worth of chortleing and hucking it up. Keep up the back slapping boys...!

[Redneck Yokel]

[sarcasm]That was an extremely useful and valid response Shakey...[/sarcasm]

[Shakeyhands]

point is there is no discussion going on, just how it sucks to be a liberal... no matter, continue having your fun while we govern!

[Redneck Yokel]

The sad thing is... no one is having fun... because of your liberal governing.

[Hawk]

point is there is no discussion going on, just how it sucks to be a liberal... no matter, continue having your fun while we govern!

Thats right, it does suck to be a Liberal, but that is not at all what we have been saying and obviously you dont understand how to debate if you can't see or respond to the points made.

But thats ok, since it is obvious the Liberals lost this debate

[I Miss Trudeau]

But thats ok, since it is obvious the Liberals lost this debate

In order to have a debate, there needs to be some sort of argument made. And rereading this thread, I can't find anything resembling an argument.

[Guest eureka]

If there had been no stiffening of gun laws over the past fifteen years and no gun registry there might still have been more than 1300 gun related killings instead of 800. That 500 less might have died each year.

If those restrictions on guns had not come into effect, there might not have been the decrease in violent crimes that we have been witnessing since guns became a little harder to find.

On Healthcare, how many times must the facts of federal/provincial responsibilities be gone over before it enters the skulls of the "Right."

For Harper's position on healthcare delivery, as I have suggested before, they should read the Reform Party's caucus statement of 1988 - drafted by Harper. The position would embarass all but the most myopic of the "Right."

[Guest eureka]

If there had been no stiffening of gun laws over the past fifteen years and no gun registry there might still have been more than 1300 gun related killings instead of 800. That 500 less might have died each year.

If those restrictions on guns had not come into effect, there might not have been the decrease in violent crimes that we have been witnessing since guns became a little harder to find.

On Healthcare, how many times must the facts of federal/provincial responsibilities be gone over before it enters the skulls of the "Right."

For Harper's position on healthcare delivery, as I have suggested before, they should read the Reform Party's caucus statement of 1988 - drafted by Harper. The position would embarass all but the most myopic of the "Right."

[PocketRocket]

*sigh*

One of the things I enjoyed most when I first came to this website was the minimal left vs right partisan bickering.

Issues were debated. Legitimacy of political allegiance was not. Flaming and petty name-calling was rare.

It was a refreshing change from the American political forums I had frequented the past few years.

Alas, but it seems this forum too is slowly sliding into nonsenicle, partisan one-upmanship.

Fortunately, a few, but only a very few, have actually contributed something of value to this thread.

The rest has been partisan childishness.

I've stayed out up until now because I had nothing of value to add.

Now I do.....

Get a life, people.

There's nothing wrong with being a conservative.

There's nothing wrong with being a liberal.

There's nothing wrong with being non-affiliated.

If all you want to do is sit around saying "you suck because you're (fill in party name here)", then go back to the playground because it all just sounds like a bunch of bratty kids.

[Shakeyhands]

But thats ok, since it is obvious the Liberals lost this debate 

In order to have a debate, there needs to be some sort of argument made. And rereading this thread, I can't find anything resembling an argument.

Bingo... exactly what I am saying.

[Redneck Yokel]

Eureka, in the end it comes down to one question: Why would anyone with the intent to commit an armed crime register their weapon? Of course there are the few who may have registered in the distant past who were simply ignorant enough to commit a crime with such a weapon, but they represent the infinitesimal percentage of those caught. What you really have to look it is cost vs. benefit. The numbers simply do not support registry.

Also, what will come next? Registering all blunt objects, all knives, and all household chemicals as weapons?

PocketRocket, you do have a valid point, but it actually did begin as an argument against the government policies themselves. I retract my previous statement about 'liberal' governing being the singular problem.

[I Miss Trudeau]

Why would anyone with the intent to commit an armed crime register their weapon?

Not all crimes are premeditated.

Of course there are the few who may have registered in the distant past who were simply ignorant enough to commit a crime with such a weapon, but they represent the infinitesimal percentage of those caught.

Including or excluding non premeditated gun crimes?

Also, what will come next? Registering all blunt objects, all knives, and all household chemicals as weapons?

Lets try to remain within the realm of reason, and not gleefully riding down slippery slopes.

[Redneck Yokel]

Not all crimes are premeditated.

This is true, but what percentage of crimes are commited by regularly law-abiding citizens? I meant that one who follows the law to such an extent as to follow registry is much less likely to actually commit such crimes.

Lets try to remain within the realm of reason, and not gleefully riding down slippery slopes.

Part of that may have been facetious, but the other part is completely reasonable to bring up, in that the registration of knives has already been brought up as an 'issue'.