Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[karl262]

Trudeau vows to scrap the plan to purchase the F-35 and open a new procurement competition. He says the plane is too expensive and the procurement process was flawed. The money saved will be put towards the navy.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...ifax-1.3235791

The Liberal Party will scrap the Conservatives' troubled F-35 fighter jet program should they assume government, Leader Justin Trudeau announced in Halifax today.

"Our Canadian Forces are in a state of stagnation," Trudeau said to a crowd of supporters at Pier 21 in Halifax, home to the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

In its place, the Liberals said they would launch an "open and transparent competition" to buy more affordable planes to replace Canada's aging CF-18 jets. Trudeau said the money saved by scrapping the F-35 procurement would go primarily to increasing spending on the Royal Canadian Navy.

The primary mission of our fighter aircraft, Trudeau said, is the defence of North America.

Personally, I think people need to take more of the long view with our next fighter jet. It will have to be our primary front line fighter for the next 40 years at least. I would like for our pilots to have the best equipment possible which means a 5th generation plane. It gives them the best chance to make it home safely from hostilities.

As for the cost, I'm not sure if people are more upset about the cost of the program or the fact that the numbers when first presented were deliberately misleading.

Cost - $44 billion over the course of 40 years, likely 45. So less than $1 billion per year, representing around 5% of our current military budget to have 5th generation fighter jets. Good deal.

Deliberately misleading $ figures - Politicians consistently lie or bend the truth about the cost their programs.

[Harry Lime]

Nice move, Trudeau, on the fighter jets. I don't believe that the F-35s are the best fit for Canada, and felt like a backroom deal from the get go. It's worth reading some of the fighter jet thread for the alternatives. (My favorite being the dream scenario of a made in Canada solution, that would cost an arm and a leg, but give us a new national emblem.)

[kn]

This falls in line with the CPC's attack on data-driven decision making:

http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/...al-indictment/

My choice is between the Liberals and the CPC. Despite all the negative things about Harper and the Conservatives, I may hold my nose and still vote CPC. I spent the weekend looking long and hard at my finances and the CPC is best for my bottom line. I used my protest vote provincially and am still waiting on how that plays out long-term. I don't think I'm ready to do that nationally (NDP) and I'm not entirely sure I want Trudeau at the helm of the country (yet).

[Harry Lime]

Is anyone else bothered at all about how much power Harper has managed to consolidate in the prime ministers office? All of the talk is about one of these three guys running the country, and not as much about the parties as a whole that we saw in previous election cycles. There's a reason for that, I think, and it's harper. Who I voted for, twice. How bad the 'other guys' must have been. Seriously.

[indes]

This government scares the crap outta me. I definitely sway to the right but the CPC is making it really hard for me. Might have to go red -.-

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Is anyone else bothered at all about how much power Harper has managed to consolidate in the prime ministers office? All of the talk is about one of these three guys running the country, and not as much about the parties as a whole that we saw in previous election cycles. There's a reason for that, I think, and it's harper. Who I voted for, twice. How bad the 'other guys' must have been. Seriously.

I agree. It's one of the biggest reasons this particular leadership group needs to go.

Trudeau looks good comparatively on that spectrum, even though the conservatives are trying to make him out as weak. He's clearly not running that party like a tyrant. He seems like he will be a leader who relies on the ideas of his party members. He also speaks much more about consensus building. To me, those are not weaknesses.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I agree. It's one of the biggest reasons this particular leadership group needs to go.

Trudeau looks good comparatively on that spectrum, even though the conservatives are trying to make him out as weak. He's clearly not running that party like a tyrant. He seems like he will be a leader who relies on the ideas of his party members. He also speaks much more about consensus building. To me, those are not weaknesses.

this.

Harper just runs his party and has puppets say his speeches for him. There's a reason all the top people from the party left (ie MacKay), Canada shouldn't have this be their PM. This and among many other things, I'm still shocked people would even vote for Harper.

[Jacks]

Hmm, Liberal leader during an election vows to scrap replacement aircraft and start the process over.

It sounds so familiar, if there was only a time that his happened in the past that we could look back on and see if it was a wise decision.

[Ozy_Flame]

I wonder how well the CPC would be doing in the polls right now if Harper stepped down and they brought in a new face with new ideas that fit the conservative mold. I feel like Harper himself is what people have soured on, not necessarily conservative economic policies - and we all know the economy is front and center in this election. I won't be voting for them, but I would think much differently if Harper and his friends were replaced with fresh faces.

[karl262]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Nice move, Trudeau, on the fighter jets. I don't believe that the F-35s are the best fit for Canada, and felt like a backroom deal from the get go. It's worth reading some of the fighter jet thread for the alternatives. (My favorite being the dream scenario of a made in Canada solution, that would cost an arm and a leg, but give us a new national emblem.)

Besides the pipe dream of another arrow, what would be your solution to our need for a new jet? What is a better fit?

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

[N-E-B]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I wonder how well the CPC would be doing in the polls right now if Harper stepped down and they brought in a new face with new ideas that fit the conservative mold. I feel like Harper himself is what people have soured on, not necessarily conservative economic policies - and we all know the economy is front and center in this election. I won't be voting for them, but I would think much differently if Harper and his friends were replaced with fresh faces.

Personally I think the Conservatives would win easily if they had a different leader. Most people I know who are voting against the CPC are doing so because of Harper. I've heard "I would vote Conservative if they had a different leader" more than a few times.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Ozy_Flame

I wonder how well the CPC would be doing in the polls right now if Harper stepped down and they brought in a new face with new ideas that fit the conservative mold. I feel like Harper himself is what people have soured on, not necessarily conservative economic policies - and we all know the economy is front and center in this election. I won't be voting for them, but I would think much differently if Harper and his friends were replaced with fresh faces.

To a degree. I've voted CPC my entire voting life and their official economic strategy is not what I have a problem with. It's all the unofficial dirty things that they are doing behind the scenes that I really have an issue with. Destruction of government records, criminal activities, muzzling of scientists, election manipulation and complete subservience to corporate interests. Harper and most of the top CPC leadership have been so corrupted at this point that they only really care about staying in power and winning elections by any means necessary. They'll need to completely clean house before I can consider voting for them again.

[Harry Lime]

Originally Posted by karl262

Besides the pipe dream of another arrow, what would be your solution to our need for a new jet? What is a better fit?

Here is the thread on the subject. I'm an interested observer at best, but the F-35 seems to be best utilized in conjuction with the F-22, which the Americans are keeping to themselves, if I understand correctly. That and the F-35 keeps going up in projected costs.

I've wondered on occasion what the point of having an identical fleet to the Americans, at 1/100 the size, really brings to NORADs table. Shouldn't we diversify for an Arctic environment, if that is our main nationalistic concern?

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=122550

[karl262]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

this.

Harper just runs his party and has puppets say his speeches for him. There's a reason all the top people from the party left (ie MacKay), Canada shouldn't have this be their PM. This and among many other things, I'm still shocked people would even vote for Harper.

I'm not sure if I believe this to be a Harper thing or a contemporary politics thing. The central power core of every party keeps a tight muzzle on its elected members and regularly employ the vote whip.

[flamesfan6]

And yet another thing Harper is trying to hide and hope nobody finds.

A huge disconnect exists between the price of crude oil and gasoline even though crude is the major component in a refiner’s cost. Big Oil is taking advantage of Canadians at the pumps.

The Harper government seems worried voters might figure it out. When the election was called, Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) stopped producing the Fuel Focus Report—its bi-weekly window on economic drivers influencing gasoline prices “intended to provide Canadians with regular information on the various aspects of the gasoline market in Canada.”

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015...t-gouged-pumps

You can see the reports here, you can see it's been every 2 weeks since february until July 24

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sources/petro...e-reports/4793

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

http://www.nationalobserver.com

Is that where you get your news?
Might as well just read the news on the Liberal and NDP home pages.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Is that where you get your news?
Might as well just read the news on the Liberal and NDP home pages.

Yep. Read the headlines on that site funny stuff.

[flamesfan6]

I don't particularly look anywhere for news, I found the article and there is a reason I first went to the NRCan website to see if there was any factual basis around the article before even posting the article - instead of you two just writing off the source due to headlines of the articel.

You can just ignore the article and keep with your obvious biases or you could actually go to the 2nd URL (government of canada website) I included in my original post (http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sources/petro...e-reports/4793) to find out that the reports actually did stop being produced.

2012 - Min 2 reports per month outside January
2013 - Same as 2012
2014 - Same as 2012 without any January
2015 - 2 times every month except January until July 24

We should now have 4 reports posted on this site since July 24, but they are not provided/produced. Ignoring the actual content of the article - the government has stopped producing these reports that have been consistently done since 2012 just in time for this election.

So whether you agree with the actual contents of the article or not - I'm more pointing out the fact that Harper yet is not providing information to Canadians on purpose. That's more what I am frustrated with - the continuation of Harper's control of information and lack of transparency.

[Kjesse]

Originally Posted by flamesfan6

And yet another thing Harper is trying to hide and hope nobody finds.



http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015...t-gouged-pumps

You can see the reports here, you can see it's been every 2 weeks since february until July 24

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sources/petro...e-reports/4793

If you post these articles because you believe them, I feel sorry for you. And I am not a Harper fan either.

[flamesfan6]

Originally Posted by Delgar

If you post these articles because you believe them, I feel sorry for you. And I am not a Harper fan either.

In all honesty I only cared about the top part of the article about the reports not being produced. Stopped reading after. Before I even posted the quote I did, I looked at the actual Canada government site (see post above yours) to see if it had any validity.

If there's a legit reason why all of a sudden these reports stopped being produced 8 days before Harper called the election, then so be it. Usually if there was a reason for something to be not produced that is usually out on a bi-weekly frequency - then usually there is a message stating something.

As I said in the post above, we should have 3-4 more of these reports by now.

Edit - I don't care of we get gauged at the pump or not, I just want transparency. Stopping to produce bi-weekly reports for no reason right before an election just seems off