Thomas Mulcair disease: Canada’s would-be PM slips on the oilsands

[Senator Clay Davis]

It seems Mulcair is giving lessons on how to completely destory all of the inroads a political party made in one legislative term. I wouldn't be shocked to see the NDP go back to low teens numbers after the next election. Besides the fact I don't particularly find him trustworthy, his ideas are all ridiculous.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

It seems Mulcair is giving lessons on how to completely destory all of the inroads a political party made in one legislative term. I wouldn't be shocked to see the NDP go back to low teens numbers after the next election. Besides the fact I don't particularly find him trustworthy, his ideas are all ridiculous.

Not to mention that if I saw him within 100 m of my child's school, I'd be tempted to call the police...

[Senator Clay Davis]

Not sure I'd say Mulcair has that child predator vibe to him, more of that grumpy old basterd vibe to him.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

It seems Mulcair is giving lessons on how to completely destory all of the inroads a political party made in one legislative term. I wouldn't be shocked to see the NDP go back to low teens numbers after the next election. Besides the fact I don't particularly find him trustworthy, his ideas are all ridiculous.

In this case, it isn't that dumb, sadly. "Hey Ontario and Quebec! It's all Alberta's fault you are having problems!" sells big time. Just ask the worst Prime Minister Canada ever had.

What I love about the NDP is that they are led by a corpse. Their commercials introducing Mulcair are sad and pathetic because they know damn well that their support rests entirely on Layton, not their ideals. That's why they trotted Olivia Chow out into the commercials and had Mulcair bragging about leading "Jack's team".

The more the country gets to know Mulcair, the less popular he will be, in all likelihood. The problem, however, is that the Liberals are a sunk ship, especially if Bob Rae ends up at the helm. There are enough "Harper is the devil incarnate" zealots on the left to keep the NDP floating.

[CaptainCrunch]

Honestly he needs to hold onto his seat gains in Quebec which means taking the position that everything west of Manitoba is evil and contrary to realthink.

He needs to hold onto his gains in Ontario by catering up to the factory workers and the best way to do that is to go after Alberta.

I think that the NDP are going to realize that people didn't vote for them for their policies, nor did they vote for them for any of their candidates with a few exceptions, they voted for a sick man with a lot of charisma and a cane, and they voted against Ignatieff.

They were a protest vote on a fairly massive scale and it put a party with a loony toons platform and a nonsense driven economic model into the official opposition and then they elected Mulcair who is universally hated by the senior members of the party.

And not to Godwin the thread, but we're seeing the falicy of the strategic vote elsewhere, we've seen NeoNazi zoom bweebies get 20% of the seats in Greece, not because their policies really hit the mark, but it was the stupid vote for the other guy strategy.

The fear is that the Liberal's can't pull their act together (I think they're a couple of elections away from even getting to that point which starts with bouncing Bob Rae) and we're probably going to be looking at at least consecutive Conservative Minority Governents (Not really a fear for me, but whatever).

Mulcair is out of his depth, he's given Harper a nice big juicy video clip to use in the next election, and a ton of ammunition for any debate.

[Resolute 14]

Oh, and LOL at Stephane Dion's hypocrisy. His "Green Shift" was designed to placate the east, primarily at the expense of Alberta.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

In this case, it isn't that dumb, sadly. "Hey Ontario and Quebec! It's all Alberta's fault you are having problems!" sells big time. Just ask the worst Prime Minister Canada ever had.

What I love about the NDP is that they are led by a corpse. Their commercials introducing Mulcair are sad and pathetic because they know damn well that their support rests entirely on Layton, not their ideals. That's why they trotted Olivia Chow out into the commercials and had Mulcair bragging about leading "Jack's team".

The more the country gets to know Mulcair, the less popular he will be, in all likelihood. The problem, however, is that the Liberals are a sunk ship, especially if Bob Rae ends up at the helm. There are enough "Harper is the devil incarnate" zealots on the left to keep the NDP floating.

It took the damn dirty commies 50 years to realize that was a mistake.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well Mulcair deserves some credit...he's managed to bring Liberals and Conservatives together against him

Rae levelled perhaps the harshest charge Thursday, suggesting that the former Quebec Liberal environment minister would never take such an approach with his ex-boss Charest.

"He would never describe his own premier, Mr. Charest, as a messenger of Harper. I don't know why he would choose to think that he can say that about Mr. Wall or Premier Redford or Premier Clark."

Rae said Mulcair's tactics can't be dismissed as a rookie mistake, given the NDP leader's experience in federal and provincial politics.

"I think it comes from an excess of partisanship and, frankly, not having a really deep appreciation as to how sensitive these issues are in the national debate," Rae said.

"I mean Westerners are very proud, and rightly so, of the fact that the economy is now developing in their part of the world and they're not dependent on Central Canada for, you know, for any form of transfer."

http://www.canada.com/business/Conse...#ixzz1vELnPWVE

[Azure]

More on the ######bag at the head of the NDP.

Thomas Mulcair has been a federal MP for five years, yet he has never visited the oilsands in northern Alberta,# although he says he’s planning a sojourn sometime this spring.

Which is odd, given that he talks about it every day. But that’s standard practice for the NDP. His fellow NDP MPs, Megan Leslie and Claude Gravelle, flew to Washington, D.C., last November to tell the U.S. Congress about the evils of the oilsands, and asked for them to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through which we’d export our oil.

I doubt Leslie or Gravelle has been to Fort McMurray either. They’ve got time to jet around the world, disparaging our industry to foreigners, trashing our own country to strangers. But no time for a trip to the oilsands themselves.

Of course not. They have extremist opinions on the subject. Finding out actual facts about the place might contradict their radical theories. Can’t have that.

.....

He’s counting on it. He’s not trying to heal regional rifts amongst Canadian regions. He’s looking for the opportunities if he pours salt into old wounds.

This scorched earth approach to national unity took a truly bizarre turn last week. Here’s what Mulcair said about the oilsands in Parliament: “We’re allowing these companies to use the air, the soil and the water as an unlimited free dumping ground. Their model for development is Nigeria instead of Norway.”

Seriously. He compared the practices of Canadians working in the oilsands to Nigeria — a country with kleptocrats who have stolen a third of a trillion dollars from their own people; brutal dictators have murdered critics of the regime; environmental devastation; abject poverty; the slow-burn civil war.

Mulcair actually said that is the model chosen by Canadian companies. That is how we live and work. He compared us to them. That’s how low we are in his eyes.

When the NDP was the third or fourth party, such bozo eruptions were good for a chuckle. But Thomas Mulcair is the leader of the opposition now, theoretically the man standing by to form a government if the Conservatives fall.

Put aside his socialism and economic illiteracy. His raw hatred for half of Canada must disqualify him from ever leading us.

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/05/18...-over-oilsands

I wonder how long he'll last. On the bright side, this might be the straw that breaks the camels back. The Liberals have some pretty good ammunition to help get rid of those socialist wankers.

[Stranger]

Mulcair supposedly is on his way to Edmonton on May 30. Its still unclear if he is headed to Fort Mac or not. Should be interesting.

I wonder how often he's even been to Alberta?

[c.t.ner]

Not that I agree with Muclairs tactics or exactly what he was saying, but this from a political standpoint is a bit awkward. (of course it comes out on the Friday of a long weekend so it'll have little impact to the whole debate).

The Harper government has funded research that argues Canada’s economy suffers from so-called Dutch Disease

“We show that between 33 and 39 per cent of the manufacturing employment loss that was due to exchange rate developments between 2002 and 2007 is related to the Dutch Disease phenomenon,” says the study.

but on the other side it also points that the job loss is in Textile, Small Businesses...

Attempting to debunk the notion that an increased reliance on oil exports is hollowing out Central Canada’s manufacturing base, the report concluded that cyclical factors and global competition are mostly to blame for the decline in factory production in Canada over the last decade.

[NBC]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

I was like "Who's Thomas Mulcair?" Then I remembered the new NDP leader who looks like Hank Scorpio.

Get the hell out of here! Ever see a guy say good-bye to a shoe?

Aw man, you just ruined Hank Scorpio for me. I love(d) that guy!

[Smartcar]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Oh, and LOL at Stephane Dion's hypocrisy. His "Green Shift" was designed to placate the east, primarily at the expense of Alberta.

Actually is was good policy poorly communicated with bad timing. In principle it makes sense to tax things you don't want to encourage (consumption of fossil fuels) and not tax things you do (productivity and income). Since everyone pays income taxes and consumes fossil fuels (the tax would have been at the consumer level, not the producer level) it wouldn't have benefited one region over another. The problem was people didn't believe that income taxes really would go down, therefore it wouldn't be a "shift" but additional taxes.

What Mulcair is saying really is intended to cause a rift between regions. But obviously he knows where his votes are.

[Stranger]

To me Mulcair is just not a likeable politician and this definately doesn't help his image.

Even though I disagreed with almost everything Layton said; at least he came across as a likeable guy. He loved to see his own mug on TV, but I can see how people followed him. Mulclair not so much.

[FLAME ENVY]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Honestly he needs to hold onto his seat gains in Quebec which means taking the position that everything west of Manitoba is evil and contrary to realthink.

He needs to hold onto his gains in Ontario by catering up to the factory workers and the best way to do that is to go after Alberta.

I think that the NDP are going to realize that people didn't vote for them for their policies, nor did they vote for them for any of their candidates with a few exceptions, they voted for a sick man with a lot of charisma and a cane, and they voted against Ignatieff.

They were a protest vote on a fairly massive scale and it put a party with a loony toons platform and a nonsense driven economic model into the official opposition and then they elected Mulcair who is universally hated by the senior members of the party.

And not to Godwin the thread, but we're seeing the falicy of the strategic vote elsewhere, we've seen NeoNazi zoom bweebies get 20% of the seats in Greece, not because their policies really hit the mark, but it was the stupid vote for the other guy strategy.

The fear is that the Liberal's can't pull their act together (I think they're a couple of elections away from even getting to that point which starts with bouncing Bob Rae) and we're probably going to be looking at at least consecutive Conservative Minority Governents (Not really a fear for me, but whatever).

Mulcair is out of his depth, he's given Harper a nice big juicy video clip to use in the next election, and a ton of ammunition for any debate.

Agreed. Great Post.

[Freeway]

The Tory strategy right now is to hang back, let Mulcair dominate the news cycle with his insanity, and then trot out the quotes and soundbytes during the election year. Harper has no incentive not to hang out and enjoy himself right now

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Smartcar

Actually is was good policy poorly communicated with bad timing. In principle it makes sense to tax things you don't want to encourage (consumption of fossil fuels) and not tax things you do (productivity and income). Since everyone pays income taxes and consumes fossil fuels (the tax would have been at the consumer level, not the producer level) it wouldn't have benefited one region over another. The problem was people didn't believe that income taxes really would go down, therefore it wouldn't be a "shift" but additional taxes.

What Mulcair is saying really is intended to cause a rift between regions. But obviously he knows where his votes are.

No, it was not good policy communicated with bad timing. Extracting oil is energy intensive, and adding value domestically increases the energy requirement. Upgrading in Canada, rather than shipping diluted bitumen to jurisdictions that don't tax carbon emissions (and furthermore, may have lax environmental standards for things like sulphur emissions) is what we want to encourage. And the green shift would have discouraged that.

The only way a carbon tax makes sense is if you ensure that the rest of the world has it too. Furthermore, alternate negative externalities must also be taxed proportional to their impact.

Different regions have different industries with different energy intensities. The green shift would have both transfered wealth out of Alberta and had a negative net effect on Canada's wealth as a whole.

[Slava]

A carbon tax is far more sensible than a cap and trade system. People don't like the dirty word "tax" being there, but that doesn't make it wrong.

As for this particular case though, Mulcair is just off base. This link shows who produces CO2 in order of severity. Of the top ten only two are in Ft. McMurray. There are more in Ontario and the Maritimes than might be expected. I guess we don't see this kind of list reported because its pretty boring though; the environment in general is not a large concern for Canadians (despite people proclaiming otherwise). Anyway, here is the link: http://worthwhile.typepad.com/worthw...nada.html#more

[Smartcar]

Originally Posted by SebC

Extracting oil is energy intensive,

Extracting oil from the oil sands is hugely energy intensive, which is one of the reasons environmentalist consider it "dirty oil". There's no question it would have increased costs to Alberta producers in the short term, but the objective was to create an incentive to come up with better ways to do energy-intensive things, not to transfer wealth to other provinces.

So Dion was not being a hypocrite criticizing Mulcair. There's not much Alberta can do about the high dollar and world commodity prices, but we could be spending more on research into cleaner ways to extract oil.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Smartcar

Extracting oil from the oil sands is hugely energy intensive, which is one of the reasons environmentalist consider it "dirty oil". There's no question it would have increased costs to Alberta producers in the short term, but the objective was to create an incentive to come up with better ways to do energy-intensive things, not to transfer wealth to other provinces.

So Dion was not being a hypocrite criticizing Mulcair. There's not much Alberta can do about the high dollar and world commodity prices, but we could be spending more on research into cleaner ways to extract oil.

The Alberta producers are already coming up with ways to make it more efficient to extract the oil without any kind of tax.