Justin Trudeau running for Liberal leadership

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Really though the liberals downfall was their blatant scandals involving millions of dollars of taxpayer money. That is why they have been out of power for almost a decade. You want to piss off taxpayers the best way to go about it is to get caught with your hands in the taxpayer cookie jar and the Liberals did numerous times. Harper's government has avoided this type of major money scandal and for the most part I simply don't see a massive national uprising to get them out.

Off the top of my head I can think a few times they got caught misusing public funds. F-35, G-20, shipbuilding (going to cost us more now), sending armoured vehicles to India for Harper when they had ones there, Mackay hitching a ride on a SAR chopper, Bev Oda gate, Penashue just admitted his campaign accepted illegal donations, just to name a few off the top of my head.

[Azure]

If anyone besides Justin Trudeau were the Liberal leader there would be a better chance of me voting for them.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Azure

If anyone besides Justin Trudeau were the Liberal leader there would be a better chance of me voting for them.

It seems like there are more people who would vote for the Liberals with Trudeau than without though.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Zulu29

Off the top of my head I can think a few times they got caught misusing public funds. F-35, G-20, shipbuilding (going to cost us more now), sending armoured vehicles to India for Harper when they had ones there, Mackay hitching a ride on a SAR chopper, Bev Oda gate, Penashue just admitted his campaign accepted illegal donations, just to name a few off the top of my head.

The fighter jets and shipbuilding contracts weren't misusing public funds. Escalating program costs are something every government deals with. The rest of it is pretty minor noise that the opposition loves to get riled up about.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

The fighter jets and shipbuilding contracts weren't misusing public funds. Escalating program costs are something every government deals with. The rest of it is pretty minor noise that the opposition loves to get riled up about.

Except that the planes were the entire cause of the last election, and there was nothing unforeseen here! The opposition pressed for information and the CPC absolutely refused to provide any. That was why they were found to be in contempt of parliament and that was why we had an election.

Reading this thread about how people want a "strong opposition" just makes me laugh. The opposition did everything they could to hold the government accountable, found them in contempt (which until that moment had never happened in the Commonwealth, ever IIRC), and it was all brushed aside by CPC supporters as 'political games'.

The entire plane affair was clearly mishandled and the opposition was right! I have no idea why the government should be let off the hook for this; from the concerns of the PBO to the issues raised by the opposition the government has not acted prudently in any facet of what would be the largest contract in our military history.

[GP_Matt]

The difference though is with the Sponsorship scandal the Liberals were personally pocketing the money. With the planes it may have been mishandled but Harper wasn't going to fill up his campaign at chest with a portion of the proceeds.

[Zulu29]

Here are a few links to show some of the scandals:

http://behindthenumbers.ca/2011/04/2...wrence-martin/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_and_Out_scandal

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canad...112521300.html

And add on top of that the prorogueing parliament.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by SebC

It seems like there are more people who would vote for the Liberals with Trudeau than without though.

Honey moon period.

The shine will come off of him pretty quickly when he's not in the suck up environment of the Liberal race and he actually has to go head to head with the other party leaders.

[Azure]

Would rather vote for a inexperienced pretty boy? Why?

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Slava

Reading this thread about how people want a "strong opposition" just makes me laugh.

A strong opposition is important in a healthy democracy. What we saw in the last minority parliament was not a strong opposition, it was a bunch of drama from a bitter venomous house. If they truly thought that the Conservatives were destroying Canada (as they claimed in front of the microphones every day) the opposition had the votes to remove them from power at any time. The threat of a confidence vote would have done more to keep Harper in check than all the drama.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Azure

Would rather vote for a inexperienced pretty boy? Why?

His inexperience is a bit more of misconception rather than fact. He's been in his riding for 5 years now (2 wins) and working with the Liberal party for over 10.

Not that I'm huge on the guy either, just wanna keep the facts straight.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Daradon

His inexperience is a bit more of misconception rather than fact. He's been in his riding for 5 years now (2 wins) and working with the Liberal party for over 10.

Not that I'm huge on the guy either, just wanna keep the facts straight.

Except that he hasn't done much or achieved much in his time in parliament. He's never done much in terms of strong policy placement or decisions. He's coasted on his name. He's taken time out of parliament to do paid public speaking terms. He's never really held an important shadow cabinet position, or stood out as a strong voice in government.

Its similar to his whole life, he's been a part time drama teacher.

Except for his looks and his pretty basically catchphrase based talking point, he is a guy that's coasted on his trust fund, bragged about his lavish wedding and positioned himself as a basic stand for nothing candidate who caters to Eastern Canada and more specifically Quebec.

Oh but he knocked out an equally bad member of the political circle in a boxing match.

When it comes time to get into actually leading a party, and leading a party in an election I think the Liberal's are going to regret backing that horse instead of someone like Marc Garneau who can actually have an adult conservation and not sound like Matt Damon from Team America.

The Conservatives and NDP are going to be prepared for this kid. The NDP is going to scrap hard to consolidate their seats and further gut the Liberals, Harper is probably one of the most canny political operators that this country has seen since Justin's dad, I would rank him above Chretien who had a fairly easy time with a fractured right and a NDP party who's members at the time had just graduated from Clown college.

There will also be a special point in pride if one of Mulcair or Harper can end the Trudeau mystique.

I'm looking forward to the next election, its going to be a nasty brawl.

[Daradon]

I can't really argue that he isn't more flash than substance, cause it's true. But other candidates have done less. He just has a bigger lens on him for better or worse. Which makes the comments from fans or detractors more exaggerated.

He's not really, 'inexperienced'. That's all. He has more experience than some. Less than others, of course.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Jacks

The threat of a confidence vote would have done more to keep Harper in check than all the drama.

When Harper was planning to let Canada go into a recession without a stimulus progam, that is exactly what happened.

[Devils'Advocate]

Kevin Page has been rather neutered which is why he has been asking for more cooperation and openness. The Conservatives are vehemently against giving him more power to investigate any misuse of public funds. We just don't know what scandals are being covered up. If the Conservatives truly have the taxpayers best interests in mind, give Kevin Page the powers he is asking for. The Gomery Commission was supposed to clear Paul Martin of any wrongdoing, which it did, but that transparency showed the rot within the Liberal party. The Conservatives learned that transparency should be the first thing to go once you have power.

The funny thing is that under the Conservatives we have doubled the number of FIs (financial officers/auditors) to ensure that government departments don't misdirected funds. My job is being made increasingly more difficult as the Conservatives have hired Deloitte to do a financial pre-audit saying that we programmers should not have access to the production systems because I could give myself a pay raise and I know all the back doors to get it through the system without anybody noticing (at least not until someone does a year end audit and the budget numbers don't add up). Deloitte is recommending that we hire extra programmers and extra DBAs to handle production support that don't have access to those back doors so as to protect taxpayer dollars. The sponsorship scandal was $4,000,000 pilfered from taxpayers funds. Which is obviously not good. But it is tiny compared to the amount that government departments are paying each and every year avoiding another scandal. And that SHOULD be a scandal. It is an absolute embarrassment how much we are spending adding more and more red tape on top of an already bloated process.

[Azure]

Wait, you're saying that there are ways to save money and streamline operations? Good God. Don't mention that in the thread about the Alberta budget.

[GP_Matt]

Didn't the Conservatives create the PBO?

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Azure

Wait, you're saying that there are ways to save money and streamline operations? Good God. Don't mention that in the thread about the Alberta budget.

If we want to draw parallels with that thread... I'd say the federal conservatives waste more money than Redford ever has. Hello, omnibus crime bill.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by GP_Matt

Didn't the Conservatives create the PBO?

Yep, they created the position and then gave it limited powers. So they could say that they had accountability but really had none. But their mistake was appointing someone with integrity to the position who is willing to be outspoken and say "THIS POSITION IS USELESS UNLESS I HAVE MORE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCESS TO INFORMATION". Page has been VERY outspoken about his need for more access to properly do the job that he has been appointed to do.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by SebC

If we want to draw parallels with that thread... I'd say the federal conservatives waste more money than Redford ever has. Hello, omnibus crime bill.

I'm not sure if you want to say MORE, but I agree that they do waste a lot of unnecessary money.

And yet they still managed to cut spending somewhat.