[SebC]

Originally Posted by Hesla

Plus there is no cap on what income groups qualify... so upper class guys would qualify for this too.. which really is a waste of money.

Nope, but there is an extra $2000 / 4 years for low-income groups.

Originally Posted by Hesla

What is important to me is solid economic plans and paying down the deficit... to me the best chance at that is a Conservative Majority. All the Coalition/leader talk is just a big game.

You must have missed the part where the Conservatives increased spending 15% in the first 3 years after taking over from the Liberals (i.e. BEFORE stimulus spending), combined with an economically inefficient tax cut (GST). Thus moving Canada towards a structural deficit.

=============

Originally Posted by flambers

The liberals will lose seats this time around and Iggy will be gone as the party leader.

Ignatielf >> Dion

That alone could be enough to boost Liberal numbers.

=============

Originally Posted by Frequitude

Personally, I think the Liberals standing goes up over the next couple years, or at least not down. Use the media to chip away at the negative things Harper's doing, demonstrate your ability to function as a strong capable opposition, rebuild your war chest, and find a new leader to galvanize Canadians for what they'll view as a legit necessary election after 5 years of Harper. Ignatief is not leading the Liberals anywhere. You know it, I know it, and the Liberal party knows it. It really just makes no sense for them to be heading to the polls now.

A few things:

- If the Liberals allow a government in comptempt of parliament to continue to govern with impunity, doesn't that make them less of "a strong capable opposition"?

- If you're going to attack Harper for the negative things he's doing, isn't the best timing for that when those negative things are recent?

- Replacing Ignatief now with some mystery leader in order to hold an election in two years doesn't make any sense to me. If you replace Ignatief with "a prospect", Harper likely calls or engineers an election to go up against said "prospect" and dominates. Either that, or the Liberals hands are tied for the next two years as they groom their new leader, making for inneffective opposition and undermining the whole thing. Ignatief would be the Liberal leader for the next election whether it's going to be May 2, 2011 or May 2, 2013. The guy hasn't even been the party leader for an election yet, so it's a bit early to be pulling the plug on him, at least until a credible alternative emerges.

============

Originally Posted by octothorp

Umm, not at all what happened. The Conservatives formed the government well before there was any talk of coalition. Six weeks into the new government, the conservatives assumed that even though they only had a minority government, they would be able to ram through major changes to election financing rules (and other controversial economic policies, but the election financing was the big one), on the assumption that the opposition wouldn't dare trigger another election so soon.

The opposition parties realized that they had two choices: force another election, or threaten to form a coalition. So the Liberals and the NDP announced the intent to form a coalition with the support of the Bloc, and Harper prorogued parliament. During the break, the Conservatives revised the economic plans, including abandoning the election financing changes, and the Liberals, now under Ignatieff's leadership, voted along with the Conservatives once parliament resumed, distancing themselves from the coalition.

I'm not sure where you get the whole idea that the opposition tried to form a parliament without allowing the Conservatives to first do so. The entire coalition plan came about as a direct result of opposition to legislation that the Conservative government put forward.

You could argue that nobody should try to bring down a government only six weeks in; but if you believe that a minority government should get a grace period, then it also makes sense that no minority government should use that grace period to pass legislation aimed purely at undermining the funding of the other parties to gain political advantage.

I agree with almost all of this, but "the coalition was all about election financing" is the Conservative narrative. The complete lack of stimulus based on Flaherty's projections that Canada would avoid a recession was also a huge motivator for the opposition parties.