2011 Canadian Election Thread

[MarchHare]

For example if the CPC actually came out with the TFSAs and campaigned on an idea like that I would be far more in favour than their current campaign of "The Liberals are bad".

I agree with most of the rest of your post, but give credit where it's due: the TFSAs were implemented by The Harper Government(TM).

Or are you just saying you wish they were campaigning on a platform of more ideas similar to their TFSA proposal from a few years ago rather than fearmongering about a Liberal coalition with "socialists and separatists"?

[Slava]

^ I was giving credit to them, totally. I don't think that they actually campaigned on it at all though, and as I recall it just showed up in the budget one day? I think its a great idea and I'd just like to see more ideas in general rather than the tired same old, same old.

On a bit of a non-partisan point here is what the parties should be talking about: http://www.financialpost.com/news/Ca...389/story.html

We all know that this is coming, but no one is addressing this at all.

[McG]

this carbon trade thing sent chills down my spine; the number of jobs that will magically vanish is unthinkable particularly in the west.

While the concept of cap and trade is debatable as to whether it is of any benefit at all, it is totally not the correct time to even conceptualize it out loud.

ignatief...this is your waterloo.

i hope that this is bubye.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Slava

On a bit of a non-partisan point here is what the parties should be talking about: http://www.financialpost.com/news/Ca...389/story.html

We all know that this is coming, but no one is addressing this at all.

I don't know what can be done... as the burden increases, so does the political power of the burden. Legalize assisted suicide? Voting proportional to expected remaining life expectancy? Ban bailouts for defined benefit pensions (or eliminate defined benefit altogether)?

I suspect any party that even starts talking about that would lose an awful lot of support, and awful fast.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by SebC

I don't know what can be done... as the burden increases, so does the political power of the burden. Legalize assisted suicide? Voting proportional to expected remaining life expectancy? Ban bailouts for defined benefit pensions (or eliminate defined benefit altogether)?

I suspect any party that even starts talking about that would lose an awful lot of support, and awful fast.

I know, and its a bad issue. The reality is though that guys our age (I don't know how old you are....) are about to become the minority though. I don't know how everyone else in my age bracket feels, but the idea that we should all continue working and pay higher taxes to support an aging population isn't exactly thrilling!

I don't have the answers, but rather than just take petty shots at each other or spending time investigating peoples facebook friends maybe they could try debating something that actually matters? The government is fond of predicting how great the economy is, and explaining how the economy is in such amazing shape (I think that most of these predictions aren't worth the paper their printed on), but great....problem solved. Now put that enormous amount of money spent on attack ads and leaflets to work for something useful and figure out a way out of the mess you've helped create!

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by Slava

^ Thats funny. I think that the way the CPC is running this campaign is intellectually dishonest and not entirely truthful. Saying that the BQ is part of the coalition when it isn't and they know that to be the case. Saying that taxes are going to increase when in reality the tax rate through 2010 would be the same as what goes on for years to come.

Who isn't running a dishonest campaign here? All these clowns love to promise the world when in reality they deliver on maybe 10% of what they say. As long as I can remember the CPC are the only ones to actually platform a gst rollback and actually follow through with it after election. That in itself makes me believe their lies more then the liberals and ndp.

You don't think that the NDP/Liberals would ratchet the gst back up to 7% the minute they are elected just to pay for their daycare/senior/ei premiums that we don't need? Its already been widely reported that payroll deductions would be immediately in the 2.5-3.5% range of increases under these parties....roughly 110-150 dollars a month for the average person i'd assume.

I don't know about you but i'm not sure I want less money coming out of my pockets to get mismanaged by two out of touch leaders (iggy and layton) that think over taxing and canceling infrastructure funds is the way to get our economy thriving again.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Slava

but the idea that we should all continue working and pay higher taxes to support an aging population isn't exactly thrilling!

No, it's not thrilling at all. Can't think of a lot that can be done thou... spiking up working age immigration rates and streamlining the process would help out some but not enough to offset the totality of rising health care costs, public pension stress, and inflationary pressure (which all that public debt doesn't help with at all).

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

Who isn't running a dishonest campaign here? All these clowns love to promise the world when in reality they deliver on maybe 10% of what they say. As long as I can remember the CPC are the only ones to actually platform a gst rollback and actually follow through with it after election. That in itself makes me believe their lies more then the liberals and ndp.

You don't think that the NDP/Liberals would ratchet the gst back up to 7% the minute they are elected just to pay for their daycare/senior/ei premiums that we don't need? Its already been widely reported that payroll deductions would be immediately in the 2.5-3.5% range of increases under these parties....roughly 110-150 dollars a month for the average person i'd assume.

I don't know about you but i'm not sure I want less money coming out of my pockets to get mismanaged by two out of touch leaders (iggy and layton) that think over taxing and canceling infrastructure funds is the way to get our economy thriving again.

Actually for a resource based economy prone to inflation, increasing the GST would be a very good and very efficient policy.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Actually for a resource based economy prone to inflation, increasing the GST would be a very good and very efficient policy.

I'd say eliminating waste would be the best place to start instead of taxing everyone to death.

Stopping the spending of hundreds of millions on gun registries that have never worked and pouring endless amounts of money into health care instead of fixing the actual problems should take precedence over arbitrarily claiming your going to invest 100 + million into veteran aid, 600 million into senior aid/care and child care all apparently without raising taxes.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by Parallex

No, it's not thrilling at all. Can't think of a lot that can be done thou... spiking up working age immigration rates and streamlining the process would help out some but not enough to offset the totality of rising health care costs, public pension stress, and inflationary pressure (which all that public debt doesn't help with at all).

It all starts with educating people to save for retirement properly. Then you don't have to tax the rest of the population to support people that couldn't plan for retirement to begin with (not everyone falls into this category but there are going to be a ton of these people soon).

Perhaps tax incentives for people that take out 25 year or less mortgages, don't have three car loans and live paycheque to paycheque while having a household income above 100k per year would be a great place to start.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

It all starts with educating people to save for retirement properly.

1991 me says "that's a great idea!" (or would if he weren't in the thrawls of puberty and thus more interested in checking out girls then forecasting the future pressures of an aging population)... 2011 me says that won't help out the upcoming predicamant much because the big squeeze is coming in 5 or so years and not 25 years.

[North East Goon]

Is Ignatieff going to show his face in Alberta after his cap and trade/NEP proposal?

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

I'd say eliminating waste would be the best place to start instead of taxing everyone to death.

Stopping the spending of hundreds of millions on gun registries that have never worked and pouring endless amounts of money into health care instead of fixing the actual problems should take precedence over arbitrarily claiming your going to invest 100 + million into veteran aid, 600 million into senior aid/care and child care all apparently without raising taxes.

Eliminating the elusive waste...

What a useless straw dog.

Show me the waste. Gun registry? Nope that costs about a million now to administer.

Health Care? Idealogically you may find it wasteful but politically it's not. People like it in its current iteration. And what are you really saying, that the Liberal's platform would be to reduce waste (funding) for health care. yeah that's a winner

Where else? Billions in dollars in fighter jets? Oh no that's not waste because I'm wearing a blue jersey.

Bottom line, there is very little "waste" to get rid of. It's just a convenient and asinine talking point of the extreme right wing.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Bottom line, there is very little "waste" to get rid of. It's just a convenient and asinine talking point of the extreme right wing.

To be fair it's convenient and asinine talking point for either wing... you're right on everything else though, whenever somebody advocates "waste elimination" you can basically just re-write it as "I'm unwilling to sacrifice anything I like so I'm just going to declare what people who disagree with me like as "wasteful".

[Slava]

Originally Posted by flamesaresmokin

Who isn't running a dishonest campaign here? All these clowns love to promise the world when in reality they deliver on maybe 10% of what they say. As long as I can remember the CPC are the only ones to actually platform a gst rollback and actually follow through with it after election. That in itself makes me believe their lies more then the liberals and ndp.

You don't think that the NDP/Liberals would ratchet the gst back up to 7% the minute they are elected just to pay for their daycare/senior/ei premiums that we don't need? Its already been widely reported that payroll deductions would be immediately in the 2.5-3.5% range of increases under these parties....roughly 110-150 dollars a month for the average person i'd assume.

I don't know about you but i'm not sure I want less money coming out of my pockets to get mismanaged by two out of touch leaders (iggy and layton) that think over taxing and canceling infrastructure funds is the way to get our economy thriving again.

Do you have any proof for any of the allegations here, or is this just partisanship run amok? The difference is that Harper is saying things that are entirely untrue, whereas you're just assuming things because you don't like the other parties.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Eliminating the elusive waste...

What a useless straw dog.

Show me the waste. Gun registry? Nope that costs about a million now to administer.

Health Care? Idealogically you may find it wasteful but politically it's not. People like it in its current iteration. And what are you really saying, that the Liberal's platform would be to reduce waste (funding) for health care. yeah that's a winner

Where else? Billions in dollars in fighter jets? Oh no that's not waste because I'm wearing a blue jersey.

Bottom line, there is very little "waste" to get rid of. It's just a convenient and asinine talking point of the extreme right wing.

Actually its widely reported and available that the cost per year of the gun registry is north of 65 mil per year just to administer. That doesn't include policing and enforcing which is likely at minimum another 60mil per year. That in itself would fund the liberal veteran assistance program or do a lot of good around the counrty.

Who are you referencing when you say people like healthcare in its current system? I'm saying continuously plugging holes with more money is ridiculous. People are dying in waiting rooms because of overcrowding (thanks liberals of the 90's). Our country is becoming obese, extremely unfit and costing our system millions and something needs to change in the education and administration of our system as opposed to just increasing funding year after year.

Only an elitist liberal supporter would claim that paying now to purchase jets that will not only open up a massive job sector for the country for service and upkeep but also serve our country for the next 20 years as a waste. The cf-18 fleet is going to cost more to upkeep for the next 20 years because they are so old then actually purchasing these new jets.

Like it or not our country needs an air force...we aren't some tiny European nation with 50k square km of land to monitor and our current planes are becoming unsafe (ala our helicopter fiasco - thanks liberals again).

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by Slava

Do you have any proof for any of the allegations here, or is this just partisanship run amok? The difference is that Harper is saying things that are entirely untrue, whereas you're just assuming things because you don't like the other parties.

Oh please, have you seriously put the blinders on that much?

If you want proof about the bloq essentially bullying the rest of the parties into submission just look at our last election and how the coalition essentially fell apart right before it was about to begin.

Our voters spoke to what they wanted just a few weeks prior, yet the liberals and NDP leaders were willing to go against the voters and use the bloq to take power. The bloq didn't like the terms so they backed out, this pretty much killed the liberals and ndp for years to come.

People don't forget as easily as you apparently have. Now you say that the bloq has no pull in a coalition....i don't see it. This time they will get their terms and we will have a government essentially formed by separatists and a useless election that wastes millions.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Eliminating the elusive waste...

What a useless straw dog.

Show me the waste. Gun registry? Nope that costs about a million now to administer.

Health Care? Idealogically you may find it wasteful but politically it's not. People like it in its current iteration. And what are you really saying, that the Liberal's platform would be to reduce waste (funding) for health care. yeah that's a winner

Where else? Billions in dollars in fighter jets? Oh no that's not waste because I'm wearing a blue jersey.

Bottom line, there is very little "waste" to get rid of. It's just a convenient and asinine talking point of the extreme right wing.

Completely and utterly false.

The RCMP, which took lead responsibility for the program in 2006, claims it is doing so more efficiently than its predecessors. Elsewhere in the report the RCMP puts the annual net cost of the Canadian Firearms Program for 2010-11 at $66.4-million

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1717453/


More than that...what has the program done for anyone's safety? Since that was the whole idea behind the thing to begin with. It was an assinine idea then as it is now, but Canadians are still stuck paying for it even though the CPC attempted to eliminate it in September.

I can't believe anyone claims there isnt wasted money in any government, regardless of who is governing. Then to pin it on "right wing extremists" takes it to another level of absurdity.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Completely and utterly false.



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1717453/

I can't believe anyone claims there isnt wasted money in any government, regardless of who is governing. Then to pin it on "right wing extremists" takes it to another level of absurdity.

Its someone skimming the facts. He's just regurgitating the media jargon from the liberal sources and that's scary when voters don't even do their own research. The level of waste in all our levels of government is at an all time high and needs to be reeled in asap.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Eliminating the elusive waste...

What a useless straw dog.

Show me the waste. Gun registry? Nope that costs about a million now to administer.

Health Care? Idealogically you may find it wasteful but politically it's not. People like it in its current iteration. And what are you really saying, that the Liberal's platform would be to reduce waste (funding) for health care. yeah that's a winner

Where else? Billions in dollars in fighter jets? Oh no that's not waste because I'm wearing a blue jersey.

Bottom line, there is very little "waste" to get rid of. It's just a convenient and asinine talking point of the extreme right wing.

Just to drive the point home of how ridiculous your claim of this is.

7 days ago....

“We’re returning to the scene of the crime, where Stephen Harper wasted over $1 billion on a disastrous G8/G20 summit,” said Mr. Ignatieff, who was joined by Liberal MP Mark Holland in presenting a catalogue of Conservative spending waste.

“A Liberal government will make better choices by cutting Conservative waste and bringing the deficit under control with a responsible, targeted fiscal plan,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “We can focus on what really matters: strengthening equal opportunity for middle-class families – without raising personal, small business or sales taxes.”

“After five years, Stephen Harper is the highest-spending, biggest-borrowing, most wasteful Prime Minister in Canadian history,” said Mr. Holland. “Wasteful spending and poor fiscal management combined to create a record $56-billion Conservative deficit – and will add $200 billion more to the national debt over the next five years

That damn Ignatieff and his extreme right wing ideology.

http://carolynbennett.liberal.ca/new...rvative-waste/