Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Wow, condescending much?

Not condescending, just not enough time for a proper reply. But the argument stands, anyone can cut and paste an opinion article and make it look like news or a study.

I will admit, I have not thrown a lot of raw data out there, though I notice none of you want to take a stab at my question, 'name another western world power, or any power, without debt'. That article is nothing but an opinion on debt, with very little specifics or realities. The fact is a debtless society is a pipedream, for better or worse, and for it to be a monetary policy is stupid to the extreme.

If I wanted to be condescending, I'd simply ask how Jacks and Dions feelings and outright bets worked with the Wildrose this election.

Also, I ask again, for those so concerned about the next generation, how does environment not factor in? Hypocrites.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Oil is done. Get over it. Adapt or die. We had a 100 year run. Stop beibg selfish. You care about future generations you said right? It's killing us environmentally and stagnating us econonically.

Time to grow up as a economy.

You know what's killing us environmentally?

Cars and people living in large houses. Factories, mining, forestry, fishing too. Basically any resource extraction or manufacturing industry. Why do you single out O&G?

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Yeah see, your comparing running a country to running a small business. Their not the same thing. At all.

Good spelling and grammar add credibility.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by Daradon

Not condescending, just not enough time for a proper reply. But the argument stands, anyone can cut and paste an opinion article and make it look like news or a study.

I was referring to the posts before that.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Good spelling and grammar add credibility.

So does not being a smarmy ####### when you disagree with someone.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Regorium

You know what's killing us environmentally?

Cars and people living in large houses. Factories, mining, forestry, fishing too. Basically any resource extraction or manufacturing industry. Why do you single out O&G?

You know what else are problems? War, poverty, over-population, large gaps in quality of life, religious extremism.

Why try to solve anything?

The fact that there are other problems is the worst reason to not try and solve major issues.

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by Regorium

You know what's killing us environmentally?

Cars and people living in large houses. Factories, mining, forestry, fishing too. Basically any resource extraction or manufacturing industry. Why do you single out O&G?

Not to mention the entire world revolves around oil. I'd like to know Daradon's plan on operating global transportation without oil.

Forget about our daily lives, I'm talking about shipments of raw materials via train/plane/ship/truck.

Oil will be needed for a long time.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by MattyC

You know what else are problems? War, poverty, over-population, large gaps in quality of life, religious extremism.

Why try to solve anything?

The fact that there are other problems is the worst reason to not try and solve major issues.

Did I ever say not to focus on the environment? In fact, you're basically agreeing with me.

My actual question is why is solving the environmental problem 100% focused on O&G?

Basically, I'm saying that we should add environmental taxes to the oilsands, but also add taxes to factories, mines, fisheries, gasoline and housing as well. A multi-faceted approach to the problem rather than only solving one part of the problem (O&G) while ignoring the rest.

Politically it's obvious to me why it happens - O&G is an easy target, and good luck trying to shut down anything east of manitoba, or west of alberta without losing a ton of votes. I'm questioning you guys on a more intellectual level why we solely focus on O&G when it comes to the environment.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Did I ever say not to focus on the environment? In fact, you're basically agreeing with me.

My actual question is why is solving the environmental problem 100% focused on O&G?

Basically, I'm saying that we should add environmental taxes to the oilsands, but also add taxes to factories, mines, fisheries, gasoline and housing as well. A multi-faceted approach to the problem rather than only solving one part of the problem (O&G) while ignoring the rest.

Politically it's obvious to me why it happens - O&G is an easy target, and good luck trying to shut down anything east of manitoba, or west of alberta without losing a ton of votes. I'm questioning you guys on a more intellectual level why we solely focus on O&G when it comes to the environment.

Those environmental taxes will never happen outside of Oil and Gas because those industries are in key voting areas.

when Dion introduced his greenshift ideas he was careful to exclude Ontario Manufacturing from the equation.

I give credit to Trudeau for a very smart move in his bizarre introduction of his economic platform that he chose to skip because I don't think its his and he would struggle to explain it.

Because Math.

But there's no carbon tax in it at a federal level, he's going to leave it to the provinces to be the bad guys on that and Kathleen Wynn, and Notley and the others will love the idea of a conference where they can implement a carbon tax program that will go into the provincial general accounting if Trudeau wins.

There seems to be this belief that the next move is to go after the Oil and Gas industry and play it as the villain of humanity but at the end of the day, I get climate change and I get that something needs to be done, but it seems that the environmental groups are willing to sacrifice things like water quality (I'm looking at you Ontario) and air quality for carbon quality, probably because the carbon business is a more lucrative business filled with buzz words that gets more money donated to it.

At the end of the day, none of the parties has an environmental policy that I see as full circle and properly thought out.

And none of the parties which the NDP is an exception because they've never been in the position to run the government (Thank god) have shown that they are great stewards of the environment so they can't be trusted with anything that they say now unless you look at it with a jaundiced eye.

As for the debt thing, while the OECD has reduced Canada's expected growth this year from 2.6 to between 1.6 and 1.8 the economy is still growing in spite of the Oil issues, and Trudeau's spending plan where he's including social infrastructure projects like daycares spaces and recreational and cultural centers is going to do little to boost our GDP or provide mass bumps in employment in the coutry.

It just seems to be the wrong time to go massively into debt, if the economy was shrinking dramatically its a good shatter glass and press the red button option. But at the end of the day, you can't say that continually running deficits is the new reality of the world, because then its a bad reality because unless you're willing to print new money, to lend hyper inflation takes root as does currency devaluation and that negatively effects.

While Greece is a popular example of debt financing gone wrong and they're a country that will eventually have to go to Money Mart to meet their government payroll, the better place to look is the disaster in Ontario where thier credit rating is getting hammered, and they're trying to bend a federal election to get a prime minister in that will float them cash at the cost of the rest of the country to handle their day to day business.

And Darandon in the time I've known you here I've respected you as a poster and I've respected your points, but the style that your debating people right now is just not you.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Did I ever say not to focus on the environment? In fact, you're basically agreeing with me.

My actual question is why is solving the environmental problem 100% focused on O&G?

Basically, I'm saying that we should add environmental taxes to the oilsands, but also add taxes to factories, mines, fisheries, gasoline and housing as well. A multi-faceted approach to the problem rather than only solving one part of the problem (O&G) while ignoring the rest.

Politically it's obvious to me why it happens - O&G is an easy target, and good luck trying to shut down anything east of manitoba, or west of alberta without losing a ton of votes. I'm questioning you guys on a more intellectual level why we solely focus on O&G when it comes to the environment.

Because using it to power our cars, machines, factories and homes is the single largest factor that we have in our control. The argument is always that we use it for many other things, and that is true, but that is only 1/5 of the greenhouse gas emissions from using fossil fuels, with another 9% fromo agriculture. 2/3 of our CO2 comes from us burning it for power or fuel, for which we have already developed alternatives. The fact that they lag behind is our own fault for not focusing on them earlier and with more resources.

http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/gh...s/sources.html

Perhaps one day we can find a way to make plastic without oil, or something that replaces plastic that doesn't have the environmental impact of petroleum. But we haven't yet. We have solved the energy issues, it's a matter of funding them and implementing them. More funds go into men's hair growth than alternative energy research. The market doesn't always push things in the right direction.

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

As for the debt thing, while the OECD has reduced Canada's expected growth this year from 2.6 to between 1.6 and 1.8 the economy is still growing in spite of the Oil issues, and Trudeau's spending plan where he's including social infrastructure projects like daycares spaces and recreational and cultural centers is going to do little to boost our GDP or provide mass bumps in employment in the coutry.

Exactly what I'm thinking. We shouldn't be dumping 10's of billions of borrowed dollars into the economy every time growth drops below 2-3%. Long term debt is not a good thing, amazingly people are arguing that we should be taking on debt with no intention of ever paying it off.

[puckedoff]

[QUOTE=MattyC;5435895]Because using it to power our cars, machines, factories and homes is the single largest factor that we have in our control. [/QUOTE]

Then we should be taxing the users of cars, factories and homes. The pollution is created whether the product is produced in Canada, with pollution regulation in place or country X, which may pollute with reckless abandon.

To tax at the source, and making only our industries shoulder that burden we would only empower the consumer to choose alternatives that are produced elsewhere - we shift our pollution out of the country, but the global effect is the same.


In order for Canada to be competitive, we need stable regulations and business conditions. I don't want Canada to have to compete on wages (ie. pay Canadians $3/hr) in order to be attractive for investment. We previously were able to compete by offering low cost electricity, (Ontario has shot themselves in the foot here unfortunately). We have up until now been able to be competitive by having a stable tax structure. As Canadian governments make changes to our economy that make Canada non-competitive in areas such as tax, electricity costs, GHG production, insurance etc the result is that we are increasingly dependent on wages to come down in order to retain competitiveness, which really guts the middle class earners and government revenue generators of our economy.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

And Darandon in the time I've known you here I've respected you as a poster and I've respected your points, but the style that your debating people right now is just not you.

I would cut him some slack. Politics like religion can cause normal people to do and say stupid things. Some people I know have gone/currently are bat #### crazy come election time only to settle back down after.

[Coach]

Ok, I'm just going to say it, because it's something that's been bothering me. It may sound super extreme, I don't know, but it's what is in my mind.

Money is fake. We made it up. Debt is fake. We made it up. It's something we use to exchange goods and resources. Any change in the value of our respective currencies is a completely nominal effect. Countries are indebted to each other to the tune of trillions of dollars, none of that is ever getting paid back. Trying to abide by these theoretical and all together not-real laws of finance at the expense of real-world progress and solutions is insane to me.

I couldn't care less if we poured billions of dollars into alternative energy research, education and health care. Those are things with real consequences, that affect everybody. Money is money. We don't need it. If everyone in the world all of a sudden decided to start using toilet paper to exchange goods, we would have to switch to that.

Could solve energy crisis - "But what about the debt?!"
Could spread resources to have everyone enjoy a decent quality of life - "But what about the debt?!"
Could educate every person to the point that anyone's potential could be realized and no "Einsteins-in-the-rough" get overlooked or left behind. - "But what about the debt?!"

Who cares? Why does it matter when you're looking at global problems that require an appropriate allocation of resources to solve long-overdue issues. Why should profit or debt, or money in general, matter in that context?

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Then we should be taxing the users of cars, factories and homes. The pollution is created whether the product is produced in Canada, with pollution regulation in place or country X, which may pollute with reckless abandon.

Tax is nice, but all it does is throw a monetary solution at a physical problem. Sure they may go to alternative research, but it's not enough, it's never been enough. All you do is assign an arbitrary price to it, but the stuff is till going into the air/oceans.rivers/ etc.. There needs to be a large scale shift in how we're dealing with this problem, and tacking on a 2% tax on carbon emissions or whatever isn't going to solve it fast enough.

The laws that we create for ourselves where people are just throwing currency around at each other do not abide by the same law, or scale, as real-world laws for physics, chemistry and biology. Wooo a couple more billion dollars for research, what does it actually impact?

If we were an alien race watching humanity, it would be like watching children use LEGO pieces to trade for cookies and then end up all fighting and crying with each other about who had more cookies, and who owed who what LEGO pieces. Meanwhile, the classroom burns to the ground.

[FlamesAddiction]

Industries like forestry, mining, manufacturing and fisheries have all taken some pretty big lumps in recent years due environmentalism (either through legislation or just changing paradigms). It wasn't that long ago Newfoundland was told to halt the cod fishery and the 1990 and 2000s have been brutal on forestry. Many forestry/mining communities are practically ghost towns now. Manufacturing in Ontario has also been hit hard.

I am not saying that the O&G industry deserves the same fate (I prefer a strong oil industry in Canada for sure), but it certainly isn't the only target. I also don't recall other industries trying to take down others with them when they were on the hot seat.

[Dogbert]

I'd like to take a moment to once again point out just how monumentally, historically stupid that "ban the niqab" comment by the NDP candidate was. He not only gave party leadership a Sophie's Choice between tanking their support in Quebec and tanking it in the ROC depending on their response, but also may have single-handedly given the Tories a majority government as a result if their surge in Quebec keeps up.

[FlamesAddiction]

I find it sad that the niqab is even an issue in Canadian politics in so far as actually swaying someone's vote. I don't see why this one issue should be such a priority that some people will use it to determine whom to vote for. The Conservatives can try to fight it, but the courts are pretty likely to label the banning of the niqab from anywhere in public as unconstitutional. There is no way the CPC or the Bloc can stop it. People can vote on the principle if they want I guess, but it won't change anything.

[starseed]

I have a feeling that tonight's debate will produce some of the ugliest moments of the campaign from the leaders. It seems like a perfect storm with the format and push to get the leaders away from talking points, the topic, recent polls, recent attacks, and the sensational niqab/ISIS/Citizenship/Security issues building up.

[Looch City]

New drinking game:

Drink every time Harper mentions "jihadi terrorists".

[2Stonedbirds]

Oh! That sounds like fun!

We can also take a drink every time Trudeau has a sharp intake of breath before exclaiming "Uhhhh...", and take a drink every time Mulcair slows down his speech when looking into the camera as if he is addressing idiots.

Should be good and pinned in about 5 minutes.