Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[PsYcNeT]

Conservatives voters seem to have the same comedic sensibilities as the elderly ex-coworker you have on Facebook but keep forgetting to unfollow.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by calculoso

So... it's all about how to maximize tax revenue, and this policy goes against that in two ways - keeps one person out of the taxable income bracket, and reduces the tax for the other person. Plus it would minimize things like daycare, taking out even more tax revenue (both on the spend and income side).

So really, it has not much to do with what is better for the people, or better for the kids, or better for the family, or better for society as a whole, it's about the taxes.

Anecdotally, sure there men that have their wives under their thumb and oppress them. Anecdotally, there are women that have their men under their thumb and oppress them too.

Everyone knows that women spend by far more than men do. In our modern society, women have a lot more power than most give them credit for... it just depends on how you want to measure it.

I know I am not going to change anyone's mind, but just wanted to say that the gender equality issues are not anecdotal. The issue has been studied and reported on by various neutral 3rd party think tanks.

This is the report that former Harper finance minister Jim Flaherty cited when he opposed the income splitting tax:

https://www.cdhowe.org/why-income-sp...nstitute/15033

The splitting proposal would significantly raise marginal effective tax rates for most lower-earning spouses, thus imposing barriers for working or returning to work; this would make married women more vulnerable by reducing their work experience.

There is also this one:

http://irpp.org/research-studies/choices-vol14-no1/

Gender equity turns out to be a more vital criterion for assessing income splitting than for most tax policy problems. The choice of tax unit has major potential effects on the well-being and autonomy of married and cohabiting women. Joint taxation or the splitting of labour income would reinforce women's traditional roles of staying at home, being more specialized in parenting and being less active in the workforce.

Retaining the individual tax unit with respect to labour earnings, the main source of income for nonelderly couples, with provisions for the splitting of pension and investment income, would satisfy the criteria for a good tax system. This approach would perform best in terms of horizontal equity and gender equity with an acceptable cost in vertical equity. It would avoid the marriage bonuses, marriage penalties and work disincentives for a couple's second earner that arise under full splitting and joint taxation. It would also provide the greatest simplicity for tax administration and compliance and the highest economic efficiency. In short, Canadian tax policy should pursue limited forms of income splitting but otherwise keep the individual tax unit.

[EldrickOnIce]

^ Income splitting maxes out at $2000 per year in tax savings.
Anyone who thinks this family 'windfall' is anti women and will add to gender inequality is really reaching.

[PeteMoss]

Agreed. I can see complaining that income splitting benefits the rich more than anyone... but calling it some kind of anti woman thing seems a stretch.

[JohnnyB]

Edit again: Decided to post this anyways, despite having initially decided not to because of the cynicism in it and because I'm not 100% convinced of it yet myself.

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

This election is a real watershed moment for the country, with the Conservatives fully embracing the US style of fear and nonsense style campaigning. If they win because of it, the ugliness in politics will only ramp up

I'm tempted to agree with that, but I'm not convinced. I think it's plausible that this is already the new norm for political campaigning.

Canadian democracy still basically functions to elect a government that is able to convince voters to choose them. Despite the Harper government having really tried to chip away at access to information and other foundations of the democratic process, the truth is still that there is a huge amount of information available to members of the electorate who actively look for it. The vast majority don't look but are the ones to decide the election results. That majority seems most effectively reached by simple, emotional messages and can't be relied upon in making thoughtful and informed decisions with their votes. Emotional connections to party brands and figureheads already are what win/lose elections.

What's most interesting to me is that the Liberals appear to have chosen strategically to go with the Obama-style "Hope & Change" message in emotional opposition the Harper government's "Change Should Scare You" message. Trudeau is presented as a clear, consistent embodiment of passionate and inclusive optimism and hams up that position. Harper is presented as a clear and consistent embodiment of calm caution and carefully manages that image. Those two parties have been setting themselves up on polar ends of the emotional spectrum with regards to change (the defining issue of this election).

The NDP messaging a isn't so emotionally polarising and only the small minority of voters have time for nuance, so I suspect their image is becoming less clearly defined emotionally among the electorate and will struggle to motivate the swing voters to act in voting for them or may even fail to motivate a lot of their base in what should have been an ideal election for them. I think their lack of emotional positioning is losing their recognition as the clear party for change from the Harper government. The libs are gradually stealing that away from them.

Of course, there are voters like all of the regular posters in this thread who are no-doubt in the minority that tries to keep themselves well informed and engaged in public discourse over issues of governance. The transparently emotional ads offend some of us, but we also aren't the ones deciding the election results. Also, I would suspect that even those of us who do make an effort to be informed are still very strongly influenced and motivated by emotional connection to party brand and that our voting decisions are ultimately strongly influenced by our emotions.

So what we'll see an answer to in this election is whether or not Canadian swing voters are currently more motivated in their voting decision making by divisive fear or by inclusive optimism. Either way though, unless there is a sea change in the electorate to become more policy focused (not likely) or to become strongly emotionally resistant to messages of divisive fear, I don't think this type of campaigning is going to go away after this election. It survives because the electorate enables it to.

[White Out 403]

I hope this Crosby guy does huge damage to Harpers campaign.

The Daily Mail reported that Mr. Crosby told Mr. Johnson to concentrate on traditional Tory voters instead of chasing “####ing Muslims.”

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Resurrection

I hope this Crosby guy does huge damage to Harpers campaign.

I agree. The Canada that I want to live in is not one where people are receptive to divisive fear of others. That is, from my point of view, terribly un-Canadian.

[Blaster86]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...ally-1.3256142

This was a good speech. Very, as Johnny B put it, Obama-esque.

[starseed]

I kind of accidentally went to that rally, and ended up 10 meters away from Trudeau as he was giving the speech. I was expecting it to be a couple policy announcements and a speech about certain issues. The speech he did give was inspiring, and the crowd was electric. Quite impressive. The arena was filled to the rafters.

I think the best part about this speech was that he refrained from personal attacks, and instead told everyone to reach out to Conservative supporters as neighbours, and not tell them to leave the party, but that Harper's party has already left them. (something to that effect)

Also did not mention Mulcair all that much. Seemed to be a speech designed to appeal to conservatives while demonstrating to soft NDs that he is the Change vote.

I was definitely hopey changey, but a lot of fun to witness!

[N-E-B]

Originally Posted by starseed

I kind of accidentally went to that rally, and ended up 10 meters away from Trudeau as he was giving the speech. I was expecting it to be a couple policy announcements and a speech about certain issues. The speech he did give was inspiring, and the crowd was electric. Quite impressive. The arena was filled to the rafters.

I think the best part about this speech was that he refrained from personal attacks, and instead told everyone to reach out to Conservative supporters as neighbours, and not tell them to leave the party, but that Harper's party has already left them. (something to that effect)

Also did not mention Mulcair all that much. Seemed to be a speech designed to appeal to conservatives while demonstrating to soft NDs that he is the Change vote.

I was definitely hopey changey, but a lot of fun to witness!

I think that's Trudeau in a nutshell. Sounds great during a speech but when he has to think on his feet he often comes across as a bit clueless. There's times I listen to him and think "yeah I could get behind him as a PM" and other times where he disappoints me because I was really hoping for a better option to replace Harper with.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by N-E-B

Sounds great during a speech but when he has to think on his feet he often comes across as a bit clueless.

Sick of this. Nothing I have seen or watched has come across that way. He's come out of most, if not all, of the debates with people anointing him the "winner" or at least saying he had a great showing. He knows his numbers, he knows his facts and he talks policy.

So what, in your opinion, is it that makes him come across as clueless?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Blaster86

Sick of this. Nothing I have seen or watched has come across that way. He's come out of most, if not all, of the debates with people anointing him the "winner" or at least saying he had a great showing. He knows his numbers, he knows his facts and he talks policy.

So what, in your opinion, is it that makes him come across as clueless?

Yeah, this is a really bizarre narrative that CPC supporters have come up with. I think the big failure of CPC's campaign, and to a lesser extent the NDP's, has been their inability to make Trudeau look incompetent or not PM material, like they did with the previous two Liberal leaders.

[evman150]

Trudeau is really growing on me. I never thought I'd say that.

Can't vote Liberal myself (my riding's Liberal candidate had some choice words for Jews and Muslims), but I might if I could.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah, this is a really bizarre narrative that CPC supporters have come up with. I think the big failure of CPC's campaign, and to a lesser extent the NDP's, has been their inability to make Trudeau look incompetent or not PM material, like they did with the previous two Liberal leaders.

Not even exactly sure what 'not PM material' means anyway. And if people like Harper and Mulcair are PM material, not PM material may not be a bad thing.

[sworkhard]

Trans Pacific Partnership reached.

Early details look pretty good IMO.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...anta-1.3254569

Will be interesting to see how this affects the race.

[peter12]

I believe it is a measure of intelligence whether someone believes it be possible or impossible for a single politician to "bring together" a country of 33M plus people over such a geographically and culturally variable country as Canada.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by sworkhard

Trans Pacific Partnership reached.

Early details look pretty good IMO.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...anta-1.3254569

Will be interesting to see how this affects the race.

There are some really good measures in the deal, and some not so great compromises. Would hate for Liberals to take a firm opposition to the deal just to rally support from some key demo's (UAW, etc).

TPP needs to be supported by an act once Parliament is back, so this election could very well decide the fate of our participation.

[peter12]

Love the pressure being put on auto and supply-managed agriculture. Those industries need to change or die. How irritating is it to pay 200% extra for a piece of cheese?

[crazy_eoj]

More positive economic news when it really matters.

Conservatives are looking good towards the end of this election.

[Ozy_Flame]

The part I'm most interested in is the one that would require ISPs to monitor your net traffic for suspicious / illegal behaviour. Not that I have anything to hide, but seems to slide right in with Bill C-51.