Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[Looch City]

Jesus Christ.

[rubecube]

Embarrassing. One of the biggest benefits of voting the Conservatives out will hopefully be a decline in this type of campaigning.

[Canuck-Hater]

UGH. Its never ending... Hurry up October 19th.

[starseed]

The Liberal platform has a commitment to establish an independent commission to organize leaders debates during elections.

This is likely Trudeau's way of calling out Harper for killing the consortium debates.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah, but it's not just your money. It boils down to low-income earners or lower middle-class income earners that are paying taxes to fund a program that will likely never benefit them.

What Justin is asking low income people to do is pay more of the burden of taxation, to cover more of the share of everyone who makes more than they do.
That seems fundamentally wrong to me.

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Personally I'd rather have the money in my pocket to decide how to spend it than have Tom, Justin or Steve decide what is best for me.

To me who takes the least money out of my pocket gets my vote. Simple as that. No point talking about morality in politic, politicians are all more or less crooks by my book.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by darklord700

To me who takes the least money out of my pocket gets my vote. Simple as that. No point talking about morality in politic, politicians are all more or less crooks by my book.

Even if this means that absolutely everything has a toll, user fee, or increased cost to use it?
eg:
- Roads
- Libraries
- Health Care
- Parks
- Water/Sewer
etc?

[Looch City]

Originally Posted by darklord700

To me who takes the least money out of my pocket gets my vote. Simple as that. No point talking about morality in politic, politicians are all more or less crooks by my book.

That's an extremely short sighted view...

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Interesting, I wasn't aware the NDP gets 103 seats locked in before the election and just needs 35 more. The more desperate Mulcair looks, the more it drives his voters to the Liberals.

This morning, I heard a radio ad here in the 905 like this. 35 more votes.

Ridiculous advertising

[darklord700]

Originally Posted by calculoso

Even if this means that absolutely everything has a toll, user fee, or increased cost to use it?
eg:
- Roads
- Libraries
- Health Care
- Parks
- Water/Sewer
etc?

Some say 1 in 3 dollars the government spent are wasted and while I don't think paying toll for everything is feasible much less desirable, I absolutely don't buy any tax and spent regime.

We are already very heavily taxed, NL has just increased their HST to 15% from 13% next year. Add personal income tax, gas tax and other hidden form of taxes, the just getting by middle class easily pays 1 in 2 dollars they make to taxes. Tax freedom day in Canada is pushing close to July 1 every year now.

Even with that this country is still mired in debt with no end in sight.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by calculoso

This morning, I heard a radio ad here in the 905 like this. 35 more votes.

Ridiculous advertising

I got the same flyer as the one above for the candidate in my riding. Apparently they don't realize that one there is an election, you don't keep the seats you won last time.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by Iggy City

That's an extremely short sighted view...

Sadly, too many people feel that way. Me me and me.

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Drak

Sadly, too many people feel that way. Me me and me.

It isn't always about them. While yes some would rather have that extra luxury car sitting in their driveway, others would rather donate the extra money to a Cancer Charity rather than have it go to fund a Daycare Program in Quebec, for example.

[Zarley]

Originally Posted by opendoor

That's not really unexpected, given that individuals earning less than $60K make up about 80% of tax filers. The fact remains that something like only 1 in 20 Canadians earning less than $60K a year were able to max out their TFSA at the $5K level.

And when you really dig into the numbers, it's pretty clear that a good portion of that 1 in 20 aren't really typical middle earners. 25% of the sub-$60K earners who maxed out TFSAs made less than $20K, and a good chunk made less than $5K. To me, that looks like higher earners shifting money to lower earning family members. In fact, of the 1.1M people making under $60K who maxed out their TFSAs, the majority earned less than $35K. Maybe some of the people earning that little manage to sock away 20-50% of their after tax income, but I really doubt that's what's going on with most of them. Or to put it another way, there were as many people maxing out their TFSAs with $10-15K income as there were with $55-60K in income.

I believe you're quoting figures from the Broadbent Institute report, which has a decidedly anti-TFSA bias, so I'd take those with a grain of salt. The report also fails to consider any public benefits derived from increased investment activity due to the program.

Originally Posted by opendoor

How is maintaining the rules that have existed for most of the last decade disincentivizing investment and savings?

Because you are replacing something that incentivizes disciplined savings and investment (good behaviour), with a tax cut that will result in increased spending for the majority of those affected (poor behaviour).

Originally Posted by opendoor

And really, TFSAs haven't really done a great job of that anyway. Nearly 2/3rds of those eligible haven't even opened an account, and among those that have, maximization rates have fallen dramatically, and are 1/4 of what they were in 2009.

At the beginning of the program, many were shifting savings from non-reg accounts to TFSAs. Given this, maximization rates were bound to decrease. The fact that 2/3rds of eligible Canadians have not opened accounts points to a shortfall in personal finance education in this country and generally poor financial habits - another issue that needs to be tackled.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Zarley

I believe you're quoting figures from the Broadbent Institute report, which has a decidedly anti-TFSA bias, so I'd take those with a grain of salt. The report also fails to consider any public benefits derived from increased investment activity due to the program.

Nope, they were taken from a Financial Post article which were taken directly from the government's own numbers.

Regardless of the source, the facts are the facts, and the vast, vast majority of lower and middle income households derive no benefit from increasing the contribution limits.

Because you are replacing something that incentivizes disciplined savings and investment (good behaviour), with a tax cut that will result in increased spending for the majority of those affected (poor behaviour).

At the beginning of the program, many were shifting savings from non-reg accounts to TFSAs. Given this, maximization rates were bound to decrease. The fact that 2/3rds of eligible Canadians have not opened accounts points to a shortfall in personal finance education in this country and generally poor financial habits - another issue that needs to be tackled.

They're not proposing replacing anything. They want to maintain the limits that have existed up until this year.

Why is $10K all of the sudden some magic, inalienable number that is beyond reproach? Obviously there is a point at which raising the exemption no longer serves the majority of Canadians, so where is that? Based on the data I'd say at around $5K, or perhaps even lower.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Zarley

I don't think you are understanding my point. I believe that most non-partisans who watched the debates in whole would agree that Trudeau was outclassed by Mulcair and Harper overall. He was by far the most uncomfortable when conversation strayed from what he had prepped for, and he often refrained from joining the discussion - presumably to avoid making mistakes. Add one point during the Munk debate, the moderator had to prompt him to join the discussion after standing in silence for several minutes. He did have several short bursts of enthusiasm that came across well on the debate highlight compilations shown the next day.

In this way, the reduced reach of the debate was beneficial to the Liberals by limiting the exposure of Trudeau in a situation where he was obviously uncomfortable. The Conservatives made a miscalculation here.



The fact that the debates reached only an estimated 40% those that the consortium debate did in 2011 does indicate that the new system is different and indeed inferior. I really enjoyed the focus on foreign policy and economics, but I imagine it was only political wonks like myself who would have tuned in. You can't argue to me that reduced public exposure is a good thing for our democracy. John Doyle had a good article in The Globe explaining the shortcomings of the new formats.

I don't agree with the bolded. Certainly Mulcair and Harper came across as more seasoned but a good many commentators of all stripes called Trudeau even or better on several debates. More than just exceeding low expectations, actually being competitive. I do agree he fell back on talking points a lot but so did Harper, he's just smoother at it.

The irony of the debates is that one major reason the Conservatives dropped out of the Consortium run ones is that they lost a court case that would have allowed them to use debate outtakes in political ads. Presumably they got better terms with the new debate hosts but ended up not getting any juicy sound bites from Trudeau.

As an aside, what happened to the Conservative's vaunted war chest? The Liberals are killing them in the advertising department.

[Ducay]

My FB is literally wall to wall CPC ads....

[CaptainCrunch]

Muclair ran an absolutely brutal campaign, and I doubt that he's going to be allowed to remain as the leader of the NDP party for long after election night. I believe he had a bad strategy, he should have focused his attention more on gaining votes from undecided left leaners, and stealing seats from the Liberals.

Instead Trudeau was allowed to slide under the radar by both parties.

I would expect that we are going to either see a minority conservative or Liberal government that maybe lasts one budget before we head back to the polls again.

Two of the three parties will be searching for a new leader no matter what happens in this election.

Whether its a Liberal minority or a Conservative minority, I don't see a coalition government happening. I see a minority government that's forced to work to get its bills and budgets passed, and then an election in 2016 to early 2017

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Embarrassing. One of the biggest benefits of voting the Conservatives out will hopefully be a decline in this type of campaigning.

I wouldn't be surprised, IF they lose, to see a bit of blood letting in the conservative ranks.

[Blaster86]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Instead Trudeau was allowed to slide under the radar by both parties.

They didn't let him slide under the radar. He was being attacked in ads more than Mulcair and Harper for a long stretch. The issue was the ammunition they tried to attack with. It was like using water on a chemical fire, it blew up in both the CPC and NDP's faces.

The TSN turning point is the Munk Debate and bringing up PET.