Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[EldrickOnIce]

I expect we should not bring up ISIS and by extension Canadian foreign policy for that matter. We have no interest in such topics here.

[Harry Lime]

There is always a horrible crisis going on somewhere in the world. This one happens to be on tv, because the refugees are trying to get into Germany. I think that it is only a matter of time before a large semi-permanent camp is set up on the border of Turkey, and when Syria is settled in a year or few, they will be shipped back home en masse.This is how things are handled when the eyes of the world are not present.

I know that this seems callous, but countries should not have an automatic obligation to take in refugees, if they don't have the infrastructure in place to make them citizens.

Everyone is asking why the Western world is not doing more? Because they are already doing more than the rest of the world, and the refugees know this. No one is running to Egypt, or Saudi Arabia.

Yes, the pictures are horrible. It is all horrible. The unusual thing, unfortunately, is that there are pictures that people are looking at for once.

[rubecube]

Good little comment piece from Vice.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/leade...to-self-parody

Truth is: no matter which of the three leaders becomes prime minister, it will likely have very little impact on your life.

Here we reach the problem: Stephen Harper has trapped his predecessor into continuing his agenda.

If you've got kids, or a bunch of disposable income, you probably really like that agenda. If you have neither, it's probably not for you.

Harper's government promised to mail you cash for every baby you can create, then announced that it would be letting you squirrel away up to $10,000, tax free, in cash and stocks. Then there's income splitting for families and seniors, meaning they can reduce their tax burden by a pretty significant yearly amount. Add onto that the decision to increase defence spending, and you've suddenly got very little room to spend anything on anything.

Neither Mulcair nor Trudeau is talking about ending the procreation awards (that mail out something like $4.5 billion in cheques to parents annually) even though there's not a lot of evidence that mailing micro-payments to families is actually doing anything productive. Trudeau even wants to expand it, albeit re-aiming it at low-income families.

Then there's the wasteland of social engineering tax credits that have been haphazardly stacked in our tax code for decades. Maybe if we had a leader crazy enough to axe that thicket of absurd tax breaks—yeah, go ahead, show me how a $150 child fitness tax credit is really going to convince parents to put their kids in hockey—we'd have some extra cash left to, I dunno, send people to Mars, or whatever it is we feel like doing.

[woob]

The Current did a segment this morning on Syrian Refugees and the government's role. Needless to say, I get the impression they could be MUCH more active.

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/t...ther-1.3213897

[kevman]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Good little comment piece from Vice.

Read "The longer I'm Prime Minister". It pretty much talks about the same thing. Harper has done such a good job of getting money out of the governments hands that any of his successors will be forced to raise taxes to pay for their agendas. In terms of politicking it's a great strategy.

As for the convoluted tax code - I think it's ridiculous we fall for those. It's not a conservative phenomenon. Every party tries to buy votes with these gifts. I'd love to see the complete elimination of all of them. Make tax time simple. Income * tax rate = tax paid/owed. I don't care what you trade you're in or how many kids you have or how much you donated or more accurately how good your accountants are. If you make more money you pay more taxes. Simplify the tax code. As a bonus we can cut the CRA budget when taxes are no longer voodoo magic. My apologies ahead of time to the tax accountants that will no longer have jobs - you win some, you lose some.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by kevman

Read "The longer I'm Prime Minister". It pretty much talks about the same thing. Harper has done such a good job of getting money out of the governments hands that any of his successors will be forced to raise taxes to pay for their agendas. In terms of politicking it's a great strategy.

As for the convoluted tax code - I think it's ridiculous we fall for those. It's not a conservative phenomenon. Every party tries to buy votes with these gifts. I'd love to see the complete elimination of all of them. Make tax time simple. Income * tax rate = tax paid/owed. I don't care what you trade you're in or how many kids you have or how much you donated or more accurately how good your accountants are. If you make more money you pay more taxes. Simplify the tax code. As a bonus we can cut the CRA budget when taxes are no longer voodoo magic. My apologies ahead of time to the tax accountants that will no longer have jobs - you win some, you lose some.

Unfortunately it can't quite be as simple as it should with income tax because there are a lot of self-employed people and areas like that with legitimate write-offs. What they should do is eliminate income taxes and instead have a pure consumption tax. Simple, efficient and nothing to file for the average guy at all.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Slava

Unfortunately it can't quite be as simple as it should with income tax because there are a lot of self-employed people and areas like that with legitimate write-offs. What they should do is eliminate income taxes and instead have a pure consumption tax. Simple, efficient and nothing to file for the average guy at all.

..

[littlereddevil]

I'll just leave this here. Whether it's true or not remains to be seen, but still shocking to say the least.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/up-to-...eals-1.3213917

[WCW Nitro]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

Everyone is asking why the Western world is not doing more? Because they are already doing more than the rest of the world, and the refugees know this.

Turkey has taken in 2 million refugees. Jordan and Lebanon have taken in many as well.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Slava

Unfortunately it can't quite be as simple as it should with income tax because there are a lot of self-employed people and areas like that with legitimate write-offs. What they should do is eliminate income taxes and instead have a pure consumption tax. Simple, efficient and nothing to file for the average guy at all.

The only problem I have with that is that the poor get hit a lot harder as there's no basic exemption.

[FlamesAddiction]

I think taxes are a good incentive (or disincentive) for promoting behavior that you think will be beneficial to the country. They are how you guide society. If you want to promote natural population growth, then give child related tax breaks. Or if you want to slow it down, then make it less tax friendly to have children. If you want to educate your population, then give tax breaks for schools and teachers. If you want to promote business, then give the breaks to entrepreneurs.

If you make tax a simple calculation of income or consumption, then you really take away any control for social guidance. I understand disagreeing with certain tax breaks, but they are generally useful.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Members of the family had been trying to emigrate to Canada after fleeing Kobani. Teema Kurdi, Mr. Kurdi’s sister and a resident of Vancouver, tried to sponsor another of their brothers and his family, but were rebuffed. She said in a news conference Thursday that her family couldn’t afford to sponsor more than one brother.

Earlier media reports had said Abdullah Kurdi’s family had been rejected. But Canadian officials say there is no record of his family making an application.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/image-of...ard-1441282847

[Crazy Flamer]

So in recent articles I've read and in news reports I've seen, I'm seeing Haper being referred to as "Conservative Leader" instead of "Prime Minister." Is this common during election campaigns, for Prime Ministers to be referred to as party leaders?

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by the_only_turek_fan

Members of the family had been trying to emigrate to Canada after fleeing Kobani. Teema Kurdi, Mr. Kurdi’s sister and a resident of Vancouver, tried to sponsor another of their brothers and his family, but were rebuffed. She said in a news conference Thursday that her family couldn’t afford to sponsor more than one brother.

Earlier media reports had said Abdullah Kurdi’s family had been rejected. But Canadian officials say there is no record of his family making an application.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/image-of...ard-1441282847

So that NDP MLA who said they directly went to Chris Alexander about it can safely be called full of #### now, right? Not sarcasm. That whole thing sounded completely made up.

[worth]

Originally Posted by rubecube

So that NDP MLA who said they directly went to Chris Andrews about it can safely be called full of #### now, right? Not sarcasm. That whole thing sounded completely made up.

The MP delivered a letter asking for help, not the application.

She did say that a her local MP, New Democrat Fin Donnelly, personally delivered a letter to Chris Alexander asking for help from his office for young Alan Kurdi and his family.

The department of Foreign Affairs released a statement Thursday saying Mohammad Kurdi’s application was received, but was “returned as it was incomplete as it did not meet regulatory requirements for proof of refugee status recognition.”

“There was no record of an application received for Mr Abdullah Kurdi and his family.”

Donnelly, however, said the family had indeed pursued refugee status for the Kurdis and his letter reflected that. There was no immediate word whether the government got the request. Donnelly couldn’t be immediately reached for comment following Tima Kurdi’s news conference.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...ee-application

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by rubecube

So that NDP MLA who said they directly went to Chris Andrews about it can safely be called full of #### now, right? Not sarcasm. That whole thing sounded completely made up.

You may misunderstand.
If in fact the story is correct, who says it went past the minister's desk? Is it possible this falls solely on Andrews? If it never went past his desk, it would never get in the hands of immigration officials. All of which is just wildly unfounded speculation on my part.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

You may misunderstand.
If in fact the story is correct, who says it went past the minister's desk? Is it possible this falls solely on Andrews? If it never went past his desk, it would never get in the hands of immigration officials. All of which is just wildly unfounded speculation on my part.

I completely whiffed on this one anyways (got Alexander's name wrong, MLA instead of MP, couldn't remember the MP's name). That's what I get for reading it first thing in the morning and not really following up on it.

[Ashartus]

Originally Posted by Crazy Flamer

So in recent articles I've read and in news reports I've seen, I'm seeing Haper being referred to as "Conservative Leader" instead of "Prime Minister." Is this common during election campaigns, for Prime Ministers to be referred to as party leaders?

Parliament is dissolved when the election is called, so while I'm no expert on these things I imagine that means he technically isn't Prime Minister right now.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by rubecube

The only problem I have with that is that the poor get hit a lot harder as there's no basic exemption.

GST rebate. Problem solved.

I guess you'd still need to qualify based on income, but that doesn't really change things for the affected people.

[the_only_turek_fan]

Originally Posted by worth

The MP delivered a letter asking for help, not the application.



http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...ee-application

Here is the letter:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ARY/letter.pdf

It does not specify which bother they wanted to sponsor and bring to Canada.