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2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:30 pm
by Robbie
Another 2.5 years, another Canadian federal election. Since the second consecutive Conservative minority government was formed, I knew it was only a matter of time that Canadian federal election would be called. I was wondering whether it would last longer than the 2 years and 7 months from February 2006 to September 2008. Apparently not as this second minority government lasted for 872 days. The biggest difference in terms of the parties is that Michael Ignatieff has replaced Stéphane Dion as Liberal leader.

Which party do you intend to vote for this time? For those who saw the Leaders' debate - thoughts?

Some issues:

The Conservatives plan to cut corporate taxes from 18 to 15%.

The Conservatives promise to eliminate the Deficit by 2013.

Conservatives have promised income splitting for families with children as a distant policy.

Liberals propose the establishment of an "Immigration Fairness Commissioner" to provide oversight on the entry of immigrants with professional qualifications (doctors, engineers, etc.) and to increase the number of family reunification visas.

NDP promises to double Canada Pension Plan payouts.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 6:44 pm
by zark
Yea right...
I vote PC 'just because", and I won't vote Liberal 'just because'. You're a political genius.
The cold war ended ages ago. We need billions of dollars of jets because????...Canada has always been a nation of Peacekeepers.Not Warmongers. I could sigt more examples, but I will never argue or debate some one who's mind is already made up.
Harper said Iggy made up his mind to have an election before the non confidence vote, yet who started American style attack ads against the Liberal party and it's leader months before with taxpayers money.
Theres more to this debate, but some narrow minded people will only listen to one side regardless. Open your mind and listen. I'm neither PC, Liberal, NDP nor Green.
I have a gun and I registered it. Oh no! Who cares?
But the more I listen to Harper, the more I shudder.
This is for you Harper lovers.
http://*poop*.ca.nyud.net/

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 11:39 am
by MacNews
Zark if we don't spend billions on jet, then in 10 years we will be left without jets. I don't know about you, but I'd like my air force to have jets, they'd be kind of impotent without them.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:10 pm
by mrbigglesworth
Some of the stuff Harper has done has made me embarassed to be Canadian. Check out this vid and follow the link it gives to find out some of the reasons why. (Warning: some offensive language).

Then I challenge you to follow up with some of the sources on the site and see if you still feel Harper is the way to go...

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:27 pm
by Coast Mountain Lion
mrbigglesworth wrote:Some of the stuff Harper has done has made me embarassed to be Canadian. Check out this vid and follow the link it gives to find out some of the reasons why. (Warning: some offensive language).

Then I challenge you to follow up with some of the sources on the site and see if you still feel Harper is the way to go...
:whs:

Policy is one thing. If they win a majority and privatise the entire government, build a maximum security prison on every street corner, bring back the death penalty for running amber lights, draft everyone left between eight and eighty and send them to Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan, and make everyone wear Stampeders gear to work every day, I may not like it but I can handle that (just kidding about that last one - I'd be at the barricades for that)...

IF they get it honestly. But not with Harper's tactics, wedge politics, four or five years of attack ads, the constant *poop*, made up opposition policy strawmen and the outright lies about everyone else who may slightly disagree with him.

Proudly marking my ballot for Ujjal Dosanjh.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:49 pm
by Toppy Vann
zark wrote:Yea right...
I vote PC 'just because", and I won't vote Liberal 'just because'. You're a political genius.
The cold war ended ages ago. We need billions of dollars of jets because????...Canada has always been a nation of Peacekeepers.Not Warmongers. I could sigt more examples, but I will never argue or debate some one who's mind is already made up.
Harper said Iggy made up his mind to have an election before the non confidence vote, yet who started American style attack ads against the Liberal party and it's leader months before with taxpayers money.
Theres more to this debate, but some narrow minded people will only listen to one side regardless. Open your mind and listen. I'm neither PC, Liberal, NDP nor Green.
I have a gun and I registered it. Oh no! Who cares?
But the more I listen to Harper, the more I shudder.
This is for you Harper lovers.
http://*poop*.ca.nyud.net/
I agree with the sentiments in this post. I too think it is the economy and I worry for the future of the young today who are coming into a world of much higher costs and less good paying jobs available at the end.

They used to say that the Union leaders and members had a sense of profound entitlement and didn't want to earn their way to prosperity. Today it is the corporate greed in the executive ranks that wreaks of entitlement and exec pay is now booming again and the gap in pay between the top echelons and the workers has never been greater. That is not gov't at fault here though.

Peacekeeping as it used to be done by Canada that really gave us a respected presence in the world is apparently not the same any more but I do not agree with things like fighting Afghans and propping up corrupt leaders like Kharzai. Afghans send still 85% of the heroin on Canadian streets to wreak havoc in our communities. A better option as one Brit report suggests would be to buy the poppy crop and convert as many farmers to legal business as they can. The counter argument from Canadians and some Americans is that there is too much in the illegal kind (kind of like the $$ in illegal drugs argument in Canada).

We had minority gov'ts in other times that got things done. US style attack politics has poisoned politics and we no longer see working across party lines like we used to whether it is in the USA or Canada.

The reality is that the Liberals under Jean Chretien were the most fiscally responsible and this Conservative government of Mr. Harper like is spending like partiers.

Minority parliaments are no longer working for us but I am concerned that if the talent less Conservatives get a majority then watch out. It will be tough love for Canadians economically much like when Gordon Campbell took office as a moderate and put the boots to the people with high service and user fees and not much help for young families. Minority stalemates like now don't work and are incapable of solving the major problems of today.

We need an economy in Canada with better paying jobs - not just service jobs. R&D is a good place to start to attract and build talent and businesses.

Gov'ts that show they care about taxpayers might help.


We need to do what former US Secretary of State George Shultz told Charlie Rose recently that the USA must do. Start spending money on R&D and like Bill Clinton says - stop making money just off paper. The irony is that the guy Shultz worships Ronald Reagan was the guy who axed so much of that seed money to research and the non government sectors and this spilled over to Canada.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:59 pm
by WestCoastJoe
Bring back the Rhino Party.

I am no die hard for any party in BC or Ca. PC Lib even NDP, depending on who is running and the issues have gotten my vote over the years.

Fiscally I favor the PC in theory, although like their brethren the Republicans in the US, they shame their partys with their spending. Social issues I favor the Libs. Tough call. Both Harper and Iggy have baggage.

IMO Harper has some Teflon, no matter what bad stuff happens on his watch, which might be enough to get the PCs reelected. If Iggy had any charisma, I think the Libs would win.

Let's keep this thread civil. Political discourse can get hot. And people are entitled to their opinions.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 9:17 pm
by Coast Mountain Lion
WestCoastJoe wrote:Bring back the Rhino Party.

I am no die hard for any party in BC or Ca. PC Lib even NDP, depending on who is running and the issues have gotten my vote over the years.

Fiscally I favor the PC in theory, although like their brethren the Republicans in the US, they shame their partys with their spending. Social issues I favor the Libs. Tough call. Both Harper and Iggy have baggage.

IMO Harper has some Teflon, no matter what bad stuff happens on his watch, which might be enough to get the PCs reelected. If Iggy had any charisma, I think the Libs would win.

Let's keep this thread civil. Political discourse can get hot. And people are entitled to their opinions.
Note that they have not been PC, at least at the federal level, for several elections. I voted for PCs under Clark and Mulroney, and often based my vote on who the local candidate was. This is not the same party; everything has moved to the right over the past few decades, and the Liberals of today are the PCs of Clark and Mulroney. Otherwise well said. Soon enough we can put our differences aside and get back to what unites us all, i.e. how much the Eskimos/Stamps/Riders suck.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 10:30 pm
by MacNews
Coast Mountain Lion wrote:the Liberals of today are the PCs of Clark and Mulroney.
That is a stretch. The Liberals want to spend billions on National Daycare Program. They want to spend billions on a National Reserve Program. They want to raise billions by raising the GST back to 7% and they want to raise billions by raising the corporate tax back to 18.5%.

That is far beyond even the most left-wing PC idea.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 10:16 am
by Toppy Vann
"As to Toppy Vann’s post, I find myself in agreement with quite a bit of it, actually though I know we’re on opposite sides of the aisle. You were an NDP MLA, right? I think your analysis of executive pay is bang on, but what’s the solution? If you raised taxes on those pulling down multi-million dollar salaries, wouldn’t they just get around the system somehow? I understand businesses can shift profits from country to country to take advantage of lower tax rates, but can individuals from big multi-nationals do the same? Have you read of any creative solutions to get around that problem?"

My political background was to run for the federal Liberals in 1972 in New Westminster as it was then.

The solution to executive greed and entitlement is a tough one. It is certainly less of a problem in Canada than in the USA where it is really ramped back up again.

Millions paid to corporate execs when their investors and shareholders were going down the drain.

There was a time when salary positions in major corporations took into account the pay differential between the CEO and the bottom run of employees. As a old friend James O'Toole writes in a recent book "Creating the Good Life" the "the lengthy Reagan-era recession" led to the end of a lot of focus on workers and more on simple contribution to the bottom line.

Here is a typical example of entitlement:

Bank of America Corp. CEO Brian Moynihan received $9.1 million in a deferred-stock bonus for 2010, in addition to his base salary of $950,000, giving him total compensation of $10.1 million.

Taxpayer Bailout = $45 billion[2]

2010 Revenue: $111.4 billion

2010 Net Income: $2.2 billion loss[3]

Total Compensation Paid in 2010: $35.1 billion

More examples here:

http://ourfinancialsecurity.org/2011/02 ... ing-stock/

Government has no role to play in exec compensation but shareholders should revolt.


This is off topic for this thread. The offshoring of profits does not work for employees including executives like it does in registering foreign offshore corporations in tax havens.

As far as increasing the GST is concerned rational economists all state that consumption taxes are more fair than income taxes. The problem is that we don't get income tax relief as gov'ts want it both ways.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:27 pm
by mws
Just to keep things clear. The Harper government is not the P.C. party. These folks are not the Tories of old. Progressive was thrown out in name as well as policy. Conservative they are. Progressive? Nope.

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 7:13 pm
by zark
Wow...I hope nobody else here posts CCRAP Dogma. Whatever Conservative party is in charge , they will talk about what is best for Canadians. But Conservatives come first.
I Hope the Liberals lose like the Kim Campbell Gov't???
Duh!!!
Listen to all the parties first...then make your decision. This should not be a " my party is better than yours, debate"...If SOME people want to treat it as such, then get rid of this thread.
READ MY F"N SIGNATURE,IT COULD GET WORSE.
CHEERS

Re: 2011 Canadian federal election

Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2011 9:21 pm
by KnowItAll
A conservative majority works for me.