Canadian Election Underway as Long Campaign Heads to Photo Finish

CanadaJohn said:

I've got the gall because the Conservatives, after the need for stimulus spending following 2007/08 have finally brought the country's finances back into surplus and Canadians can expect a little payback for their efforts. However, as I've said previously in this thread and elsewhere, I opposed the Conservatives targeted tax credits that chose winners and losers rather than across the board tax rate deductions and/or GST reductions that benefit all Canadians not just the special interests that politicians choose.

That said, the Liberals are on record now as promoting large deficits for years to come as well as increased taxes in the form of payroll taxes to fund additional CPP payments ala Premier Wynne's demands as well as increases in taxes in the form of carbon pricing that will make virtually everything we consume more expensive. You'll get the chance to prove that the Liberal mantra of tax and borrow and spend is good for the economy. I have a feeling that many, like I, will be hibernating from the marketplace, squirreling away what few nuts the Liberals don't steal, and trying to survive the disaster on the horizon.

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Memory fades, but I recall that the first surpluses were performed by Paul Martin, a life long Liberal. The impetus for deficit reduction was spear headed by Preston Manning at Reform, and pushed forward by Jean Chretien

Fearandloathing said:

I thought it became part of the political campaign when Harper said he would challenge the court ruling. I see it as they were looking for another in their two year quest for wedge issues, and t back fired.

CJ, with all due respect, I think you're going to have to come to grips with the fact the Harperirtes ran a very, very stupid campaign and made many gross errors

Niquab would not have become part of the campaign had no one opened their mouth

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Harper may have, arguably, run a bad campaign - the constant "harping" on Trudeau was a loser in my view from the start. But to suggest Harper brought up the niqab issue is just wrong. The Federal Court of Appeals ruled on the issue and the media took it up along with the "face", isn't that ironic, of the faceless Muslim woman who wanted to get her citizenship before the election. It was seldom mentioned in the media on the right and a daily drumbeat in the media on the left. The media and the left - two sides of the same coin - made it an issue, not Harper. Harper simply stated, rightly, that the government would appeal the wrong decision to the Supreme Court, something all governments should do to protect the integrity of legislation.

I will accept that the majority of Canadians foolishly wanted change for the sake of change and wanted their own little "Canadian Obama" to call their own. They'll now suffer the consequences as our friends to the south have. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones who'll suffer.

Fearandloathing said:

Memory fades, but I recall that the first surpluses were performed by Paul Martin, a life long Liberal. The impetus for deficit reduction was spear headed by Preston Manning at Reform, and pushed forward by Jean Chretien

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Yes, that's mostly correct, and the surpluses continued into the mid-2000s until Harper, in his first minority government was faced with the 2007/2008 world financial crisis and Liberal and NDP members of parliament who threatened the Conservative government if it didn't deficit finance, in large amounts, to counter the financial crisis. Ironic, then, that those same parties criticized the Conservatives for running deficits when they were the ones who insisted on them and only when the Conservatives got a majority could they work to eliminate deficits as they accomplished in their final year/budget. But the ignorance and short attention span of many voters made that easy to sell.

But you are wrong that it was Chretien's idea. Chretien went along because Martin threatened to resign as Finance Minister if Chretien didn't support his austerity measures and even back in the mid to late 1990s the Martin faction of the Liberal Party was threatening to depose Chretien. Chretien was politically raised and nurtured in the Pierre Trudeau tradition of taxing and spending and to suggest that he was in any way an advocate of austerity is laughable.

What's incredibly sad now is that Prime Minister Martin whored himself for Justin Trudeau, supporting Trudeau's call for large deficits, totally in the face of everything he stood for and was respected for. It's shameful. I sure hope he gets the plum appointment he prostituted himself for.

CanadaJohn said:

Harper may have, arguably, run a bad campaign - the constant "harping" on Trudeau was a loser in my view from the start. But to suggest Harper brought up the niqab issue is just wrong. The Federal Court of Appeals ruled on the issue and the media took it up along with the "face", isn't that ironic, of the faceless Muslim woman who wanted to get her citizenship before the election. It was seldom mentioned in the media on the right and a daily drumbeat in the media on the left. The media and the left - two sides of the same coin - made it an issue, not Harper. Harper simply stated, rightly, that the government would appeal the wrong decision to the Supreme Court, something all governments should do to protect the integrity of legislation.

I will accept that the majority of Canadians foolishly wanted change for the sake of change and wanted their own little "Canadian Obama" to call their own. They'll now suffer the consequences as our friends to the south have. Unfortunately, they're not the only ones who'll suffer.

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Well, I have to disagree on every point, Harper waded in to build up his core vote.

And as far as 'suffering' goes, I would say that's over now. We now can unite as one country, Canadians, not right wing and left wing Canadians.

digsbe said:

:lol: Improvements under Obama? Debt has risen, wages are stagnant, we are still "recovering" and the poor-middle class still struggle. Under Obama wealth inequality has gotten worse, and him and his party haven't done anything to fix that apart from discuss taxing rich people and not doing things to enhance lower to middle class jobs and wage growth. When they had complete monopoly on government power all they did was end Bush tax cuts and pass the ACA, which most Americans did not want, and outrageously pump money into special interests through "stimulus plans" that ultimately haven't helped but sure did cost a pretty penny. During those 2 years they could have done whatever they wanted due to having monopoly in all branches of government. We still have outrageous tuition, outrageous student debt, outrageous social spending and many have to pay higher premiums on health insurance due to the ACA which didn't lower their costs at all. Not to mention the foreign policy nightmares that are Russia, China, Iran, and Syria.

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All this about spending when the deficit is the lowest it has been since 2007. Since when has the debt NOT been going up? The ACA finally reformed HC after decades of promises, eliminating preexisting conditions and limiting insurers profits to name just 2 of the major changes. Could it have been better? Certainly. The public option was killed by the Republicans who made 200 amendments before they bailed on giving it a single vote. Also Democrats had 2 months of a veto proof majority in the Senate, not 2 years. The "nigthmares" were going to happen no mater who was President. Bush's invasion of Iraq upset the balance of power in the ME long before Obama came along.
Meanwhile we have most of our troops back home, our economy is the fastest growing in the free world and employment has grwn at record rates. If a Rep was President you would be trumpeting the success of GOP policies non-stop.

CanadaJohn said:

Yes, that's mostly correct, and the surpluses continued into the mid-2000s until Harper, in his first minority government was faced with the 2007/2008 world financial crisis and Liberal and NDP members of parliament who threatened the Conservative government if it didn't deficit finance, in large amounts, to counter the financial crisis. Ironic, then, that those same parties criticized the Conservatives for running deficits when they were the ones who insisted on them and only when the Conservatives got a majority could they work to eliminate deficits as they accomplished in their final year/budget. But the ignorance and short attention span of many voters made that easy to sell.

But you are wrong that it was Chretien's idea. Chretien went along because Martin threatened to resign as Finance Minister if Chretien didn't support his austerity measures and even back in the mid to late 1990s the Martin faction of the Liberal Party was threatening to depose Chretien. Chretien was politically raised and nurtured in the Pierre Trudeau tradition of taxing and spending and to suggest that he was in any way an advocate of austerity is laughable.

What's incredibly sad now is that Prime Minister Martin whored himself for Justin Trudeau, supporting Trudeau's call for large deficits, totally in the face of everything he stood for and was respected for. It's shameful. I sure hope he gets the plum appointment he prostituted himself for.

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Large deficits?

Where has any Liberal supported "large" deficits. I suspect you added that.

And economists agree, the amount forecast is little more than a rounding error.

Anyone who things economics is a solid where the same rules apply in any situation is pushing a political agenda. Retraining and infrastructure projects as exactly what's needed now.

It's not like we're burdened with debt

Fearandloathing said:

Well, I have to disagree on every point, Harper waded in to build up his core vote.

And as far as 'suffering' goes, I would say that's over now. We now can unite as one country, Canadians, not right wing and left wing Canadians.

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You are lucky that Canadians still remember that uniting behind your elected leaders is the best way to make your nation stronger. That tradition appears to have been lost to Americans leaving only dysfunction, gridlock and partisanship.

iguanaman said:

You are lucky that Canadians still remember that uniting behind your elected leaders is the best way to make your nation stronger. That tradition appears to have been lost to Americans leaving only dysfunction, gridlock and partisanship.

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We dont tend to unite behind elected leaders

P. Trudeau was hated in Alberta and still is from issues in the early 80's, Cretien was generally disliked, but the PC's had nobody better, Mulroney was very disliked at the end of his time in office (enough so Western Canada formed a new political party to counter the PC) eventually leading to the collapse of the PC party (later merged with the Reform Party).

Harper won when the Liberal party was coming off some significant scandals, and was able to stay in office when the Liberal Party leaders were very poor campaigners (Dion) or seen as a carpet bagger (Ignatieff) whose foreign policy was very similar to Harper's.

Canadian politics can seem more united to outsiders because we only really have one elected branch that has power, not three. So generally if the ruling party has a majority, they can enact any laws they want with little difficulty provided they are constitutional

iguanaman said:

You are lucky that Canadians still remember that uniting behind your elected leaders is the best way to make your nation stronger. That tradition appears to have been lost to Americans leaving only dysfunction, gridlock and partisanship.

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From my perspective, the west coast, very much different than much of Canada, we have seen deliberate divisive politics which goes against what is Canadian. We moan that living next to the giant USA we have no culture, but that's it folks. We are every joke about us, polite, easy going and mad about hockey. The Harper government divided, using the concept of wedge issues, for their own political gain. That was impolite and it cost them.

They did not rule badly, in fact I supported much of what they did. But I, like many Canadians found Harper on the wrong side of too many small issues. I would like to see, perhaps write an essay on just how much Harper's insane stand on pot cost them. In a country where more than 25% amid using, 70% want it legalized, you don't try to paint medical marijuana users as fiends, their leader wanting to open dispensaries "on every street corner"

With no volunteers here, they ran ubiquitous robo calls making it sound like hell itself was at hand, the potheads were coming.

I suggest they took what should have been a spanking in the form of a Conservative minority and turned it into Liberal majority simply because of the over-reaction to a proposal to do what two US states have done. That's too belligerant for Canadians

Fearandloathing said:

And as far as 'suffering' goes, I would say that's over now. We now can unite as one country, Canadians, not right wing and left wing Canadians.

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Bull****.

Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne have turned Ontario, the engine of Canada's economy, into a have-not Province in 10 years through increased taxes, a healthcare premium that isn't used to fund healthcare, a green energy act that has driven business out of the Province and made many people fall into energy poverty, corruption on many fronts and subjected to three concurrent police investigations, and the wasting of $billions of dollars on political/ideological frauds. Justin Trudeau is a Wynne disciple so we can all look forward to Canada's economy being destroyed in the next decade.

Perhaps the left will be united as they merrily skip towards a cliff and marvel at how wonderful Justin's hair looks today.

Fearandloathing said:

It's not like we're burdened with debt

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Yes we are burdened with debt, even though the Conservatives since their majority win in 2011 did a great job of reducing and then eliminating in-year deficits and set the country back on the track to reduce debt further. But not now - all that hard and good work will be wasted by the Liberal Party and it's imbecile of a leader who as a trust fund baby is used to spending the money earned by others and not caring about where the next dollar may be found.

But hey, they don't call you guys out on the west coast Lotus Land for nothing.

CanadaJohn said:

Yes we are burdened with debt, even though the Conservatives since their majority win in 2011 did a great job of reducing and then eliminating in-year deficits and set the country back on the track to reduce debt further. But not now - all that hard and good work will be wasted by the Liberal Party and it's imbecile of a leader who as a trust fund baby is used to spending the money earned by others and not caring about where the next dollar may be found.

But hey, they don't call you guys out on the west coast Lotus Land for nothing.

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I will take the opinion of economic experts, we are NOT burdened with debt.

Have a good evening

CanadaJohn said:

Yes we are burdened with debt, even though the Conservatives since their majority win in 2011 did a great job of reducing and then eliminating in-year deficits and set the country back on the track to reduce debt further. But not now - all that hard and good work will be wasted by the Liberal Party and it's imbecile of a leader who as a trust fund baby is used to spending the money earned by others and not caring about where the next dollar may be found.

But hey, they don't call you guys out on the west coast Lotus Land for nothing.

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And each and every tax cut impacted the Provinces who are tied to the tax rates.

CanadaJohn said:

Bull****.

Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne have turned Ontario, the engine of Canada's economy, into a have-not Province in 10 years through increased taxes, a healthcare premium that isn't used to fund healthcare, a green energy act that has driven business out of the Province and made many people fall into energy poverty, corruption on many fronts and subjected to three concurrent police investigations, and the wasting of $billions of dollars on political/ideological frauds. Justin Trudeau is a Wynne disciple so we can all look forward to Canada's economy being destroyed in the next decade.

Perhaps the left will be united as they merrily skip towards a cliff and marvel at how wonderful Justin's hair looks today.

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Because Ontario can't get its **** together does not compute to it automatically meaning the end of the ****ing world.

The cheap shots about Justin's hair are beneath you, trolling, and childish. I thought you were above that ****

CanadaJohn said:

Bull****.

Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne have turned Ontario, the engine of Canada's economy, into a have-not Province in 10 years through increased taxes, a healthcare premium that isn't used to fund healthcare, a green energy act that has driven business out of the Province and made many people fall into energy poverty, corruption on many fronts and subjected to three concurrent police investigations, and the wasting of $billions of dollars on political/ideological frauds. Justin Trudeau is a Wynne disciple so we can all look forward to Canada's economy being destroyed in the next decade.

Perhaps the left will be united as they merrily skip towards a cliff and marvel at how wonderful Justin's hair looks today.

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The biggest blunder in Ontario was the energy policy to stop using coal. The extra expense would be a small but contributing factor in the economic decline of Ont. But the biggest is the loss of manufacturing jobs. Canada is producing nearly 1 million few cars now then it was in 2006. The auto industry has been a significant source of well paying jobs. The loss of other manufacturing jobs in Ontario has also been significant. What did Harper do over the last 10 years to promote manufacturing jobs or other high paying jobs in Canada? Under Harper Canada became very reliant on natural resources to provide economic growth.

JANFU said:

And each and every tax cut impacted the Provinces who are tied to the tax rates.

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And that's bull**** as well, but not for the reasons you may think.

Transfer payments from the federal government to the Provinces increased every year under the Conservatives, both program funding like healthcare supplements and transfer payments to the "have-not" Provinces all increased. The Conservatives intended to slow the growth of healthcare supplements but slowing growth isn't a cut.

Secondly, the federal government has zero control over how the Provinces spend those transfers, particularly in the healthcare field. The Provinces has sole control over how healthcare dollars are spent.

Thirdly, as the federal government vacated some of the tax impact on citizens, some Provinces, Ontario as an example, occupied that tax vacuum by increasing their own provincial taxes.

Finally, in Ontario, over 60% of the debt incurred by the provincial government represented increases in operational expenses. So they increased taxes, became a have-not Province for the first time in Ontario's history and received $billions from the federal government because of that sad incompetence, and also received increased transfer payments from the federal government for healthcare and other programs, and yet they still generated almost $200 billion in new debt in a decade, becoming the largest sub-sovereign debt holder in the world, with zero concrete to show for it other than ballooning salaries for teachers, police, and civil servants.

And you want the federal government to give such irresponsible spendthrifts more money? That's just pathetic.

Lord Tammerlain said:

The biggest blunder in Ontario was the energy policy to stop using coal. The extra expense would be a small but contributing factor in the economic decline of Ont. But the biggest is the loss of manufacturing jobs. Canada is producing nearly 1 million few cars now then it was in 2006. The auto industry has been a significant source of well paying jobs. The loss of other manufacturing jobs in Ontario has also been significant. What did Harper do over the last 10 years to promote manufacturing jobs or other high paying jobs in Canada? Under Harper Canada became very reliant on natural resources to provide economic growth.

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If Harper could stop the incompetent and destructive policies of the Ontario provincial government, he would have. However, Canada is not a dictatorship and provinces are free to kill themselves if they want to. There was job growth, and significant job growth in all other provinces but not Ontario. Manufacturing left and is leaving Ontario because of provincial government policies, not Canadian government policies. Ontario has doubled the cost of energy with an additional 40% increase promised to come. Ontario has also threatened to implement new payroll pension taxes on any business that doesn't have an employee pension plan and is also threatening a provincial carbon tax scheme on business. Naturally, business is leaving Ontario in droves to find more business friendly environments and the US States to the direct south of us are kissing the ground Kathleen Wynne and her band of idiots walk on.

CanadaJohn said:

If Harper could stop the incompetent and destructive policies of the Ontario provincial government, he would have. However, Canada is not a dictatorship and provinces are free to kill themselves if they want to. There was job growth, and significant job growth in all other provinces but not Ontario. Manufacturing left and is leaving Ontario because of provincial government policies, not Canadian government policies. Ontario has doubled the cost of energy with an additional 40% increase promised to come. Ontario has also threatened to implement new payroll pension taxes on any business that doesn't have an employee pension plan and is also threatening a provincial carbon tax scheme on business. Naturally, business is leaving Ontario in droves to find more business friendly environments and the US States to the direct south of us are kissing the ground Kathleen Wynne and her band of idiots walk on.

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I wonder if the mentality is as tunnel visioned in your provinces as it too often is in the various U.S. states? If things are going good, Wasington DC (or whoever is in the White House) gets the credit. If things are going poorly, Washington DC (or whoever is in the White House) gets the blame. There is often little attention directed to what policies the state government or local government impose that promote favorable or unfavorable results.

Lord Tammerlain said:

The biggest blunder in Ontario was the energy policy to stop using coal. The extra expense would be a small but contributing factor in the economic decline of Ont. But the biggest is the loss of manufacturing jobs. Canada is producing nearly 1 million few cars now then it was in 2006. The auto industry has been a significant source of well paying jobs. The loss of other manufacturing jobs in Ontario has also been significant. What did Harper do over the last 10 years to promote manufacturing jobs or other high paying jobs in Canada? Under Harper Canada became very reliant on natural resources to provide economic growth.

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Check the wind power deals signed off, the rate paid, nice return for investors.

AlbqOwl said:

I wonder if the mentality is as tunnel visioned in your provinces as it too often is in the various U.S. states? If things are going good, Wasington DC (or whoever is in the White House) gets the credit. If things are going poorly, Washington DC (or whoever is in the White House) gets the blame. There is often little attention directed to what policies the state government or local government impose that promote favorable or unfavorable results.

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It's pretty much the same here AO. Unless you're politically savvy or interested, most people haven't a clue what is happening in other Provinces and what the impact of those actions in those Provinces has on the country as a whole. As I said above, Ontario was bleeding jobs because of the policies of the Liberal Provincial government and because Ontario is the largest Province and the most dynamic economy in the country that adversely affected to job numbers for the entire country and so our Conservative Prime Minister got blamed for poor job numbers when he had little or nothing to do with it.