# It's budget time....



## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Will the budget pass.

Will it fail....

Will Jean call an election.......

Step right up folks place your bets.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Who wants to vote for debts? We just got out of debt with the previous government.

They should just create incentives to get the economy moving.

Making green cars tax free would be a good incentive.

Making scooters tax free would be good too.

Heh

Dave


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## K_OS (Dec 13, 2002)

The way the economy is right now we don't need to spend all that money on an election when we had one last fall.

Laterz


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

dolawren said:


> Who wants to vote for debts? We just got out of debt with the previous government.
> 
> They should just create incentives to get the economy moving.
> 
> ...


You need to understand the difference between debt and deficit. We have not had a deficit for several years but we continue to be in debt (although it is being paid down).


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## johnnyspade (Aug 24, 2007)

dolawren said:


> Making scooters tax free would be good too.


Agreed. Though, I would take free shipping on any parts I need, especially out of Italy or the UK. Let's call that a personal incentive.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Ignatieff will allow the budget to pass - seeing that it would be political suicide to lead the country into a Depression. Better to wait it out, then scorte the point later, once things are sorted out.

Layton is blowing off steam, perhaps with the knowledge that the NDP are pretty much irrelevant these days. At least the NDP in Ontario haven't given up on the worker and the most basic rights and dignities that the citizen have...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I suspect the budget will be brain-impaired and pork-flavoured enough to seem reasonable to Ignatieff.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

Lube up and bend over....


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Budget will pass.

NDP and Bloc will oppose it, as they have the most to gain and the least to lose. The coalition is Jack Layton's only hope for his party to have any significant influence.

Ignatief will do a bit of grandstanding and saber rattling, but will support the budget in the end.

He's not stupid, and he knows that if he topples the government right away it will be seen as a power grab on his part.

Even if the coalition government got in he would be under pressure to have an election to seek a mandate from the people - especially since he didn't run as Liberal leader in the last election, and he didn't even win a normal Liberal leadership convention.

The public doesn't want an election at this point, and the Liberals are ill equipped to fight one.

Besides, the economy is headed for the ditch and I can't see why Ignatief would want to be at the wheel when the airbags pop...


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I suspect the budget will be brain-impaired and pork-flavoured enough to seem reasonable to Ignatieff.


Is there no Keynesian pinko-socialist line Harper will cross to cling to power? Apparently not. Maybe if the opposition demands that Flaherty does the Chicken Dance while reading the budget, he will do that also.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Two billion for social housing and a billion to help those who have just lost their jobs will be enough to lure the Liberals to vote for the budget. We shall see.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

If the budget has tax cuts and is overly stupidly pork laden Iggie might say no.
But it's easier to trim in that direction.
Only lap puppies think Harper is not a manic idjit on the economy.

First
what me worry
Then
The sky is falling....let's erase a decade worth of debt reduction.... ....next ...pleeeeeeease.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> Only lap puppies think Harper is not a manic idjit on the economy.
> 
> First
> what me worry
> ...


Actually Harper has been quite consistent all along. His varied strategies, policies and legislation have been designed around one goal and one goal only, gaining a majority government by any means necessary so he can enact the far right-wing agenda he has campaigned for his whole life. This is why his ardent supporters will support him no matter what kind of temporary policy he puts forth. They understand what Stevie's big picture is.

Of course, the beleaguered Master Strategist™, hasn't yet settled on a strategy that can accomplish this. But he'll keep trying.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Chicken Dance instruction for Flaherty.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Is there no Keynesian pinko-socialist line Harper will cross to cling to power? Apparently not. Maybe if the opposition demands that Flaherty does the Chicken Dance while reading the budget, he will do that also.


There are pinko lines he would not cross, but this budget is within the realms of what I would expect--the bare minimum of leftiness required to keep Iggy happy, regardless of its ill effects on the economy.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

A 7 minute Speech from the Throne. Not much said that was unexpected, and we have to wait for the budget to go beyond the rhetoric. We shall see.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> There are pinko lines he would not cross, but this budget is within the realms of what I would expect--the bare minimum of leftiness required to keep Iggy happy, regardless of its ill effects on the economy.


... the bare minimum of leftiness required to keep Iggy happy, regardless of its ill effects on the economy _of his privileged masters ... until the Shangri-la of a Con majority can be obtained_.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"... until the Shangri-la of a Con majority can be obtained." That would be a "lost horizon" for us all here in Canada.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Chicken Dance instruction for Flaherty.


How could you...? XX) :lmao: 

The more I hear/read from Layton, the more I'm convinced he's losing any semblance of intelligence. Iggy and Harper will jump in bed together after some back room dealing. Budget will probably pass, but I wouldn't bet Canada's future on it.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

I suspect PenguinBoy and Gratuitous have got it about right, though I'm certainly no expert. Nothing bad has happened in Victoria yet, but hard times might be on the way.

I'm pleased to hear about some money for social housing. Housing is a good investment -- it helps those who want to come out of poverty get a leg up on doing so, it's far cheaper than police/prisons, and can be repurposed as needed. If it's matched with medical and mental help, it seems to work towards reducing the ranks of the destitute, as seen in Portland (for example).


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Dr.G. said:


> "... until the Shangri-la of a Con majority can be obtained." That would be a "lost horizon" for us all here in Canada.


Depends on whether you're being led there by Ronald Colman, or Peter Finch in song.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

*Budget will pass:* This seems to be the conventional wisdom. Iggy doesn't like the coalition and is much closer to being a blue Lib than his predecessor. CW says that he will wait because "apparently" Canadians don't like the coalition idea (some don't, some do), and he can wait and watch while Harper has to wear the growing recession/depression/economic catastrophe. If Iggy doesn't vote the budget down, this coalition or any further coalition is surely completely dead.

*Budget will fail, election called:* Naaaah! The G-G will call on the coalition to govern if Harper fails this confidence vote. Allowing an election to go forward after only a few short days of Parliament operating since the last election would go completely against fairly well established Parliamentary precedent.

*Budget will fail, coalition called to govern:* Although the CW doesn't support this idea, I think the chance of this happening is still significant. It all hinges on Iggy's judgement about the pitfalls of each option. But supporting the Cons budget isn't necessarily safer than the pitfalls are for going with the coalition. 

If he supports Harper now, I suspect Harper will play nice with him only until he figures he's in the clear wrt a non-confidence vote leading to an election call. The second Harper thinks he can go back to my-way-or-the-highway he most certainly will. That could be as early as late spring or so. In the meantime Harper will claim that he is operating in fiscal stimulus mode with the direct support and confidence of the Libs, which will be true technically. Then Harper will go back to daring the opposition to vote him down and bring on another election and Iggy will look as weak as Dion did during his numerous votes and abstentions that kept Harper in power. 

On the other hand, a coalition government could keep Iggy as PM for 3 years or more, plenty of time for the economy to improve and for Iggy to bask in the fictionally implied strength leadership power that comes from living at 24 Sussex. And in the meantime, the Cons would probably depose Harper and send him back to work for the NCC.

I don't know what Iggy's going to do and I doubt if there are many who actually do. He's leaving himself lots of wriggle room by his statements today, saying "The devil is in the [budget] details". 

We'll know by Thursday night, I'm hearing.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> On the other hand, a coalition government could keep Iggy as PM for 3 years or more, plenty of time for the economy to improve and for Iggy to bask in the fictionally implied strength leadership power that comes from living at 24 Sussex.


Can't see this working:
-There's no way the coalition would hold together for 3 years (or even 3 months...) without splintering. There's a pretty wide space between mainstream Liberals and the NDP, and if anything it's about to get even wider under Ignatief.
-There would be pressure on Ignatief to get a mandate from the people as the new Liberal leader.
-There could be pressure on Ignatief from within the Liberal party, since the whole leadership race was pretty much short circuited to get Dion out in a hurry.

If the budget fails I can see the GG giving the coalition a chance - but in that case I'll bet we're heading to the polls by Spring.
QUOTE=GratuitousApplesauce;781803]
...the Cons would probably depose Harper and send him back to work for the NCC.[/QUOTE]
Can't say this would be a bad thing - not sure who would replace him at this point though...

My bet is still on "Budget Passes" as the most likely outcome.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

PenguinBoy said:


> Can't see this working:
> -There's no way the coalition would hold together for 3 years (or even 3 months...) without splintering. There's a pretty wide space between mainstream Liberals and the NDP, and if anything it's about to get even wider under Ignatief.
> -There would be pressure on Ignatief to get a mandate from the people as the new Liberal leader.
> -There could be pressure on Ignatief from within the Liberal party, since the whole leadership race was pretty much short circuited to get Dion out in a hurry.
> ...


Pressure on Ignatief to go to the polls soon would be negated by the wish to not have yet another election after having so many in recent years. 

As far as there being a wide space between the Libs and NDP, I agree, but I think there is quite possibly enough self-control available for them to keep issues where they disagree on the back-burner while sticking to areas of compromise. This was recognized when they formed the coalition in December.

After all there was a fairly wide space between red Tories, neo-cons, social cons and fiscal cons, but they all managed to pull it together to try to create the coalition which was the new Conservative party under Harper. It's common to hear grumblings from various factions of that coalition about how their various interests are being ignored, but that is kept on the back burner. They even managed to keep the lid on the social cons over abortion and while Harper caved in on gay marriage, — not a small feat. I see no reason why the left and centre-left couldn't also accomplish some form of relatively stable compromise.

All that said, I'm not saying that Iggy will choose the coalition. I really couldn't decide which option to vote for in the poll, because I really don't know what's going on in Iggy's head. He's doing a good job of not showing his cards. I voted for the coalition option just to even out the poll totals.

One more bit of strategic guessing though. If I was Ignatief, and I was thinking of voting against the budget, the last thing I would want to do would be to give Harper a heads-up on that. If I was Ignatief and was going to vote the budget down, I would want Harper to think I was most likely to do otherwise, so that he would be unprepared and completely off-balance when it happens. That's certainly how Harper would play it if he was in Iggy's shoes too.

Just sayin'.


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## bsenka (Jan 27, 2009)

The coalition is dead.

The Liberals will support the budget, no matter what they claim. They are in very deep debt. They cannot afford another election.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

As well, the stimulus money will not be spent--it will be announced, then repurposed several times with only a fraction of it going into projects and programs.


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## gmark2000 (Jun 4, 2003)

If the NDP and Bloc vow not to support the budget motion no matter what, how is this helpful for them?

Is this petty partisan politics plain and simple?


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## rodneyjb (Apr 9, 2006)

I think the budget will pass. THe country is not ready for another election, and Iggy more than likely needs time to get out and meet the people, yada yada yada, before he thinks the Liberals will have a real chance of winning on their own. The coalition is dead, Jack is to worried about having power and it is clouding his judgement. The only thing he wants to do is defeat Harper, at any cost.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

It's hard for Layton to have a peek at a tiny sliver of power and then be returned to the basement of politics--a lonely toadstool growing at the fringes of Ottawa.


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

I really don't care what the leaders and other political bottom feeders are thinking about this budget, although it could get interesting. I am more concerned with what is going to happen to us, the people.

I suspect our personal preparation should be pretty much as usual, namely, drop pants, lube up, grasp ankles firmly and, as young British ladies were told to do in the past, "think of England" or, as might be advised now-a-days, go to your happy place.

Alcohol, taken as required (PRN in medical speak), is highly recommended.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Looks like a reasonable mix tho again I wonder at the scale.....

Infrastructure and social housing is a no brainer for a recession.

Targetted tax incentives .....maybe somebody getting wise in the ranks instead of blunt instruments 

Banks and credit cards - a bit of predation "whack aside the head" is welcome but unlikely to get anywhere.

Not much for the coalition to gripe at.
The big deficit is the Cons own doing. If they had left the GST alone it would half that.




> *What's Known*
> 
> Deficit
> $64 billion projected over two years, including $34 billion in 2009-2010. The stimulus package is valued at about $21 billion for one year.
> ...


TheStar.com | Canada | PM adds tax breaks to Tory stimulus plan

Now about the roll back of MP/civil servant salaries, pensions etc - since inflation is now negative can we expect some of this indexed ****e to reverse course......should I hold my breath.??


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## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

MacDoc said:


> Now about the roll back of MP/civil servant salaries, pensions etc - since inflation is now negative can we expect some of this indexed ****e to reverse course......should I hold my breath.??


If you hold your breath for that one you'll be dead....


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"If you hold your breath for that one you'll be dead...." Alas, poor MacDoc, I knew him, Horatio.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Harper is even starting to LOOK like Mike Harris....he can't quite get to the sleeves rolled....stiff bastard.










globeandmail.com: A budget to drive spending

let alone the flankers.....


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

If he introduces "Workfare" then you'll know that he really is "Mike Harris"

(The Tyrant Mike Harris that is)


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MacDoc said:


> ....Infrastructure and social housing is a no brainer for a recession.


You mean no brains. These are some of the least stimulating types of spending, historically.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

MacDoc said:


> Harper is even starting to LOOK like Mike Harris....he can't quite get to the sleeves rolled....stiff bastard.


Steve: "The global economic meltdown is serious, and this government is committed to BOLD action ... see, we've removed our jackets! 

But sleeve-rolling would be far too rash at this juncture!"


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

dolawren said:


> If he introduces "Workfare" then you'll know that he really is "Mike Harris"
> 
> (The Tyrant Mike Harris that is)


Too bad that Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to actually implement workfare. People on welfraud should have to undergo mandatory drug tests, and have all expenses scrutinized so that money is not wasted on drugs, booze and other garbage. It is too much like scoring cash for life these days, and it costs us billions of dollars that we don't have.

This country needs someone strong to stand up and work to make things right, rather than selling out to every penny ante bleeding heart. Of course, considering the effete degenerates that have been elected in the course of the past half century, I do not expect things to change one iota. It's all about punishing the workers who build the nation through their blood and sweat, while rewarding the do nothing losers who prefer to go through their drug addled life drunk and stupid.

This "budget" was a yawnfest - just the same old tired policies of Trudeau's tinker-toy economics that will cost the taxpayer unspeakable amounts of cash, while doing basically nothing of importance for anyone.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> Too bad that Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to actually implement workfare. People on welfraud should have to undergo mandatory drug tests, and have all expenses scrutinized so that money is not wasted on drugs, booze and other garbage. It is too much like scoring cash for life these days ... rant, rant, rant, etc ...


Too bad Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to not grind half the useless poor into Soylent Green to feed the other half. It's obvious that EP is no candy ass bleeding heart though. He's got rusty iron filings flowing through his, or that could be just too much exposure to Hamilton air.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Too bad Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to not grind half the useless poor into Soylent Green to feed the other half.


Be serious. Why would they turn green once ground up?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Be serious. Why would they turn green once ground up?


Cos' they spent all their ill-gotten welfare money on smoking pot?


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Too bad Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to not grind half the useless poor into Soylent Green to feed the other half.


Sounds like you were inspired by the picture you got just before Christmas!

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Je8rLrULMgw/Rr0swKMjzGI/AAAAAAAAAII/mnpA_156_lw/s320/Monopoly.jpg


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Too bad Mike Harris was too much of a candy ass to not grind half the useless poor into Soylent Green to feed the other half. It's obvious that EP is no candy ass bleeding heart though. He's got rusty iron filings flowing through his, or that could be just too much exposure to Hamilton air.


I was not talking about the poor, I was talking about Welfraud. We all know it exists, the worthless lazy people who sit around drunk all day, eating potato chips and ordering pizza between their drug binges, who are entirely useless and refuse to contribute to society, all on the dole.

Our Government does too much to sustain Welfraud. It is a vote getter as well as keeping people off of the unemployment statistics.

Our Government does very little for the poor. The poor have little access to post-secondary education because of the high costs of education, so they end up in low paying, dead end jobs in a state of wage slavery. And because they do not have a chance at actually saving any money, they have no chance of returning to gain an education, let alone having a chance at finding a better job, to improve their situation.

Do not equate Welfraud with anything resembling the poor. Even the poorest man has some degree of pride, and will struggle to make ends meet - while the professional Welfraud recipient is sitting around drunk, smoking drugs, and abusing their children in so many ways.

This is something that the Government simply refuses to "fix" because really, to address poverty is to eliminate the lowest class of wage slavery - which would lead to a disgruntled Corporate class that would need to pay a fair wage and to dole out fair benefits to employees, which would do no good for the coffers of the various political parties.

And just to illuminate the matter - just look at how the degenerates at Queen's Park are more than ready to subjugate the workers at York University to such a wage slavery arrangement just to purchase the votes and cash of the fat cats who voted themselves a fat 33% pay hike and bonus because as we all know, there are many sandwiches and cocktails that need to be consumed in order to provide a university education...


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Yes, We know about welfraud and the people that commit suicide because they are cut off from getting welfare. No one cares about this subject, It's a sick society.

What is really sick is the people that aren't eligible for unemployment insurance
and are forced to get welfare, Even though they paid into the U.I. program for years.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

LOL

Y'know, I think effete degenerates are generally being given a bad rap.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Next thing, Max, you'll be telling us that effete degeneracy is a disease, not a choice.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Disease? My dear fellow, it's an epidemic!


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Not to worry Max, Evan Pitts has the vaccine for those infected, but some of us are immune. Our antibodies can kick some serious a$$.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Kps, it's much worse than you think... I fear Evan Pitts' nefarious scheme is to

CONTROL THE SYNTHESIS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE VACCINE, THEREBY CAUSING A CATASTROPHIC CRASH OF THE PLANETARY POPULATION... HE HAS A VISION OF A NEW EDEN.

_And there will be no degenerates allowed_ *PERIOD!!!!!*


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Yes, we made that mistake once before, picking from that proverbial tree...and look where it got us. Here's to the "new" eden. cheers!


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> I was not talking about the poor, I was talking about Welfraud. We all know it exists, the worthless lazy people who sit around drunk all day, eating potato chips and ordering pizza between their drug binges, who are entirely useless and refuse to contribute to society, ... rant, rant, rant, etc ...


And no doubt this massive, surging population of welfare cheats that you seem to think exists, take about the same amount of money out of government coffers as the rounding errors on unjustified corporate expense deductions by major corporations. The average monthly welfare cheque might cover one monthly pizza and drug binge, and that would be when the recipient decides not to pay their rent that month. You're indulging in baseless fantasy ranting. If you continue to write this way I'll have no choice but to consider it surrealist poetry, because it bears about the same amount of relation to reality. I think Max has the right idea.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Max said:


> Kps, it's much worse than you think... I fear Evan Pitts' nefarious scheme is to
> 
> CONTROL THE SYNTHESIS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE VACCINE...


Thankfully, i was working on a vaccine prior to the crash and can cure anyone of effete degeneracy...even Matthias.

In the meantime, THERE ARE NO PHONES RINGING!


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

Just a single data point on this conversation: one of my better friends in this area is a guy who was once an alcoholic and by way of that estranged his family, lost his house and business, and generally became destitute.

He lives on "welfare" and uses the money to pay for staple foods, a monthly bus pass and a dorm-sized room in a "residential hotel" (ahem). It doesn't cover anything more than that.

If we want him to come with us to a movie or something, it is understood that we will be paying for it. This is fine with us, as his company is more than worth the pittance we might spend on his behalf. He is on the long climb back, but without that small state stipend he would be far worse off, if even still alive, to even attempt to return to being a contributing member of society.

There's homelessness the abstract idea, and then there's the reality. Behind every welfare recipient is a story. Sometimes it's a stupid story, but sometimes it's not. I seem to recall a certain book of values cautioning us against judging people with whom we do not have direct experience ...


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)




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## kps (May 4, 2003)

I think it's more like this...
.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

rgray said:


> Lube up and bend over....


Do you want regular, or premium?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Yep, right on kps, it ain't a Conservative budget. It is by and for the coalition and if the Liberals defeat it, they risk holding power for many, many, many years to come.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Max said:


> Kps, it's much worse than you think... I fear Evan Pitts' nefarious scheme is to
> 
> CONTROL THE SYNTHESIS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE VACCINE, THEREBY CAUSING A CATASTROPHIC CRASH OF THE PLANETARY POPULATION... HE HAS A VISION OF A NEW EDEN.
> 
> _And there will be no degenerates allowed_ *PERIOD!!!!!*


No, no. We just need someone STRONG to STAND UP and TAKE CONTROL!!
(Why does this make me think of oh, say, Germany in the 1930s?)


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> And no doubt this massive, surging population of welfare cheats that you seem to think exists, take about the same amount of money out of government coffers as the rounding errors on unjustified corporate expense deductions by major corporations. The average monthly welfare cheque might cover one monthly pizza and drug binge, and that would be when the recipient decides not to pay their rent that month. You're indulging in baseless fantasy ranting. If you continue to write this way I'll have no choice but to consider it surrealist poetry, because it bears about the same amount of relation to reality. I think Max has the right idea.


I totally agree with GA. This sort of welfare cheat ranting is not only surreal, its just nasty and mean spirited.


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## rodneyjb (Apr 9, 2006)

chas...I for one will salute your friend for making the slow climb back, as that is what the system was based on. I will state some of my experiences.

When I was in college, I worked for Canada Trust part time to help make ends meet. On the first of the month, the welfare cheques are out, i only saw some customers once a month. Where the branch was at the time, to our left was the liquor store, I only ever noticed one man, who had lost his job and gone the Ei until it ran out route, did not turn left once he walked out the door. I saw the same girl have 3 different children with 3 different fathers, the girl and all 3 of the fathers were on welfare. I saw a family "kick" the kids out at 16 so the kids could collect welfare, this same family found the money to play in and drink/eat at softball tournaments. I know this for a fact as I played in the same tournaments when I could afford them, if any others have played softball they know how expensive that can be. I missed lots of them as I could not afford to go. This was during the Bob Rae era in Ontario when he was Premier. I have no experience under Harris or McGuinty to be fair.

These are my experiences, and I have many more. Welfare fraud is out there, in greater numbers than politicians will ever admit. Those that are on welfare as a last resort are painted unfairly as being part of the crowd. There really needs to be a change on how welfare is dealt out.

Just my two cents.

chas...it is great that you enjoy your friends company, and I hope things get better for him.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

My landlady in 1980 had lived through the Great Depression and the office she worked at was routinely visited by people asking for cash handouts to buy meals. Her employer became so tired of it that he eventually worked out a deal with a diner to issue vouchers that could be exchanged for a meal. Over a four-year period, she said that only three of the vouchers were ever used. 

I suspect that any government program we see will be massively abused, and that ending such a progam will see a small number of people who are actually making their way out of povery affected.

That said, the total spent on welfare programs in comparison to other budget areas is pretty small.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

A number of years back I used to eat lunch at one of two bars/restaurants regularly. Towards the end of the month the number of people sitting at the VLT's as you walked in would diminish. You could always tell when welfare cheques came out as there was almost always a line-up of the same people for the first day or two of every month. Remarkable coincidence-NOT! 

And, they usually had a seemingly endless supply of cigarettes stuck in their faces and drinks at their sides.

For those of you hard working & willing enough to try to dig yourselves out of the hole you are in, good for you! Hats off...

For those of you who are able-bodied & able-minded and still insist on being on welfraud, I'm tired of you pissing away my hard earned tax dollars. It's time to get a life AND a job.

__________

Back on topic, the budget will pass. Predictable, even a month ago.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Looks to me like Iggy wants to play PM without actually being one.

He's off his rocker.

Bring on an election.



> From CBC News:
> News Alert
> 
> Ignatieff spells out terms for supporting budget
> ...


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

SINC said:


> Looks to me like Iggy wants to play PM without actually being one.
> 
> He's off his rocker.
> 
> Bring on an election.


I expect the PM will acquiesce because he is between a rock and a hard place, but as Dr. G. says we shall see.


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## MLeh (Dec 23, 2005)

Is there room for compromise? Report, yes, but matter of confidence, no?


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

That would be nice MLeh.

Looks like sleaze ball Layton is toast too:

CBC News Alert:

Liberals backing 'new coalition' now: Layton

NDP Leader Jack Layton implied Wednesday that a coalition deal signed between his party and the Liberals in late 2008 was dead, telling reporters that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's conditional support for Tuesday's federal budget indicates Ignatieff is interested only in a "new coalition" with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The old deal between the NDP and Liberals, with the aid of the Bloc Quebecois, could have led to the Conservative minority government's defeat.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

MLeh said:


> Is there room for compromise? Report, yes, but matter of confidence, no?


I suspect that is what the Government will want.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"I expect the PM will acquiesce because he is between a rock and a hard place, but as Dr. G. says we shall see." I agree, screature. Of course, Harper may dare the Liberals to bring down the government and reject this amendment. We shall see.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I hope Harper rejects it.


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

Thumbs up to $7 bil for infrastructure
Big thumbs up to $2 bil for social housing

Big thumbs down to $4 bil for tax cuts. Whoopie an extra $6 a paycheque? I would've prefered to see that $4 bil go to even more infrastructure. Tax cuts are useless if you're unemployed!

Overall... if this was American Idol I'd reluctantly send this budget to Hollywood.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

dona83 said:


> Overall... if this was American Idol I'd reluctantly send this budget to Hollywood.


:lmao:


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

I think Ignatieff played his hand perfectly. Especially the amendment which must have Harper fuming. Well done future PM!


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> I think Ignatieff played his hand perfectly. Especially the amendment which must have Harper fuming.


I hadn't heard that Harper has agreed to this. Why would he be fuming?


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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

dona83 said:


> ig thumbs down to $4 bil for tax cuts. Whoopie an extra $6 a paycheque? I would've prefered to see that $4 bil go to even more infrastructure. Tax cuts are useless if you're unemployed!


Well as someone looking at new windows this year a $1350 tax credit for my $10K investment in my house is far from useless. But I'm sure the spike in home improvements over the coming year wont employ anyone though.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Yeah, people will definitely be doing at least modest home improvements so as to enhance the value of their real estate equity. Provided they can afford to do so, naturally.


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## mrjimmy (Nov 8, 2003)

Macfury said:


> I hadn't heard that Harper has agreed to this. Why would he be fuming?


Oh he'll agree to it.

Oh wait, he did. :lmao: 

canada.com | Article


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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

Max said:


> Yeah, people will definitely be doing at least modest home improvements so as to enhance the value of their real estate equity. Provided they can afford to do so, naturally.


The way I see it, the tax credit will pay for the interest on my line of credit until it's paid off.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

SINC said:


> Looks to me like Iggy wants to play PM without actually being one.


Actually, Don, surely that's the RIGHT way to play it??

I mean, look at it from the other side: had he rejected the budget (which, while not fabulous, is at least fair and reasonable) and resurrected the coalition, would THAT have pleased you? Or the mainstream of voters??

On the other hand, had he said "gosh Mr Harper, this thing is just perfect! I wouldn't change a thing!" do you think he'd have ANY respect ... from you or anyone left of you ... in the morning?

Seems to me he played it exactly right. He gets to look powerful yet magnanimous, throws Jack Layton under the bus (surely, you will concede, the _right_ person in this situation to throw under the bus) and buys time to rebuild the Liberals for an election that's coming in -- my guess -- about a year.

I believe the expression here is "keeping your powder dry."

Seems to me he's shown considerable acumen on this, his first real test. There weren't a lot of good options unless Harper had handed him something so partisan he could run against it (like, you know, what happened last time).


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

rodneyjb said:


> These are my experiences, and I have many more. Welfare fraud is out there, in greater numbers than politicians will ever admit. Those that are on welfare as a last resort are painted unfairly as being part of the crowd. There really needs to be a change on how welfare is dealt out.


I'm not trying to single you out because others are reporting similar anecdotal stories in this thread, some are even just making things up, but where are the numbers that show this massive amount of welfare cheating? If you're going to assert that there are great numbers of fraud, then let's see the evidence, please.

To the others besides rodneyjb, I have had some personal family experience in this area which I've shared on ehMac before and I don't appreciate this broad brush demonizing of people who are mostly struggling to keep their lives together without a full set of coping tools. Some, but not nearly all, are hopelessly addicted to drink, drugs, gambling, are coping with mental issues and abuses from their past that most of us couldn't even imagine and therefore make many bad decisions in their lives. Throwing them to the wolves, as many here are advocating, in the end only costs society more. They don't just disappear when they are cut off support, they become even greater financial liabilities to the health system, or justice system and if they have children, their failings and mental issues just get passed on for their children to emulate.

Those who are only the victims of bad luck but have the normal set of coping skills will only use welfare in the short term until they can get their lives back together. But some will never leave the system. But if you really want heal these broken people, it will require far more money than a monthly welfare pittance. Maybe some of you would rather that those people were just rounded up and put in a prison camp or a gulag. That's the way some societies have dealt with their unwanted.

Some of you need to walk a mile, or even a few yards in someone else's shoes.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

chas_m said:


> Actually, Don, surely that's the RIGHT way to play it??
> 
> I mean, look at it from the other side: had he rejected the budget (which, while not fabulous, is at least fair and reasonable) and resurrected the coalition, would THAT have pleased you? Or the mainstream of voters??
> 
> ...


Good post chas.

Not many (or any) quoting the conventional wisdom, thought that Iggy would take this approach. From a purely political POV, I think he made the best possible choice. He may have underestimated Harper's cunning though. Steve will seek to test Iggy's resolve by the summer at the latest, I think. Harper wants to put the Libs back in the position they had Dion in.

I still get the feeling that many don't yet understand how our system works. Harper was not elected Prime Minister and his party wasn't elected as the government. There is no spot on any Canadian ballot that says "Prime Minister". Parliament and its elected Members determine who the Prime Minister is and what party gets to be the government, by giving a party and it's leader enough of the votes from the MPs Canadians elected to continue.

If Ignatief chooses to withdraw his and his parties support, or use it as a tool to extract concessions from the PM, he is not doing anything he isn't entitled to do. This is not "playing PM", this is working within the Parliamentary system where there is a minority government. The PM doesn't have any special imperial power, he is just another MP in the House of Commons, who gets to call himself Prime Minister, only at the pleasure of our elected MPs.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Hardly perfect - still the anti-science Bush style crap slipped in 



> *Budget erases funding for key science agency*
> 
> Organization that finances large-scale science is ignored, putting jobs, research and Canada's international reputation at risk
> 
> ...


globeandmail.com: Budget erases funding for key science agency

Just when Canadian tech is critical......

For once I would not blame Canadian scientist for migrating south - at least they'll be in a science friendly environs after a long drought under Bush.

Harper is SUCH a loser........they just can't give up the regressive ideology. 

and this was a funds matching programs which immediately magnified gov spending...


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

chas_m said:


> Actually, Don, surely that's the RIGHT way to play it??
> 
> I mean, look at it from the other side: had he rejected the budget (which, while not fabulous, is at least fair and reasonable) and resurrected the coalition, would THAT have pleased you? Or the mainstream of voters??
> 
> ...


Of course he is entitled to play it any way he wants and granted, he does have the Conservatives over a barrel this time, but this time only. That's a given.

As for Layton being tossed under a bus, it couldn't happen to a nicer fellow.

But there is something about Iggy that I find repulsive. Every time he comes out to a press conference with that smug, snide expression he uses, it screams at me, "this is no man to trust".


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

mrjimmy said:


> Oh he'll agree to it.
> 
> Oh wait, he did. :lmao:
> 
> canada.com | Article


Your link is dead. The iintial proposal as reported by some news outlet was that Ignatieff had demanded that each update be put to a budget vote--that's what I was referring to. The budget already contained provisions for reports to Parliament on its progress, so the Conservatives just used Ignatieff's dates to mollify him--they gave him a tiny crumb to make his coalition disappear. 

Sounds like a great deal to me.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

chas_m said:


> Just a single data point on this conversation: one of my better friends in this area is a guy who was once an alcoholic and by way of that estranged his family, lost his house and business, and generally became destitute.
> 
> He lives on "welfare" and uses the money to pay for staple foods, a monthly bus pass and a dorm-sized room in a "residential hotel" (ahem). It doesn't cover anything more than that.
> 
> ...


I agree with you totally, Chas, and want to thank you for posting this. 
I become very weary of people who are all puffed up with their judgment and sweeping generalization about the welfare "bums". To suggest that even multi generational welfare families are living in some sort of permanent vacation paradise is to be completely divorced from reality. Let's try to be a little less small minded and cruel, and a little more empathetic.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

> But there is something about Iggy that I find repulsive. Every time he comes out to a press conference with that smug, snide expression he uses, it screams at me, "this is no man to trust"


This is precisely the reaction I have to Harper.

There is no shortage of opinions here...that's a good thing!


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

mc3251 said:


> *This is precisely the reaction I have to Harper.*
> 
> There is no shortage of opinions here...that's a good thing!


I have the identical reaction to both them...and an even worse reaction to Layton.

Iggy is far too arrogant and pompous, more so than Harper. Putting the current government on "probation", what great terminology for the leader of a morally and financially bankrupt party. We'll see how he does as a leader, but I don't hold much hope. 

I have a gut feeling we'll have summer elections.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

kps said:


> I have a gut feeling we'll have summer elections.


 Please, NO!!!
It's like being forced to go shopping in a little store with no selection and I hate all the merchandise. Over and over.
Talk about the 9th ring


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

mc3251 said:


> Please, NO!!!
> It's like being forced to go shopping in a little store with no selection and I hate all the merchandise. Over and over.
> Talk about the 9th ring


LOL, that about sums it up for me too...


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## tundraman (Oct 1, 2007)

ya know, I have been reading this forum for 2 months now and have to say that I have never seen such a bunch of elitist, snobish and out of touch members in my life. Are you all professors and civil servants? I am sure most of you have never ran your own business or had to survive without suckling the government tit. Anyone who supports raising taxes, namely the GST is living in a dream world, certainly not the real world. To be honest, I haven't read all the posts, the majority are so dry and boring that I can't force myself to plow through them. In short, are you all Mac users? If so, I may have to switch to a PC.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

tundraman said:


> ya know, I have been reading this forum for 2 months now and have to say that I have never seen such a bunch of elitist, snobish and out of touch members in my life. Are you all professors and civil servants? I am sure most of you have never ran your own business or had to survive without suckling the government tit. Anyone who supports raising taxes, namely the GST is living in a dream world, certainly not the real world. To be honest, I haven't read all the posts, the majority are so dry and boring that I can't force myself to plow through them. In short, are you all Mac users? If so, I may have to switch to a PC.


And you of course, being far superior to any of us here, choose to make your first post so friendly and eloquent.

Perhaps you should have taken the time to read all the posts to acquaint yourself with the substantial number of people here who fully agree with your views.

As a retired COO of a 165 member Canadian newspaper group with 2,600 employees, and currently part owner in two small business ventures, I have enough business acumen for my needs, thanks for asking. Welcome to ehMac.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"Are you all professors and civil servants? ... Anyone who supports raising taxes, namely the GST is living in a dream world, certainly not the real world." What does having to be a professor have to do with this issue? I am a university professor, and fought against the initial implementation of the GST.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

That's a lulu of a first post and clearly from someone who hasn't read the wide diversity of opinion on political matters here.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

JumboJones said:


> The way I see it, the tax credit will pay for the interest on my line of credit until it's paid off.


I hear you on that, fersure.


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## Max (Sep 26, 2002)

Macfury said:


> That's a lulu of a first post and clearly from someone who hasn't read the wide diversity of opinion on political matters here.


Best to charge in with the blunderbuss, I see. _Take no prisoners!_ Certainly an excellent way to command respect.

I particularly enjoyed the part where he casually confesses that he hasn't read most of the posts. Why water down an imperious tirade with mere facts?


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

consider...maybe it's Iggie nom de plume..


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## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I like the home renovation tax credit but I don't think I can afford to hire a contractor so what's the point? Saves me money but people are still unemployed. I might hire a plumber to put in a bathtub that's about it.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)




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## JumboJones (Feb 21, 2001)

dona83 said:


> I like the home renovation tax credit but I don't think I can afford to hire a contractor so what's the point? Saves me money but people are still unemployed. I might hire a plumber to put in a bathtub that's about it.


Who can "afford" it? I can't, it's going to be on my credit line until I can absorb it into my mortgage when it comes up for renewal. And maybe those that can "afford" renovations without loans will throw more cash into the system. Money has to go in if anyone is going to get money out.

If we only give tax breaks on things that people can "afford" everyone will be working at Tim Horton's because they will be the only ones in demand.

And how do you know that the plumber you hire isn't going to be the same one others hire? Soon the company they work for may need to hire someone else to complete the jobs they've been hired for.

Giving Canadians incentive to spend helps the economy more than handouts to keep companies afloat.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

JumboJones said:


> Giving Canadians incentive to spend helps the economy more than handouts to keep companies afloat.


I agree with this, and with the basic thrust of the home reno tax credit. Quebec has also announced a renovation tax credit. And there are various incentive programs (federal, provincial, utilities...) for energy-efficiency retrofits. All together, they should be incentive enough for me to borrow/spend a small fortune this year.

But I can't help seeing it all with a somewhat cynical eye. It's already hard enough to find a reliable, competent, licensed, insured contractor who isn't booked solid. Now we have to find one who's all of the above, plus honest enough not to jack prices as a way of getting a bite of our tax credits. (As if the added business wasn't enough.) A tall order.


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## arminia (Jan 27, 2005)

Trevor the farmer was in the fertilised egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets' and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to fertilise the eggs.

The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so Trevor could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells.

The farmer's favourite rooster was old Jacob, and a very fine specimen he was too. But on this particular morning Trevor noticed old Jacob's bell hadn't rung at all! Trevor went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to farmer Trevor's amazement, Jacob had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Trevor was so proud of Jacob, he entered him in the lpcal county fair and Jacob became an overnight sensation among the judges. 

The result was the judges not only awarded Jacob the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly Jacob was a politician in the making: Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Do you know a Politician called Jacob?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Yeah, I had one of those government home energy inspections and I could get a $400 credit for replacing a boiler that was already 92% efficient with one that was 94% efficient--but I had to shell out $6000 for the unit. Great deal!


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)




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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

It is pretty embarassing to watch Harper spend borrowed money on this non-stimulus package. I heard Rush Limbaugh the other day using the term "pork-ulus package" in reference to the Obama non-plan and I thinkk the term is apt.

You want to create spending stimulus? Give each Canadian a pre-loaded debit card that will expire in six months if not used.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

...and congratulations for joining and lurking since October 07. We all value your contribution. Given the awe inspiring quality of your first post, I wait with bated breath for the next.
Welcome to ehMac.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> It is pretty embarassing to watch Harper spend borrowed money on this non-stimulus package. I heard Rush Limbaugh the other day using the term "pork-ulus package" in reference to the Obama non-plan and I thinkk the term is apt.
> 
> You want to create spending stimulus? Give each Canadian a pre-loaded debit card that will expire in six months if not used.


What should even be more embarrassing for Harper supporters who aren't decrying his abandonment of every so-called economic principle he has ever championed, should be the knowledge that the man is only doing this as nothing more than a tactic in clinging to power.

Those who still support Harper are doing so based on the knowledge that he hopes to never have to deliver on what his budget promises and that he's basically lying to the public as he flails about to find a way to turn the current situation to his advantage and someday, some way, gain his majority government prize. In that event he would surely reverse course and anyone who isn't hard-right and voted for the Cons will have been suckered. This is what those who still support Harper are counting on, that he's pulling a bait-and-switch con. His budget window-dressing is only the blue sweater-vest du jour.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GA: I would rather Harper cling to power and stay in office--and lie about spending money that won't actually be spent. Better than Ignatieff who wants to spend even more.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Your link is dead. The iintial proposal as reported by some news outlet was that Ignatieff had demanded that each update be put to a budget vote--that's what I was referring to. The budget already contained provisions for reports to Parliament on its progress, so the Conservatives just used Ignatieff's dates to mollify him--they gave him a tiny crumb to make his coalition disappear.
> 
> Sounds like a great deal to me.


Seeing that Ignatieff was never "for" the Coalition - and used the Coalition in order to shove his "leader" Dion, off the cliff, really, he'll take any crumb in order to make distance between himself and Layton. Ignatieff knows how to play hardball - and that includes not making cracker-jack deals with buffoons like Duceppe and his circus minions, especially since the buffoons were not prepared to form a proper and legitimate Coalition immediately after the Election (either to run on some kind of Coalition platform, or to put one together prior to the swearing in of the new Government).

Ignatieff is no Dion - as evidenced by the fact that Ignatieff does have a brain, which is the main difference. Dion was so bad that the Liberals went up in the Polls 8 points simply by Dion not being leader anymore... beejacon


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

MacDoc said:


> Hardly perfect - still the anti-science Bush style crap slipped in
> 
> Just when Canadian tech is critical......
> 
> ...


Considering that Canada has been at the loosing end of innovation ever since the Edison's high tailed it out of Upper Canada for greater opportunities south of the border - this is nothing new at all.

We do not know the actual details, like was Genome Canada actually something that was doing science, or was it just a colossal waste of time and cash, like the KAON Factory was? One can not say with any certainly is this organization was actually doing anywork, or if it was some kind of coffee klatch like the Centers Of Mediocrity program was.

The list of useless government research ventures is epic, and I would be more surprised if the Genome Canada thing no one has ever heard of actually did any real work, since fake research projects outnumber real research projects in this country - especially when subjected to the Anti-Midas Touch that the Government has at one of it's superpowers: along side the superpower ability to vapourize large amounts of taxpayers money in a nanosecond, and to leap large buildings after examining the situation with five Royal Commissions, twenty seven consultants reports, two large scale scandals invoing members of the Cabinet, and forming a Crown Corporation to build the appropriate White Elephant to do the actual leaping of the building (a building that they probably lease from a Paul Martin croney in the first place).


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> GA: I would rather Harper cling to power and stay in office--and lie about spending money that won't actually be spent. Better than Ignatieff who wants to spend even more.


Well summed up. 

So are Harper's means, such as promoting policies that he doesn't like only to retain power, always justified by his noble hard-right aims? Is his pursuit of his majority, through hook or crook, what we should want in a PM? Is it OK as long as most voters aren't on to his duplicity?


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GA: I take issue with depicting Harper as hard-right. He's really quite squishy ad I doubt he could pass a hard right bill to save his life. 

However, if he actually delivers the "porkulus" package, I would say that his pursuit of power at all costs could be deemed ignoble in my opinion.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> GA: I take issue with depicting Harper as hard-right. He's really quite squishy ad I doubt he could pass a hard right bill to save his life.
> 
> However, if he actually delivers the "porkulus" package, I would say that his pursuit of power at all costs could be deemed ignoble in my opinion.


Well, I guess hard-right can be relative. Since I don't believe his fuzzy, soft & squishy packaging in sweater vests and such, I would judge him to be hard-right relative to the other political choices. Maybe in relation to YOU, he's not hard-right, though.  That makes ME pretty much Karl freakin' Marx, compared to you. 

I judge Harper by the statements he made before he was PM, and definitely before he became Conservative leader, which was before he was trying to modulate his political stances to grab votes from the centre. He may not be able to pass a hard right bill, but that's the political circumstances he's dealing with, not that he wouldn't want to pass the hardest of hard righty legislation if he only could. It's interesting that his mentor, Tom Flanagan, is criticizing the budget though. Now there's a guy who's a dedicated right-winger. Maybe he sees something in Harper that's changed, the pinko bureaucratic culture of Ottawa is eating away at Steve's conservative soul ...

If one judges him by the new budget, he's making Chretien and Martin look hard right, but of course I think this budget is only a cloaking device and a tactic. He still has his eye on that majority government prize, although his Fiscal Update blunders before Xmas pushed that prize far further from his grasp.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

Many of us are to the left of Macfury  

I think Harper would like to be hard right if he could, but Canadians are a pesky lot that way. We tend towards the squishy center, and we get worried and offended by extremists of all stripes.

I agree with GA though...I think that his real agenda is to get the majority government. If he thought donning a pink tutu and adopting the Koran as government policy would get him there...he'd do it.

Much of the budget will never be spent-it's either a bad deal (like MFs water heater example), or individual line items and projects won't qualify. I really like the debit card idea although I'd want to make sure that I could use it at the Apple store :heybaby:


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

I didn't see the specifics of the "debit card idea" but if you're talking about a "tax refund card" that had to be used within a year, that's a fine idea.

I've been following the disastrous US bailout (though one could argue things would be worse now without it, bad as it is) and have been wondering exactly what dollar figure would be high enough that we could convince the gov't that it would be a better idea to just rent a helicopter and throw money out of it all day.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Maybe in relation to YOU, he's not hard-right, though.  That makes ME pretty much Karl freakin' Marx, compared to you.


Thank heaven you have no ambition!



GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I judge Harper by the statements he made before he was PM, and definitely before he became Conservative leader, which was before he was trying to modulate his political stances to grab votes from the centre. He may not be able to pass a hard right bill, but that's the political circumstances he's dealing with, not that he wouldn't want to pass the hardest of hard righty legislation if he only could. It's interesting that his mentor, Tom Flanagan, is criticizing the budget though. Now there's a guy who's a dedicated right-winger. Maybe he sees something in Harper that's changed, the pinko bureaucratic culture of Ottawa is eating away at Steve's conservative soul ...


Harper has already been co-opted by the Ottawa culture. I’ve watched enough of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed go in there and come out looking like something from _Yes, Minister!_ As hopeful a body of statements any pol makes while in academia, they rarely maintain anything near that sense of intellectual purity.




GratuitousApplesauce said:


> If one judges him by the new budget, he's making Chretien and Martin look hard right, but of course I think this budget is only a cloaking device and a tactic.


I think he just looked at what he knew a “coalition” of Liberal/NDP would spend and cut that in half. I credit him for saving us from that under any pretense. 




mc3251 said:


> I really like the debit card idea although I'd want to make sure that I could use it at the Apple store :heybaby:


Most of the economy is driven by consumer spending. If you divided the deficit spending by the number of taxpaying adult Canadians, you would see that thousand bucks wouldn’t be out of the question.



chas_m said:


> I've been following the disastrous US bailout (though one could argue things would be worse now without it, bad as it is) and have been wondering exactly what dollar figure would be high enough that we could convince the gov't that it would be a better idea to just rent a helicopter and throw money out of it all day.


I really doubt it would have been worse. This is a coalition of ninnies, Bush and Obama, throwing money at it without a hint of understanding of what they’re doing. And it all has to be done with speed, speed, speed! No time to look, no time to check, no time to examine!


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Macfury said:


> ...
> I really doubt it would have been worse. This is a coalition of ninnies, Bush and Obama, throwing money at it without a hint of understanding of what they’re doing. And it all has to be done with speed, speed, speed! No time to look, no time to check, no time to examine!


Realistically MF - *no one* of any political stripe or economic school has any idea of what they are doing with regards to a large and complicated thing like a world economy.

The same people who failed to predict these dire times (on all sides) are now trying to predict their duration AND guide us out of them. It does not inspire confidence... or at least it should not - if anyone is thinking too closely about it.

I believe we would do just as well with a large "Magic 8-Ball" (TM) the guidance and predictions would have just as much validity AND it would not enslave us to one political ideology or another (except maybe the Rhinos... who would probably just want to keep shaking it).  Now, ironically THAT should inspire hope/confidence - the times will change, no matter who is at the helm or what they think they are doing.


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## PenguinBoy (Aug 16, 2005)

Macfury said:


> I really doubt it would have been worse. This is a coalition of ninnies, Bush and Obama, throwing money at it without a hint of understanding of what they’re doing. And it all has to be done with speed, speed, speed! No time to look, no time to check, no time to examine!


Agreed - when you are looking at throwing ~2% of GDP at a problem you want to think things through first.

There were some interesting Op-Ed pieces on how we got into this mess: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhorn.html, and some things that can be done about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/opinion/04lewiseinhornb.html.

I think the solutions proposed in these articles make more sense than just tossing buckets of cash at the big banks so they can hoard it. For example:


> THERE are other things the Treasury might do when a major financial firm assumed to be “too big to fail” comes knocking, asking for free money. Here’s one: Let it fail.
> 
> Not as chaotically as Lehman Brothers was allowed to fail. If a failing firm is deemed “too big” for that honor, then it should be explicitly nationalized, both to limit its effect on other firms and to protect the guts of the system. Its shareholders should be wiped out, and its management replaced. Its valuable parts should be sold off as functioning businesses to the highest bidders — perhaps to some bank that was not swept up in the credit bubble. The rest should be liquidated, in calm markets. Do this and, for everyone except the firms that invented the mess, the pain will likely subside.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

MC: They used the Magic 8-Ball (TM), but every time they asked it a question it said: "Ask again later."

PenguinBoy: If one believes the government should intervene, then buying up the toxic assests alone would have sufficed--with a repayment plan over however many years would be required to pay the government back. Banks who failed to make the payments coud be liquidated far along the line, and their assets sold.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Thank heaven you have no ambition!












Aha! There you are wrong my friend! I've been slowly working on my grand manifesto, which I intend to publish under the title, "Das ehMack". It's already up to 3,785 pages, although it requires much editing.

My other ambition is to one day grow a fine beard like Mr. Marx. I would die happy as the owner of a beard like that.



Macfury said:


> Harper has already been co-opted by the Ottawa culture. I’ve watched enough of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed go in there and come out looking like something from _Yes, Minister!_ As hopeful a body of statements any pol makes while in academia, they rarely maintain anything near that sense of intellectual purity.


So is there no hope for a pure right winger in government? Will they have to inevitably give in to the pinkos?



Macfury said:


> I think he just looked at what he knew a “coalition” of Liberal/NDP would spend and cut that in half. I credit him for saving us from that under any pretense.


But if he was so right in his vision that was presented during November's big FU (fiscal update) shouldn't he have just stood his ground, stated his position straight up and dared the opposition to defeat his pure undiluted hard rightyness. Surely Canadians would have seen the wisdom of this and flocked to support the resolute and pure Harper. beejacon


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I've been slowly working on my grand manifesto, which I intend to publish under the title, "Das ehMack". It's already up to 3,785 pages, although it requires much editing.


Can't a man make a little profit?



GratuitousApplesauce said:


> But if he was so right in his vision that was presented during November's big FU (fiscal update) shouldn't he have just stood his ground, stated his position straight up and dared the opposition to defeat his pure undiluted hard rightyness. Surely Canadians would have seen the wisdom of this and flocked to support the resolute and pure Harper. beejacon


It wouldn't have mattered what Canadians thought at that point, because the coalition would have spent the money--and more--anyway, for the remainder of its unelected mandate.



GratuitousApplesauce said:


> So is there no hope for a pure right winger in government?


Not really. I think that successive governments in any system abandon reason and success for hope and fuzzy blankets, because it easier to keep the populace under control. Give them inferior health care and tell them it's free and it will make them much happier than less expensive health care that results in a better product. And they'll be dependent on it.

You can create reversals from time to time, but this eventually falls prey to the large bureaucracy which ensures that any such plan can be made to appear to fail. (E.g., cut the budget for parks, then watch the bureaucracy close all park washrooms as the first measure.)


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Macfury said:


> ...
> It wouldn't have mattered what Canadians thought at that point, because the coalition would have spent the money--and more--anyway, for the remainder of its unelected mandate.
> ...


Careful MF - unless you're referring to the same "unelected mandate" that our prime minister enjoys you are spreading the same disinformation that the media did nothing to correct the last time it got spread.

Parliament of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

eggman said:


> Careful MF - unless you're referring to the same "unelected mandate" that our prime minister enjoys you are spreading the same disinformation that the media did nothing to correct the last time it got spread.
> 
> Parliament of Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Yes, this seems to bear constant repeating — nobody directly voted for or elected a Prime Minister. There is no place on any Canadian ballot for voters to mark an X for PM. And Cons and their supporters like to call 37% of the vote going to the party's MPs a "mandate", but that surely abuses the meaning of the word.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

eggman said:


> Careful MF - unless you're referring to the same "unelected mandate" that our prime minister enjoys you are spreading the same disinformation that the media did nothing to correct the last time it got spread.


I'm referring to a mandate to spend a lot of money, something that Iggy and Dion think the public is demanding. The threatened coalition would be unelected, but act as though it had a mandate to spend money.


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Macfury said:


> I'm referring to a mandate to spend a lot of money, something that Iggy and Dion think the public is demanding. The threatened coalition would be unelected, but act as though it had a mandate to spend money.


There you go again MF - any hypothetical coalition would be *just as elected as the current government.*

As to their "mandate" to spend money - at least some of any hypothetical coalition (depending who made it up) would have likely promised to do exactly that to their electorate (those are the people that elected them in our parliamentary democracy... ). 

So in some ways they could - accidentally I grant you - keep more of their campaign promises than other governing groups.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

eggman: the indivdual MPs would have been elected, but with no mandate from the electorate regarding the policies of a coalition. We generally use the term "mandate" for majority governments.


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Macfury said:


> eggman: the indivdual MPs would have been elected, but with no mandate from the electorate regarding the policies of a coalition. We generally use the term "mandate" for majority governments.


'xactly MF - but what you're omitting - as are the people using the term "mandate" in any sense in the current situation (since we do not have a majority government - by your own definition this would be an incorrect or inappropriate usage). Some of the MPs (perhaps only 1 or 2) might have an electorate that you would yourself consider insane or irresponsible - who would have preferred those policies. Those 1 or 2 MP's would indeed have a mandate. The rest - were they to do the "honourable thing" would resign or cross the floor... but I think a mass movement like that would render parliament non-functional - though such a random outbreak of integrity would be fun to watch. 

I think the term has been thrown around too often and with too much drama in 0ttawa, and also in ehMacland. It is a charged and theatrical word... which of course is why it is being used - but I don't think we need theatre right now, do we?

If we all tried to use words like "elected" and "mandate" correctly within the context of our parliamentary system and thus raise the awareness of the general Canadian population starting with ehMac - when a politician says something so totally incorrect and self serving that it raises a thinking person's blood pressure by several points the public might see through it. Then maybe, just maybe we'd see some actual work being done on the hill instead of sound bites and posing.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I think we've reached the point where we understand the position of a Prime Minister and that this is not an elected position--although we also understand that the electorate has a general idea of who the person is who will "serve at the pleasure of Parliament" when the election is over.

A majority government can be given a mandate by a large portion of the electorate to do as it sees fit without much opposition. On the other hand, when two or three pipsqueak parties come together to form a government after a vote of non-confidence, the only mandate they have received is whatever policies they share that cross over each other on a Venn diagram.

An individual MP may have been given a mandate to do one thing or another, but they most often run on the party's platform, not their own. I expect NDP MPs to behave like ninnies when they take office, because this is what they were elected to do. I would not expect Liberals to take on these characteristics for the sake of a stab at coalition power.

I only accept Harper taking on the trappings of the current crop of porkulus Liberals if he ultimately fails to deliver the porkulus. Dion had dropped any pretense of fiscal restraint offered as a party platform and had already announced that the people had given the coalition a mandate to indulge in porkulus spending. While the NDP certainly campaigned this way, the Liberals did not.

A coalition is a legitimate exercise of a paliamentary system, but the people can't give any coalition a mandate, unless the parties run as a coalition. In this system, a mandate can only exist as part of the election process. There is a vital difference between what parties decide to do, and what they are elected to do.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> I think we've reached the point where we understand the position of a Prime Minister and that this is not an elected position--although we also understand that the electorate has a general idea of who the person is who will "serve at the pleasure of Parliament" when the election is over.


But it has been the current PM's practice to sow disinformation on that point and to plainly assert that he was elected by Canadians. He was elected in one Calgary riding.



Macfury said:


> A majority government can be given a mandate by a large portion of the electorate to do as it sees fit without much opposition. On the other hand, when two or three pipsqueak parties come together to form a government after a vote of non-confidence, the only mandate they have received is whatever policies they share that cross over each other on a Venn diagram.
> 
> An individual MP may have been given a mandate to do one thing or another, but they most often run on the party's platform, not their own. I expect NDP MPs to behave like ninnies when they take office, because this is what they were elected to do. I would not expect Liberals to take on these characteristics for the sake of a stab at coalition power.
> 
> ...


There are very few "mandates" that have existed in the sense of the majority of the voters marking an X for one party and its platform. I don't have time to dig up the numbers, but off the top of my head I would say a mandate from the majority is historically a very rare thing indeed, at least in the past few decades. Harper's government's have never even come close to having one.

In our system it is possible to get a majority of the seats in Parliament with less than 50% of the popular vote. This is quite common.

Canada will have governments for the foreseeable future that will not get real majorities or anything you could call a mandate. Likely those that get parliamentary majorities will not cross the 50% mark either. Governing as if you have the consent of the majority when you don't has been the hallmark of Stephen Harper's governments. The recent uprising has forced him to at least temporarily recognize that he never had a "mandate".


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GA: I agree that Harper has no mandate. It couldn't be said of Ronald Reagan, for example, that Americans weren't giving him a mandate to continue his presidency in his second term, as he had in the first.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> GA: I agree that Harper has no mandate. It couldn't be said of Ronald Reagan, for example, that Americans weren't giving him a mandate to continue his presidency in his second term, as he had in the first.


It is more common I think for US Presidents to get over 50% of the vote, because there is usually only 2 main candidates for the job and others usually get only a tiny percentage of the vote. But if Reagan had a huge mandate, Obama now has a pretty large one also. 

I agree with Eggman that the term is abused and is a charged and theatrical term. Figuring out if various politicians have enough political capital to take the actions they do is a very inexact pursuit. Polling can be helpful, but doesn't give the whole picture. Even though many Conservative voters would have been horrified if Harper had announced in October that he was going to release a budget like this, I would bet quite a few more are supportive of it currently, for a variety of reasons. Notably some Con supporters are being newly critical of Harper now and are saying that they didn't vote Conservative for this kind of budget. But Harper made the calculation that he could gain enough broad support with this or he wouldn't have done it.

Asserting that the coalition didn't have the political capital to take the actions they were proposing is only your guess, it may have been correct or not, but it is a guess on your part, not a fact.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Sauce: Reagan received 525 of 538 Electoral College votes in 1984. Obama is a piker next to that.

I don't think Harper's calculation is that he would receive broad support--only that he could knock off Iggy while paying lip service to it.

The coalition may have had political capital by some esoteric calculation--but polling suggests only some NDP members, and an even smaller percentage of Liberal voters--were pleased. I suspect they felt that they had an opening to do as they pleased. Dion wanted, oh so badly, to be PM for a couple of weeks. Layton just wanted to spend.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

> Dion wanted, oh so badly, to be PM for a couple of weeks. Layton just wanted to spend.


Layton would just like to win. It must get tiring being perpetually a bridesmaid.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Layton isn't even a bridesmaid. He's a spinster reading Harlequin romances.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Layton is too effete to be a bridesmaid. He really got chewed up last week on Charles Adler - so badly in fact that it wasn't even funny. And not even chewed up, he was basically mauled and molested by a pack of grizzly bears - and stands as the weakest political moment in Layton history.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> Layton is too effete to be a bridesmaid. He really got chewed up last week on Charles Adler - so badly in fact that it wasn't even funny. And not even chewed up, he was basically mauled and molested by a pack of grizzly bears - and stands as the weakest political moment in Layton history.


Charles Adler is a reactionary, Rush Limbaugh wannabe.

He's such a slime that he sucks up to politicians he interviews then later plays clips out of context to make it appear that they couldn't answer "tough" questions that he never posed during the interview. His technique is no different than the spoof interviews by the "special correspondents" on the Daily Show.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Sauce: Reagan received 525 of 538 Electoral College votes in 1984. Obama is a piker next to that.
> 
> I don't think Harper's calculation is that he would receive broad support--only that he could knock off Iggy while paying lip service to it.
> 
> The coalition may have had political capital by some esoteric calculation--but polling suggests only some NDP members, and an even smaller percentage of Liberal voters--were pleased. I suspect they felt that they had an opening to do as they pleased. Dion wanted, oh so badly, to be PM for a couple of weeks. Layton just wanted to spend.


Ahh, MF, I'm disappointed. If you had wanted to talk accurately about "mandates" why would you use a distorted measure such as the Electoral College totals? 

As you know it is a first-past-the-post system that can make small leads appear to be landslides. I'm not saying Reagan's vote total in '84 wasn't significant, just that the Electoral College total blows his 58% popular vote number out of all proportion. Reagan's first term was a more modest 50-odd percent of the vote, but again the EC total made it look like a massive landslide. In the US election just past Obama garnered over 52%, so he's in Reagan's 'hood as far as a "mandate" goes.

Whether the coalition had some political capital outside of their core constituencies is debatable. But at the time Harper left them no option but to either take a not-great option or just shut up and die. Harper's arrogance and misunderstanding of his own "mandate" led him to play chicken with the other parties in Parliament and directly led to the situation where he appears to be now playing the tune of the Liberals to hold onto power. The Master Strategist™ was unmasked as a bumbling fool.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Ahh, MF, I'm disappointed. If you had wanted to talk accurately about "mandates" why would you use a distorted measure such as the Electoral College totals? .


Because in the U.S. the fact that so many states support a candidate individually adds to that support and creates a greater sense of mandate. Witness the kvetching of the Democrats that Bush had no mandate because of the large number of states that did not support him.

In terms of popular vote, Obama is "Bush"-league regarding mandate.




GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Whether the coalition had some political capital outside of their core constituencies is debatable. But at the time Harper left them no option but to either take a not-great option or just shut up and die. Harper's arrogance and misunderstanding of his own "mandate" led him to play chicken with the other parties in Parliament and directly led to the situation where he appears to be now playing the tune of the Liberals to hold onto power. The Master Strategist™ was unmasked as a bumbling fool.


Clearly he had no mandate with the newly humbled Liberals. But as you recall, that coalition was in the making months before the election. Frankly, I was skeptical that Harper could pull his ass out of the fire of the past two months, but clearly he still is the master strategist.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Ahh, MF, I'm disappointed. If you had wanted to talk accurately about "mandates" why would you use a distorted measure such as the Electoral College totals?


Because that's his standard game. Move the goalposts around till you find some statistics that make you LOOK correct -- as long as you don't think about them too much.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

The Electoral College isn't distorted. It's just the Electoral College. If we look at individual votes, we don't attempt to decide if an individual voter was split 60/40 into a lukewarm support for a candidate. It's just a vote. Same for the Electoral College.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

chas_m said:


> Because that's his standard game. Move the goalposts around till you find some statistics that make you LOOK correct -- as long as you don't think about them too much.


I find MF to be an honourable and intelligent debater, who happens to be at the other end of the political scale from me.



Macfury said:


> Because in the U.S. the fact that so many states support a candidate individually adds to that support and creates a greater sense of mandate. Witness the kvetching of the Democrats that Bush had no mandate because of the large number of states that did not support him.
> 
> In terms of popular vote, Obama is "Bush"-league regarding mandate.


Now you're speaking of "sense" of mandate and that's all it is. If someone gets one more vote than the other guy in a few big states such as California, they can have the distorted appearance of a landslide, even though in fact there was no such thing. In Canada a party can win a large majority government with less than 50% of the popular vote and you'll certainly hear the media and the new governments talk about "landslides" and "mandates" but that doesn't make it fact either.

This nebulous mandate issue is getting old, because whatever it is, it's certainly open to much interpretation. I think it's safe to say that those on the plus side of 50% can at least claim the majority is behind them. This means a fair bit in a democracy.

You may have your opinion about Harper or Bush's, Reagan's or Obama's mandates, but those assertions obviously don't necessarily equal fact.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> You may have your opinion about Harper or Bush's, Reagan's or Obama's mandates, but those assertions obviously don't necessarily equal fact.


I suspect, Mr. Applesauce, that a lot of what we're slinging around here isn't fact!

I suppose we can agree on this: that there was no clear mandate for wild spending by a coalition, but in large part because we can't agree on an acceptable definition for a political mandate. If it's only another way of saying ballots, or electoral college votes, we may as well call them what they are instead of mandates.


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I find MF to be an honourable and intelligent debater, who happens to be at the other end of the political scale from me.


No, you're confusing him with SINC. A guy who comes from a very different perspective, but does all his own thinking, respects his opponents and exudes class.

MF is a political bag lady, rummaging through the trash of talk radio to find discarded Republicans and Libertarian talking points memos, which he then grinds down into a fine paste of hypocrisy for later consumption.

If I want to read discredited political philosophy, I'll visit Hannity's and Norquist's and Limbaugh's sites directly; the steam is fresher from the original source.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I don't think that resorting to personal attacks gets anyone anywhere.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I'll remind you chas that we have rules on EhMac. One of them involves refraining from personal attacks. Such rules are especially important to observe when we feel threatened, unhappy or angry--not just at moments that present no challenge to our emotions.


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## arminia (Jan 27, 2005)

Truth hurts eh?


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

chas_m said:


> No, you're confusing him with SINC. A guy who comes from a very different perspective, but does all his own thinking, respects his opponents and exudes class.
> 
> MF is a political bag lady, rummaging through the trash of talk radio to find discarded Republicans and Libertarian talking points memos, which he then grinds down into a fine paste of hypocrisy for later consumption.
> 
> If I want to read discredited political philosophy, I'll visit Hannity's and Norquist's and Limbaugh's sites directly; the steam is fresher from the original source.


No Chas I'm not confusing anyone with anyone and I stand by my statement.

I often disagree strongly with MF's political opinions, but I think he presents them respectfully and intelligently. I can respect people I disagree with politically, but even if I don't, calling them names would only speak to MY level of class, not theirs.


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## chasMac (Jul 29, 2008)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> I can respect people I disagree with politically, but even if I don't, calling them names would only speak to MY level of class, not theirs.


:clap:


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Getting back to the budget, this just in from CBC.com

"Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says he will allow four of his MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador to break party ranks and have a one-time-only protest vote against the budget on Tuesday night.

Liberal MPs Scott Andrews, Siobhan Coady, Judy Foote and Scott Simms have argued that they cannot support the budget because it singles out their province and robs it of an estimated $1.6 billion in federal transfer payments.

Ignatieff said that the "radical unprecedented" cut to transfer payments by Prime Minister Stephen Harper was made unilaterally, a move Ignatieff said weakens the federation.

Ignatieff said he met with Harper on Monday and asked him to "pause" the cut until they can come up with a reasonable solution. He said the prime minister said no."

Very wise on his part.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Interesting that the protest vote is being announced in advance. I think it would have worked better as a surprise.


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## FeXL (Jan 2, 2004)

This garners more headlines...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

FeXL: I meant as a headline grabber--if it happened without warning, reporters would be all over each other to find out how it happened.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"Interesting that the protest vote is being announced in advance. I think it would have worked better as a surprise." Our MPs and Premier were requesting that Harper put a one year moritorium on this change to the way the transfer of payments is hitting NL. The premiers of PQ, NS, PEI, NB and SK support our premier's request, but Harper said no. Thus, since Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff will not put this request in as an amendment, he is letting the NL Liberals vote no. The two other Liberal MPs from NL that will be voting yes, and thus, voting with their party rather than for their province.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

GratuitousApplesauce said:


> But it has been the current PM's practice to sow disinformation on that point and to plainly assert that he was elected by Canadians. He was elected in one Calgary riding.


Then it is also the practice that ALL PM's have sown exactly the same "disinformation" - well, except for MacDonald, who actually won three seats until running in multiple ridings was banned...



> There are very few "mandates" that have existed in the sense of the majority of the voters marking an X for one party and its platform. I don't have time to dig up the numbers, but off the top of my head I would say a mandate from the majority is historically a very rare thing indeed, at least in the past few decades. Harper's government's have never even come close to having one.


It has always been a very rare thing - absolute "mandates" have only been awarded to Diefenbaker Majority and to the first Mulroney administration - both cases where the "winning" party had more than 50% of the vote, as well as having over 200 seats, or over 67% of the seats in the House.

MacDonald had to cobble his support out of an alliance of the Conservative Party and the "new school" fraction of the Liberals (ie. the ones that didn't support Blake), though even in those days, MacDonald did not enjoy a "mandate" that you describe.

Absolute Majorities can only take place under certain circumstances.

In a bipartisan system like the US, it is either one or the other (or at least a balancing act), though this is not constitutionally bound, and in the past, other parties were preeminent, including the Federalists-Anti-Federalists and the Whigs that would become extinct in due course.

In a system that involves the neeed of a Majority through run-off elections, like in many European countries. Also in a system like in Australia, which has proportional representation and the voters also vote for their second, third, fourth, etc. pick - so that a Majority is more than likely.

In a system that requires alliances to be made to make a majority, before a government can be formed, like in Israel or Denmark.

Our system has none of those attributes - so it is time to stop fretting about "popular vote" because it all comes down to seat counts, and the party with the greatest number of seats is the party that selects the PM.



> Governing as if you have the consent of the majority when you don't has been the hallmark of Stephen Harper's governments. The recent uprising has forced him to at least temporarily recognize that he never had a "mandate".


What a load of bunk. The whole debacle had nothing to do with Harper or with policies - it was a cheap and nasty attempted putsch on the part of Dion. And that had little to do with Parliament, and more about the fact that Dion never had the confidence of his own Caucus and Party - with at least four major fractions entirely in opposition to him.

This is much like the fact that even though Joe Clark had the support of 68% of the Conservatives - he had less than 20% of the Caucus - and he attempted to submit himself to a leadership review in an effort to bull whip the Party back into line. Of course, it failed - just like Dion's attempt at a putsch entirely failed.

Dion's failure was less of Harper pushing him off the cliff, or of Dion gaining salvation from Layton - and more of Ignatieff and the other fractionals giving a good, sharp shove in the back, to get rid of the "problem" once and for all. And it worked, because Dion was wiped off the map and Ignatieff is now the head honcho. 

And don't think this didn't happen before - the political landscape is filled with such things over the years.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> I don't think that resorting to personal attacks gets anyone anywhere.


However, it is the exact fare requirement for the bus to Borfville...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"All six Liberal MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador voted against the budget. Four of them — Scott Andrews, Siobhan Coady, Judy Foote and Scott Simms — had argued the budget singles out their province and robs it of an estimated $1.6 billion in federal transfer payments. They said they would be breaking party ranks and opposing the budget in the vote.

The NDP clapped as the Newfoundland and Labrador MPs registered their nay votes while the Conservatives heckled them from across the floor."

MPs approve federal budget


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

chas_m said:


> No, you're confusing him with SINC. A guy who comes from a very different perspective, but does all his own thinking, respects his opponents and exudes class.
> 
> MF is a political bag lady, rummaging through the trash of talk radio to find discarded Republicans and Libertarian talking points memos, which he then grinds down into a fine paste of hypocrisy for later consumption.
> 
> If I want to read discredited political philosophy, I'll visit Hannity's and Norquist's and Limbaugh's sites directly; the steam is fresher from the original source.


chas_m, personal attacks and insults are not permitted on ehMac, you know this. Consider this a warning, that next time a vacation from ehMac will be issued.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

EvanPitts said:


> Our system has none of those attributes - so it is time to stop fretting about "popular vote" because it all comes down to seat counts, and the party with the greatest number of seats is the party that selects the PM.


Yeah, thanks for the lecture, but I do know how our system works compared to others. Political power and government comes down to seat count. A "mandate" means that the leader or government believes they have the consent of most people to implement their vision with little compromise or concern about what the opposition wants. Getting less than 50% of the vote and claiming a "mandate" is misleading.


EvanPitts said:


> What a load of bunk. The whole debacle had nothing to do with Harper or with policies - it was a cheap and nasty attempted putsch on the part of Dion. And that had little to do with Parliament, and more about the fact that Dion never had the confidence of his own Caucus and Party - with at least four major fractions entirely in opposition to him.


The "load of bunk" is your attempt to twist what actually happened. Using thinly veiled Nazi references such as "putsch" shows how you are trying to skew the historical facts of what happened. A putsch connotes a coup or violent overthrow. The coalition was nothing of the sort and is completely legitimate within the rules of Parliament. The over the top histrionics are simply tiresome.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Gratuitous: That's a pretty effete argument.


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## GratuitousApplesauce (Jan 29, 2004)

Macfury said:


> Gratuitous: That's a pretty effete argument.


Which one? In what way?


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## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

[deleted by user]


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## eggman (Jun 24, 2006)

Macfury said:


> Gratuitous: That's a pretty effete argument.





GratuitousApplesauce said:


> Which one? In what way?


GA I believe MF was using a particular vocabulary to make an attempt at humor based on your identification of a technique in the posting of EP earlier. Identical techniques (and vocabulary - but presented in German usually) were used by the National Socialists.



> Using thinly veiled Nazi references such as "putsch" shows how you are trying to skew the historical facts of what happened.


It is a pretty subtle attempt by MF with his single line and weighted word, but an attempt nontheless.

Don't encourage it or we'll be risking an interpretation of of the "Statement of Principles" in the form of a Sestina ... I think he might be THAT subtle.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

I also like the word _effete_!


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

I recall when Spiro Agnew called protesters "effete snobs". 

Still, back to the budget -- NL is really going to be hurting next year. Because we are a have province, we pay into the equalization fund, which is fine. However, we are not being allowed to choose the formula re the off-shore oil revenues as was promised to all resource-based provinces. All we want is the same as Nova Scotia and Alberta. However, the budget singled us out, which is why I am glad the 6 Liberal MPs voted against the budget. 

However, we still are out $1.5 billion over the next three years.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

I want to hear more about the subtle humor references of MacFury-I have totally missed something obviously.
Could someone patiently explain this to me? My brain is effete this morning.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

This was found on CBC.com

"Never the prime minister’s best friend, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams will be trying to parlay his province’s new "have" status into infrastructure improvements.

Going into the federal budget, at the top of his list may have been the $144-million cleanup of St. John’s Harbour. 

What the federal budget delivers:

- $1.9 million for wharf construction at the Belleoram Harbour."

Belleroam Harbour has a population of 500 people and they did not ask for this wharf construction money.

The top five projects were as listed --

Romaine Hydroelectric project (Quebec) - $6.5B 
Bruce A nuclear plant (Ontario) - $5.25B 
Eastmain project at James Bay (Quebec) - $5B 
Spadina subway Extension (Ontario) - $2.63B 
Clipper pipeline (Alberta) - $2B 


So much for being a "have" province.

PEI, a province with the population of less than the population of St.John's, received 4 times the amount of money that NL received.

What the provinces want, and what the federal budget delivered


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

But the main thing is that the 50 boats coming into Belloram in 2009 will have a nice wharf.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"But the main thing is that the 50 boats coming into Belloram in 2009 will have a nice wharf." Not quite, Drew. The Dept. of Ocean and Fisheries has revoked the fishing licenses of those in Belleroam. Most are moving out and looking for work in Alberta ........... where there are no jobs for them today.


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## DrewNL (May 23, 2005)

I was being extremely sarcastic on my wharf comment


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

I know, Drew, as was I. Still, the province has been hurt by this budget, in my opinion.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

More government white elephant projects. Not only do they want to construct a wharf in some place that no longer has any fishermen - they want to put yet another subway white elephant in Toronto, just to make Mel Lastman happy. Last I saw of that man was that he is back peddling shoddy furniture at cut rate prices, and advertises in the same time slots as Russell Oliver...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

EP, what hurts is that St.John's, with 20% of NL's population in the metropolitan area, wants to complete this water treatment plant. We could have really used the money that is going to a wharf that is not really needed to finish this project.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

DrG
Does your premier agree? Surely at this stage there is still some opportunity to influence this. It sounds both unfair and senseless.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Our premier asked that the equalization penalties be postponed for one year so that we could as least prepare for a loss of $1.6 billion in Atlantic Accord equalization payments over the next three years due to a low price for oil. Harper said no. Thus, we still have to pay into the equalization fund, since we are technically a "have province", but we have to include the expected royalties into our revenues, even though this price is decreasing. So, we have to pay in more than we are bringing in from the oil renvenues, and thus, go back to becoming a "have not province", but still pay into the equalization pool as if we were a "have province". Makes no sense to me.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Dr.G. said:


> I know, Drew, as was I. Still, the province has been hurt by this budget, in my opinion.


Not to mention that by the time these projects get off to a start, we'll be well into our second year of economic recovery or they'll still be in the environmental impact assessment stage. 

...and then of course, the cost will quadruple.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Good point, kps. This is why helping to fund the water treatment plant here in St.John's, which is nearing completion, makes more sense. It has been delayed due to the expansion of the project due to the number of new people moving to the St.John's metropolitan area from the rural areas that are dying.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

Maybe Danny can divert the wharf money...LOL

I'd like to know who will get the jobs resulting from these projects. What are the chances that the 58yr old GM assembly line worker who lost his job is going to get a labourer's job on that subway extension, or a job on a road crew? How about the white collar worker who lost his/her job due to this mess? From computer keyboard to a shovel...don't think so.

Perhaps this is "trickle down" job creation. The GM worker may get a $13/hr warehouse job vacated by a 20 yr old who did get an unskilled labourer's job on one of these projects.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Bearing in mind again that the overheated construction industry was relying on imported construction labour, spending money on large construction projects won't have a great effect on employment numbers.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Dr.G. said:


> EP, what hurts is that St.John's, with 20% of NL's population in the metropolitan area, wants to complete this water treatment plant. We could have really used the money that is going to a wharf that is not really needed to finish this project.


But that goes contrary to the whole concept of White Elephants. Need never creeps into the equation, well, except for the need to peddle some influence, or to purchase some votes. Based on pure logic, you are correct, the money should go to waste treatment facilities, but if it wasn't for the White Elephant - there would be no "money". It's not like they had a choice - build a White Elephant or build something that is needed, umm, which one do we do? No, the money either goes to a White Elephant, or is shovelled into studying the White Elephant, or shovelled into studying whether or not their should be a White Elephant. If it wasn't for the White Elephant - "money" would have to be "spent" elsewhere on some other White Elephant. White Elephant money can not be diverted to "worthy projects" - just like one can't go into a grocery store and pay with Canadian Tire Money...

If the Government had weened itself of the addiction to White Elephant - the nation would be a different place. Instead of chopping down giant forests the size of Newfoundland in order to print out their endless studies and reports - the GTA could have the best network of Bullet Trains ever. Instead, we have crummy public transit with highways entirely filled with cars, all because the addiction to White Elephant that has entire floors of buildings filled with the endless studies and reports, entirely useless and unused.

So in the case of Newfoundland - either the Government gets the go ahead to build a wharf as their White Elephant - or they go somewhere else (probably Quebec) to build some other overstudies, under utilized and perhaps entirely useless White Elephant. Nothing can save the waste treatment plant - such things can never be converted into White Elephants because, in the end, they serve a purpose - which goes against the entire doctrine of White Elephants...


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

EP, we might as well let the money go somewhere else, then. Put it where it is needed, with projects that have already been started and are on budget, or send the White Elephants elsewhere.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

kps said:


> Maybe Danny can divert the wharf money...LOL


He's a polician, therefore he can, but like the laws of thermodynamics, where things move towards greater entropy - the diverted money can only go to something more useless than a wharf, so long as it can peddle more influence or purchase more votes in rotten boroughs...



> I'd like to know who will get the jobs resulting from these projects.


Easy - more overtime for the existing workers, plus some summer jobs for the bosses children...



> How about the white collar worker who lost his/her job due to this mess? From computer keyboard to a shovel...don't think so.


Shovel work is excellent - great for the health as it is a paid workout, outdoors and lots of sun and fresh air (well, as fresh as it gets in The Hammer). The best job I ever had was digging ditches one summer because, really, if you are digging, the boss can't give you any grief, and I had the best possible tan. Plus, with white collar work, one has t odress up all swank every day - while buying clothes at the TSC is entirely adequate for ditch digging.

The second best job was mowing lawns - lots of air, lots of walking, no nights or weekends, and every rainy day off...


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Julius Caesar worked summers mowing lawns!


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

"Julius Caesar worked summers mowing lawns!" True, MF, until he told his partner, Brutus, that his mowing of lawns was of poor quality.

"This was the most unkindest cut of all." 

Paix, mon ami.


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

I came, I saw, I mowed! My summer job was excellent preparation for introducing civilization to the Gauls, err, umm, well, sometimes things don't work out as they should, because the Gauls are still quite uncivilized. At least in the day, the Gauls were cool, then it was all downhill after Charlemange. beejacon


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Once again, the minority Conservative government shows it's complete lack of any knowledge beyond "market good, edumackation bad".



> Petition in Support of the SSHRC
> To the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled
> We, the undersigned residents of Canada, wish to bring to your attention the following:
> 
> ...


Damn. This is why we need to pay more attention to Canadian politics...


M


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

^^^
How to calculate Parliamentary IQ:

Take the lowest IQ of any member of a Parliament
Divide by the total number of Parliamentarians
The result is the Parliamentary IQ

And what you pointed out is yet another example of the kinds of numbers one creates when you take a really small number, like 11, and divide it by a really big number, like 308.

Seriously - for years we have had Governments having "great ideas", like the Centers Of Mediocrity, or trying to fund research that will be profitable in the short term. So we end up with craziness and bad decisions, all in a quest to construct the biggest and most inflated white elephant possible. This simply demonstrates that the Government is maintaining the status quo when it comes to dain bramage.


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Thanks for the link, Mark. Very upsetting. Luckily, our local MP is from the NDP and is supportive of this petition.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

Better they should just defund the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

Macfury said:


> Better they should just defund the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council,


Can you imagine the White Elephants that can be erected with all of that cash? Yeah, we could have a Light Bulb Hall Of Fame in a town near you!

They could triple up on the number of redundant "studies", and stretch out important projects with endless environmental studies for four or five decades. They could also have Royal Commissions, but go big time with them, so that no political hack-wannabe would be without free luncheons.

They could also use that money to try to beat the olympic steak eating record now held by the dynamic duo of Cam Jackson - Garth Turner, because other counties should have a shot as being the steak eating capital of the universe - not just Halton.

I think I'd rather have them continue to spend the cash on universities, because I can envision just too much waste, payola, graft and special interests that the money would be used for instead.


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## mc3251 (Sep 28, 2007)

...and of course waste in the universities is unknown....


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## EvanPitts (Mar 9, 2007)

mc3251 said:


> ...and of course waste in the universities is unknown....


Universities build White Elephants all the time, but the Administration ends up spending so much time on Empire Building and Backstabbing that they just do not build White Elephants of the same level of quality and luxury that Government. But to think about it, and the waste I saw when I worked at the univerity - it's just a matter of scale, just that at least at the University level, there is a little bit of trickle down to people that are on staff, unlike the Government where the glad handlers carry the cash off to Monte Carlo...


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