Fish bicycle gets a flat tire

If they travel our roads.......use our infrastructure.then why not pay.
We pay when we travel to their country.

Hell we treat foreigners better than canadians so they are well represented.

a white male vs a refugee from any country who will lefties treat nicer.

If they get affirmative action programs then me thinks affirmative taxing is ok too.

Excellent, but the Status of Women should be cut completely; however, the five million cut to them is an important first step to their disappearance; they are a malicious program.

Same with the CCP - rather similar to the equally malicious Human Rights Tribunals. This notion of 'equality' is insidious, for it rests on a subjective perception of 'how was I treated' and this is impossible to deal with. And, it also operates within an assumption of identity - that all groups are identical, that all individuals and needs are identical. They aren't, and evaluations have to be made.

The infamous Egan case - where the courts found that the law did NOT violate the charter.

It's a great start. More power to Harper.

The femnists are always acting kind of rediclous i mean its them who oppose the whole idea of MOTHERS DAY

I'm almost speechless. After so many years of lobbying, lobbying, lobbying, writing letters, going to see my MP, calling the CBC, talking it up on the street (a very hard sell), etc., etc., I find I can barely believe that FINALLY someone's listening and, more important, is doing something to ensure genuine equality in Canada--which has to begin with levelling the playing field for everyone.

Status of Women and the Court Challenges Program stacked the deck in favour of feminists, socialists, leftists, multiculturalists, and, as ET points out, in favour of anyone who "felt offended": definitely "impossible to deal with," but when did that ever stop either group from being unfair to those who opposed, or at the very least, didn't support their initiatives?

Ding dong, the witch is dead!
Which old witch?
The Wicked Witch.
Ding, dong, the Wicked Witch is dead!!

We can all sleep a little better now...

Thank you, Prime Minister Harper and John Baird and the CPC government, from the bottom of my heart.

Canadians enjoy sales tax rebates on purchases made when travelling abroad ...or to the US.

So why should we be discouraging tourism by hosing the happy travelers who come here to visit?
It's like asking your dinner guests to leave a tip for the pleasure of your company.
Very cheapo / no class and not conducive to repeat visits.

I agree with the poster at top on the sales tax issue. I grew up in a small tourist town (3500) permanent residents, but during the summer we could have 150000 tourists in town on any given day. There is no way, without tourists contributing to infrastructure expenses through sales tax that the town could have supported the necessary additional police force, utility capacity, road maintenance, etc. A rebate would require some complex accounting with a suspect audit trail and probably more expensive processing and bureaucracy that it would be worth.

Also, I can't believe the Canadian government funds special interest groups. Can't activist organizations operate with private charity if their services are really valued by the community?

Oh my, a 5 million cut to the Status of Women, but, is it enough to force these hags into old fashioned bake sales for their survival? Probably not. Another 5 million in funds cut and Martha Stewart might be their only salvation. Here's hoping for a good laugh.

Well, I would expect that these harpies would have donated that $5 million amount to the international cause against Islamic stoning of women anyway. So sad. With their international empathy and commitment toward severely oppressed Islamic women now underfunded....oops, not one of their pressing issues, I forgot. Less money for Dykes on Bikes festivals and partial birth abortion campaigns, what a heartache for them after all they have contributed to NA society.

Cutting off their finacial oxygen, yes, let's do it, and see how long they exist.

I'm watching the report on CBC right now. It's boilerplate reporting:

1) The Feds are cutting funding to these programs.
2) [surprise!] There are groups that are against this.
3) [surprise] The opposition has some negative things to say about this.

A billion a year to the CBC for this crap?

I've been a snowbird for 15 years, Tells you how old I am. Could someone tell me who I can contact in the U.S. to get my sales tax back. After buying p.c's tv's furnitue and a lot of other big ticket items I would love to get all that tax back.
I truly didn't know I could get a rebate until todays postings. Thank you all, I just need to know who to contact.

Yeah!!! Remebere Thobani's comments after 9/11? Judy Rebick. If these women want to press their anti family anti male agenda, let them pay for it themselves. Cut the whole budget.

Yeah!!! Remebere Thobani's comments after 9/11? Judy Rebick. If these women want to press their anti family anti male agenda, let them pay for it themselves. Cut the whole budget.

Speaking ot that... The billion in savings could have come from cutting off the CBC.

The GST rebate program has been scammed big-time for years. Just Google "GST fraud" and you'll get pages and pages of hits. I'm sympathetic to the tourist town argument, but the tax has already been reduced to 6% and might be going to 5% if the Tories get a majority.

Yo Tom Penn: You're shocked that the Ottawa government has been funding radicals in order to undermine traditional values? You shouldn't be. It's also available in the USA, and was/is a particular specialty of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Your version is called the Legal Services Commission. It's served as a kind of development league for legalist radicals since the 1970s.

Other cuts include cutting the 9.7 million (my god) 'Canadian Volunteerism Initiative, which had the noble agenda of teaching volunteers how to volunteer. Shouldn't such a program be, itself, voluntary rather than tax-funded?

And 10.8 million cut to the first nations 'tobacco control strategy', presumably teaching first nations people how to control their cigarette consumption. Almost 11 million. Again, my god!

Cuts to the museum sector - John McAvity, who has been head of the Canadian Museum Association for about one thousand and fifty odd years, is stunned.

Status of Women, a piddly 5 million cut to their 23 million take from the taxpayer. I guess that will mean a few less grad students to do their research work. I assure you, the key ladies in that group won't cut their salaries or benefits.

The deadly Court Challenges Program, as pointed out, was stacked with hard core leftists, who used it blatantly to promote their agenda and denigrate the agenda of anyone with a different ideology. So much for Equality, which was supposedly the basic axiom of their agenda. No equality; just pure activism.

Slowly, slowly, we'll take back our country and our lives from the social engineers who have moved in to control us within their Animal Farm.

harper's spending cuts cost canadian women millions

"harper's spending cuts cost canadian women millions"

Didn't cost any woman I know a cent.

What "women," Jeff, would you be talking about?

As a woman who made the decision to stay home to care for my children, which meant living on a very modest family income and making lots of sacrifices--not ones that either my husband or I regret--I was treated like a nonentity by the NAC and SOW feminists. They harshly judged my "choice" to care for my own children, despite their insisting that they believed in "choice for women"--obviously only the choices they agreed with.

Neither the NAC nor SOW ever initiated programs or policies which would in any way benefit women other than those who toed feminist party lines such as abortion on demand, calls for government-funded universal daycare, which would benefit only women who worked outside the home, to name a couple.

Successive Canadian governments have been funding so-called "women's programs" for a very small, select, and elite group of feminists, who have made sure that their "pet" projects and favoured groups got the money they needed to continue their initiatives which in no way benefited the vast majority of Canadian women.

So please, Jeff, don't talk to me about CPC cuts to these groups "costing Canadian women millions." NAC and SOW programs have been costing Canadian women millions for almost 30 years--for very little return on our tax dollar. They've done a lousy job of representing or helping Canadian "women." Their constituency has been left-leaning, often lesbian, women-need-men-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle, feminists whose modus operandi has been, "if you don't agree with us, too bad and take a flying leap. We'll keep the government loot and to H*ll with you. Not only that, we'll put you down and accuse you of being 'anti-equality,' which means that you can never expect a penny from us. Ha, ha, ha..."

It's past time for them to go. The majority of Canadian women were never helped by their initiatives and perhaps that's about to change.

The cuts mentioned are a good baby step in the right direction. I was hoping for much deeper cuts to agencies like SOW and the permanent and irrevocable decontrustcion of the CBC. That alone will save almost another complete $1 billion. Nobody except the artsy fartsy chattering lefty elitists who contribute zero to the country will even notice the death of the CBC.

Maybe next time the cuts will be MUCH deeper and more meaningful rather than purely symbolic.

To get a gst refund an american had to spend a lot of money to get the minimum allowed. Most said it wasn't worth the hassle and besides, they got cdn money. Having worked in a duty free store, I know that no tourist wants to take back ANY cdn money, and would ask, what do you have for .28 or less. Some purchases were not eligable for the refund, and one had to have a receipt. Unless one was going to be here for at least a week, they never spent that much. And, of course, purchases in our store were tax free anyway.
Really happy the court challenge is gone. Wait for the libs to campaign on bringing it back. Special interest groups, you are on your way out. Political incorrectness, might be on the way in. Any cuts to the cbc this go round, or will they get the message and start telling the truth.

$5 M cut to Status of unhappy Women. This is just a cut to adminstration. How much more are we still spending?

I would like to thank Kathy and Kate for their invaluable contributions to the Anti-SOW campaign.

I know $5 million may not seem like a lot. But I suspect there's a lot more than meets the eye.

For one thing, the overall budget of SOW is $23 million or so. $10 million is the Woman's program which funds all the feminist projects-- they will still get their money.

BUT---

That means that of the $13 million leftover in the budget, $5 million will be cut.

That's about a 40% cut in operations. Maybe more if there's other expenditures in that $13 million.

So what looks like a wimpy cut may actually be a lot deeper than it looks.

With fewer bureaucrats, fewer offices, I suspect that it will only make it harder for feminists to get their money.

I have a hunch this is not the end of the cuts. Just a hunch. I expect that the department will be expected to do the same amount of work with less money, and if they can't....

They'll be cut again for being inefficient.

This may or may not be true. It's just a hunch I have.

Unless....

They give more money from the Woman's Program to fewer groups, which is another possibility-- less work, but also fewer feminist groups getting money.

Just a guess.

Maybe now the dinosaurs at SOW's will start getting the message that intolerance is not a good idea! Mom's are females too!

I went to the Law Commission of Canada website to see exactly what we are losing. Once you decode their message their reason for being is to make laws more acceptable to homosexuals and minority groups. Money well saved.

Thanks for the great news! This truly made my day! Great work on the blog-burst awhile back, all of you - it's helped catalyze a change that has been necessary for a long time now.

Great news!

Thnk you Suzanne, and all those who helped cut my taxes by cutting crap like this.

Suzanne, I greatly appreciate your efforts.

TPC: Lobbyists' Nirvana

Buckets of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Down with TPC.

Mr. Flaherty: Eliminate the TPC completely.

Cut personal income and corporate taxes by a minimum 25%, immediately. ...-

GOVERNMENT SPENDING
Ottawa takes a knife to TPC subsidy program

Will slice $42.2-million over next 2 years

SIMON TUCK AND STEVEN CHASE

TPC has been a magnet for criticism from those who believe corporate subsidy programs are inherently ineffective, particularly compared with simple tax cuts or other uses of public money.

TPC provides venture capital -- often described by government officials as "repayable loans" -- for corporate research projects.

When that research leads to a commercially successful product, the government collects a return through royalty payments on sales of the product.

When the research does not lead directly to a commercially successful product, taxpayers are left holding the bag.

As of June 30, TPC had committed $3.2-billion to 747 projects over the past decade. ...-
globemail

"If they travel our roads.......use our infrastructure.then why not pay.
We pay when we travel to their country."

So much for a friendly Canadian welcome and encouraging tourism, eh?

Let me tell you, tourists do pay for these things, notwithstanding any sales tax rebates.

In just about every country (Canada included) there are all kinds of hidden taxes and fees in flying into an airport, taking a train, renting a car, fuelling it up, staying at a hotel, eating out, etc., etc.

The sales tax refund was a small gesture aimed at encouraging tourism so eliminating it was an ungracious, miserly gesture - and poorly thought out.

A family drives up from Pittsburgh to spend a long weekend in Ottawa in order to see the Changing of the Guard.

That means hotels, meals, drinks, parking fees, museum admittance fees, gas and so forth.

And we're going to be so chintzy we won't let them get back a few bucks on stuffed moose dolls and T-shirts?

"It doesn't bode well for Canadian Heritage or pride."

Cut the crap, McAvity. Get a job, McAvity.

Go get your own money. ...-

John McAvity, executive director of the Canadian Museums Association, said he felt like he had been "stood up at the altar." He said the Conservatives promised during the election that they would increase funding for museums. And a Commons Heritage committee, chaired by a Tory, just last week tabled a report calling for just that.

"We've asked for $75 million per year, and instead of getting our increase we're getting a decrease," McAvity said. "It doesn't bode well for Canadian Heritage or pride. Museums are places where our achievements are showcased and broadcasted to the world." CP

This has made my day! Maybe the feminists will have to start working for a living, like the rest of us, rather than grabbing our hard-earned $ to push through their narrow, bigoted agenda. "Equality", my foot: I've never encountered such a group of swell headed, arrogant "back room boys" in my life. It'll be a relief to have a few less of these ugly--in more ways than one--harpies in our faces. 'Couldn't happen to a more deserving group!

Zut alors! Le bicyclette du poisson a un pneu écrasé! Bravo!

Haven't read the comments, but isn't the Court Challenges Program a source of funding for leftists to be able to hire lawyers to take crazy stuff to court and get leftist judges to make crazy rulings?

Even before I heard of the CCP, I knew that there had to be taxpayer dollars somehow being simply given by the Liberals to moonbats who wanted to get what they wanted no matter how strange what they wanted was.

Could the CCP have ultimately paved the way to SSM?

Heh... the Conservatives have done what they always wanted to do. This is a huge victory for all sane, intelligent Canadians over crazy leftwingnuts! :-)

Watch the little changes add up to a huge overall transformation of the state apparatus. We must put an end to radical, insane, left-wing social reengineering which robs innocent taxpayers of money just so a few extreme liberal folks can get what they want.

Yes, we must, bit by bit, roll back the insanity the Liberals thrust upon Canada during their terrible regime.

The beauty of it is there's no loss to the Conservative's, SOW's never voted for them anyway. No excuses. If something is not for the common good it should not come from the Public Purse.

These guys are good! There is enough cutting for the average Joe/Jane taxpayer to see just how much is being wasted. The average Canadian will remember this next election and then watch out. With a majority government PMSH can really improve government efficiency and sacred cows like CBC and Indian Affairs will feel the pain.

If the taxes come down enough I might even move back to enjoy my golden years.

... isn't the Court Challenges Program a source of funding for leftists to be able to hire lawyers to take crazy stuff to court and get leftist judges to make crazy rulings?

Yes, but, according to TorStar, it's used for "legal actions by gays and human rights advocates." You see, the poor widdle babies can't pony up their own money.

I love metrosexual Jeffie's post: harper's spending cuts cost canadian women millions. By that logic, I've lost millions over the years, seeing as I've never been funded.

"Mississauga Matt":

Yes, my wife's just furious!

She was counting on that money to put a down payment on a house in Niagara-on-the-Lake!

When Mulroney's conservatives left office in 1993 the annual deficit was close to $50 billion. Thank smiling Brian for the GST.

After 15 years of Liberal rule a surplus of nearly 15 billion exists. Make no mistake 7 months of CPC rule did not create the surplus, they are merely benficiaries of Liberal governance and taxpayer sacrifice.

Texas, ex-patriates like yourself are not welcome back just because of monetary reasons.

David Brown;
" ex-patriates like yourself are not welcome back just because of monetary reasons"

Too bad , I hope Iggy, and Big Al Galigano are cool with this.

"When Mulroney's conservatives left office in 1993 the annual deficit was close to $50 billion. Thank smiling Brian for the GST"

When Mulroney took power the deficit was way larger than that.And the number one reason for all these surpluses?The gst.

Not to mention the fact Martin and the lieberals way of eliminating the deficit was cut billions in health care,make it harder to collect e.i.,reaping huge surpluses and putting that money into general coffers for stuff like,you know,sponsorship scandal,useless duck registry(note sarcasm),hrdc boondoggle,and the list goes on.

David, have you considered that much of the prosperity resulting in the surplus was the result of NAFTA and subsequent influx of industries and jobs, not necessarily sound Liberal fiscal policy?

Harpers' cuts cost women? Not all women. He's probably saved us billions in indirect costs.

Here's hoping he's nowhere near done. Hopefully he goes after the Foundations mentioned by the AG in her /05 report.

Quit giving the libranos credit for the surplus. A lot of the cuts just made are from money not being spent that was budgeted for. Had martin won, the money would have been spent, on paper anyway, but in reality the surplus would have disappeared into brown paper bags. It is the law that all surpluses at the end of a fiscal year must pay down the debt. Whiners quit saying this money could be better spent. It couldn't be. That is the difference in an honest government, led by an economist instead of a lawyer leading crooks.
Even in a leadership race, to clean up the image of the libranos, they can't stop reminding us of how unethical they are. And it is scary that about 3-5 thousand canadians will vote for one of these upstanding men and try to tell us they have changed. Who leaked the lists, or set up sites, and could that be the reason certain people have dropped out, they got caught. Notice none of them want Joes support. Wait for him to sabatage someone in Dec, by a press conference saying he supports ?. The interest saved on 13B will pay for lots of tax cuts and increase the surplus next year.

David Brown illustrates the economic illiteracy that produces liberals.

Thanks for the example. I can now point to your post when I want to tell my friends what stupid looks like.

Good, good, good. All good. It's a start. And I love how it's being handled.

Although I'd rather have direction taxation cut, using the surplus to pay down the national debt is a great move, given they are a minority government. None of the socialist teat suckers can argue that it should be given to them rather than pay down the debt. And the billion dollar cuts are overlooked as noise :-)

And the court challenge program killed, with nary a whimper. VBG.

Hey Texas Canuck, don't you also appear on Tim Blair?

Mr. Brown,
Please let me know where in the great white north you live because I wouldn't want to accidently move into your neighbourhood and ruin your day.

By the way, I've served my country, paid more than my fair share of taxes including CPP so I think I am more than entitled to come back and collect. If you must know, it was the tax man that made it necessary for me to head south. I wasn't up for a Cretien government job so I couldn't get my back taxes forgiven. Paid every red cent myself although I could have taken the easy way out and collect welfare and play basketball on those fancy GTA courts.

Texas,

Let's put it this way. I live in Canada, that puts every neighbourhood on your 'not to live in list'.

If you leave for monetary reasons then your motive is greed.

Your attitude towards the Chretien government is just plain sour grapes. Serving in our military is noble but it is not redemption or an excuse.

Buck up boy, be a proud Canadian and stop your belly aching!

Hey Brown,

I know a lot of people who have gone overseas and to the US to make some cash before returning to Canada.

Exactly what is wrong with this?

My Girlfriend has taught in several countries before coming back to Canada.

It really is none of your damn business (or anyone else's) if a Canadian goes off to earn some money, see the world, experience what they want.

The desire to make some cash is what separates the conservatives (who pay taxes) from the liberals (who sponge off them.)