“As I said before; they have real options, a real chance to outflank the conservatives…”
43 Replies to “Indeed”
So true; Laurier would approve! And what a wasted political opportunity. If Iggy had but veered center-right in 2009, they’d have painted Canada red in more ways than one by now. Between that and Iggy’s adoption of the CPC’s idiotic and evil pandering to the War on Drugs, which is another huge missed opportunity for the Liberals, I must wonder how much the CPC pays this guy to suck so bad.
Is it not a bit unseemly to have a former Prime Minister (no matter how inconsequential) remark that the whole world is f****d?
The Liberals did it to themselves when they forgot the 19th century liberalism and embraced Marxism.
Ken (Kulak)
Yup, now if only the Conservatives would remember who they are?
“The Liberals did it to themselves when they forgot the 19th century liberalism and embraced Marxism.” agreed Ken.
I have wondered for a long time what “Liberal” had to do with liberalism.
The very people that believe in evolution to a “T”, never seem to evolve themselves, those being Lieberals. They have gotten so used to lying and stealing, with the willing accomplices in the moronic stream media covering up for them, they failed to notice the great truth purveyor called the internet and blogs, sticking them in the ass, being like millions of Magnum P.I.”s all over the place finding and posting the truth. Sucks to be so stupid doesn’t it Iggy, when your sychophants think your so smart.
“As former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna whispered to former prime minister Paul Martin halfway through debate on one of the intractable problems…”
full points Frank, thanks for not fudging when it counts. and to read that Don Martin too, doesn’t see much of substance, well it’s nice to see the Liberals not all dolled up for once…
related? I read that Stephan Harper has mentioned that in the next election, he’s going to include the canceling of more of the government funding for electioneering, in the Conservative campaign, that’s ok with you Iggy? … Iggy? hahaha.
For decades now I have been saying: “Ben Franklin and Tom Payne were considered to be liberals in their time. If they were liberals so am I. Unfortunately what has come to pass for liberalism in these times is a mental disorder characterized by an absolute refusal to face up to or deal effectively with any unpleasant reality. I’m sure I’m not the only liberal voting Conservative.
I went back in a time machine and told Canadians that one day, the Liberal Party would be very worried about the weather becoming too warm, and they laughed and laughed, and said I must be making stuff up.
Then I told them about the gays getting married in church.
Eighty-four years ago, 1926, my family came to Canada after escaping the Soviet paradise and voted Liberal. It occurred to me while reading Kate’s “As I said before” thread opening and the comments to this point, that somewhere along the line, starting about forty years ago, the voting habits of my family changed and now almost all of them, there are a few hundred descendants, now vote Conservative and hold their noses when a Progressive Conservative is the choice.
A few minutes ago I asked my wife about her family and the story is identical. They also voted Liberal after 1923 when they arrived, but now vote Conservative.
Both family’s morals and values regarding freedom of the individual and lifestyle have not changed. So what has changed?
The guy is mentally deficient, his idea to renew “the party” well more social spending! ‘Cause vote buying always works.
McKenna is very perceptive, the Liberals are f****d, to quote a Newfie chestnut,”the arse is out of ‘er”. Paul Martin on the other hand is wrong to include the world in that box, it’s only his Liberals and he was a big part of the downward spiral.
Even the Liberal decision to meet in Montréal sent a tired old message of its own about being stuck in the past.
Why not a bold move like meeting in Vancouver?
Or Calgary?
Out flank the Conservatives?
Someone is having a General Wenke moment.
The yapping dorks at CTV are pimping the notion of Layton’s ND’s and Iggy’s Libs singing the same tune on a number of issues in the future.
Wedding of Marxists and Socialists.
The other shoe to drop will be joining Duceppe’s outright communists, in Quebec.
Geez, we have already witnessed that scenario, have we not?
In order to “outflank” the CPC the (small government)Liberals would have to repudiate and dismantle Trudeaupia.
It’ll never happen.
Their entire game plan is based on identity politics(divide and conquer) and they can’t play that game without big government.
Ignatieff’s description of a liberal is quite different. Here is his take on it:
“Before it became a political label, ‘liberal’ was a synonym for ‘generous’. A liberal helping on a plate was a generous helping. ”
That explains why being a Liberal in Canada includes taking a generous helping for oneself.
The Liberal Party is not Liberal in the classic sense and hasn’t been in living memory if not longer.
There seems to be this chronic Bit(h that the CP is not acting conservative enough. To those who think so, please inform me (us) what specific policies you would put forth AND eXplain how you stay in power.
Unlike the American system where a POTUS and all other elected representatives are able to speak independently and vote independently without fear of having their mandate terminiated. They can even be defeated on a spending bill without losing power. Canada’s ruling party, especially one in a minority circumstance, does not have that luxury.
Look at it this way – the US is like a flotilla of small boats all heading in roughly the same direction. Some boats can radically chAnge course without fear of sinking all of the others. In Canada a ruling party is one battleship full of MP shells all below the waterline. These shells have to remain stable – any radical changes if course could cause them to shift and hit a detonator piercing the hull or possibly blowing the whole ship to smithereens.
What Canada needs is a EEE senate where individual members can speak independently without worry of damaging the mandate of the ruling party.
Gord, that works well until everybody demands a big payoff for each vote.
The Wikipedia definition of liberal is something that one can easily subscribe to.
It is too bad that even conservatives are way past that post.
As always, the politicians in their exhaustion of hot air, not knowing what comes out of their collective mouths, shift the meaning of words.
You have the socialists that want to run not only peoples lives, they want to decide on running of the unfree enterprise. That is fascism.
You have Liberals that want to give away the money they extorted from working people and give it to those that could not get out of bed in the morning.
You have Conservatives that are working on catching up with the Liberals.
What Gord Tulk and Lev said, in spades!
Yep, there is not a single party in Canada that holds true to classical liberalism. The CPC have turned into high spending, Quebec-bribing, big government lackeys. Even reformers like Preston Manning have discarded the idea of reduced taxes/small government and replaced it with pollution pricing (weasel words for carbon taxes) and green conservatism.
LCB: I agree that mr. Manning seems to have lost the plot somewhat. I think he sees it as an attempt to factor in the cost of environmental impacts caused by commercial activity.
I think he would be better off pushing for better and stronger property rights so those whose property is environmentally damaged by the activities of someone else have legal recourse to be paid for that impact. (of course a good strlarting point would be to have the constitution grant us property rights as we currently have NONE – thanks PET)
Conservatives have similar problem with often being dominated by neo-conservatives which is totally different set of ideas. That’s for example why so many (neo-conservatives) on “the right” dislike Sarah Palin, that’s why CPC is in the business of big government.
I’m with you Cooper on the “unseemly” language by our elder statesmen, and will be scoffed at, even here for being too sensitive. After all, didn’t the V.P. of those United States not use the same expression? Perhaps it indicates the cynicism and disrespect the left has for the citizenry, their traditions and their mores. Trudeau was very good at it too, and is to be emulated I guess. Keep it in the smoked filled backrooms where it belongs.
Walter F: the kind of corruption of which you speak is far more prevalent and likely in the american system where vote blackmail is rampant. A case in point is the Stupak 11 who sold their political souls – and the real thing possibly – by voting for the HC amendment and thus abandoning the prolife cause for 5.4 billion in earmarks for their districts.
Lcb pt2:
The cpc has decreased and continues to decrease discretionary program and dept spending. It has also reduced taxes (and more reductions are on the way) which limits them and presumably any successor party from increasing spending. They also reinstated transfers to the provinces for program spending that is in provincial juristiction – transfers that were cut by the libs so they could brag that they balanced the budget. (in time those transfers will be replaced by tax cuts that provinces can infill with provincial tax increases (if they have the guts to increase them) )
The stimulus package was part of a G20 agreement to spend 2 (or was it 5?) percent of GDP on the economy without offsetting tax increases. Would you have not done that? Would you have been the lone man out when all the other naions were insisting on it? What do you think the LP and ND and BQ have done about it? (and as I and others predicted, much this spending is about to be retracted – witness the dramatically lower (and unreported by the MSM) deficit numbers.
As for the Quebec pandering – there is some validity to that argument. However it is far less than under the LP and the CP is patiently waiting for two things:
1. Seat additions in ONT and western Canada that will greatly reduce QCs clout and thus it’s ability to extort.
2. The tax/transfer shuffle noted above. Once that’s in place, expect the cp to rejig the equalization formula to include uncollected revenues by crown corps (reAd MB and QC power selling electricity for less than the market rate) this would reduce qcs equalization transfer by between 5 to 7 bb and give Ontario a few billion more.
In conclusion. The cpc And specifically PM Harper have taken the incremental approach to making Canada a more conservative and ipso facto a better country. They are succeeding. This success will enable the cpc to continue and indeed accelerate the process especially if a majority mandate is obtained.
Know this – Stephen Harper may be the most conservative person in the country – passionately so. So determined is he to succeed that he is prepared to be patient and plodding about it and face the slings and arrows from the right – from some of closest allies in fact. That takes courage. And it is what makes him the greatest PM I Canadian history.
Fuddle duddle.
I like the gist of that blog post. The neo-liberal “problem” starts here:
“It more or less admitted yesterday it has no ideas and no idea how to pay for them if it had them.”
Like a boring sitcom that gets stuck on stupid, the Laurier Liberals devolved into a patronage brokering party. Buying votes with money borrowed on the taxpayer’s mortgaged productivity. Sadly there comes a time when private sector numbers and wealth engines cannot support the tax burden of big government and its trough guzzling patrons.
Without the election candy bribery and bottomless private sector tax well to feed it, the Liberals become visionless and rudderless. Effectually useless to the Canadian public.
AS the blog author suggests (as I myself have for the past 15 years) IF the LPC returned to more classic liberal roots, dumping its trouble making radical socialists and insider patronage brokers to the Dippers, what is left could carry constructive policies that return lost freedom to private individuals and remove the tax burden of an unsustainable decadent nanny state klepto-economics, and allow them to start the wealth engines of the nation with their own innovation and risk free of these incentive-killing burdens.
It is individuals who can revive the economy through focused remunerative productivity. Politicians need to realize the domestic economy is far more important than the so-called global economy. Government can’t create productivity and the price of foreign corporatism is too dear to pay. The next economic revolution must be one of the empowered individual.
But the LPC will choose to dwell in their current klepto-socialist sophistry and deny the need for roots-liberalism, to their downfall. And perhaps that’s for the better. When they implode they will open up opportunity for a new party with ideas relevant to the era of the cynical tax strafed public.
Occam’s said: “AS the blog author suggests (as I myself have for the past 15 years) IF the LPC returned to more classic liberal roots, dumping its trouble making radical socialists and insider patronage brokers …”
That, and a leader with some charisma, and they’d crush the CPC.
The CPC are upheld not by any brilliance of their own, nor by visionary leadership, but by a hapless Liberal Party.
Bob Rae is a member of the Liberal Party.
That’s about all anybody has to understand.
Don Martin writing a sobering critique of the Federal Liberal party,the first since the Cons stopped picking up the press’s tab? Looks like Frank and Paul are right.
Gord,
Tax decreases – they did keep their promise to decrease taxes but, in the long term, the stimulus deficit and addition to the debt will cancel out any positive effects. Aging baby boomers, health care, pension and green policies will compound the problems. Using elegant and nuanced words from the Liberal intellectual think-fest, the next generation of taxpayers is f****d.
Stimulus – Germany had an honest response to demands of more stimulus spending: But the trans-Atlantic debate over stimulus packages has touched a nerve in Germany, which believes many U.S. critics fail to take into account differences between the U.S. and European economies. One big one: In Europe’s generous welfare states,when recession strikes, governments automatically start paying out more than in the U.S. in the form of welfare checks and other so-called automatic stabilizers.These stabilizers are stimulus measures, many economists say. The IMF agrees with much of this view. “Countries that have a bigger government footprint will have larger stabilizers, which will add to any stimulus package,” said a senior fund official…Germany has the most capacity in Europe to increase spending, but Berlin has argued against running up big deficits, tapping into fears from its experience of hyper-inflation back in the 1920s. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681293916501451.html
Quebec- After the Great CPC Equalization Bribe to Quebec, I am not confident that the CPC would protect westerner voters interests. In order to gain a majority, it would not surprise me to see the CPC try out asymmetrical seat balancing after the next census to buy Quebec votes.
You are right that the other parties are worse but that is hardly cause for celebration.
Umm, Gord, I think you’re looking at that chart of government spending upside down. Or you’re just delusional. Government spending-especially program spending-has gone nowhere but up under the CPC. They are incremental socialists whereas the Liberals in the mid ’90s were, in effect, incremental conservatives that cut the number of civil servants and transfers, both excellent ideas that you’d applaud if the Cons did it. Of course since the Libs did it, it must be bad bad bad.
Gord,
Tax decreases – they did keep their promise to decrease taxes but, in the long term, the stimulus deficit and addition to the debt will cancel out any positive effects. Aging baby boomers, health care, pension and green policies will compound the problems. Using elegant and nuanced words from the Liberal intellectual think-fest, the next generation of taxpayers is f’d.
Stimulus – Germany had an honest response to demands of more stimulus spending. Europe (like Canada) has large social safety net to buffer recessions, there is no need to add billions of stimulus. More tax cuts to individuals and business or debt reduction would have been better. Of course, that would nix the big,tacky PR checks. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681293916501451.html
Quebec- After the Great CPC Equalization Bribe to Quebec, I am not confident that the CPC would protect westerner voters interests – don’t count extra western seats until they’re allocated.
You’re right that the other parties are worse but that is hardly cause for celebration.
Iggy showed a glimmer of promise when he agreed with Quebec’s ruling against hijaab covered faces in public.
Don’t expect a trend though.
Cytotoxic: adjust for inflation and pop’n growth.
Lcb: I repeat – would you have broke ranks with the G20? should the CPC done tax breaks instead. Perhaps, i was calling for a holiday on capital gains among other things. I confess I do not know if that was one of options discussed with the G20. Also politically tax cuts would have been much more difficult to do.
The eqaulization “bribe” was a correctIon to the calculation of current formulas parameters. Should the formula be changed? ABSOLUTELY. Stay tuned.
Gord Tulk,
If what you have been writing lately here on SDA is representative of the CPC from an “insider’s” perspective, then Harper is philisophically NOT a Conservative
Harper’s action plan has primarily been to out-maneuver the Liberals without mind to the cost.
As a result, taxpayers have been caught in the Great Canadian Pissing Contest between Harper and the Liberals!
I know it’s old-fashioned, Gord, but shouldn’t the Canadian government work for Canadians, not the G20. I’d hate to see domestic decision making continue to be outsourced to international institutions – UN, IPCC or G20. Conservatism, classical liberalism and libertarianism will disappear if we are obliged to cater to the failed policies of European socialists and third world dictators.
LCB: the political reality is that breaking with the G2O at that point in time would have ended the CPCs tenure as the ruling party.
It is important to recognize that since then Canada has become one of the leading lights in the g20 with PMSH in the lead for expanding and liberalizing trade between sovereign nations.
Gord, the spending increases are still way higher than pop growth and inflation. But nice try. However, your attempt to pass the buck onto the G20 needs more effort or should be scrapped. Angela Merkel of Germany refused stimulus and leads a minority government in a situation more precarious than Harper’s. I do not care if refusing orders from the G20 is politically risky-if Harper is such a genius then he should find a way. If he can’t, then he’s as useless as I thought and should be replaced pronto.
So true; Laurier would approve! And what a wasted political opportunity. If Iggy had but veered center-right in 2009, they’d have painted Canada red in more ways than one by now. Between that and Iggy’s adoption of the CPC’s idiotic and evil pandering to the War on Drugs, which is another huge missed opportunity for the Liberals, I must wonder how much the CPC pays this guy to suck so bad.
Is it not a bit unseemly to have a former Prime Minister (no matter how inconsequential) remark that the whole world is f****d?
The Liberals did it to themselves when they forgot the 19th century liberalism and embraced Marxism.
Ken (Kulak)
Yup, now if only the Conservatives would remember who they are?
“The Liberals did it to themselves when they forgot the 19th century liberalism and embraced Marxism.” agreed Ken.
I have wondered for a long time what “Liberal” had to do with liberalism.
The very people that believe in evolution to a “T”, never seem to evolve themselves, those being Lieberals. They have gotten so used to lying and stealing, with the willing accomplices in the moronic stream media covering up for them, they failed to notice the great truth purveyor called the internet and blogs, sticking them in the ass, being like millions of Magnum P.I.”s all over the place finding and posting the truth. Sucks to be so stupid doesn’t it Iggy, when your sychophants think your so smart.
“As former New Brunswick premier Frank McKenna whispered to former prime minister Paul Martin halfway through debate on one of the intractable problems…”
full points Frank, thanks for not fudging when it counts. and to read that Don Martin too, doesn’t see much of substance, well it’s nice to see the Liberals not all dolled up for once…
related? I read that Stephan Harper has mentioned that in the next election, he’s going to include the canceling of more of the government funding for electioneering, in the Conservative campaign, that’s ok with you Iggy? … Iggy? hahaha.
For decades now I have been saying: “Ben Franklin and Tom Payne were considered to be liberals in their time. If they were liberals so am I. Unfortunately what has come to pass for liberalism in these times is a mental disorder characterized by an absolute refusal to face up to or deal effectively with any unpleasant reality. I’m sure I’m not the only liberal voting Conservative.
I went back in a time machine and told Canadians that one day, the Liberal Party would be very worried about the weather becoming too warm, and they laughed and laughed, and said I must be making stuff up.
Then I told them about the gays getting married in church.
Eighty-four years ago, 1926, my family came to Canada after escaping the Soviet paradise and voted Liberal. It occurred to me while reading Kate’s “As I said before” thread opening and the comments to this point, that somewhere along the line, starting about forty years ago, the voting habits of my family changed and now almost all of them, there are a few hundred descendants, now vote Conservative and hold their noses when a Progressive Conservative is the choice.
A few minutes ago I asked my wife about her family and the story is identical. They also voted Liberal after 1923 when they arrived, but now vote Conservative.
Both family’s morals and values regarding freedom of the individual and lifestyle have not changed. So what has changed?
The guy is mentally deficient, his idea to renew “the party” well more social spending! ‘Cause vote buying always works.
McKenna is very perceptive, the Liberals are f****d, to quote a Newfie chestnut,”the arse is out of ‘er”. Paul Martin on the other hand is wrong to include the world in that box, it’s only his Liberals and he was a big part of the downward spiral.
Even the Liberal decision to meet in Montréal sent a tired old message of its own about being stuck in the past.
Why not a bold move like meeting in Vancouver?
Or Calgary?
Out flank the Conservatives?
Someone is having a General Wenke moment.
The yapping dorks at CTV are pimping the notion of Layton’s ND’s and Iggy’s Libs singing the same tune on a number of issues in the future.
Wedding of Marxists and Socialists.
The other shoe to drop will be joining Duceppe’s outright communists, in Quebec.
Geez, we have already witnessed that scenario, have we not?
In order to “outflank” the CPC the (small government)Liberals would have to repudiate and dismantle Trudeaupia.
It’ll never happen.
Their entire game plan is based on identity politics(divide and conquer) and they can’t play that game without big government.
Ignatieff’s description of a liberal is quite different. Here is his take on it:
“Before it became a political label, ‘liberal’ was a synonym for ‘generous’. A liberal helping on a plate was a generous helping. ”
That explains why being a Liberal in Canada includes taking a generous helping for oneself.
The Liberal Party is not Liberal in the classic sense and hasn’t been in living memory if not longer.
There seems to be this chronic Bit(h that the CP is not acting conservative enough. To those who think so, please inform me (us) what specific policies you would put forth AND eXplain how you stay in power.
Unlike the American system where a POTUS and all other elected representatives are able to speak independently and vote independently without fear of having their mandate terminiated. They can even be defeated on a spending bill without losing power. Canada’s ruling party, especially one in a minority circumstance, does not have that luxury.
Look at it this way – the US is like a flotilla of small boats all heading in roughly the same direction. Some boats can radically chAnge course without fear of sinking all of the others. In Canada a ruling party is one battleship full of MP shells all below the waterline. These shells have to remain stable – any radical changes if course could cause them to shift and hit a detonator piercing the hull or possibly blowing the whole ship to smithereens.
What Canada needs is a EEE senate where individual members can speak independently without worry of damaging the mandate of the ruling party.
Gord, that works well until everybody demands a big payoff for each vote.
The Wikipedia definition of liberal is something that one can easily subscribe to.
It is too bad that even conservatives are way past that post.
As always, the politicians in their exhaustion of hot air, not knowing what comes out of their collective mouths, shift the meaning of words.
You have the socialists that want to run not only peoples lives, they want to decide on running of the unfree enterprise. That is fascism.
You have Liberals that want to give away the money they extorted from working people and give it to those that could not get out of bed in the morning.
You have Conservatives that are working on catching up with the Liberals.
What Gord Tulk and Lev said, in spades!
Yep, there is not a single party in Canada that holds true to classical liberalism. The CPC have turned into high spending, Quebec-bribing, big government lackeys. Even reformers like Preston Manning have discarded the idea of reduced taxes/small government and replaced it with pollution pricing (weasel words for carbon taxes) and green conservatism.
LCB: I agree that mr. Manning seems to have lost the plot somewhat. I think he sees it as an attempt to factor in the cost of environmental impacts caused by commercial activity.
I think he would be better off pushing for better and stronger property rights so those whose property is environmentally damaged by the activities of someone else have legal recourse to be paid for that impact. (of course a good strlarting point would be to have the constitution grant us property rights as we currently have NONE – thanks PET)
Conservatives have similar problem with often being dominated by neo-conservatives which is totally different set of ideas. That’s for example why so many (neo-conservatives) on “the right” dislike Sarah Palin, that’s why CPC is in the business of big government.
I’m with you Cooper on the “unseemly” language by our elder statesmen, and will be scoffed at, even here for being too sensitive. After all, didn’t the V.P. of those United States not use the same expression? Perhaps it indicates the cynicism and disrespect the left has for the citizenry, their traditions and their mores. Trudeau was very good at it too, and is to be emulated I guess. Keep it in the smoked filled backrooms where it belongs.
Walter F: the kind of corruption of which you speak is far more prevalent and likely in the american system where vote blackmail is rampant. A case in point is the Stupak 11 who sold their political souls – and the real thing possibly – by voting for the HC amendment and thus abandoning the prolife cause for 5.4 billion in earmarks for their districts.
Lcb pt2:
The cpc has decreased and continues to decrease discretionary program and dept spending. It has also reduced taxes (and more reductions are on the way) which limits them and presumably any successor party from increasing spending. They also reinstated transfers to the provinces for program spending that is in provincial juristiction – transfers that were cut by the libs so they could brag that they balanced the budget. (in time those transfers will be replaced by tax cuts that provinces can infill with provincial tax increases (if they have the guts to increase them) )
The stimulus package was part of a G20 agreement to spend 2 (or was it 5?) percent of GDP on the economy without offsetting tax increases. Would you have not done that? Would you have been the lone man out when all the other naions were insisting on it? What do you think the LP and ND and BQ have done about it? (and as I and others predicted, much this spending is about to be retracted – witness the dramatically lower (and unreported by the MSM) deficit numbers.
As for the Quebec pandering – there is some validity to that argument. However it is far less than under the LP and the CP is patiently waiting for two things:
1. Seat additions in ONT and western Canada that will greatly reduce QCs clout and thus it’s ability to extort.
2. The tax/transfer shuffle noted above. Once that’s in place, expect the cp to rejig the equalization formula to include uncollected revenues by crown corps (reAd MB and QC power selling electricity for less than the market rate) this would reduce qcs equalization transfer by between 5 to 7 bb and give Ontario a few billion more.
In conclusion. The cpc And specifically PM Harper have taken the incremental approach to making Canada a more conservative and ipso facto a better country. They are succeeding. This success will enable the cpc to continue and indeed accelerate the process especially if a majority mandate is obtained.
Know this – Stephen Harper may be the most conservative person in the country – passionately so. So determined is he to succeed that he is prepared to be patient and plodding about it and face the slings and arrows from the right – from some of closest allies in fact. That takes courage. And it is what makes him the greatest PM I Canadian history.
Fuddle duddle.
I like the gist of that blog post. The neo-liberal “problem” starts here:
“It more or less admitted yesterday it has no ideas and no idea how to pay for them if it had them.”
Like a boring sitcom that gets stuck on stupid, the Laurier Liberals devolved into a patronage brokering party. Buying votes with money borrowed on the taxpayer’s mortgaged productivity. Sadly there comes a time when private sector numbers and wealth engines cannot support the tax burden of big government and its trough guzzling patrons.
Without the election candy bribery and bottomless private sector tax well to feed it, the Liberals become visionless and rudderless. Effectually useless to the Canadian public.
AS the blog author suggests (as I myself have for the past 15 years) IF the LPC returned to more classic liberal roots, dumping its trouble making radical socialists and insider patronage brokers to the Dippers, what is left could carry constructive policies that return lost freedom to private individuals and remove the tax burden of an unsustainable decadent nanny state klepto-economics, and allow them to start the wealth engines of the nation with their own innovation and risk free of these incentive-killing burdens.
It is individuals who can revive the economy through focused remunerative productivity. Politicians need to realize the domestic economy is far more important than the so-called global economy. Government can’t create productivity and the price of foreign corporatism is too dear to pay. The next economic revolution must be one of the empowered individual.
But the LPC will choose to dwell in their current klepto-socialist sophistry and deny the need for roots-liberalism, to their downfall. And perhaps that’s for the better. When they implode they will open up opportunity for a new party with ideas relevant to the era of the cynical tax strafed public.
Occam’s said: “AS the blog author suggests (as I myself have for the past 15 years) IF the LPC returned to more classic liberal roots, dumping its trouble making radical socialists and insider patronage brokers …”
That, and a leader with some charisma, and they’d crush the CPC.
The CPC are upheld not by any brilliance of their own, nor by visionary leadership, but by a hapless Liberal Party.
Bob Rae is a member of the Liberal Party.
That’s about all anybody has to understand.
Don Martin writing a sobering critique of the Federal Liberal party,the first since the Cons stopped picking up the press’s tab? Looks like Frank and Paul are right.
Gord,
Tax decreases – they did keep their promise to decrease taxes but, in the long term, the stimulus deficit and addition to the debt will cancel out any positive effects. Aging baby boomers, health care, pension and green policies will compound the problems. Using elegant and nuanced words from the Liberal intellectual think-fest, the next generation of taxpayers is f****d.
Stimulus – Germany had an honest response to demands of more stimulus spending:
But the trans-Atlantic debate over stimulus packages has touched a nerve in Germany, which believes many U.S. critics fail to take into account differences between the U.S. and European economies. One big one: In Europe’s generous welfare states,when recession strikes, governments automatically start paying out more than in the U.S. in the form of welfare checks and other so-called automatic stabilizers.These stabilizers are stimulus measures, many economists say. The IMF agrees with much of this view. “Countries that have a bigger government footprint will have larger stabilizers, which will add to any stimulus package,” said a senior fund official…Germany has the most capacity in Europe to increase spending, but Berlin has argued against running up big deficits, tapping into fears from its experience of hyper-inflation back in the 1920s.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681293916501451.html
Quebec- After the Great CPC Equalization Bribe to Quebec, I am not confident that the CPC would protect westerner voters interests. In order to gain a majority, it would not surprise me to see the CPC try out asymmetrical seat balancing after the next census to buy Quebec votes.
You are right that the other parties are worse but that is hardly cause for celebration.
Umm, Gord, I think you’re looking at that chart of government spending upside down. Or you’re just delusional. Government spending-especially program spending-has gone nowhere but up under the CPC. They are incremental socialists whereas the Liberals in the mid ’90s were, in effect, incremental conservatives that cut the number of civil servants and transfers, both excellent ideas that you’d applaud if the Cons did it. Of course since the Libs did it, it must be bad bad bad.
Gord,
Tax decreases – they did keep their promise to decrease taxes but, in the long term, the stimulus deficit and addition to the debt will cancel out any positive effects. Aging baby boomers, health care, pension and green policies will compound the problems. Using elegant and nuanced words from the Liberal intellectual think-fest, the next generation of taxpayers is f’d.
Stimulus – Germany had an honest response to demands of more stimulus spending. Europe (like Canada) has large social safety net to buffer recessions, there is no need to add billions of stimulus. More tax cuts to individuals and business or debt reduction would have been better. Of course, that would nix the big,tacky PR checks.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123681293916501451.html
Quebec- After the Great CPC Equalization Bribe to Quebec, I am not confident that the CPC would protect westerner voters interests – don’t count extra western seats until they’re allocated.
You’re right that the other parties are worse but that is hardly cause for celebration.
Iggy showed a glimmer of promise when he agreed with Quebec’s ruling against hijaab covered faces in public.
Don’t expect a trend though.
Cytotoxic: adjust for inflation and pop’n growth.
Lcb: I repeat – would you have broke ranks with the G20? should the CPC done tax breaks instead. Perhaps, i was calling for a holiday on capital gains among other things. I confess I do not know if that was one of options discussed with the G20. Also politically tax cuts would have been much more difficult to do.
The eqaulization “bribe” was a correctIon to the calculation of current formulas parameters. Should the formula be changed? ABSOLUTELY. Stay tuned.
Gord Tulk,
If what you have been writing lately here on SDA is representative of the CPC from an “insider’s” perspective, then Harper is philisophically NOT a Conservative
Harper’s action plan has primarily been to out-maneuver the Liberals without mind to the cost.
As a result, taxpayers have been caught in the Great Canadian Pissing Contest between Harper and the Liberals!
I know it’s old-fashioned, Gord, but shouldn’t the Canadian government work for Canadians, not the G20. I’d hate to see domestic decision making continue to be outsourced to international institutions – UN, IPCC or G20. Conservatism, classical liberalism and libertarianism will disappear if we are obliged to cater to the failed policies of European socialists and third world dictators.
LCB: the political reality is that breaking with the G2O at that point in time would have ended the CPCs tenure as the ruling party.
It is important to recognize that since then Canada has become one of the leading lights in the g20 with PMSH in the lead for expanding and liberalizing trade between sovereign nations.
Gord, the spending increases are still way higher than pop growth and inflation. But nice try. However, your attempt to pass the buck onto the G20 needs more effort or should be scrapped. Angela Merkel of Germany refused stimulus and leads a minority government in a situation more precarious than Harper’s. I do not care if refusing orders from the G20 is politically risky-if Harper is such a genius then he should find a way. If he can’t, then he’s as useless as I thought and should be replaced pronto.
LC Bennett at March 30, 2010 2:58 PM
Hear hear!!!
I’m gonna buy some gold, just in case.
What Joe Molnar said. It’s inevitable.