Faster, s’il vous plaît!
I’ve been waiting for this for a year, and now it’s here: the Tea Party has come to Canada! If 50,000 Quebecers are marching in the street against big government tax-and-spend policies, then there’s hope for the free world. PM Harper, I hope you’re listening: Canadians want change, Canadians want smaller government.
Are you sure about that? Strange, there was nothing on the CBC about it.
Don’t think the Quebecers were in the streets in support of less gouvernement! 🙂
I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but they’ve had enough! Lieberals are dead in PQ I’m afraid.
Time for a tete a tetly.
Racists!!!!
Looks like the Bloc Quebecois isn’t La Belle Province’s cup of tea.
Vive la petit government libre!
Tea, Earl gray, hot.
I have a different angle about this protest.
Although it’s very positive (50 000 people shouting down tax and spend is always positive) I don’t think that the crowd is necessarily for small government and restricted powers. They’re looking for a balanced budget. There’s a lot of right-wing sentiment there. But it has a ways to go before they’re denouncing the actual nanny state.
That’s just my impression about the crowd.
Tea Partiers need to watch out as the tolerant, intellectual Progressives are actively sabotaging the Tea Parties in the US. Check out Michelle Malkin’s article today. You’d think that there would be a law against that sort of thing.
They can’t debate or fight them legitimately, so they will smear, slander, misinform, etc. They are in full Propaganda mode.
Yes, it would be great if it really was an uprising against taxes…..but I think it is a somewhat camoflauged demand for higher equalization payments (and thus no provincial tax increase) for Quebec from the rest of Canada (i.e., Alberta) so it can continue unabated with its socialist hallucinations.
Well I guess PM Harper is even better at this game than I thought he was. After all the mark of a good politician is creating the demand for the end before moving toward the goal. If PM Harper tried to downsize the government while the people thought he should increase it he would not have any success. If he can follow the people demanding a tax/government cuts then he will succeed. I only hope he doesn’t try to move too quickly and get the nanny staters all in a knot. They may be yesterday’s news but they can still make a lot of noise and so influence some opinion.
Loved all the brooms…for a cleaner sweep against waste & corruption!
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Les Party Des Tea? That’s some nasty French you got there. They’ll soon forget about small government and, economic freedom notwithstanding, be protesting you!
So sad, that while PM Harper moves the CPC to the left in order to capture votes, Canadians move to the right. Those conservatives who write off Canadians as too hopelessly leftwing to think and vote for conservative principles are proving not only to be tribal bigots, but simply wrong.
Consider the most recent Harris-Decima … it makes it clear that fewer and fewer Canadians trust either the CPC or Libs. Perhaps because the parliament of 2010 is populated with the most unimaginative, double talking, tribal, vote whoring batch of politicos in years.
Canada is ripe for grass roots change … a rejection of the born and bred political class like Harper & Co. who are stunningly ensconced in the Ottawa bubble, along with the Lib and Dipper academics and hacks … the tribal warfare they are engaged in is completely out of touch with Canadians.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100407/tories_liberals_100407/20100407?hub=TopStoriesV2
I think the skeptics need to check this out further. The protesters call themselves “les cols rouge”, which translates as “the rednecks”. They are demanding no new taxes and no new spending. Here’s the site: http://colsrouges.ca/
I’m thinking they are protesting the imposition of real costs on them . . . what they want is the big government and the big services but someone else to pay fort it.
This must be a late April fools thing. Quebec and less government?? They want more government, funded by the rest of Canada no less.
Posted by: Cjunk at April 12, 2010 2:27 PM
So, your choice would be a benevolent dictatorship?
set you free: What a silly statement you make … it makes no sense other than to point out how utterly ugly tribalism is.
Have you never heard of leadership that is talented enough to speak directly to the Canadian people, leadership skilled enough to get past the media filter … leadership dedicated to principles not just winning at any cost … and finally, leadership capable of capitalizing on a “made for conservatives” moment in history.
It is indeed a study in tribalism to watch my fellow conservatives justify CPC tactics that would engender nothing but scathing vitriol were the same dished up by the other tribes. So blinded by tribal loyalty are some conservatives, in fact, that they are unwilling to recognize that it’s CPC leadership, not the Canadian people, who keep the CPC from a majority.
Cjunk:
Just trying to figure out what your real-world solution would be.
If the CPC and Libs are not palatable, the other real-world choices are Bloc and NDP.
I guess the only thing you’re left with, since you reject pragmatic solutions, would be to sit in the corner and pull out your hair.
OTOH, it’s good to see Quebecers understand their cash cow is starting to kick back.
“Tea, Earl gray, hot.”
Gray tea? Ew.
Its time that Sask and Alberta collect the Federal income tax like Quebec does and then they can be have not provinces also.Quebec’s policy of collecting federal taxes stinks like a pile of manure.
set you free: I’m strictly critical of CPC leadership, which is incapable of communicating with Canadians in any effective way, and worse yet, is hyper sensitive to MSM spin … the CPC are controlled by the MSM and happenstance instead of leading.
Any significant changes in the direction of a democracy take place when one side can inspire voters through simple concepts, especially those in the middle, to move en masse to its position.
“Pragmatism” has become the excuse among the CPC to explain away the appalling inability of CPC leadership to communicate any vision, to show any imagination, to act with principle, or show direction to the Canadian people. Instead, the CPC are stuck with “chess”, which will not get them a majority and will spell disaster if the Libs find a dynamic leader … it is only that the Libs are led by even worse hacks, which keeps the CPC clinging to power.
Canadians though, are going to get sick of it all.
And when they finally go and form their own “distinct society” only to find the equalization teat is dry, they’ll clamour to get back into the federation. Then we’ll have a “do we want them back?” referendum. Too bad so sad!
Set You Free:
So the only solution is to bend over and just take it with smile on your face?
Such narrow thinking in defence of… in defence of what, I have no idea. To think your only options are to either do nothing or vote for the NDP or Bloc shows how effective the current CPC leadership has been in suppressing free thinking and how far they have moved away from both their base and their roots.
Harper has got to go for the sake of conservativism and the country, but sheeple like you will continue to work hard so he knows he can continue to spend more than any other Liberal ever dreamed of spending, increase the size of the government bigger than any Dipper ever dared to suggest, put us deeper in debt than our communist Chinese lenders ever let themselves hope.
ATACL:
I’m not sure how anything other than a majority CPC government would change your feeling of victimization. Any ideas? There is such a thing, in our system, as the will of Parliament.
Our communist Chinese lenders? Since you bring it up, can you offer some evidence as to who holds Canada’s debt instruments?
Quit whining and offer up some solutions.
Makes sense they would be the first to push back, they’re the highest-taxed, aren’t they?
On the face of it, this looks encouraging for Quebec and Canada. The second shoe to fall, however, will be the counter demonstration by the entitlement-minded public sector unionistas, academics and the plethora of leftist pressure groups. It will then be confirmed that Jean Charest is just another nanny-statist “poche molle” like his predecessors.
I did offer up a solution: get rid of Harper. At the same time, you could try complaining to your true conservative Conservative MP so they know there is frustration out there or send letters of encouragement to the likes of Bernier who at least is speaking like Harper used to speak before being corrupted by power and Ottawa. Certainly you could stop sending them your money.
Or you could continue on as you do and shout “deeper, harder” with each of his thrusts from behind and paying him for it.
ATACL:
Yeah, that strategy sounds like a real winner, sure to attract millions of voters.
If you’re a member of the ME, ME, ME Party.
ATACL:
I think you’re out of luck.
Atilla the Hun just backed out of the leadership race.
set you free: What’s with the snark?
As for will of Parliament, at the last CPC convention, Harper has shown that he cares little about the will of conservatives (just “another stakeholder like any other” after all).
During the last election he showed he cares little about ordinary voters (who else has ever shown such contempt for voters as releasing a campaign platform a day or so before an election? Reformers would never have tolerated that).
And for 4 years he has shown utter disregard for the will of Parliament, except to use it as an excuse for not acting in even the remotest way like a conservative. For 4 years, the Liberals have been repeating your mantra Set You Free, and have been asking Harper to give it to them hard and deep ’cause they aren’t going to vote against him, so he has effectively had a majority and could do whatever he wants.
50,000 cranky Quebecers showing up in the cold looks like Canadians are sick of it already, Cjunk.
I’ve been heartily sick of it since I discovered how much of my f-ing minuscule paycheck went to TAXES as a kid in the 1970’s. “No kid, you do NOT get to keep $2.90/hr. You get to keep $1.95/hr and the rest goes to UIC, CPP, and INCOME TAX baby! Welcome to adulthood!”
I note that the situation has not improved since that fateful day.
Tax cut, Mr. Harper. Meaningful, large, budget crushing tax cut, where you have to FIRE BUREAUCRATS to make ends meet. Where you have to REDUCE what government is responsible for doing, regulating, overseeing, controlling, or otherwise meddling with. Where the mandarins of Ottawa run into your office screaming in outrage and panic, where factotums, boffins and spin-meisters turn white and faint dead away on the floor when they get the news.
Like lowering the top bracket to 15%. Eliminating capital gains. Killing the Death Tax. Removing the GST completely. All on the same day.
That’s what I’m talking about. Tax cut. Now.
Conservatives like Set You Deeper/Harder have turned into such sheeple that now even asking for the Conservative Party of Canada to act a teeny bit conservative and for its leader to act just the teeniest bit conservative is now considered neanderthal/Attila the Hun-ish.
Harper has brought incrementalism and has moved the centre of Canadian politics. Only he has moved it further left incrementally. The liberals win even when the Liberals lose.
Never happened. I just checked the CBC and there is no sign of it.
They wouldn’t miss a protest against higher taxes and more socialism, would they?
ATACL:
What? Run out of intelligent arguments and now you have to resort to name-calling.
Like I tell my kids, first one who name-calls loses the debate.
I’m sure you’re capable of better. The future of fiscal conservatism depends on people who can offer something more constructive than name-calling.
Y’er out.
You were already out, Set You. You gave up the fight for conservativism long ago and are content to just sit back and take it and take it and take it. I’ve marched on the streets before, and started letter writing campaigns before and organized support around true conservative candidates before – one formerly being Harper himself – and I will do so again in my small ways.
The Reform Party, Wild Rose, the Tea Partiers… all started out because one person somewhere finally said “Enough” and found very quickly that they were not alone.
Or to put it another way closer to home, “Until this moment I have been forced to listen while media and politicians alike have told me “what Canadians think”. In all that time they never once asked, and those that used to ask have stopped asking. This is just the voice
of an ordinary Canadian yelling back at the radio, the TV, the CPC and Parliament – “You don’t speak for me.” “
(With apologies to Kate)
SYF is using snark because he has nothing else. Because when you sift out the compromising BS from the Harper apologists, nothing is all that’s left.
When I first saw this story, I though someone’s April fool’s got badly delayed or something. People of the Right may want to reconsider Quebec. Yes, they have a lot of lefty nonsense and crap that Canada has to pay for. But they also act as the thin edge of the blade in some good ways for us. They got private medical insurance and provincial autonomy that Albertans can only dream of. If Quebec goes right, the change will be massive-all the better if the occasion coincides with the wildrose taking power in Alberta.
Free speech is already a goner.We need to encourage our goverment to do something about taxpayer funded facsists imposing their vision of the future on the rest of us.Can anyone put a positive spin on this,google 9 things you cant do anymore.This is already happening in the UK.Net nuetrality should be the most important issue of all for Canadians we could be a sanctuary for free speech and independant journalists who will soon be looking for a new home.
Cytotoxic: Quebecers are also a lot more tough on crime and anti-gun registry than the rest of the non-Western Canada.
Mmmm….tea…
Sorry.
Are they dissenting because they want services without paying taxes or have they wised up and decided to keep their money for really useful things?
ATACL:
Guess what, my friend? You don’t speak for me, either.
Never tried to SYF. I couldn’t do justice to the gurgling kool-aid voice.
snark·y (snärk)
adj. snark·i·er, snark·i·est Slang
1. Rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide.
2. Irritable or short-tempered; irascible.
Sounds like the choir here today.
Haven’t got an answer to the China question yet, only some tribal chanting that sounds vaguely like ‘fire the coach.’
Too bad about the Flames.
Haven’t got a solution to you other than to bend over and let them take us as deep and far left as they want to with our donations and tax dollars. Only some tribal chanting that sounds vaguely like bleeting but may be “deeper, harder”.
If you act like sheeple, they will treat you like sheeple. And they’ll trim your wool regularly and leave you cold.
The protests weren’t against Harper or the CPC. Harper is all in favour of smaller goverment and smaller taxes and decentralization of powers.
And the protests weren’t for less govt spending or less govt involvement with your lives. They were against the govt charging you for the services it provides!
The protests were typical Quebec protests against losing some of their socialist welfare benefits. Charest, the premier of Quebec, wants to raise the ridiculously low tuition costs in Quebec universities, he wants to have users pay a flat annual 200.00 and $25.00 fee for medical care, he’s introduced their HST of 15%, increased fuel costs, higher electricity charges…
Why? Because Quebec is broke; because Quebec has for years enjoyed the best ‘socialist welfare’ programs in the country…without having its citizens pay for them. Charest is trying to get them to pay for their services. Heh.
That includes the lowest university tuition – with those rates available for francophones all over the world but students from the ROC must pay 1/3 more. That includes cheap electricity, cheap day care of 7.50 a day, and so on.
Charest has also tried to tackle the enormous black market economy in Quebec; you see, a Quebecer will do anything to avoid taxes. They consider that any and all federal taxes are a direct theft from ‘their nation’..ignoring it pays for their universities, roads, defense, waterways (St. Lawrence)..and so on.
And Quebec taxes are also avoided…that black market strategy where you pay cash for everything and no receipts…
This isn’t a tea party! This isn’t about getting the govt out of your home! It’s about the goverment trying to charge you, to bill you, for the services it provides! Wow – no Quebecer will put up with that.
“Harper is all in favour of smaller goverment and smaller taxes and decentralization of powers.”
Someone has clearly been out of the country since 2006.
spike 1 re: stinks like a pile of manure.
The constitution reserves direct taxes to the provinces. Federal income tax is unconstitutional. The provinces agreed to allow it. (also unconstitutional but Rev.Can. will bankrupt anyone who tries to get it to court) So PQ is the only one doing it right. (sort of) So you are right. It is time for the rest of the provinces to collect the income tax as well. Better yet, no income tax and raise the GST to replace it or a flat tax. Anything sufficiently uncomplicated that those few arrogant, sadistic, power mad, untouchable, villains ensconced in the bowels of Rev.Can. are no longer able to bamboozel us with bafflegabe.
dlm:
“91. It shall be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate and House of Commons, to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and good Government of Canada, in relation to all Matters not coming within the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces; and for greater Certainty, but not so as to restrict the Generality of the foregoing Terms of this Section, it is hereby declared that (notwithstanding anything in this Act) the exclusive Legislative Authority of the Parliament of Canada extends to all Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say, […] 3. The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation.”
The provinces are only allowed “direct taxation” which has always historically meant a tax on a good, i.e. sales tax, or a service fee of some sort. Income tax is considered an indirect tax.
So you might be able to argue that the provincial surtaxes that are collected by the federal government and the Quebec income taxes are unconstitutional, but only an idiot would claim it was the other way around.