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.
atacl/hardboiled – you hate Harper. That’s your view. I disagree; I think he’s the best PM we’ve ever had; and his incrementalism TO THE RIGHT is exactly right for this country.
He most certainly is not a leftist. Quebec is more favorable to the gun-registry than the ROC. 71% of the Bloc support it; indeed, on the motion to repeal the gun registry, the Bloc was unanimous; they want the registry..and so do most Quebecers.
Again, Quebec isn’t ‘going right’. It is adamantly left; the protest was against having to pay for all their socialist benefits.
Trow dat cow over da fence a bail of hay.
ET – you, like Harper and SYF, do not speak for me. I don’t hate Harper. He is a fine man and an upstanding citizen who has, in the past, done great service to the country. He is just past his prime and his use and is damaging the country by pushing it ever further to the LEFT.
Other than some minor tinkering with crime legislation – making street racing and drunk driving even more illegal than it was is hardly big stuff – and other than some few tentative tax cuts that are offset by Harper’s many tax increases, I am not sure he has done a single thing that is conservative at all, let alone very conservative.
He’s cut spending on the military. He’s taxed income trusts. He’s bringing in a cap and trade AND a carbon tax. He’s cutting and running from Afghanistan. He’s recognized Quebec as a nation.
Before the recession he had broken spending records and spent more money than any Liberal would ever dream of, increased the size of government, applauded the work of the CHRC while promising not to change the Canadian Human Rights Act, abandoned all his complaints and legal cases about election spending and advertising laws (as soon as he realized that the censorship helps him as government), abandoned Supreme Court vetting (there will be a non-CPC government someday and direct unvetted appointments by the PM will hurt us), called a snap election.
The teeny tiny bit of weak-kneed conservativism that he has actually implemented does nothing against the tide of liberalism washing in from Harper. Harper is providing the governemnt of Chretien’s dreams.
put us deeper in debt than our communist Chinese lenders ever let themselves hope.
Posted by: Are there any conservatives left? at April 12, 2010 3:36 PM
Do you have any proof of this assertion?
Your credibility depends on it.
You lost all your credibility Set You Free. I have no reason to do your work if you think that our Debt – which has increased enormously under the “Conservative” Party of Canada – is just a number and doesn’t actually involve a lender or purchaser of our bills and bonds. Chinese businesses have taken a huge position of Canadian and American debt, just like the Brits owed the Americans during and after WWI and II, just like the French owed British bankers before their final decline.
Seeing as you are just as lazy in research as you are in thinking for yourself and you doubt what everyone knows, I’ll give you some to chew on (the data is in tables and articles not readily or easily available online, mostly because searches pull up US data and not just Canada). This is the quick and easy to find stuff using an online tool called “Google”. Try it sometime. I’m not spending time weeding through to find more than this:
“who owns Canada’s debt” – tinyurl.com/yyhrdrp
“Most of the official debt is held by China and Japan.” – Canada Free Press (http://tinyurl.com/y4rcgc7)
China largest lender by far (US data) – Now Public (tinyurl.com/y5guhqg)
China holds 21% of national debt (again, this is US but Canada is similar) – Yahoo Answers (tinyurl.com/y3pm8b9)
Now go back to your kool-aid drinking with ET.
Cutting taxes and cutting costs are two very different things. I don’t parle and I never saw enough signage to let me read. When they get that many to protest the 7 buck daycare then I know they are serious.
atacl/hardboiled – I think your statements require, as set you free states, some evidence.
Harper did NOT recognize Quebec as a nation; he recognized the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada. That’s a 19th c concept recognizing a population not a geographic territory. He did that to counter Ignatieff and Duceppe’s agenda to recognize Quebec (the geographic and political entity) as a nation.
His focus has been on common infrastructure as a duty of the federal govt – and he’s done a lot on this, including funding for public transportation in all parts of Canada (roads, rapid transit, subways, trains); on waste and water treatment; on cleaning up the Great Lakes and other waters.
Then, there’s the refocus on immigration and immigration applications, with a focus not on multiculturalism but on integration – and the funding for that. [Such an agenda is clearly ‘right’ rather than ‘left’]
He had to tax income trusts because other institutions were getting in on the game and it had to be stopped; major economists agreed with him.
His tax cuts – with the new child tax credit, the child care allowance, the cut in the GST, increase in personal deductible, home renovation tax credit. Reduced the corporate rate from 22.12 to 15% by 2012. Increase in lifetime capital gains exemption for small business owners from 500,000 to 750,000, the first increase in 20 years; reduced small business tax from 12 to 11. Set up small business loans promotion..and the tax free savings account.
Spent 22 billion on the military, the largest build up since WWII..with the Liberals and NDP criticizing it and calling it a ‘spending spree’ and calling it ‘US-style’ and war-like’. But, as Harper noted with regard to Canadian help in Haiti – his purchase of C-17 planes for transport enabled Canada to respond rapidly to Haiti. Remember, Chretien-Martin’s inability to respond to the tsunami because Canada had no transport planes and the non-operation of DART?
For the next two years, Harper will slow down the military spending (after that first 22 billion massive input) and then, it is projected to again increase.
Harper – applauded the CHRT? Not from what I’ve read; he criticizes them. And is slowly getting rid of them- after all, he shut their offices down in three key cities recently.
What are you talking about – abandoned Supreme Court vetting? Is anyone up for a position?
Increased the size of govt – yes, he has acknowledged the population changes and so has given Ontario and the West more seats in the House.
So, atacl/hardboiled – what’s your beef?
“Canada is ripe for grass roots change …”
CJUNK
I’ve been reading your analysis of the Conservative party over the last few weeks(months??). Now I’m not certain that I agree completely, but I don’t disagree either.
That said, looking at your comment above I don’t think its plausible that a new “grass roots” option will spring-up on a national scale. We have a “grass roots” party for “change”, they’re called the Conservatives; formerly known as the CA and the Reform. You may not like them, but that’s what we’ve got! The fact that the media smeared, and central Canadians bought into the smear, that Manning & Co. were religious rednecks and shouldn’t be taken seriously is on them, not on us here out west. If in the end Harper’s Conservatives don’t address western alienation, which can be defined as conservative values across the board(excluding social), then the “grass roots change” outreach from the west to the ROC through the Conservatives will have failed. I just can’t see Alberta waiting another decade or two just for a chance to split the vote. Again.
If you’re a central Canadian and you’re looking for “grass roots change” in 2010, then it’s this westerner’s point of view that: you’re about 20 years too late!
I don’t (or not yet) buy that Canadians want less government. I’d suggest Canadians seem to want more government for the same or less money.
The image of the US is associated with promoting individualism and less government. More government appears to be one of the touchstones that we use to difrenciate Canada fron the US.
With a little luck Obama may be doing us a favour.
The clip on Councillor Fletcher is incredible. Canadians need to copy the US Taxpayers and form Tea Parties. To bad the clip on Tea Parties is in French. It would make a difference if we knew what they were saying. If they want to downsize government and cut taxes, I support that. Civil servants earn on average 48% more in wages and benefits than the average private sector worker in Canada.
I wonder who owns China’s debt? It’s 18.2 of its GDP and rising. Caanda’s debt is among the lowest in the G7…half the G7 average.
Under the Liberals, the ND rose and rose. At the moment, it is about 480 billion. The question is, how much of the debt is foreign-owned – rather than in Canadian-owned debt (bonds, etc).
Foreign investment in Canadian bonds is increasing including from the US, China, Japan, Australia, Netherlands etc as Canada seems to be a good investment site.
A lot of our debt is public service pension plan liabilities..137 billion.
ET: “Spent 22 billion on the military, the largest build up since WWII..”
Nope.
Despite the new equipment and money for the Canadian Forces, the largest build-up since WWII occurred in the late Fifties and early Sixties.
Today, there are barely 68,000 personnel in the entire regular Canadian Forces. At one point in the late Fifties, there were over 50,000 in the regular Canadian Army alone; in the early Sixties there were about 125,000 in all three services.
The Harper “build-up” that the whining bed-wetters are complaining aboutis all about modernization; it’s far from significant in terms of military expansion.
The leftie buffoons in this country haven’t a clue what a “military industrial complex” really is.
Who gives a crap if 50k Quebecers march?
Against taxation? They just want more free stuff…
JJM – I’m not a lefty loonie – and I reject your view that military investment and build up has to be to increase the numbers of men in service.
My view is that the investment was in equipment – something that had been neglected for at least 5 decades – and modern equipment is the key to a military strength.
Continuing on with the idea of Canada’s debt, to my knowledge, foreign owned debt (i.e., foreign investment in Canadian bonds etc) is about 25% of the full Canadian debt – and China owns about 20% of that 25%. This hardly suggests, as atacl/hardboiled suggests – that China owns Canada.
Plus – please, would people stop suggesting that the Quebec protests were akin to a tea party protest! They had no similarity. And they had nothing to do with the federal govt.
The protest was against Charest’s raising of taxes and fees in Quebec – which has gotten away with its socialized benefits without paying for them for decades. Quebecers want the benefits but certainly don’t want to pay for them! So- there is NO COMPARISON of the Quebec protest with a Tea Party…where the people in the Tea Party don’t want govt services and want to pay for what they need, when they want it, by themselves.
ET: “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!”
Correct.
But I think that Premier Charest is being pretty shrewd. He knows that folks in Québec are more or less addicted to their social welfare programmes and won’t want them cut – so, in the absence of any other revenue sources and a ballooning deficit – the choice has to be more taxes and fees.
There’s really no effective opposition; the PQ is an even bigger social-welfare party and wouldn’t dare suggest cuts to anything.
Once in power, even they’d be forced to either hike taxes or cut costs by trimming programmes (fat chance).
The people of Québec have painted themselves into a corner.
And M. Charest knows it.
ET, my apologies. I was simply taking issue over your statement about the build-up.
I was not suggesting you were a “leftie buffoon” but rather just making a general statement about those usual suspects who carp on about “militarism” in our country.
However, upon revisiting my post, I see my remarks could have been misconstrued.
Again, sorry about that.
Canadians want Quebec to separate, and take the Bloc Heads with them so we can have a functional Parliament.
John:
That’s why some of our friends here suggest we need a benevolent dictator.
That way, our own Idi Amin could just cut off funding to Quebec without a debate.
Not that such a move would be a bad thing.
John:
And, another thing.
An Idi Amin-type dictator would just kill off those who have different opinions … after calling them names.
And now we have the Quebec version of Adscam. What is it with Liberals and brown paper bags of cash?
Globe and Mail story
Time to start researching which Quebec judges were appointed from the Montreal area in 2002-2004.
John Galt, if only that would be true.
I do not want to get into the argument between conservatives above, but I will say that I could be persuaded to change my daily caffeine choice from coffee to tea, if it would help.
In a small way I have made my displeasure known when receiving donation phone calls during the last three months by voicing my frustration at the lack of progress in many areas and in particular concern about Prentice’s carbon fraud scheme.
I also am starting to think that the civil service bureaucrats are telling Harper how things will be done.
Of course the constant bashing of Harper by MSM does not help either.
I like ET’s list. It only reinforces what a failure Harper is. While the corp tax cuts are good, Martin was already doing this and the cuts to GST, child subsidies-sorry, “allowances”, home reno subsidy-these are all economically illiterate policies that are made worse by the fact that we are in a deficit, so we will have to pay that money in future. Of course we wouldn’t be on a deficit if Harper had just held down spending, but he went on binge. And no, saying “infrastructure” does not make it okay. Government spending on infrastructure is as inefficient as any other, if not more so. Oh, and he also jacked up equalization spending and funding for the HRTs. His ‘criticism’ of them is quite meaningless. But it performed the function of keeping the suckers nodding.
I really hope a Tea Party develops in Canada that could hold politicians accountable and pressure them into shrinking government. I would certainly get involved with a Tea Party. Could you imagine concerned tax payers voting as a block? Perhaps we could get 30% of the vote. Enough to counter the 30% who always vote left of centre not matter what – the dependent class.
the Harpacrats are playing EVERYTHING low key. That has an alienating effect on a lot of people, obviously. They need to push a solid conservative issue, like repealing gun control, and to hell with the skum media, Kaybek or Tranna. Possible the worst it could do is lose a couple votes, but it has the potential to re-energize conservatism.
reg:
EVERYTHING?
Well, let’s see.
Heading into the G-8 meetings, the CPC government announced it was unnecessary to Canada to put on the type of onerous regulations on its banking industry the other G-8 nations were proposing.
Sounds pretty bold to me.
BTW, it’s scum, not skum.
I agree with Cytotoxic. ET’s list just shows you what a failure Harper has been as a conservative and the great pretzel-like maneuvering his sycophants are will to twist themselves to help encourage his moving Canada to the left.
He chose to recognize the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canadan, not out of some principle even but that very significant step and recognition was taken as a mere political tactic as ET admits.
He has spent a ton on infrastructure and, sure, that’s great but he created a deficit because of spending on pork, increased equalization payments, record spending on polling, etc
He has a pattern now of bungling things and THEN making changes that he makes necessary. Income trusts is one example. Creating zero down, 40 year mortgages guaranteed by the government – our Fannie Mac sub-prime market was created by him – before he tried to take credit for being fiscally prudent by cancelling it. Our immigration was screwed up by the Liberanos, but he has screwed it up royally forcing him to make changes before it completely collapses.
He promised not to tax income trusts. Because of that promise, billions were spent on income trusts. This was completely foreseeable and avoidable. He did not have to increase our taxes to fix his mistake, which was driven by politics not econimic policy and certainly not conservative policy. An increase in taxes is an increase in taxes. Period.
His tax cuts – with the new child tax credit, the child care allowance, the cut in the GST, increase in personal deductible, home renovation tax credit. Reduced the corporate rate from 22.12 to 15% by 2012. Increase in lifetime capital gains exemption for small business owners from 500,000 to 750,000, the first increase in 20 years; reduced small business tax from 12 to 11. Set up small business loans promotion..and the tax free savings account.
In other words, as I said, he made some tiny income tax cuts while trying, like a liberal, to tell us how to live our lives and raise our kids. Just cut everyone’s taxes; don’t pick favourites. It screws the markets and has increased costs for kids sports and the public transportation (the administrative cost and oversight required for official receipting and accounting) without increasing use.
Rather than increase military spending as part of ” largest build up since WWII” he has barely done anything except talk about it. Anyone who says that doesn’t know much about military spending or history. Harper has been riding (cough cough, I hate to say it) Martin’s coattails on this and his 5 year spending plan. Most of what Harper is taking credit for was announced by Martin. As far as politics goes, sure, go ahead and sqaush those red bugs, but let’s not start believing our own press releases. Harper increased spending himself by 2%, hardly the largest build-up in our lifetime. (By the way, on any scale – troop numbers, weaponry, machinery, spending – we are nowhere near the 1950s and 1960s. Not even in the same planet.) And NOW, Harper is, like the good faithful liberal he is, cutting military spending, $2 BILLION in this budget alone. With friends like these…
As for the CHRT, don’t get me started. Yes, he said he “thought they are on the right track and doing a better job”. Yes, he has said he has no plans to change the law. No, he has not cut the CHRC – instead he has EXPANDED IT. In a time of restraint, with record deficits, when no one would question him for cutting spending on censorship, he increase its budget by 5% including increasing personnel so they could more effectively pursue their agenda (their agenda, not ours!). Harper has so pulled the wool over our eyes on this one that his human rights liberalism pisses me off almost as much as his fiscal ultra-liberalism!
“What are you talking about – abandoned Supreme Court vetting? Is anyone up for a position?”
And statements like this and on the CHRC that show you just automatically support Harper without knowing anything, let alone what Harper is doing. He promised to set up a Parliamentary vetting process for SCC nominees. He used this for his first nominee, but for the second he just skipped it and not only that but even skipped the law professions’ shortlisting vetting process. Another anti-conservative broken promise.
“Increased the size of govt – yes, he has acknowledged the population changes and so has given Ontario and the West more seats in the House.”
I’m sorry but, with all due respect ET, this is a stupid comment. He has increased the size of govrnment – the bureaucrats – to more than it has ever been, and that was before the stimulus surge. The number of MPs, which has not been increased yet, is not the same thing and has nothing to do with his love of big government.
So what’s my beef? Harper has not just been moderately or even non-conservative, he has been outright liberal and anti-conservative. He has governed in a liberal way that Dithers and Cretin only dreamed of.
My other beef? So-called conservatives who give Harper an automatic free pass for every liberal move of his and even say ‘isn’t it a good thing’. I don’t mind one bit someone saying “I don’t like what he’s doing at all, but the CPC is our only chance so let’s pressure them to do the right thing. Maybe we succeed maybe only partially,but at least we won’t be letting things get worse”. But those who just accept an even further tilt to the left as a positive good because it is being implemented by a once Liberal, former Reform, former conservative and liberal once again, they disgust me.
I’m not sure what your definition of bold is, syf, but a common sense choice to not tinker with a solid banking system isn’t one,IMO.
They really need a single solid conservative issue to energize things.
A tax cut for Quebec just means a tax increase for Westerners.
They don’t only want the cake with icing. We have to bake it for them.
Revnant @ 11:46pm
It goes right down to having to purchase the land and prepare the soil for them.
I think Kate should run a new series on Quebec called “Is there anything Quebec can do for themselves?”
Getting pretty tired of hearing all the goodies and entitlements Quebec gets through equalization payments. Never has the word “equal” had such an obscure meaning.
Herbal tea protest would fit them better…
( quebecers are very much into new age- alternative remedies quackery… )
This is only as a way of illustrating the spend-crazy governments on ALL levels. I spoke with a senior admin. guy at the PEEL Board of ED today and mentioned the spending by the Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments. I suggested WE (tax payers) couldn’t afford the governments we have during a good economy let alone what we have now or what we will likely have soon. He looked at me with surprise and asked what was wrong with the economy. Seriously.
He went on to describe the “essential” learning “assets” they have such as the Polar Bear study center up on Hudson Bay, the Salmon and Whale study centers on the West Coast, the land in Costa Rica … I remind you that this is the PEEL DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD. PEEL. Not Federal. Not even Provincial.
He further described the Peel “assistance” programs administered and funded by the PDSB. All the ESL programs, the New to Canada language classes, adult education classes encompassing virtually every 3rd world language known. There are trade classes and courses from almost every known profession. There was some humor in the “unexpected demand for 2nd career” programs and that those people would need to wait for budget expansions. I pointed out that many of the “2nd career” applicants were likely NOT recent immigrants and have been paying taxes for years and need 2nd career training because they’d lost jobs. He admitted that it was kinda funny (not actually HA HA funny) that most of the programs were set up and funded for immigrants and not for Canadians and that Canadians who needed help were definitely 2nd class / NOT prioritized by the Region as the majority of the monies was still flowing to programs set up for recent arrivals in Canada.
The budget for the Peel District School Board appears to be around $1.3 BILLION dollars. If you are a long time TAX PAYER you can pretty much suck an egg if you want help training for a 2nd career – not so if you’re just off the boat. This person didn’t seem to be aware that some tax payers mind find that problematic and didn’t think it was a “real problem” as we’ve been here, the economy is good and there are “other” resources that we can utilize outside the mandate of the PDSB. He mentioned tapping into our pensions if things were tight and then top them up when these few people have a new job with their indexed pension.
It was apparant that this twit had no idea there was a recession (soon to be much more obvious I believe) that the citizens not only had unlimited funds to support their programs, land purchases, salaries, indexed pensions etc but that we ALL SUPPORT it too.
The DISCONNECT between government employees and the tax paying sheeple out here is growing ever wider. There IS only one tax payer. There is a high level of complacency STILL but as the inevitable happens our governments will continue to spend like our pockets are bottomless. They will continue to be completely out of touch with those of us actually working to create wealth in Canada by producing something – that whole equation seems quite beyond their comprehension and they will bleed us dry. I fear that when the complacency is replaced by fear and anger the pay back is gonna be a beetch. It all reminds me of one Mariew Antoinette asking one of her servants why the peasants were burning parts of Paris. The servant told her that the peasants had no bread and her famous response sounds exactly like what many of our politicians are suggesting; “Let them eat cake.”
Is this the small and quiet start to a Tea Party movement in Canada…started in Quebec?
I think I would faint if that is what this is all about. Quebecers would faint if they knew just how much the rest of the country subsidizes their fantasies and indulge in their quaint ‘distinct society’… it is distinct alright… about as distinct as jr. being told he cannot eat the cheese anymore unless he is willing to go out to work to pay for his share. This country is so fractured, everyone so used to getting battered for the special interests who take tax dollars and give us the trudeau salute in the bargain.
If the East could get away with it they would ride in here and take every resource they could find and greenies be damned. Ontario has needs, don’tcha know and if they don’t do something Quebec will in line first. Funny how the US has caught on to this hijacking from state to state.
United we stand. Divided we fall.
There are no excuses for the level of taxation in this country. None whatsoever.
Maybe with all the talk in the states about taxes and healthcare folks here in Canada are weking up to the total scam we have been living with all these years. Obama is different from Trudeau only in that he has not given the US the Fuddle Duddle Finger… not yet.
Harper could go a long, long way toward setting this country on a road to extreme prosperity by doing exactly what the Tea Partiers want: Less government and tax cuts. Major tax cuts would bring in more revenue than they would know what to do with. As long as they don’t allow any paper bags of it out the back door we could be on our way to prosperity for the next 20 years or more. We would even get immigration from the states in numbers to boost our tax base and increase our over wealth beyond even the most optimistic musings.
What we need is for these things to happen and for our politicians to stop pretending that these global initiatives work. They do not. We need to get very inclusive. Do we really want billions to go to third world countries where dictator thugs steal the money and their own people continue to suffer? While our taxes continue to rise and rise?
Carbon Taxes. Green initiatives. Let’s stop pretending these things work. They do not. Everybody knows they do not work and that they are designed only to fleece us from our hard earned wealth and give to those who have not earned it.
I do not want to hear from any politician that they seriously consider such nonsense.
They can also acknowledge that the e-mails from East Anglia and subsequent discoveries prove beyond doubt that man has nothing to do with global warming and to stop harassing us with the scam. We are on to it all and we are sick and tired of being harangued.
Quebec City and Calgary City have been sister cities for many years. Check it out. Alberta and Quebec have much in common. Proud and strong and free.
There’s about as much similarity between this Quebec protest and a Tea Party crowd as there is between an Iranian street mob and a peace march.
A more valid comparsion could have been found in Greece a few weeks ago, when its state-dependant citizenry revolted at the thought of belt-tightening.
want change,Canadians want smaller government.
I’m not sure that’s what all of these 50,000 protesters want. Sure, they all want lower txes, but at the same time many want more gov’t services.
Québec’s debt situation is only slightly better than that of Greece, and so gov’t services will undergo big cuts while tax rate will most certainly be raised.
Ontario will be facing the same scenario in just two or three years time as its debt situation worsens.
are there any conservatives left?: There seems to be a fair number of idiots who think income tax is a direct tax. Are you familiar with the Lord Nelson Hotel (1950) case? I have not read the decision and am afraid that I may have been misinformed as to its content. If you could tell me how it might be obtained at reasonable cost, I might then be able to participate in a more informed debate. I appreciate your informed opinion if not vitriol. Keep posting.
Man, people here are very dumb… or dumbfounded.
Which I guess is a good thing, you keep writing in blogs about it… and doing nothing. That’s what your good at, passivity. I guess that’s how we succeed bullying you around, as you so gleefully complain about?
This is, as clearly as can be, a movement that is similar to the Tea Party. It is Right-Wing (it comes from Quebec city, which unlike Toronto or Montreal or Ottawa, is a Right-Wing city), it is populist, it is for small government, what the hell is wrong with all (most) of you.
Your anti-Quebecois views cannot allow for this idea that… we are not all socialists? Seriously, how much will it take for you to get it? I’m stunned at the average idiocy of the Anglo-Canadian. It’s pathetic that they still believe we are one uniform mass of people, all thinking alike. I’m sure there is some Marxists in Alberta, same as I know there is many Libertarians and Conservatives in Québec.