Deux nations!
1) John Ibbitson, Globe and Mail:
Harper unbound: An analysis of his first year as majority PM
….
One year after winning his first majority government, a milestone he marks on Wednesday, and more than six years after becoming prime minister, Stephen Harper bestrides Canadian politics, a principled economic and social conservative who is reshaping the nation.
…This Prime Minister’s steady shifts in policy are not overly radical on their own but taken together are reshaping the nation’s sense of itself. He has established what could be called a new “Brand Canada” – a land of low taxes, law and order and a strong military, infused with a robust nationalism, rooted in the West and powered by Ontario’s affluent, aspirational suburbs…
2) Michael Den Tandt, Postmedia News:
One year into majority government, Harper’s Conservatives seem to have misplaced their hidden agenda
…one year after the vote that gave the Conservatives their fabled majority, guess what? Tactical brilliance is missing in action, with the government lurching from one pratfall to the next. And the Faustian hidden agenda? Received wisdom, among Harper haters, is that it’s approaching full flower. But if you drill past the surface, you’ll find your customary entitlements virtually unchanged. How can this be?
Indeed, apart from a few highly symbolic flashpoints — gun control and marijuana come to mind — the hidden agenda is gone, absorbed in a mush of accommodative compromise, to the point where government spinners have resorted to patiently walking journalists through all the ways in which, they claim, the Conservatives are transforming the country. Most Canadians have responded to this putative revolution with a blink and a yawn…
Huh?
I was talking to somebody yesterday about this. Harper is in the unenviable position of a guy trying to do an operating system re-write on a mission-critical mainframe. He can’t shut it off and he can’t re-boot it, it has to keep working the whole time.
So he’s going slow, doing one thing at a time, making sure each change works before moving on.
Oh, and guys are trying to hit him with clubs while he’s doing it.
Nice job. He can have it.
+1 Phantom.
Ferinstance, a lot of people are crapping on him for his handling of the abortion PMB matter… Guys! This is NOT the hill I want Stephen Harper to die on. There is just too much to be done.
I have to trust in the long game or it will drive me nuts.
The county is a massive vessel and any sharp course correction could upset the passengers. The passengers get to choose their captain. I challenge anyone to name one person (don’t say Kenney, he’s the first mate and gets to take over in time), that could see the horizon off in the distance and make the slow, steady and precise corrections to get us where we need to go.
Harper is doing a fine job and to date the only issues he’s having are a few optics issues that will accrete on any sitting government. I’d like to see him read the riot act to his ministers about those optics issues. But otherwise, steady as she goes.
It took decades of Trudeau’s fuddle duddling this country to get to where we are today, it’ll take just as long to unwind some of that mans idiocy and hubris.
RaughKee
aside all the obvious fluffle, the MSM seem to overlook secret government meetings when they say things like – ‘the hidden agenda is gone’. The COC has reported on the North American Union for years, yet the MSM is still looking for some “hidden agenda” and doesn’t see one anywhere?
They’re so blatantly & intentionally ignorant of what is going on.
The MSM is just a mockery.
Whatever else you may think about Harper, he understands the Long Game and is possibly the most patient “public” politician in the Western democracies.
The guy seems to think in terms of decades. I mean, seriously. Nobody else I can think of works with that kind of time horizon inside their heads. It would drive most politicians, raised as they are in the “instant gratification” ethos of the modern world, absolutely stark raving bonkers.
He’s also a past master at paying attention to all the leaders who came before them, and adopting their effective tactics/strategies as his own. He appears to put aside whatever ideological differences there are between himself and others when it comes to this process of observation and adoption.
Wish I’d had that kind of discipline, decades ago. Too late now…
The Phantom….
Careful…..analogies are very tricky. I can see tomorrow announcement: Government is moving into cloud computing on low earth orbit satellites: Government in the sky.
a) Are we better off than 6 years ago?
b) Where would we be if Harper had lost any of the last 3 elections?
My answers a) yes, especially from a global view b) that’s too scary to consider
John Ibbitson praising PMSH? Postmedia panning PMSH? Possibly Ibbitson recognizes or his editors do that he is digging a bigger hole in his constant nitpicking, ergo a column of praise.
Post media; just can’t be real, yet!Cheers;
Ibbie has it mostly right here. Tandt, not so much. It’s this quote from Tandt which gives it away.
“Very simply: there is nothing, not a line in Budget 2012, that could arguably not have been introduced by a Liberal Party led by a John Manley…”
Pure drivel from Tandt. He seems unaware that Manley was driven out of the Liberals by the Martin clique along with most of the rest of the Liberals that could truly be called centrist. The Party continued its move to the left under Dion, and its now locked in a death-struggle with the Dippers. That’s locked a lot of blue Liberals out in the cold looking for a new place to call home. And PMSH is determined to bring all of them into a big, wide Tory tent.
But here’s the key. Flaherty’s budget was perfectly ho-hum except for one explosive section that no Liberal government could ever table, and that’s the slice-and-dice of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. That the Tories would go after this sacred cow proves that this is not just another small “l” liberal budget, and that Tandt really has no clue what he’s talking about.
This is how an effective revolution is accomplished. One very small but important snip at a time. And how well is it working? The Opposition has decided not to make a major fuss over the budget at all. PMSH wins again.
I wish that PMSH wouls simply talk to the Canadian people more often and explain the challenges that the country faces. He is so far ahead of opposition leaders in intellect and vision that it would be very clear to those who watched.
The Q & A that he did at a USA university( Sorry I can remember the name, on utube) lasting for an hour was simply brilliant. It should have been replayed across Canada. Sorry but even in our egalitarian society some people’s informed opinion is worth more than those who simply chatter off the top of their heads. Unfortunately ignorance and ineptness have become accepted in our society.
Agree cgh , “pure drivel from Tandt”
“Most Canadians have responded to this putative revolution with a blink and a yawn…”
But the Provinces are definitely not a “blink and a yawn”, nor are municipalities. Look at Quebec student riots, Ontario credit downgrades, Alberta’s WR upheaval after 41 years of PC rule. Canada’s largest city Toronto (the GTHA is bigger than several provinces combined) is in an upheaval with a conservative Mayor and pinko councillors at each others’ throats with the sensationalist left wing media stirring the pot.
Ottawa might be a “blink and a yawn” but below that surface , at the other 2 levels of government, there is turmoil and so it should be; that’s where “your customary entitlements virtually unchanged” for so long that the steam is about to blow the top off the kettle.
Wow, all of the above.
PM Harper is a great captain and is changing the course of the ship slowly but surely. Yes, it would be great if, as some of us would like, if he made dramatic moves to reverse the socialist disease, but this would inflame the Marxists and alarm those that do not pay much attention and are mainly concerned with the latest survivor reality show.
Got to love that Jason Kenney.
Many of Harper critics state that “despite 6 years in government etc. etc.” the government has done nothing.
Nope, it’s only one year, and so far they’re doing just fine.
Funny this….
but somehow C.D. Howe came to mind….
Canada’s invisible Prime Minister….is perhaps one way to portray him…
Simple.
Den Tadt sees thing the way they are roughly. Ibbitson and Tory partisan idiots both see things the way they want to. ‘Fear porn’ for Ibbitson, ‘Hero worship’ for the Tory partisan idiots.
I much prefer the view from the Globe and Mail. It heightens my spirit.
Paul Wells, well (ha!) worth a re-read:
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/01/27/ottawa-the-blink-and-youll-miss-him-approach/
Steady as she goes, people.
I’d say that Harper is probably the best PM Canada has ever had – and in his own nature, modest, principled and far-seeing. [Compare that with the egoistic self-praise of Obama.]
Harper has a longterm vision of Canada but it isn’t his personal agenda; his vision is focused on strengthening Canada and Canadians and enabling them to live a productive life.
Harper focuses on the basic requirement of a national government: enabling a productive and growing and secure economy. This includes expanding Canada’s economic network beyond its old reliance only the US for exports;; it includes decreasing regulations, decreasing business taxes – such that Canada’s business environment is one of the most inviting in the world.
It includes focusing on immigration that will strengthen the economy by focusing on skilled immigrants rather than endless Liberal-voting aged parents and extended families who instantly start to absorb tax dollars.
Under Harper’s guidance, Canada is internationally acclaimed as probably the best economy in the globe, the best place to invest, the most robust in having dealt with the global recession.
Harper leaves social issues to the people; these are not the domain of a federal govt. Therefore, despite the endless rants of the anti-Harper crowd that Harper will ‘end abortions’, ‘set up a totalitarian regime’ – he stays out of these issues.
And as a result, Harper is one of the most admired global leaders, winning praise from international economic boards, from other leaders; and yes – invited to speak to US schools, invited to speak and be interviewed on US television.
What is shameful, deeply shameful is how Canadians do not appreciate him and his work.
Just read the Globe and Mail or Toronto Star comments on Harper. Not simply the paid pundits but the reader comments. The vicious, hate-filled venom against him is beyond belief. Filled with lies, with misinformation, with deep-rooted beliefs that he is a dictator, an evil anti-human tyrant. Unbelievable.
There’s a very small group of insane people who comment on newspaper articles. Most people take a look and move on.
Harper leaves social issues to the people
Categorically false. Harper wants to overturn the recent court decision regarding prostitution and wants to expand the war on drugs, both of which are unpopular.
He’s also a pusher for the internet spying bill (C-30 I think) and wants to interfere with the InSite facility. These are both unpopular and risky moves.
So that effectively kills the ‘Harper can only govern for the majority’ meme people keep tossing around here. What does unify many more of Harper’s decisions is love of government power-so long as he’s in charge.
Under Harper’s guidance, Canada is internationally acclaimed as probably the best economy in the globe
That is Paul Martin’s work and nobody else’s.
@ET
I too was shocked at the rabid vitriol in the G&M comments. The unfortunate thing is that I know many people who share those beliefs. My task as I see it is to engage the unengaged and show them why a principled man like Harper is better for everyone in the long run versus some shameless political panderer like a McGuinty.
Well said ET.
Las: “Under Harper’s guidance, Canada is internationally acclaimed as probably the best economy in the globe
That is Paul Martin’s work and nobody else’s.”
No, Las, that too, was PMSH’s work, the Reform and the Canadian Taxpayers association (both being PMSH’s brainchilds) were responsible for Paul Martin’s budgets. Paul Martin took any good ideas he had from the Reform Party. Paul Martin needed Progressive Conservative and Reform votes to get budgets passed and required co-operation from the real piggie banks (western Canada and Mike Harris’s Ontario).
Absolutely laughable. Reform can and should be credited with pushing the national discourse in teh right direction, but it was all Paul Martin doing the heavy lifting. Reform and the CTF were not Harper’s brainchilds you are grossly misinformed.
LAS “That is Paul Martin’s work and nobody else’s.”
Paul Martin deserves no credit other than not appeasing the Sheila Copps rat pack and spending all the “found” money rolling in. here’s what really happened:
After Canadians enduring , under the Mulroney government, the pain of globally high interest rates to lick inflation, then Chretien and Martin reaped the benefits of that pain and walked into a situation ( so did Clinton) when interest rates dropped precipitously …by 10%…remember mortgage rates at 15% in the early 90’s? The Trudeau debt hangover was $600 billion; a 10% cut on servicing that is a whopping $60 billion a year…presto…budget balanced with a surplus.
The surplus was augmented by the GST which Liberals campaigned against and by a booming NAFTA economy, which the Liberals campaigned against …on and on
Ohhh .. let’s add the downloading by Martin of Health transfers from Ottawa , from 50% to 18% then blaming Mike Harris for cuts to funding , which was a lie by the Liberals and their toadies in the MSM because Harris increased Health funding to try and stay even.
Also Chretien and Martin did nothing but scorn Preston Manning for being mean and “un-Canadian” for wanting balanced budgets …then Wall St and the IMF read the riot act to Martin…he got lucky as the revenues started to pour in and the interest costs dropped by 10%.
As usual, whatever LAS says, the opposite is likely closer to the truth. We saw just how decisive Martin was when he became PM. Couldn’t stick with or push through one single policy initiative. His time in office was marked by one huge cash give-away after another, demolishing his rep as tight with the dollars.
Now, LAS, if Martin was such a skilled leader, why did the decade-long slide in Liberal vote continue uninterrupted under his regime? Fact is, he had utterly nothing to offer Canada in terms of new policy initiatives. Fact is, he was the one committed us to the bloody quagmire in Khandahar. Fact is, he was the one instrumental in blowing up a new North American air defence treaty. Fact is, his bloody civil war with Chretian demolished the Liberal party and chased out all of the centre-right, obliterated the last of the Liberal rural vote in Canada, and handed a huge portion of Quebec over to the Bloc Quebecois.
It speaks volumes about you and yours, LAS, when you have to look back to the 1990s for any of Martin’s supposed successes and have to ignore all his glaring failures as PM. Fact is, Harper has mostly had to pick up from the rubble of his policy failures ever since. And no, even the budget balancing he can’t take credit for. The heavy lifting for that was done by the tax increases put in place by the Mulroney regime, GST and de-indexing the tax brackets. Martin just happened to be there when they took effect.
Ontario has “affluent aspirational suburbs”?? What kinf of fairie tale is that? Obviously someone hasn;t had their feet on the ground in some time. Go look at the condos for sale in Oakville, Burlinton,Hamilton and the Tri cities – there is an economic migration out of the province underway and it is coming from once middle class suburbs.
” Nope, it’s only one year, and so far they’re doing just fine.
Posted by: Len Pryor at April 28, 2012 11:30 AM ”
That is important to note.
We were very close to a coalition that would have created chaos (I’d be in jail or dead) a few years ago. The usual media spin promotes the broken head meme of ‘we are the world’,”can’t we all just get along”,etc…. No, we can’t,we must accept and deal with it.
PMSH is dong very well. 3 more years of common sense and good government may inspire me to do my taxes.
LAS- I’d say that you are ‘grossly misinformed’ or ideologically entrapped.
Just as it is incorrect for Obama to blame his current economy on Bush, it is incorrect of you to claim that the current economic infrastructure of Canada is ‘Martin’s accomplishments. It is Harper who set up the reduction of capital and business taxes (corporate reduced from 22.5 to 15; small business reduced; capital gains for small business increased), who set up new international trade agreements,who reduced regulations to enable more small business start-ups.
It is Harper who has ended government interference in private business, eg, ending the Wheat Board, and ended government interference in private activities, eg, ending the long gun registry.
Bill C-30 is against child predators, and with the rise of the Internet, there is an explosion of this activity. No, it doesn’t allow the government to spy on you without a warrant. What it does is to enable the police to track down people, who use multiple site names, and who are involved in child pornography or predation. Could you suggest a tactic to deal with this use of the Internet?
As for prostitution and drugs, these are not social issues but economic and legal. Why? Because both are ‘businesses’ carried out, with great profit to some and great harm to many. There is absolutely nothing ‘social’ about these issues.
Now, unless I must conclude that you are merely and only an ideologue with a closed and uninformed mind, I suggest you prove that Harper’s agenda is ‘love of government power’. Come on, LAS, prove it.
Good discussion thus far…
Fact is that the LIEberals dropped the ball on governance; and have never managed to coalesce a policy platform that approaches rational as they drift ever aimlessly.
PM Stephen Harper has managed to dodge a number of major economic sinkholes and correctly has pursued a number of free trade agreements to bolster Canada’s heretofore one trick pony economy with the US. Hence the run up to a new proposed agreement with the EU.
Ontario’s recent economic downgrade only buttresses PMSH economic thrust to get Canada moving in a multi-pronged series of economic trade agreements.
Cheers
Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
Harper is indeed poised to be Canada’s greatest PM. One more majority ought to do it. Canada is unfolding according to the plan, that the NDP supplant the Grits and Canada reverts essentially to a two party state. Notwithstanding Nanos’ truly ridiculous poll in the news today, unless government disapproval cracks 50% he is assured of victory in the next election.
The vitriol, at the G&M particularly, is evidence of a Canadianized version of BDS. The left continue to fall back on the marginalization of anything not “progressive” but without success.
Harper destroyed the great liberal/UN dream, with PM Martin handing the reins to philosopher king Michael as we march on in perfect step with the Green tax the world kleptocracy. That has simply reinforced the left’s hatred of PMSH, and that, combined with the utter failure of their green tax us into prosperity meme, has brought them to a fever pitch.
Unless the NDP can push their electoral support above 40% they will lose to Harper. That seems unlikely as Canadians examine again the NDP solutions, with the Grits flapping in the wind, and decide to stick with a tried and sure approach.
The recent bumps in the road are simply a normal course for governments as they get into their administrations. Cock ups happen, people get too comfortable and become careless. Mr Harper will manage this situation just fine.
Many cling to the notion that the polls are close. They always are between elections; remember how Dion and Ignatieff were always close? So what, Mulcair has no broad appeal (like Mr Layton had) so his support cannot stand up to election scutiny.
Bottom line – Harper has learned his lessons well and continues to outflank his opposition, no matter how irrational their hatred of him.
I agree with the left on this one!
I voted for Harper on the belief he would round them all up on trains and then ship them to gulags in the NWT! It was their promise and I bought into it. That and plus the fact that he was white.
And where is my free house and food-stamps for life that he was supposed to give me in return for my vote?
Damned him anyway, that will be the last time Harper lures me onto a bus to go vote with a lousy cheese burger.
@cgh: Good God entire paragraphs of red herrings. Yes Paul Martin was a bad PM. Does nothing to change the fact that he balanced the budget. He was also the one to start the trend of lowering corporate taxes.
Mulroney’s GST replaced a manufacturing tax that actually collected more money as a %GDP (not necessarily a good thing). No, ‘de-indexing’ did not balance the budget it did not raise revenue. It was all Martin’s cuts.
The 1995 budget cut program spending by $10.4-billion, or 8.8 per cent, to $107.9-billion in 1996-97 from $118.3-billion in 1994-95.
The Chretien government also announced major cuts in transfer payments to the provinces for financing health, welfare and postsecondary education. According to the Globe and Mail, the changes reduced Ottawa’s annual contribution to social programs by $2.5-billion in 1996-97 and by $4.5-billion in 1997-98.
Business subsidies were slashed. Corporate taxes were increased, and a 1.5 cent excise tax on gasoline was introduced.
The 1995-96 budget also reduced public sector employment by 45,000 or 14 per cent over 3 years.
Bill C-30 is against child predators, and with the rise of the Internet, there is an explosion of this activity. No, it doesn’t allow the government to spy on you without a warrant.
Yes it does. That is exactly what it does.
As for prostitution and drugs, these are not social issues but economic and legal. Why? Because both are ‘businesses’ carried out, with great profit to some and great harm to many (LIES). There is absolutely nothing ‘social’ about these issues.
I say this with all seriousness ET: you are psychologically incapable of an honest argument. You’re one the most mendacious persons I have ever exchanged with. I am not communicating with you anymore and no one else should either.
Thanks y’all for proving my point above about how Tory partisan idiots will see and hear what they want to just as much as Ibbitson et al will.
LAS >
“As for prostitution and drugs, these are not social issues but economic and legal.” –ET
Yup, legalizing prostitution and drugs will not “legitimize” these hard working people into honest taxpaying citizens and dissolve all social issues, like the pothead perceived perfection of Holland where all is supposedly safe and good. No drug addicts and no underground economies there.
Myself, making dealers hide out of site and dealing drugs helps keep the little shits out of my home for spare cash a little more. Less risky muggings when they make easier dope cash from suckers.
All the dope smokers that want my supported vote need to do is help me legalize proper concealed carry and castle laws and I’d demand the government legalize drugs. But they won’t do it, so neither will I.
LAS – you haven’t answered my comment; you asserted that Harper’s agenda is a ‘love of power’. Prove it.
Prove that Bill C-30 allows the government to spy on you without a warrant.
Comment on the issue – of prostitution and drugs. The issue; don’t slither out of accountability for your assertions by declaring that I am ‘incapable of an honest argument’. Heh – that is, in itself, a dishonest argument on your part.
To claim that the reason you will not be accountable for your assertions because the ‘other person’ is ‘dishonest’? heh – that’s a false cause (a logical fallacy, LAS) and a red herring.
Here’s a quote from a posting elsewhere on this very issue by nomdeblog
“After Canadians endured under the Mulroney government, the pain of globally high interest rates to deal with inflation, Chretien and Martin reaped the benefits and walked into a situation (so did Clinton) when interest rates dropped precipitously by 10%. Do you remember mortgage rates at 15% in the early 90s? The Trudeau debt was $600 billion; add to this a 10% cut on servicing, which is a whopping $60 billion a year and the result was the budget balanced with a surplus.
The surplus was augmented by the GST which Liberals campaigned against and by a booming NAFTA economy, which the Liberals campaigned against.
Then let’s add the downloading by Martin of Health transfers from Ottawa. Martin transfered from 50% to 18% of health care costs to the provinces. That’s an enormous amount.
Also Chretien and Martin did nothing but scorn Preston Manning for being mean and “un-Canadian” for wanting balanced budgets. It was then that Wall St and the IMF confronted Martin to rein him in. e got lucky as the revenues from the GST and trade (neither had anything to do with Martin) started to pour in and the interest costs dropped by 10%.”
So, as nomdeblog pointed out elsewhere, Martin was a passive fellow traveller on many of these issues. His key action was to transfer the enormous costs of health care to the provinces and thus, the federal books appeared to bewiped clean. Not for the taxpayer!
LAS, again, kindly prove your assertions about Harper and power.
LAS, your refusal to be accountable for your assertions, by claiming that the ‘other person’ is a liar (without your providing proof) and is incapable of honest debate (without your providing proof) is in itself a fallacious argument. You are committing the logical fallacy of ‘false cause’ and ‘red herring’. Hmmm.
Now, as you acknowledge, Martin’s infamous balanced budget was achieved by offloading health care and other costs to the provinces? Gosh. That’s hardly a brilliant move; the costs to the taxpayer remain the same and probably more via the double bureaucracies.
The money that came in, came in via the GST, which the Liberals and Martin campaigned against; and NAFTA, which the Liberals and Martin campaigned against.
Now LAS, please be accountable for your assertions. Provide evidence that Harper’s agenda as PM is ‘all about power’.
LAS isn’t 100% wrong about Martin… as Finance Minister. He helped pull Canada together financially through the 1990’s, and without him we’d have been seriously f-ed in 2008 right along with the Yanks. Credit where it is due, he did good with the banks.
Unfortunately along with that came the destruction of the armed forces, the destruction of the Rule of Law and its replacement by “Special Deal” policing, the destruction of our right to own property, ruinous over taxation, plus the gun registry and an awful lot of STEALING. Martin bears his share of the blame for all that.
Martin as PM was a sorry sight indeed. He reached the peak of his powers as Finance Minister, as PM he was over his head.
By the way, LAS, you claim that my assertion that prostitution and drugs are ‘businesses’ carried out, with great profit to some and great harm to many’ – are lies.
Could you provide proof that my claims are lies? Be accountable. Are you saying that drugs and prostitution do no harm?
Again, to claim that you will not defend your assertions and will not provide evidence for your statements because the other person is, according to you and you alone, a ‘liar’ is a false argument.
phantom – ruinous overtaxation is hardly a sign of a good finance minister.
But the key to Martin’s financial activities, and they were successful in reducing the federal debt was the offloading of federal costs to the provinces; that is, he cut federal costs. This did not help the taxpayer who were left with fewer services and high taxes. The bank’s reduction of interest rates, which had gone as high as 15%, was a key contributor to the renewal of private sector business.
And the GST and the trade agreements brought in money. Cutting and transfering is hardly economic brilliance. Dealing with a global recession, as Harper has done, and a demographic and economic shift from Ontario and Quebec to the West, plus a shift in economic mode (from big government subsidized industries in Quebec and Ontario to private businesses) is a totally different story.
Something that I’ve noticed about people from the left. They make ungrounded assertions about people and issues. Then, when challenged, the almost automatic response is never to provide evidence but to move into ad hominem claims against the challenger and then, flee into the night. It’s almost the default behaviour of the left.
Good point, Knight 99 at April 28, 2012 3:05 PM.
Paul II owned Canadian Steamship Lines and registered the Co offshore so he did not pay Canadian taxes. What kind of Prime Minister/Finance Minister is that?
LAS as usual can’t make his arithmetic add up. From what he’s posted, program cuts and transfers amounted to about $20-25 billion. The fiscal deficit was north of $45 billion. The difference largely came from tax increases. The GST was not ‘revenue neutral’ as claimed but brought in large new revenues, as did de-indexing, once wage inflation had about six to eight years to develop.
Phantom, yes he did reasonably well with the banks, if doing reasonably well simply means maintaining inherited policy. Yes, the budget was balanced on Martin’s watch. His sole contribution was the program cuts and transfers which covered about half the structural deficit. The tax increases he inherited covered the other half.
ET, don’t give Martin too much credit on interest rates. Canada is largely a price taker on interest rates. Our ability to set our own rates is limited given the size of Canada’s economy and the high proportion of its GDP in foreign trade in commodities.
He gets some credit with reducing corporate taxes, but here Canada was one of the last into the game. When puny Ireland is beating your brains out in industrial growth, even the dullest finance minister eventually gets the message.
cgh – I don’t give Martin any credit for reduction of interest rates. The banks did that on their own.
My point is that transfering cost burdens from the federal to the provincial governments, which is what Martin did, is hardly cause for accolades.
In some ways, he’s almost like a conservative.
Howard Hughes, you fat, bloated corpse, how ya doin? Still troughing as always on the government dime? Thought you were twenty years in the grave. Anyway, glad you came by so you can watch us kick your lefty causes to pieces.
Quick, there’s a duck. Go save it.
If socialists can still call the Conservative Party of Canada “Reform” or “CCRAP”, we still get to call you on what the CCF did. If you don’t like what J.S. Woodsworth did, purge him from the federal NDP website.
MP Oda has pledged to repay Canadian taxpayers. MLA Rachel Notley, NDP Edmonton-Strathcona, DID NOT pay back her salary from the “no-meet, do-nothing” legislature committee.
And by the way, Rachel’s the daughter of Grant Notley. Just like Bill and Rebecca Blaikie. Nope, no nepotism in the Dippers, no siree.
jwkozak91, nice.
If J.S. Woodsworth would have had his way we would wearing red stars on our caps.
Jema54 >
“Paul II owned Canadian Steamship Lines and registered the Co offshore so he did not pay Canadian taxes.”
Ha ha, actually scummier than that, and I’m not familiar with the minute details, but when the protests became loud about the Dominican offshore business tax exemptions where he registered his shipping line, he made a grandiose gesture of blocking it as a tax haven. Then he re-registered somewhere in West Africa and essentially screwed his competition that was also using the Dominican Republic loophole as well.
Howard Hughes >
Why do you lefties hate Chinese so much all of the sudden?
The thing is that Inimitable Ibbitson of the Globe (as big a small “l” type as you’ll get, hates anything not multicultural and metropolitan
Above of mine put up in error. Should read:
The thing is that Inimitable Ibbitson of the Globe (as big a small “l” type as you’ll get, hates anything not multicultural and metropolitan,
http://unambig.com/guns-kill-people-but-white-people-must-want-to-kill-people/
is actually trying to scare the crap out of Globe readers by claiming that Mr Harper really is changing Canada (by definition for the worse).
Whereas Mr Den Tandt (a bit of a small “c” type) is trying to reassure Postmedia readers across the country that Mr Harper’s majority really ‘taint no big thang, so don’t worry.
Mark
Ottawa
Myself, making dealers hide out of site and dealing drugs helps keep the little shits out of my home for spare cash a little more. Less risky muggings when they make easier dope cash from suckers.
Wrong again. Prohibition = higher drug costs = more stealing. Black markets = crime. Please watch ‘BoardWalk Empire’. And look up ‘Northern Mexico’. The entire basis of prohibition is prejudice against those who indulge in drugs. That and suburban soccermom over-protectiveness.
@Phantom: I’m not defending everything Martin presided over, especially as PM. ALL PM PM did was bring Teh Suck.