Election 2011

[a_majoor]

Heard the Ignatieff ad on the radio for the first time: epic fail

Against the CF-35 purchase: Project initiated by the Chretien government in 1997, and supported by Mr Martin, Mr Dion and Mr Ignatieff (until he didn't support it)

Against tax cuts to business: cuts his party voted in favour of back in 2007
 
Add the "against the Coalition" despite the fact he signed on and the document outlining the coalition agreement does not expire until June this year and we have essentially a man campaigning against his own party...Is his old office at Harvard still free?

Jack Layton's election promises are almost as good; forcibly capping interest rates and service charges on credit cards will do wonders as everyone's card debt is called, credit is eliminated to a huge number of people and merchant accounts are closed by the banks. If you think easy credit is bad then this is actually a good thing (although I would not go about tightening credit in quite this manner... >)

So far the Prime Minister seems to have two themes; follow the economic recovery plan and fear the coalition. I am +1 for the first but really don't see much of an upside for the second (and I am a political junkie), so -1 on that.

That screeching noise in the background from the Green Party will go away if you ignore it; the NDP and Bloc have similar economic policies and I doubt anyone will seriously campaign to kill the whales in order to feed the people (heh).

Prediction; another minority after the polls close followed by an attempt by the opposition parties to force a coalition. The participation of the Bloc will be the critical factor; how this is handled will determine the reaction of His Excelency the GG and the Canadian public.

 

[Edward Campbell]

It's pretty tough to work toward a Triple E senate when 1 opposition party won't hear of any changes and the other wants it abolished.

I believe the CPC did ask the provinces to elect their Senators but most of them flipped the Feds the bird.

The GST cut I am a fan of even though it isn't optimal from an economists point of view. Anything that restricts the government's ability to increase in size is good IMHO. I know you will bring up the debt and deficit but I believe that it should be cuts to programs to reduce the debt not tax increases. I personally would love to see a law stating that spending can't be increased more than a combination of population growth times inflation but that shall we say is extremely unlikely. ;D

KJK

The answer to the HST dilemma is, in my opinion a carbon tax, paid to the government by all producers, processors, transporters, wholesalers and retailers, etc and then always, 100% of the time, without regard to anything, passed completely on to the consumer; you and me. This would impact the cost of damned nearly everything I consume, to some degree or another: my heat/hydro, gas for the car, my grocery bill, my morning papers and my next flight to China. All the processors get their taxes rebated, the retailer does not but he gets it back from the consumer. The consumer pays 100% of the bill, all the time - as (s)he always must.

 

[Haletown]

More on the CBC . . shilling for their patron saint - the Liberal Party of Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNU3sL8T8RI&feature=player_embedded

Besides being funny, this is actually quite disgusting.  This is a publicly funded broadcasting organization, one that professes to professional and unbiased. That claims to be honest, to tell Canadians the truth, to be impartial, to cover all sides of a story. 

Hogwash.

And an entity that consumes over  $1 Billion taxpayer dollars every year.  Maybe that is just a coincidence, but the CBC costs about the same as those F-35's.

So which is providing Canadians with better value for money spent.

The Canadian Broadcorping Castration, so not entitles to having a lip-lock on the public teat any longer.

Defund the CBC and buy 65 additional F-35's ?? 

What a jolly good idea  ;D

 

[vonGarvin]

I'm too busy in awe of all that transparency and accountability we've gotten from the CPC to look back that far.  Oh, weren't they going to refuse to appoint Senators and work towards the "Triple-E Senate"?  Right.

In all honesty, they would have to change the constitution to do so, requiring concurrence of the provinces.  I do believe that they are working towards this; however, I do believe that the point is that it was touted as a "top priority"; however other things got in the way (economic crash, etc)

Well, at least they cut the GST.  A lot of good that did us.  :

It costs me less to buy things, so, it helped me out anyway.

I hate when it's election season and I feel the obligation to vote as my civic duty, but I can't find a single party worth voting for.

I feel your pain; however, do as I do and vote the same way every time: by secret ballot ;D

Actually, when I vote, I do so keeping an eye on the party, but focussing as best as I can on the individual representative of my riding, Prince Edward-Hastings.

 

[KJK]

The answer to the HST dilemma is, in my opinion a carbon tax, paid to the government by all producers, processors, transporters, wholesalers and retailers, etc and then always, 100% of the time, without regard to anything, passed completely on to the consumer; you and me. This would impact the cost of damned nearly everything I consume, to some degree or another: my heat/hydro, gas for the car, my grocery bill, my morning papers and my next flight to China. All the processors get their taxes rebated, the retailer does not but he gets it back from the consumer. The consumer pays 100% of the bill, all the time - as (s)he always must.

E.R.

The business man in me knows you are correct that we need some sort of consumption tax nation wide, whatever it may be called. The oil patch worker in me nearly has a meltdown when I hear about a carbon tax. Look at BC's attempt and what people think of their carbon tax and they don't depend nearly as much as Alberta on oil production for their economy. Would you want to try to sell a national carbon tax in AB and SK? Rightly or wrongly it would be branded as NEP II and the fallout would be unreal. Too many people remember NEP I. It would be political suicide and assuming that BC and AB get those extra seats in the house the chance of it happening would even lower IMO.

The other part that bothers me about reducing income tax in favor of a large nation wide sales tax is the immigrant factor. As I posted earlier the immigrants and temporary workers in my neighborhood send very large sums of money out of the country and I'm sure what I see must be the tip of the iceberg. If we were to lower income taxes a great deal in favor of a sales/carbon tax that would allow even larger sums of money to leave the country with no benefit to our economy or government in the form of taxes. Would that mean we would then have to restrict money transfers out of country or tax them? It seems to me to be better the way we have it now but I have no formal education in business just what I picked up in the school of hard knocks.

Fire away.  ;D

KJK

 

[Redeye]

That's a great big failure of a video.  Buddy proves nothing.

Given that the compass works by trying to plot responses against a two axis spectrum (social and economic positions), and the Liberal Party tends to fall in the middle, choosing all "middle" options probably would result in a Liberal outcome.  That's hardly "rigged", that's pretty much the predictable outcome.  Someone who doesn't take strong positions on social or economic issues will likely wind up in the centre, which is roughly on the Canadian spectrum where the LPC lies - the ambiguous "all-inclusive, be all things to all people" mushy middle.  I don't think that's a design issue by CBC, that's the reality of Canadian politics.  Besides, the tool's primary concept is to try to get people interested in the process, perhaps to get them discussing issues.  Given how pathetic voter turnout has been in the last few elections, that's not bad.

I do think their scatterplot is a little bit too simplified and linear perhaps, though it seems like there is a weighting feature built in that allows you to recalculate the plot based on choosing which issues are most important to you which does shift the result.  By this I mean it plots the CPC as probably more social conservative than it actually has been, though a majority might change that.  I find myself doubting that, mainly because it seems like they know that going really hard on social conservatism will see them booted from office fairly quickly.

As for the rest of this nonsense post (and really, that's what it is, and I'm not going to apologize for calling a spade a spade), well, you're not going to see broad public support for defunding the CBC any time soon.

More on the CBC . . shilling for their patron saint - the Liberal Party of Canada

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNU3sL8T8RI&feature=player_embedded

Besides being funny, this is actually quite disgusting.  This is a publicly funded broadcasting organization, one that professes to professional and unbiased. That claims to be honest, to tell Canadians the truth, to be impartial, to cover all sides of a story. 

Hogwash.

And an entity that consumes over  $1 Billion taxpayer dollars every year.  Maybe that is just a coincidence, but the CBC costs about the same as those F-35's.

So which is providing Canadians with better value for money spent.

The Canadian Broadcorping Castration, so not entitles to having a lip-lock on the public teat any longer.

Defund the CBC and buy 65 additional F-35's ?? 

What a jolly good idea  ;D

 

[Rifleman62]

Redeye, did you not take SHARP training? You cannot say (or think)

calling a spade a spade

 

[GR66]

The oil patch worker in me nearly has a meltdown when I hear about a carbon tax. Look at BC's attempt and what people think of their carbon tax and they don't depend nearly as much as Alberta on oil production for their economy. Would you want to try to sell a national carbon tax in AB and SK? Rightly or wrongly it would be branded as NEP II and the fallout would be unreal. Too many people remember NEP I. It would be political suicide and assuming that BC and AB get those extra seats in the house the chance of it happening would even lower IMO.

Don't call it a Carbon Tax, it's simply a consumption tax that includes energy.  Don't weight it toward simply those forms of energy which produce the most carbon...apply it to ALL forms of energy equally.  Stop giving government subsidies (hidden and otherwise) to energy production so that consumers pay the real full price of the energy they use.  That will ultimately force consumers and business to become more efficient in their energy expenditures.

Ultimately, that's the solution to Global Warming that the enviro crowd are missing.  The problem is not that we're using too much "dirty" energy...it's that we're using too much energy PERIOD.  Put the market signals in place to drive companies and consumers to become more efficient in their energy use and we'll use less energy overall (and become "greener" as a result).  It will also make Canadian companies more competitive in the global market vs. other countries that don't force their industries to be efficient as energy prices worldwide continue to climb.

Apologies to ERC for jumping in.

 

[Edward Campbell]

E.R.

The business man in me knows you are correct that we need some sort of consumption tax nation wide, whatever it may be called. The oil patch worker in me nearly has a meltdown when I hear about a carbon tax. Look at BC's attempt and what people think of their carbon tax and they don't depend nearly as much as Alberta on oil production for their economy. Would you want to try to sell a national carbon tax in AB and SK? Rightly or wrongly it would be branded as NEP II and the fallout would be unreal. Too many people remember NEP I. It would be political suicide and assuming that BC and AB get those extra seats in the house the chance of it happening would even lower IMO.

The other part that bothers me about reducing income tax in favor of a large nation wide sales tax is the immigrant factor. As I posted earlier the immigrants and temporary workers in my neighborhood send very large sums of money out of the country and I'm sure what I see must be the tip of the iceberg. If we were to lower income taxes a great deal in favor of a sales/carbon tax that would allow even larger sums of money to leave the country with no benefit to our economy or government in the form of taxes. Would that mean we would then have to restrict money transfers out of country or tax them? It seems to me to be better the way we have it now but I have no formal education in business just what I picked up in the school of hard knocks.

Fire away.  ;D

KJK

I understand your points, but I think we need a carbon tax for three reasons:

1. To encourage optimal use - use gas, for example, for mobility and, to the degree possible non-carbon fuels (nuclear, hydro, etc) for static operations;

2. Change behavior - encourage people to use less and less carbon, for the sake of the atmosphere and, consequently, the public's heath; and

3. Raise revenue.

 

[a_majoor]

Foreign remittances may not be a net benefit for the local economy, but it is great for Canadian exporters, who can easily sell their products and be paid in Canadian dollars. This frees the exporters to a large extent from currency exchange risks, and buyers appreciate no fuss transactions as well.

A lowered GST/HST also means the immigrant workers also have more to spend on local goods and services, which is where the boost to the local economy comes from. Really, tax cuts are a net benefit to everyone (even government workers, since a growing economy can pay for the @13% differential between private and public service union wages and @ 33% differentials when public sector benefits are added).

 

[KJK]

Foreign remittances may not be a net benefit for the local economy, but it is great for Canadian exporters, who can easily sell their products and be paid in Canadian dollars. This frees the exporters to a large extent from currency exchange risks, and buyers appreciate no fuss transactions as well.

Thucydides,

That is an interesting point and one I hadn't considered at all. I'm not sure how many of these countries can afford to buy much from Canada but if they already have some of our currency in could save maybe .5-2% of the purchase in exchange fees and every little bit helps.

ERC, I believe you are correct but I still think it would be a very tough sell.

GR66 - It could be developed as a carbon tax but it would have to be sold to the public out here anyway as anything but a carbon tax.

KJK

 

[kratz]

From today's [ur=http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Internet+rumours+Harper+candidacy+illegal/4522736/story.htmll]Ottawa Citizen[/url]

We all know the election is 2 May 2011, but the news is reporting a new twist that should be interesting to watch, Advance Polls are scheduled over the Easter weekend. How many people will make it out to the advanced polls?

HOP TO THE POLLS

The dates for advance polls will fall on Easter weekend.

Elections Canada has set Friday, April 22, Saturday, April 23 and Monday, April 25 as the dates for advance voting.

But don't blame the elections agency for this decision: Once an election date has been set, the other events on the election calendar fall into place based on a rigid schedule. In this case, the prescribed dates for advance polls happened to coincide with the holiday.

And if Christians feel slighted, keep in mind that, in 2008, many Jews were upset by the decision to set the voting day on the first day of the religious holiday of Sukkot.

That touched off speculation that turnout at advance polls would be higher than normal. But the numbers were down slightly from the 2006 election, though Thornhill, Ont., with the largest Jewish population of any riding, had the fourth-highest advance turnout.

Voters who can't make it to the advance polls or the May 2 election day can still apply for a special ballot to vote by mail or in person at the local Elections Canada office.

 

[Redeye]

The tough sell part is the problem - it's all going to be in marketing.  I happen to believe that the sooner we rework the tax system to account for those presently externalized costs, the easier it will be to adjust to the reality that we squander resources at an alarming rate.  The fact is that tax incentivization works.  If we learned anything from Stephane Dion's campaigning on the "Green Shift" concept, it's that the presentation and marketing is the key.

Thucydides,

That is an interesting point and one I hadn't considered at all. I'm not sure how many of these countries can afford to buy much from Canada but if they already have some of our currency in could save maybe .5-2% of the purchase in exchange fees and every little bit helps.

ERC, I believe you are correct but I still think it would be a very tough sell.

GR66 - It could be developed as a carbon tax but it would have to be sold to the public out here anyway as anything but a carbon tax.

KJK

 

[PuckChaser]

If we learned anything from Stephane Dion's campaigning on the "Green Shift" concept, it's that the presentation and marketing is the key.

I'd rather we have the right plan coupled with a subpar marketing effort than some hodge-podge vote-grab plan with a great used car salesman pitch.

 

[Redeye]

I'd rather we have the right plan coupled with a subpar marketing effort than some hodge-podge vote-grab plan with a great used car salesman pitch.

Ideally, I want both, because even a perfect plan has to be sold to the masses in some fashion, particularly if it represents a major shift in how things are done, which any such changes would likely need to be.

 

[KJK]

I happen to believe that the sooner we rework the tax system to account for those presently externalized costs, the easier it will be to adjust to the reality that we squander resources at an alarming rate.

You have to be care about wording Redeye. Some people say I 'squander' resources because I drive a full size 4WD truck instead of a subcompact. Not true, on the roads I use to get to work a Prius wouldn't completely fill some of the holes. We have to bear in mind that the further you get from either coast and the further north you get the energy requirement changes and not for the better. A few weeks ago at work it was -39 for several days while Medicine Hat was -6 and I believe Toronto was above 0. This is one reason why the people on the prairies dislike a carbon tax, their energy requirements day to day are far higher than someone in Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax etc. My commute to work is 4.5 hours one way when the roads are good and maybe 7-8 hours when they are not. This is not easily comparable to driving across Toronto. Yes you have traffic, I have holes and heaves big enough to lose a car in, muskeg, moose and lots of mud. Needless to say though my truck is EPA rated at 20mpg I'm lucky to get half of that. I don't know if you could make a carbon tax fair for everyone, the country is huge and conflicting interests many.

KJK

 

[foresterab]

I understand your points, but I think we need a carbon tax for three reasons:

1. To encourage optimal use - use gas, for example, for mobility and, to the degree possible non-carbon fuels (nuclear, hydro, etc) for static operations;

2. Change behavior - encourage people to use less and less carbon, for the sake of the atmosphere and, consequently, the public's heath; and

3. Raise revenue.

E.R...under this proposal does  this mean that we will consider hydro power as a natural resource for the puroposes of calculating equalization payments?  Because either you have the rivers to dam or you do not just like minerals to mine.

Dealing with some issues at work that are somewhat related in terms of non-carbon fuel based power generation.  Wood co-generation or pure generation of power is a possibility but most power facilities are not set up to allow them to switch source fuels...apparently Finland has multiple plants that are able to switch between coal/oil/gas/wood depending upon which is the cheapest feed stock at the time. I wonder how much funding it would cost to convert Canada's power plants over to a similar set-up starting with the worst emitters first irrespective of province?  To me this is the sort of national energy program that I could support assuming it was funded off the federal gov'ts share of the non-renewable resources revenue

 

[Edward Campbell]

You have to be care about wording Redeye. Some people say I 'squander' resources because I drive a full size 4WD truck instead of a subcompact. Not true, on the roads I use to get to work a Prius wouldn't completely fill some of the holes. We have to bear in mind that the further you get from either coast and the further north you get the energy requirement changes and not for the better. A few weeks ago at work it was -39 for several days while Medicine Hat was -6 and I believe Toronto was above 0. This is one reason why the people on the prairies dislike a carbon tax, their energy requirements day to day are far higher than someone in Vancouver, Montreal, Halifax etc. My commute to work is 4.5 hours one way when the roads are good and maybe 7-8 hours when they are not. This is not easily comparable to driving across Toronto. Yes you have traffic, I have holes and heaves big enough to lose a car in, muskeg, moose and lots of mud. Needless to say though my truck is EPA rated at 20mpg I'm lucky to get half of that. I don't know if you could make a carbon tax fair for everyone, the country is huge and conflicting interests many.

KJK

Good points; I think you can use the tax system, rebates etc, to soften the blow, but, of course, not perfectly equalize, the impact of a carbon tax on rural Canada.

 

[KJK]

Good points; I think you can use the tax system, rebates etc, to soften the blow, but, of course, not perfectly equalize, the impact of a carbon tax on rural Canada.

Very true but the cynic in me says that that statement could also be translated to "Western Canada is going to take it in the wallet again!" ;D

KJK

 

[Redeye]

Very true but the cynic in me says that that statement could also be translated to "Western Canada is going to take it in the wallet again!" ;D

The cynicism makes sense, I can't argue that.  It will take some creativity to find ways to address that issue for sure, that will be part of the process of figuring out how to do things different.

In October I visited the JFK Presidential Library at Columbia Point in Boston.  At the very end of the very well laid out "tour", you come into a massive glass structure with a huge American flag, and you come face to face with the close of Kennedy's 1960 Inaugural Speech: "All this will not be done in the first one hundred days, or the first one thousand days, or in the life of this Administration, or even perhaps in our lifetimes on this planet. But let us begin."

That statement's been a good inspiring point to start thinking about this the need for new ideas.