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Election 2015

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ballz said:
Hence why I said to cut the welfare payments. That is the measure that will prevent abuse.

Until the first sob story comes out about emancipated children, no food in house, rats and cockroaches everywhere. It's never the parents fault for spending the money, its the welfare dept's fault for not giving them adequate resources...... ::)
 
GAP said:
Until the first sob story comes out about emancipated children, no food in house, rats and cockroaches everywhere.

There are people that will be in that situation no matter what you do or don't do for them, and they'll be in the exact same situation as they were in before National Childcare/Welfare cuts, the only difference is that their child will be getting one hot meal a day and some early childhood education.

For the majority though, they'll 1. be enabled to work (because they won't have to pay for childcare, which makes it *not worth working*) and 2. forced, by circumstance, to work.

The fact that we would be enabling them the *time* to work by looking after their kids for them, really makes it morally sound (from my perspective) to cut a big chunk out of their welfare payments. Right now, it's simply makes more financial sense as a single parent to collect welfare and not work, than to work for minimum wage for 40 hours a week and pay for childcare 40 hours a week. Staring at those two options, of course they're not going to work.
 
GAP said:
Until the first sob story comes out about emancipated children, no food in house, rats and cockroaches everywhere. It's never the parents fault for spending the money, its the welfare dept's fault for not giving them adequate resources...... ::)


Can't resist, sorry: I don't think anyone is going to complain because they are free, GAP; however, if they are emaciated ...  :-*
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Can't resist, sorry: I don't think anyone is going to complain because they are free, GAP; however, if they are emaciated ...  :-*

Yeah, yeah,......so they're free and SKINNY!!  ;D
 
Damme, where d'ye find a good poorhouse when you need it?
 
E.R. Campbell said:
The implications of this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, go far beyond the 2015 Election:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/stephen-harpers-census/article2326375

THE big challenge for Prime Minister Harper, indeed for Canada, is to "fix" Ontario ~ it constitutes more than 1/3 of the country's population (actually 38%) but only 37% of Canada's GDP, down from 39% in 2005. Given that "old Canada," Canada East of the Ottawa River is unlikely to ever be a net contributor to the national commonwealth it is essential that "new Canada," (BC, AB, SK, MB and ON) are, in aggregate, always producing more than their 'fair share' to help support the weaker sisters.

THE big challenge for Ontario is to recover from the huge losses in the manufacturing sector over the past 20 years. During my lifetime we saw the manufacturing sector grow from a low skill/low wage proposition into a low skill/high wage thing and then start to collapse. It is unlikely that:

1. Ontario can, ever again, be a low skill/high wage manufacturing hub - but it can have some low skill/low wage manufacturing and more high skill/high wage manufacturing; or

2. Ontario can, nearly alone, "carry" the national economy, as it did for 50 years from 1950 to 2000.

The entire country needs to shed its "culture of entitlement," a holdover from the socio-economic idiocy of the Trudeau era, and regain its frugal, self reliant spirit - which was nearly wrung out of us by the pain of Great Depression combined with the drought of the "dirty thirties" and the giddy growth after World War II. We translated the best elements of a "cooperative" culture into an unsustainable "culture of entitlement" and, simultaneously, we denigrated the virtues of hard work, thrift and self reliance. These are social and attitudinal matters more than they are policy or political issues.


More on Ontario, this time in the form of some realistic thinking from Jeffrey Simpson, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/jeffrey-simpson/ontario-needs-to-take-its-medicine/article2330034/
Ontario needs to take its medicine

JEFFREY SIMPSON

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Feb. 08, 2012

The premier of the Sick Man of Canada, Ontario, arrives in the nation’s capital Thursday for a major speech. If it’s like the speech Premier Dalton McGuinty delivered recently in Toronto, people should turn in their tickets before it’s too late.

That speech was a snoozer at a time when Ontario needs a wake-up call. Ontario, once the golden goose of Canada, is laying an economic egg. Its public services cannot be financed at existing levels of taxation. So Ontario borrows a lot of money, and will keep right on borrowing unless serious remedial measures are taken. Either the government gets both smaller and smarter, or taxes must go up – or both.

The rest of Canada should take note: Ontario is fiscally crippled and will be for some time. This crippling represents the biggest change within Confederation since the discovery of oil in Alberta.

The dynamics of the country are changed. Ontario now receives equalization payments and will for the foreseeable future. Not large payments, but payments nonetheless. Symbolically, that says it all.

Of course, the McGuinty government puts the best gloss possible on the situation. The two opposition parties, regrettably, are into puerile populism of the left and right, with the NDP talking about heating oil rebates for seniors and other irrelevancies, and the Conservatives blathering on about eliminating toothless regional health authorities as a way to save money.

But the Conference Board of Canada, beholden to no one, has laid it on the line. Its recent report on Ontario’s economic and fiscal prospects, combined with economist Don Drummond’s report next week (anyone who knows him will anticipate the straight goods), will be a one-two punch against all the illusions, posturing and politicking that have characterized much of what passes for political debate in Ontario.

The Conference Board’s report starts from a devastating premise: Ontario’s real economic growth will be 1.9 per cent, almost a full point below the government’s projections. As a result, the McGuinty government’s plan to wipe out the $16-billion deficit by 2017-2018 is already junk bond stuff.

The government had predicted it could bring health-care spending increases down to 3 per cent and keep them there (something never before done), limit education and social services to a 2-per-cent increases, and restrict everything else to almost zero.

Not any more. Slower growth will mean fewer revenues, which will require cutting everything except health, education and social services by 5 per cent. That would mean cutting, inter alia: roads, public transit, legal aid, culture, agriculture, environment, corporate subsidies and grants, research and development – in short, everything else the government does.

If the government stuck to its original plan, it could balance the books, all right – but in a decade. If, as is likely, it were impossible to hold health care increases to 3 per cent – if health care rose at 4.7 per cent – then the budget would not be balanced in 2011-2012 or any time thereafter. And if health care tracked up to 5.6 per cent yearly increases, then to balance the budget by 2017-2018 the provincial sales tax would have to hit 15 per cent.

These are projections, albeit it highly intelligent ones. Maybe growth will soar well beyond expectations. Maybe Ontario’s public institutions will suddenly become vastly more productive. Maybe public-sector unions will accept five to 10 years of restraint. Maybe a surge of innovation will wash over Ontario; after all, it has large universities, a well-educated population and some world-class companies. Maybe the three parties in a minority government will stop posturing and come together in a serious effort to restore Ontario’s fiscal situation. Maybe pigs will sprout wings.

But after years of the McGuinty government adding new programs everywhere – including the latest one to lop 30 per cent off university tuition fees for many full-time students – while the economy kept slumping, ye olde proverbial chickens have come home to roost. Indeed, they arrived some time ago, but the politicians weren’t looking, or pretended not to see.

And so the Sick Man of Canada, and its premier, now has a choice: Speak the truth about what is really happening and prepare people for what must be done; or give a Toronto speech, evasive, bland and political.


This is, I suspect, part of an orchestrated lead-in to Don Drummond's report (due next week) which will be painfully prescriptive; McGuinty is no fool; he understands, understood before he asked Drummond to be his stalking horse, what needs to be done but he (and Stephen Harper) need to steer Ontarians away from their blindly, blissful faith in everlasting growth and towards retrenchment.

But I reiterate: Ontario must be "fixed." It is too much to expect BC, AB, SK and MB to carry "old Canada" (QC and the Atlantic provinces) indefinitely.
 
But I reiterate: Ontario must be "fixed." It is too much to expect BC, AB, SK and MB to carry "old Canada" (QC and the Atlantic provinces) indefinitely.

soooo...... how many years does "new Canada" owe "old Canada"?    ;D
 
This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, could make life even more interesting in 2015 if, big IF, groups like 'Liberals for Life' do manage to take over some riding associations:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-fear-pro-lifers-trying-to-take-over-weakened-federal-party/article2331586/page1/
Liberals fear pro-lifers trying to take over weakened federal party

JOAN BRYDEN

OTTAWA— The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, Feb. 08, 2012

Some federal Liberals fear single-issue pro-lifers are trying to hijack their weakened party.

Their fears have been stoked by the apparent re-emergence of a group calling itself Liberals for Life, which is promoting Trifon Haitas's bid to represent the party in a March 19 by-election in Toronto-Danforth.

The group has issued an “urgent message” to Liberals in the riding, urging them to support Mr. Haitas, a Greek-Canadian journalist who formerly ran for the Green party.

“Trifon Haitas is the only candidate who is committed to stop the slaughter of unborn children in Canada,” the electronic message states.

The message includes a link to an endorsement of Mr. Haitas by Campaign Life Coalition, a national organization opposed to abortion.

The by-election in Toronto-Danforth, a riding just east of downtown Toronto, was necessitated by the death of NDP Leader Jack Layton last August. Liberals are set to nominate their candidate Thursday, with Mr. Haitas facing off against advertising executive Grant Gordon.

Liberals for Life spearheaded a move to take over dormant riding associations and nominate pro-life candidates in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the party was in a weakened state.

The group seemed to disappear after 1992, when Liberals gave their party leader the power to appoint candidates — a move aimed squarely at pre-empting takeover attempts by single-issue groups, although it was eventually used for other purposes.

However, at last month's Liberal convention, delegates expressed concern that conditions are once again ripe for an attempted takeover by single-issue groups, given that the party was reduced to a historic low of 34 seats in last May's election. Party officials estimate Liberal associations are dormant in some 80 ridings across the country and weak in many others.

Mr. Haitas said Wednesday that Liberals for Life is not defunct.

“They're still strong. They're alive and doing good work,” he said in a phone interview, although he couldn't provide names of organizers.

“Definitely, I am pro-life. I believe in the sanctity of life and I'm right by their side when it comes to that issue.”

Mr. Haitas denied he's a single-issue candidate, stressing that abortion is only one of many issues of concern to him and voters in Toronto-Danforth. There are currently no legal restrictions on abortion in Canada and Mr. Haitas said he respects the Liberal party's position that the debate should not be reopened.

Still, he said: “I, as an individual, have to stay true to my faith ... I grew up in the orthodox Christian faith and there's no way I would turn my back to the beliefs I was brought up with.

“It's an issue that's close to my heart because I have personal experience of that issue.”

Mr. Haitas said his father's parents disapproved of his mother and urged her to have an abortion when she became pregnant.

“I'm alive today because both my parents are pro-life. My grandparents didn't want me to be born.”

Moreover, he said he conceived a child with a woman to whom he was once engaged and she chose to have an abortion, against his wishes.

“I lost a child to abortion. I had no choice in the matter and I feel ashamed that that happened. I've learned from it,” said Mr. Haitas, who is now married with two young children.

Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said he was unaware of Mr. Haitas' views and had seen no signs of a re-emergence of Liberals for Life or any other single-interest group trying to take over Toronto-Danforth or other ridings. He noted that the leader does still retain the “residual power” to appoint candidates if necessary, with the approval of the party's national executive, but said it's not his preferred route.

“My own view is, I always prefer open nominations, I always prefer people to be able to come forward, express their views and for people to be able to exercise their choice at a riding meeting. I think that's what will happen this time and we'll just have to see what the members decide on Thursday night,” he said in an interview.

Toronto MP Carolyn Bennett, chair of the Liberal women's caucus, recalled the attempted riding takeovers in the past and said it's “worrying” to see the abortion issue being raised once again in a nomination meeting.

She pointed out that Mr. Haitas's views are contrary to a priority resolution passed at last month's convention, reaffirming women's right to reproductive health services. The resolution noted many publicly funded health institutions refuse to perform abortions and urged the federal government to financially penalize provinces that fail to ensure access.

Ms. Bennett also questioned the legality of the name Liberals for Life.

“We will speak to the leader and to the party but I don't think (Liberals for Life) should be able to portray themselves as an official branch of the party, that's for sure,” she said in an interview.

Mr. Rae maintained the Liberal party has always been pro-choice and he expects all Liberal MPs to toe that line.

“There's not going to be any change and I expect every member of the caucus to support the position that the caucus and the party, frankly, has always taken.”

However, there has been a relatively strong contingent of pro-life Liberals in the caucus for decades and the party has typically allowed them to vote according to their consciences on abortion questions.

An attempt by former leader Michael Ignatieff to flush out the Harper government on its refusal to fund abortions in poor countries ended up backfiring in 2010, with three Liberals voting against their party's own motion and 13, mostly pro-life Liberal MPs, failing to show up for the vote.

Toronto MP Jim Karygiannis, one of the few remaining pro-life Liberals after last May's election, said he's given some advice to Mr. Haitas about contesting the nomination. But he said he knows nothing about any revival of Liberals for Life and questioned how useful such an endorsement would be in a riding accustomed to the pro-choice stance of Mr. Layton.

“As far as I know, they don't exist,” he said.


While I don't think the "social conservative" movement is anywhere near as strong in Canada as it is in the USA it exists and it is, probably, strong in some specific ridings; it would be interesting to see a pro-life Liberal square off against a socially conservative Tory in one of those ridings, especially given Prime Minister Harper's very evident lack of patience with the social conservatives.
 
Try the US where one population group has three quarters of the children in one parent homes. Never heard of birth control. Using a condom is not showing respect to their manhood.
 
Fixing Ontario will involve dismantling or cancelling a lot of self destructive policies. Look at what "Green" energy is doing to our cost structure, and ask yourself if ay sensible businessperson who had the means or ability would choose to move to or stay in Ontario:
 
Interesting interactive graphic here; just click through the 55 years keeping your eye on Québec.  :o

 
Quebec to blame for its own declining prosperity
Article Link
Lorne Gunter  Feb 8, 2012 – 2:43 PM ET

Quebec’s provincial per capita GDP ($40,270 in 2010) is just 85% of the national average of $47,438. Only three provinces have proportionately smaller economies, New Brunswick ($38,940), Nova Scotia ($38,478) and PEI ($34,723). Even Newfoundland and Labrador, habitually the basket case of Confederation, now has a significantly stronger economy with per capita provincial GDP of $55,186, thanks to its recent natural resource boom.

As recently as 1995, Quebec’s per capita economic strength was over 90% of the national average. So what has happened since?

According to a new study of provincial economies across the country by l’École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Montréal (HEC), the problem is not so much Quebec declining as it is other provinces racing ahead much faster. Still, according to the study’s author, economist Martin Coiteux, if Quebec doesn’t take action to increase the productivity of its labour force and spur development of its natural resources, “it runs the risk of finding itself last among Canadian provinces with respect to income and standard of living.”

This is hardly a new warning. Eight years ago, no less a Quebec icon than former premier Lucien Bouchard called on his province – both the people and the government – to rethink the “Quebec model” of economic development. Mr Bouchard and 11 others, who became known as “Les lucides,” said it was time to “wake up” from the twin notions that the provincial government was better suited than private investors to decide future economic development and that the province’s extensive social safety net could be afforded indefinitely. They recommended free-market reforms to unleash the province’s enormous economic potential and more user-pay social programs to curb government spending and debt.

Of course, Les lucides were met by Les Solidaires, a group of union activists, left-wing intellectuals and special interests that insisted the high-tax, big-spending, centrally planned approach was working just fine.

Unfortunately, Les Solidaires have prevailed. For instance, Quebec sits on one of the continent’s largest shale gas deposits, but thanks to a reluctance on the part of provincial politicians, development is at a standstill.

This inertia – whether from too much faith in the goodness of government or too much easy cash from the federal government to pay for social schemes Quebec cannot afford on its own – is a shame. As Mr. Bouchard pointed out in his manifesto, in the 25 years prior to 2005, Quebecers had pulled level with the rest of Canada in years of education received and francophones were close to income parity with anglophones. The gap in unemployment rates between Quebec and Ontario, too, had closed from over five percentage points to under two.

It’s not too distressing that the Atlantic provinces have caught up to Quebec – or nearly so – in personal income. The four had the farthest to come, so also the most room to grow. But what should disturb Quebecers is that the gap between their province and Ontario is widening again. According to the HEC study, Ontarians enjoy an annual income advantage of nearly $10,000 over Quebecers – and this is at a time when the regulation-heavy, high-taxing McGuinty government is slowing Ontario’s growth. Simply put, even though Ontario’s growth is slipping, Quebec is failing to keep up with its neighbour.

According to the HEC study, over a 31-year period from 1978 to 2009, every region of Canada gained on income against Quebec. Why? Mr. Coiteux explained that “proportionately, fewer Quebecers work [than other Canadians]. They work fewer hours on average. And they earn an hourly pay that’s lower than that of most other Canadians.”

I have always been struck when examining Statistics Canada’s annual labour force participation data by just how few people in have-not provinces, including Quebec, have jobs. In Quebec, the percentage of working-age residents in the labour market is under 65%. In Alberta, it’s nine percentage points higher. And Alberta’s labour market is expanding, while Quebec’s is stagnating.

None of this is to say that Quebecers are lazy or unwilling to take entrepreneurial risks. On the contrary, I think the political culture in Quebec is what is standing in the way. The provincial government can rely on Ottawa shipping in $8 billion to $10 billion a year in equalization payments. Quebec receives half of all the federal top-up funds distributed to have-nots in a year. So the province’s politicians do not have to make rational economic decisions.

Because they know that Ottawa will siphon off gobs of cash from have provinces to pay for cheap day care and low tuition and seniors’ care and prescription drugs and so on, Quebec politicians have the luxury of blocking resource development in the name of the environment or of preserving Quebec’s slower-paced lifestyle.
More on link
 
E.R. Campbell said:
Interesting interactive graphic here; just click through the 55 years keeping your eye on Québec.  :o

Click on this and have a look at Sask shrinking during the NDP administration and then expanding quickly once they get turfed.
 
If Liberal insider Robert Silver is correct, in this column which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, then Thomas Mulcair is the Liberal Party of Canada's worst nightmare (as was Jack Layton):

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/silver-powers/what-mandate-is-mulcair-seeking/article2351179/
What mandate is Mulcair seeking?

ROBERT SILVER

Globe and Mail Update
Posted on Monday, February 27, 2012

Watching the NDP leadership debate Sunday in Winnipeg, the most striking thing to me is how certain Tomas Mulcair appears to be that he has the leadership in the bag. Unlike the other candidates on stage with him, he wasn’t pleading for second-choice votes. He is acting like a front-runner who both knows where he currently stands and is confident he has a path to get more than 50 per cent.

He was doing something much bigger this weekend – and has been for a few weeks now, as far as I can tell as an outsider to this race – he’s trying to get a mandate to fundamentally change the NDP. Candidates who are unsure if they’re going to win normally take the approach “a win is a win.” Candidates who are confident of victory have far more luxury to define what their win means. Also, typically in a leadership race or primary battle, you run toward your party’s base (and then tack toward the centre in the general election). Mulcair is running away from his base – or said positively, is proposing to lead his base in a different direction. That speaks to someone who feels pretty good about his standing.

First a proviso: It is very easy to look very stupid writing about leadership races prior to a winner being announced. Leaderships are ultimately math contests. The air war is what the media and outsiders pay attention to because that’s all we have access to. But unless you have the membership tracking numbers, it is impossible to know how the race is really going. So of course it’s very possible that Mulcair is wrong and he won’t win. I’m only commenting on how Mulcair is acting and what it says about how he thinks the race is unfolding.

Assuming Mulcair is right and that he’s going to win, the mandate he’s seeking was on full display in Winnipeg. In an exchange with Niki Ashton, he made his intent clear: “I would not repeat things from 50 years ago, I would modernize our language, modernize our approach.”

Modern language, modern approach. I have no idea what that actually means, but I can guess. In part, it is easiest to define what he is proposing by contrasting it with his main opponents. Peggy Nash and Brian Topp have been carrying a message through this campaign that you can boil down to “the NDP doesn’t need to change, what we’ve been doing is working, we have passed the Liberals, our vote total keeps going up and if we keep doing the same thing, we will win.” They would stay true to NDP orthodoxy as opposed to moving to the centre; they embrace the NDP’s relationship with organized labour as opposed to downplaying it; they celebrate the party’s history at every opportunity, etc.

Mulcair rejects this approach categorically. He put it plainly on Sunday: “We did get 4.5 million votes but we are still far from being able to form a government. The only way we are going to be able to do that is to go beyond our traditional base, refresh our way of approaching these issues. We’re not going to defeat Stephen Harper with a slogan.” Putting aside the fact that “modernize our language, modernize our approach” is little more than a slogan, this strikes me as a pretty significant mandate for change if he is successful. He wants to make the NDP into a party of the centre, not the left. That would be a big change in Canadian politics with potentially far-reaching implications .

The lazy shorthand for what Mulcair is doing would make some reference to Tony Blair and his fight against Labour’s Clause IV and other New Labour steps he took to drag his party to the centre. What’s interesting about Mulcair’s gambit – again, assuming that he’s right and he has the leadership in the bag – is unlike with Blair, there doesn’t appear to be an existential debate ongoing within the NDP. The amazing thing about the change in direction Mulcair is seeking a mandate to implement is how easy it has been for him to (potentially) get a yes. Unlike the Clause IV battles, he’s just winning the leadership and oh ya, may change the party in pretty significant ways.

While I really have no idea how Mulcair would modernize his party or what he would change in order to reach centrist voters beyond the NDP’s traditional base, I do know that Mulcair is a talented guy and Liberals and Conservatives alike should not ignore what he’s proposing to do.


If, big IF Mulcair wins and if, bigger IF he can lead the NDP to the centre then where do the Liberals go?

To be sure some Dippers, the ones Mulcair is, currently, alienating, will want nothing to do with the political centre, but where do they go? If they are Québécois (or Québécoise) they will have choices: the BQ and a new Québec nationalist party which might be left of centre; but what about those lefties from the rest of Canada? They can a) form a new party - good luck with that, b) join the Greens who are, currently, economically illiterate, too, c) stay home, or d) hold their noses and vote NDP.

But many in the NDP and some Liberals, too, will like a new, centrist (don't lets "eat the rich" or nationalize the banks) NDP. The Liberals could try to jump left, over the new New Democrats but doing so would lose 2/3 of the party: a) the "blue," right wing Liberals - who would jump into the CPC that Prime MInister Harper is making attractive for them; and b) the centrist Liberals - who would jump to the new, centrist NDP.

Like a said, a nightmare; I don't envy Bob Rae.

Jack Layton moved the NDP closer to the centre and that really hurt the Liberals without causing too many Dippers to defect.

 
An interesting perspective from Andrew Coyne, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/14/andrew-coyne-a-budget-a-leadership-race-and-a-nation-split-up-the-middle/
A budget, a leadership race — and a nation split up the middle

Andrew Coyne

Mar 14, 2012


The phoney war is over. Nearly a year after the election, the parties it propelled to the fore, the one as majority government, the other as official Opposition, are at last about to engage. Later this month the Conservatives, having spent the past few months tidying up some unfinished business from the last government, will deliver a budget that by all accounts will define the current one. The week before, the NDP will elect a new leader, and in the process define themselves: ideologically, regionally, tonally. Together, the two offer a prism through which to view our politics over the next four years, and the forces that will shape it.

It is clear, first, that natural resources, notably oil, are emerging as the primary fault line in Canadian politics, assuming commodity prices remain at their present, historically high levels. The fundamental question is whether the enormous wealth this represents is an asset to be managed, or a problem to be solved. (It’s both, of course, but politics has a way of turning complex questions into binary choices.) The Conservatives have plainly nailed their colours to the mast as the defender of the resource industries, and of the regions that depend upon them.

The NDP, just as surely, is preoccupied with the problems of resource wealth, from global warming to the costs a high “petro dollar” impose on other sectors. The leadership race has seen a parade of candidates in various states of anguish that Canadian resource firms should be selling their raw logs or unrefined bitumen to foreigners, rather than diverting them — presumably at a lower price — into domestic processing. Whether prompted by concern for the central Canadian manufacturing industries that employ many of the party’s union supporters, or simply a belief that “mere” resource extraction is undignified, the party invariably sees higher resource taxes — to “internalize” environmental costs, to discourage exports, to divert revenues into a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund — as the answer.

That is also a position attractive to many Liberals. Whatever its merits or demerits as policy, it amounts to ceding the resource-producing areas of the country to the Conservatives. Once, that might have been thought to mean Alberta. Today it means most of the West — the richest, fastest-growing parts of the country. Increasingly, it will mean Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, too. Effectively, then, a politics of resources-as-a-problem is a politics focused on Quebec and, to a lesser extent Ontario.

I say to a lesser extent, because the Tories successfully laid claim to almost 70% of Ontario’s seats in the last election, versus the five they were able to extract from Quebec. This was a remarkable turn, given the difficulties the province has endured of late: Given a choice, Ontario cast its lot with the West and the Tories, rather than the East and the opposition. It may lack the West’s resource abundance, it may indeed be currently in receipt of equalization payments, but the province still sees itself as a wealth-producer rather than a wealth-distributor, and to that extent it was more attuned to the Tories’ tax-cutting message than the opposition’s.

And this brings us to the second emerging fault line, to be exposed in the March 29 budget and in subsequent federal and provincial exercises. The late recession may be the proximate cause of the intense fiscal pressures every government is under, but the aging of the population will keep the heat on for years, indeed decades to come. Among other things, this is going to lead to demands from the wealthier provinces for a redrafting of the terms of fiscal federalism, including not just health and social transfers, but equalization, employment insurance and much else — with Ontario leading the charge. The arguments are all there in the Drummond Report.

Such a debate is likely to be polarizing, not just on regional but ideological lines. So it will be interesting to see how the opposition parties position themselves. The choice of Thomas Mulcair as NDP leader, for example, might be considered a smart play of the Quebec card. But will the party tolerate a centrist in the job at a time when the Conservatives are slashing spending? And will he be credible opposing cuts that, had he accepted the Conservatives’ reported offers to recruit him, he might have implemented himself?

Suppose the NDP do choose a Quebec leader. Is it not likely the Liberals, looking at the Tory lock on the West/Ontario, will also place their bets on Quebec, hoping the NDP’s breakthrough in the province was a one-time fluke? And yet both parties must be aware that sitting atop the latest polls in Quebec is . . . the Bloc Quebecois. It may be that we are entering an era in which, rather than throw its support heavily behind one party or another as it has in the past, Quebec divides its seats among three or four of them.

The resurgence of the separatist movement (the Parti Quebecois also leads in provincial polls) opens up yet a third potential fault line, with consequences no one can foresee. But suppose the Liberals, or some coalition of non-separatist parties, form a government after the next provincial election, probably in 2013. On the premier’s desk is a proposal to allow drilling for shale gas, which the province is reckoned to have in vast quantities, but the exploitation of which has until now been shelved owing to environmental concerns, or rather environmental politics. With the election safely out of the way, can there be much doubt the proposal will be revived? Given the kind of fiscal straits Quebec is in?

You want to talk about altering the political landscape: Quebec as fossil fuel producer?

Postmedia News


I think this is the key fault line: "... this [changing demographics] is going to lead to demands from the wealthier provinces for a redrafting of the terms of fiscal federalism, including not just health and social transfers, but equalization, employment insurance and much else — with Ontario leading the charge ..." I do not believe that Trudeau's fiscal federalism (Established Programs Financing which begat the Canada Health and Social Transfer which begat the Canada Health Transfer and so on) was ever either sustainable or even a good, temporary fix. Ottawa intrudes too deeply into areas which are, Constitutionally, out of bounds ~ it needs to withdraw and do its own, loss popular, jobs better and let the provinces do theirs as best they can.
 
Not only does Quebec have untapped reserves of shale gas, so does Ontario.....with the wealth that can go with it.....however that would require both provinces to buck the Ecco-nuts.


http://www.thestar.com/business/article/782552--alberta-firm-eyes-ontario-s-untapped-shale-gas
 
Larry Strong said:
Not only does Quebec have untapped reserves of shale gas, so does Ontario.....with the wealth that can go with it.....however that would require both provinces to buck the Ecco-nuts.


http://www.thestar.com/business/article/782552--alberta-firm-eyes-ontario-s-untapped-shale-gas

It would also mean that McGuinty and Co would have to forsake the drug addled Utopian agenda of wind power and green energy that they're on.

They would have to sacrifice their billion dollar payoffs to offshore conglomorates, FROM the taxpayer, and decimation of the Ontario workforce and infrastructure for real jobs and investment in Ontario FOR the taxpayer.

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Thomas Mulcair would bring Harper’s dream of Liberals’ demise closer to reality
Postmedia News  Mar 15, 2012
Article Link

Thomas Mulcair should eat his Wheaties and strap on his body armour. Correct?

The Harper Conservatives are already training their cannons on the New Democrat front-runner, some say, because he is the one they most fear. Mulcair’s combativeness, experience and brains make him a formidable foe. Moreover, he’s the New Democrat best placed to pull a “Tony Blair,” and shift the party further to the centre, where conceivably, it might contend for power.

But there’s another line of thinking, which suggests a Mulcair victory would suit Prime Minister Stephen Harper just fine. It gets back to Harper’s lifelong dream of destroying the Liberal party. Mulcair, it is believed by those who’ve seen him work in Quebec, has the capacity to wipe out or to absorb the Liberals. A Liberal-Democratic Party would necessarily position itself left of where the Liberals stood in their small-c-conservative period in the late 1990s. And that would at last leave the economic centre unobstructed, which is precisely what Harper wants.

Consider first the emerging endgame in the NDP leadership contest. The “anybody but Mulcair” candidate was to have been Brian Topp. Party insiders say that a series of halting debate performances have made that a non-starter. “In terms of being able to capture and continue to grow his (Topp’s) vote, I don’t see it . . . ” said one. “The Brian Topp campaign has no momentum right now. If anything he’s in reverse.”

Three are believed to be nipping at Mulcair’s heels: Peggy Nash, Paul Dewar and, most interestingly, Nathan Cullen. Nash’s solid union support, steady debate performances and the fact she’s the only serious female candidate in the race (Niki Ashton being too young and too wooden) have made her a contender. Dewar, despite his poor French, has benefited from good organization. And Cullen, widely dismissed as an also-ran at the outset, has surged on the strength of his likable onstage persona.

If anyone still has a shot at becoming the “anybody but Mulcair,” compromise candidate, it may be Nash. More likely though, observers say, is that Mulcair wins either on the first or second ballot. Cullen’s supporters are deemed likely to go to Mulcair as a second choice. Martin Singh’s supporters, we now know, have been asked to do likewise. (Keep in mind, much of this will have been decided before the convention March 23-24, since most of the party’s 125,000-plus registered members will have voted in advance.)

But let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the smart money is correct, and Mulcair wins. And let’s further assume he names Cullen, a fellow centrist and a popular British Columbia MP, as his deputy in English Canada, perhaps with a strong female Quebec MP — foreign affairs critic and former diplomat Helene Laverdiere has been mentioned — as Quebec deputy. What then?

Mulcair has taken great pains to avoid open comparisons with former British prime minister Tony Blair, who held power in the U.K. from 1997 to 2007, after jettisoning the most impossible of the British Labour Party’s socialist policies. But the parallels are clear. A couple of weeks ago, I asked Mulcair about the NDP’s reputation as a party that doesn’t understand kitchen-table economics. “To concede the point,” he said, “we’ve always been very conscious of the fact that a majority of Canadians share most of our goals and values. It’s been difficult in the past to convince them that we can provide good, competent, confident public administration.”

His solution, he said, would be to demonstrate while in Opposition that “we’re capable of running a G7 country.” Reading between the lines, in my judgment, that means he intends to pull a Blair.
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