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| What will happen on Monday? |
| The Cons are doing fine. Libs will abstain from the vote. |
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36% |
[ 7 ] |
| Canadians will go to the polls AGAIN. |
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26% |
[ 5 ] |
| Left-wing parties will form a coalition. |
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36% |
[ 7 ] |
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| Total Votes : 19 |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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sharkey
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
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 Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:11 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
| sharkey wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
| sharkey wrote: |
| mises wrote: |
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1018500
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| OTTAWA -- A two-year economic stimulus package that focuses on infrastructure, housing construction and the ailing manufacturing sector, overseen by a Finance Minister from the Liberal ranks, would be the top priority of a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition government. |
Uggghhhhhhhhhhhh. Yes. Build houses. Goddamn. |
i think thats a great idea, especially low income housing.. canada is shameful the way it treats poor people
i think its a great idea |
Canada is shameful compared to who?
Are you saying you want projects? Where do you think the immediately poor 250,000 immigrants live upon arrival? Do you really think we are short of low income housing? Maybe we are importing too many low income people? Or should the government build the low income houses for the low income immigrants and their CPP eligible grandparents?
Housing policy, poverty and unemployment cannot be disassociated from our bizarre and unnecessary obsession with mass immigration. |
first off, we dont allow unskilled immigrants into canada, we import very highly trained workers
http://www.streethealth.ca/Downloads/NickCEA-0507.pdf |
And they enter unemployed, then stay underemployed for years. That is, they're poor. You don't know anything about the issue. Don't comment. |
www.notcanada.com
Dont comment, im going to write a period after comment to show how stupid you are. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:37 am Post subject: |
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http://ezralevant.com/2008/12/details-of-the-payoff-senate-s.html
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I was just watching Mike Duffy Live on CTV, and learned that Pauline Marois, the leader of the provincial Parti Quebecois -- the sister party to the separatist Bloc Quebecois -- announced that part of Gilles Duceppe's price for supporting the coalition is an immediate $1 billion transfer to Quebec.
No doubt that news wasn't supposed to leak out until after the dirty deal was done -- Marois needed a boost in her provincial election and so she stole Duceppe's thunder. But surely the only surprising thing about this is that the dollar amount is so low. Surely the Bloc wouldn't agree, in advance, to support two budgets they haven't even seen yet, and to support the coalition in any non-confidence vote.
But on the same show, we learned of other coming pay-offs: separatist appointments to the Senate. There are 18 vacancies in the Senate, including four in Quebec. Not only are the Bloc in for patronage pay-offs, but Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, was on Parliament Hill today, and she wouldn't deny that she, too, was offered a Senate seat.
It's a fire sale in Ottawa! Senate seats, billions of dollars, whatever you want -- just make Stephane Dion the prime minister!
Fire sale -- or looting, I'm not sure.
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The Liberal Party will be forever tarnished from this. They have no idea what they are getting themselves into. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:54 am Post subject: |
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but Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, was on Parliament Hill today, and she wouldn't deny that she, too, was offered a Senate seat.
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Are we sure this isn't just Elizabeth May being coy in order to make herself look important? Why would the coalition-builders bother offering anything to her? The Green Party holds no seats in the Commons, so their support or lack thereof is totally irrelevant. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:56 am Post subject: |
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Maybe. But that is by far the least objectionable.
The Liberals are bribing the devil for his support. |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
Maybe. But that is by far the least objectionable.
The Liberals are bribing the devil for his support. |
Yeah, you know, among French Canadians outside Quebec, who traditionally tended to be Trudeau-style Liberals, the PQ/BQ are regarded as being just about as nasty as the Conservative-Reform types. I'm kind of wondering what sort of common cause Dion and Company think they're going to make with a bunch of guys who would happily wipe out bilingualism and multiculturalism at the stroke of a pen.
My guess is the Liberals think they can play the BQ for support until the next election, at which point the public will be so enammoured of all the good things that the coalition has accomploshed that the Liberals will get handed a crushing majority. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/12/02/kelly-mcparland-dion-mortgages-federalist-ideals-to-sign-on-with-separatists.aspx
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Stephane Dion is paying heavily for his hoped-for six months at 24 Sussex Dr. He started Monday with his principles.
The would-be prime minister, who first arrived in Ottawa to fight on the unity front and authored the Clarity Act, a significant federalist achievement, sat next to Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe and welcomed his signature on a document that could give separatism its greatest advance since the departure Rene Levesque.
The document is a deal that would let the Liberals and the New Democratic Party try to run the country for the next 18 months, propped up by Duceppe's 49 MPs. Mr. Dion and NDP leader Jack Layton welcomed the pact with speeches about democracy and their overwhelming concern for the country. Mr. Duceppe skipped all that and got straight to the point: he signed on because it furthers his ambitions in Quebec, and he'll abide by it as long as that's the case.
Initially he agreed to just 18 months, with an option for an additional 12 months if conditions warrant - i.e. if he can still extract enough concessions to make it worthwhile. To win his signature Mr. Layton and Mr. Dion agreed to a number of demands that will elevate Quebec to special status in Confederation, well above any of the other provinces or territories, even as it draws billions every year in equalization payments paid by those same regions.
Most significant was a mechanism to ensure the Bloc is consulted on any question of importance to Quebec, especially the budget. There will be social and economic measures sought by the Bloc, protection for cultural programs, acceleration of infrastructure projects and new support for older workers.
By signing the deal the Bloc also saves Quebec from a number of Tory initiatives, including plans to redistribute seats in the Commons, reducing Quebec's relative weight, and the introduction of a single national securities regulator, a measure widely seen as a needed improvement in the face of the market meltdown.
Not a bad list, and that's just the start. Mr. Dion and Mr. Layton are pretty keen on this coalition going ahead, and they're no doubt willing to keep up the payments. After assailing the Conservatives for failing to produce a bailout package they admitted they don't have one themselves yet, though they appear to have agreed on the amount -- $30 billion is the rumour. First they decided the size of the jackpot -- arbitrarily it seems -- and now they'll do the divvying up. There can be little doubt Mr. Duceppe will expect a significant chunk of that to be directed to Quebec as he sees fit, a right the accord appears to give him.
No other province has a similar right. No other province that we know of was consulted on the contents of the accord agreed to by the three party leaders. As noted elsewhere, the trio indicated their �belief in the role of government to act as a partner with Canadians and Quebecers,� a statement that implicitly separates Quebec's interests from Canada's and accords them special status.
Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach is already sounding alarmed, urging Ottawa to "put Canada first and stop the nonsense."
"This is a time when we need sane, prudent leadership dealing with the bigger elephant in the room, which is the global economic crisis, and it's a real concern to all Albertans," he said. The three coalition parties have a total of 21 seats west of Ontario, mostly in British Columbia. The western provinces can see what's coming. Liberal seats are heavily concentrated in Toronto and Montreal. The NDP has almost half its seats in Ontario. That's where most of ther $30 billion will go, with Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe ensuring billions are funnelled to struggling industries favoured by their parties. While the Ontario government will no doubt be happy for the money, it can't be pleased at the prospect of Quebec being elevated to greater status in the federation while it retains only the right to plead for attention.
Where will the money come from? We don't know yet but the western provinces have every right to be concerned. They sent more than 70 Conservatives to the House and they've now been shunted aside by a triumvirate consisting of two Quebec politicians and one from Toronto. Mr. Dion, who was rejected by Canadians to a great extent because of his obsessive drive to impose a carbon tax, now says it's imperative to introduce a cap and trade system on the energy industry, which is already struggling with the impact of the downturn in the economy. During the election Mr. Dion dismissed the notion of a coalition with the NDP, saying Mr. Layton "does not understand the economy," and "you cannot have a coalition with a party that has a platform that would be damaging to the economy. Period." Now, apparently, it's OK.
The fissures are obvious. Special status for Quebec. Borrowed money, directed heavily towards Ontario and Quebec. The strains on the national fabric will me immense. Mr. Duceppe doesn't care about any of that -- it's exactly what he wants. The more turmoil in English Canada the stronger his argument for an independent Quebec. Mr. Dion went to Ottawa to resist that. Now he's giving Mr. Duceppe what he wants. |
This is a near-sighted disaster. |
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sharkey
Joined: 12 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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but Elizabeth May, the Green Party leader, was on Parliament Hill today, and she wouldn't deny that she, too, was offered a Senate seat.
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Are we sure this isn't just Elizabeth May being coy in order to make herself look important? Why would the coalition-builders bother offering anything to her? The Green Party holds no seats in the Commons, so their support or lack thereof is totally irrelevant. |
green party has had substantial increases in the number of votes, just a matter of time before they get a couple seats. And when youre playing with coalitions, every seat is imporantt, thats why both the cons and libs are going after the independents in the HOC |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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Steve Janke: Only an election now can legitimize the coalition
Stephen Harper has to prorogue the House. Not for his own survival, but as a final test of this coalition's viability by exposing the true reason for this coup.
He owes it to Canadians who are facing having an unelected government take power.
The Liberal-NDP-Bloc coalition is illegitimate. It's not illegal, which is a different concept. It has no legitimacy for several reasons:
* The formal coalition is between the Liberals and the NDP, which combined have fewer seats than the government it seeks to replace.
* It depends on the support of the Bloc Quebecois, a regional party dedicated to Canada's destruction. The so-called stability for the next two-and-a-half years is a fiction, since the Bloc will withdraw at the drop of a hat if the chaos that ensues helps the cause of separatists (that it hurts Canadians, both inside and outside of Quebec, is not a consideration).
* The NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have been plotting this for some time, and Canadians ought to have a chance to consider that backroom dealing at the polls.
* The "leader" of this coalition was soundly rejected by Canadians as their choice for prime minister, and rejected by his own party. He is the process of being replaced. In other words, this true leader of this coalition is unknown, even today, and will simply be installed as prime minister. Prime ministers have been replaced mid-term, of course, but at least the party doing the replacement was elected at the prior election, which isn't the case here.
There are other reasons too, but for now, we can move on.
If this coalition is allowed to seize power and avoid testing their still unknown platform in an election, then Canadians will have no idea what to expect for the next two years (I doubt it will last that long, but that's their plan).
Indeed, whatever direction is set for the first six months won't survive the change in leadership in May. On the positive side, the coalition is not likely to survive that change in leadership either, but there is a lot riding on that bit of optimistic thinking.
The prime minister can prorogue the House. He should. Will he take a political hit for this? Yes. In fact, given the mess that has to be cleaned up, Stephen Harper could consider proroguing the House and then setting up a leadership review for the near future -- essentially promising that an accounting will happen.
But the important thing is to move the calendar forward to late January. Barack Obama will be sworn in as president, and the outlines of the U.S. plans going forward will be made known. Then Jim Flaherty can design a budget that makes sense (which was always his plan).
At that point, with a rational economic package in place, the House can decide on whether to proceed.
The opposition might move forward on the plans for their takeover regardless. Fair enough. But for that to happen, they will have had to maintain this agreement in the intervening weeks, and in the face of an economic stimulus package presented by the government.
They would also have to admit that the reason behind this coup has nothing to do with budgets and stimulus packages, and that they are simply committed to ignoring the results of an election that they lost.
If they have the stomach to be openly honest about their true motivations, then at least there is a hint that the plotters could keep this thing running for more than a few weeks. If they can admit that this is just about power and nothing else, then having power might be enough to keep the coalition tied together. Then the Governor General can decide if that is a government Canadians deserve to have.
But if they can't hold it together once the true reason for this coalition is clearly exposed, then Canada would have dodged a big bullet by letting this coalition fall apart on the opposition benches.
Prorogue the House. See if these guys can sustain a single coalition party in opposition, without the perks of power, at least for just a short while. Force them to admit that nothing is going to keep them from throwing out the results of the last election, because overthrowing those results is the sole reason for this coalition in the first place. |
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/12/02/steve-janke-only-an-election-now-can-legitimize-the-coalition.aspx
Yes, sadly, we need another election. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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bangbayed
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:58 pm Post subject: |
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| mises wrote: |
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| Four elections? Are you calling the parliamentary no-confidence vote an 'election'? That's kind of strange. Actually, if they didn't try to form a coalition, it seems a fourth election is just what would happen. |
The government will be extremely unstable. You are aware that the Bloc is a separatist party, right? Election will come in a few months.
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| Look, Harper just isn't doing it for Cnada. |
But you just whined about having too many elections. We will have another very soon now. |
The way I understand it, should a no-confidence result against Harper, there needs to be no election. The governor-general can just ask the leader of the opposition to form a coalition government. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| You're right. And it looks like the left will form the government. But it will be as stable as a meth addict. An election is to come shortly. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Tue Dec 02, 2008 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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http://ezralevant.com/2008/12/coup-detat-watch-the-tide-star.html
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* Western premiers are understandably upset by the undemocratic shift of power from Western, Conservative voters to Quebec separatist voters � and the money that will follow the same route. But Danny Williams? He should be delighted, shouldn�t he? He campaigned for �Anything But Conservatives� in the election. Now he has Everything But Conservatives � everything including radical Quebec chauvinists. Politically, that always works out for Newfoundland, right?
* Pierre Bourque is reporting that Michael Ignatieff is having cold feet about the putsch. I don�t doubt it � I bet a lot more MPs than just Ignatieff are. Bourque lists some other names, and on CTV I saw Sarkis Assadourian, a recently retired Liberal MP from Toronto, tell Mike Duffy that the coalition is very unpopular in his party circles � and something that Pierre Trudeau would have opposed. Question: how many more Liberals will bolt the coalition once Jacques Parizeau, the former Parti Quebecois premier and poster boy for irritating separatists, heartily endorses the coalition tomorrow?
* But Parizeau is just being honest. This deal is obviously good for the Bloc � most obviously in that it gets to choose Canada�s prime minister. If you were a Quebec separatist, would you rather have Stephane Dion as prime minister � a weak, unpopular, lame-duck prime minister, despised by his own party, and unable to get any serious electoral purchase outside of Montreal proper? Or Stephen Harper, a tough cookie who is the only serious competitor for Francophone votes in Quebec? Even if the Bloc didn�t also secure Senate seats, billions of dollars of payola and countless yet-to-be-revealed prizes through this deal, they�re still winners. Parizeau is simply being candid.
* It�s the Liberal MPs who will panic in the wake of Parizeau�s endorsement who are dishonest. They know that the Bloc�s allegiance (ha!) was purchased dearly, with power and treasure purloined from the rest of Canada. Liberal and NDP MPs don�t need to read Parizeau�s comments tomorrow to know that -- they got the briefing on Monday. All that�s happening is that, like Ignatieff, they�re starting to realize that their deal with the devil might sell well to a dejected, bankrupt, praetorian guard of the Liberal party and caucus, but it�s poisonous in the rest of the country � even in traditionally Liberal places like downtown Toronto. But mark this: it�s not the Bloc�s pay-off that will cause Liberals to panic. It�s that Canadians are finding out about that pay-off, a week before they�re supposed to.
* The Liberal-NDP-Bloc coup is being covered in one of two ways by the media. The Parliamentary Press Gallery, in the main, is utterly supportive of it, trying desperately to shift attention away from the coup to purported �rifts� within the Conservative party, or trying to draw a parallel between Dion�s formal, written, binding contract with the Bloc � including secret pay-offs that we are now learning about � with Harper�s publicly-made, ad hoc cooperation with the Bloc on specific pieces of legislation, where no pay-offs were made or offered. (My favourite technique of this species of journalism is to call the coalition a �Liberal-NDP� coalition, instead of the �Liberal-NDP-Bloc� coalition. Of course, if it were just a Liberal-NDP coalition, it would only have 114 seats, not enough to dislodge Harper�s 143-seat Conservatives.)
* The other species of journalism, in the main, is that written by reporters who with sufficient distance from Parliament Hill that they can see things with some perspective � and they can listen to �severely normal� Canadians, not just others in the chattering class. These media reports show an overwhelming national disapproval of the coalition, for two obvious reasons: it�s a slap in the face to voters in the recent election, and it�s a treacherous allegiance with separatists. It really is that simple � it takes political experts to tell us the �nuances� of this story in a way that makes Harper the devil here, and Dion, Layton and Duceppe the nation-building angels.
* One obvious reason for this dichotomy in press coverage is that the Parliamentary Press Gallery has had a three-year war against Harper, which actually involved a sort of �strike� by journalists against covering him, and the ethically odd approach of journalists issuing public condemnations of Harper one day, and then �reporting� on him neutrally the next. Another reason is less conspiratorial: Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters are numb to the shocking nature of the Bloc Quebecois. After eighteen years of dealing with separatist MPs everyday, dining with them, talking with them, and even befriending them on a personal basis, I believe that many old Ottawa hands simply don�t see the problem with doing a deal with the Bloc, even such a formal, written contract as was done on Monday. That nonchalance is not shared by Canadians. And not just conservative Canadians who have a partisan sympathy for Harper and aversion to the opposition. The central principle � if there is one � of Liberals is that of national unity and federalism. In liberal enclaves like downtown Toronto (and Montreal!) the prospect of a separatist veto over Ottawa is repulsive � as much as in downtown Calgary or Vancouver.
* Seriously: can you imagine what would happen financially if this coup succeeded? If Jim Flaherty, our delegate at the G8 and G20 financial stability meetings, was replaced on a political whim; if Layton�s $50 billion tax was implemented; if the risk of a carbon tax was revived? But that�s just the start. What do you think the entire country�s risk � not just the economic risk, but the risk of the country itself failing � would be if the separatists were given a veto over all significant affairs? I don�t know how such things are measured; perhaps it�s just some sort of holistic guess or sense of things, like the Doomsday Clock which measured the risk of nuclear war in terms of �minutes until midnight�. Other than the Parti Quebecois winning the election in Quebec, can you think of anything that would move that clock forward more towards secession than making Gilles Duceppe the senior partner of government?
* Enough about the Liberal and NDP support for Quebec separatism. What about Western separatism? Preston Manning arrested the nascent Western separatist movement twenty years ago with his alternative vision: �The West wants in�. Stephen Harper finally accomplished that vision, if barely, through a minority government. But a win is a win; and Harper certainly beat Dion, Layton and Duceppe.
* It�s one thing for the West to be disenfranchised fair and square � that could be borne, as it was by the West under the Reform Party when it lost in 1993, 1997 and even in 2000. But it�s quite a different thing to win � under rules that the other guys wrote � and then to have the win snatched away undemocratically, and through a deal with anti-Canada separatists. That�s not a sense of disappointment, which any party (or even region) feels when losing a game fairly. But when the game itself is rigged, when the rules are changed after the game is won, that�s a whole different matter. If the Liberal-NDP-Bloc putsch succeeds � and by succeeds, I mean succeed for more than a few months before a restoration of the Conservatives � then I believe that you will see a Western alienation that will rival that of the NEP. Well, that would suit the Bloc to a tee, wouldn�t it?
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A good summary. More in the link.
http://ezralevant.com/2008/12/coup-detat-watch-the-tide-star.html |
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Kimbop
Joined: 31 Mar 2008
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Wed Dec 03, 2008 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm off to Alberta tomorrow. I'm very curious to see what the coffee shop talk is. |
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