Very well said!
This is getting a little stupid, to be honest.
Characterizing Stephen Harper as a lunatic is objectively nonsense. The Harper government actually didn’t move radically away from its predecessor, which if anything was MORE conservative in a lot of ways, notably in terms of fiscal policy. Whatever his faults as Prime Minister, and he had a lot of them, Harper is a sane and balanced person whose government was not terribly right wing. We’re talking about a government that ran deficits, raised health care transfers every year it was in office, didn’t reverse gay marriage or abortion rights or bring back capital punishment, didn’t jack up defence spending - indeed, as a percentage of GDP they spent less their last year in office than the government has in any year since before the Second World War - and generally spend most of their time twiddling around with minor and symbolic issues. Woo, it’s called the Royal Canadian Air Force again! Yippee.
(I have always found it fascinating how many people accuse Harper of slashing health care spending, which is objectively false, but seem to have forgotten the Liberal government under Jean Chretien slashed health care funding to an extraordinary degree. Was he a right wing loon? I never heard him called that, but then people like to just go with their preferred narrative no matter what the facts are.)
If anything, the main problem with Harper’s government in the end is that it stood for nothing at all except winning elections. This is a common problem with governments in Canada that last through a few mandates; eventually the reason they were elected is history and they have no plan or purpose except to scrape out another mandate. We needed a new government, but come on, let’s get serious; the country is not burning.
[QUOTE=Kenm]
Tell you what: Show me the evidence that the people who draw up constituency borders are apolitical, unpaid Elections Canada volunteers who commute from Mars.
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I have no reason to prove Elections Canada officials are from Mars because it is not my stated position that the Elections Canada people are Martians. You, however, claim that the Conservatives have engaged in shenanigans related to “redistricting,” even in the face of being reminded how the determination of riding boundaries is made. If you have evidence to support your claim, I ask that you produce it.
You don’t have to, of course, that’s your choice, but it will make your claim seem rather, well, silly.
I’ll tell you this; if they did secretly manipulate Elections Canada into changing the riding boundaries to suit their purposes, they inexplicably did so in a way that made them win a LOWER percentage of seats than the percentage of votes they got. If gerrymandering was going on it was the weirdest gerrymandering in the history of politics.
Here’s what I want to see from the Liberals this term from their promises:
Electoral reform: IRV is my preferred method but I’m open to other suggestions that end FPTP.
A more progressive tax structure.
Reversal of the TFSA increase and some sort of change to the child care benefit.
Reversal of cuts to the CBC and Stats Can (bring back the long form!), and a demuzzling of scientists.
Action on climate change. I’m not sold on cap and trade but let’s actually move forward like the rest of the world is.
Kill C-24, fix C-51 to remove some of the bigger government over reaches.
They’ve already said they’re passing on the F35 fighter, which is good. Not needed and we can spend that money more wisely on the military.
Infrastructure spending. Let’s build our transportation network back up and expand transit.
I’m very happy Harper is gone, but I’m still in “now earn it” mode with Trudeau. We gave you a mandate, now deliver.
Of all the Liberal promises, this will be the first one they break, though they’ll be more clever about it than the Conservative government would have been.
I just can imagine the caucus discussion:
JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Alright, settle down. Congratulations on forming our new majority government!
184 OTHER LIBERAL MPS: Woo! Woo! Yeah! Tru-deau! Tru-deau! Tru-deau!
JUSTIN TRUDEAU: Ha ha, okay, settle down… alright, first order of business; I wanted to change the way we elect MPs so that a lot of you wouldn’t have a seat in the Commons and we wouldn’t have a majority government.
CRICKETS: Chirp, chirp.
Very happy with the electorate in my riding 74% of the eligible voters went to the polls.
Good to see they were motivated for change. The Liberal candidate’s total vote count was more than the other 3 parties combined.
You forgot Senate reform, student debt, TPP, political funding reforms!
I’d like to see him reset some things to fair. Like transfers to the provinces, healthcare financing, education funding. Hire some nerds, make some algorithms! Work out something fair and not partisan. I’d like to see a change to not for profit hospitals cutting beds while paying the president a million dollar salary AND a three million dollar bonus. Likewise universities burying students in debt while paying their presidents similar salaries and wages.
There’s no shortage of work to do, (stop the bombing and climate change, of course!) plenty of fertile ground for changes, I think.
Leaffan forgot to say that the tax-and-spend Tories, under Brian Mulroney, created the tax in the first place.
I needed no reminding of how the boundaries are created.
For the second time, if you have evidence to support your claim that I said Elections Canada gerrymandered ridings, I ask you to produce it.
Looking at some ridings in my area Chris Christopherson, Hamilton Centre was the NDP incumbent and you’d need a bomb to go off to remove him. He’s been a fixture in all three levels government, and there’s no question he’s an extremely hard worker. The downside is of course Hamilton centre and previously Hamilton east does not get the benefits of the government. And the city has suffered for it. For example we do not have the infrastructure or the transportation links of the Greater Toronto Area just 40 miles to the east of us. Back in the Trudeau the father era and into the 90’s, Hamilton had the support of the Liberal party. It was seen as centre left, and felt like the natural governing party of the region. When the Liberals were wiped out the Conservative movement came on a lot stronger, especially in the outlying farm areas.
This time that unshakable support of NDP Labour and the progressive movement is offset by a couple of upsets, the NDP defeated in East Hamilton and West, so there is now a conduit to government programs and services for the Hamilton area that was never their under Harper.
Well, not to be mean or anything, but
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Toronto is five times larger than Hamilton and the “Greater Toronto Area” larger still, so Hamilton SHOULDN’T have the same infrastructure, and
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What money has Toronto gotten from the federal government for its infrastructure?
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You know this is largely a provincial responsibility, right?
I wouldn’t be shocked at this for the reason you mention, but I don’t think it’s inevitable. The Liberals would likely have done even better this election with IRV, for instance, since they were the most popular second choice of both NDP and Conservative voters.
To get another take on the GST reduction:
The reduction in this tax was widely panned by pretty much every single economist in the country. The decision to reduce this tax was a populist one, designed to appeal to simpletons, and people who think that Every.Single.Tax. is bad, and if only we had no taxes whatsoever, we would be a land of prosperity and happiness (this two groups have a significant overlap). These folks do not actually understand that they live in a society. They think they “did everything themselves”, and anyone who did not inherit money, or get advantages growing up is simply lazy or stupid.
The reduction in the GST from 7% to 5% played a role in giving us $170 BILLION in federal debt. The party in power was your classic “cut taxes and hike the deficit” party.
I just wanted to add that Liberal Finance Minister Paul Martin killed the proposed bank mergers back in 1998. The IMF cites that very measured financial sector legislation as one of the major reasons why Canada was not hurt in a major way during the 2008 meltdown. It had virtually nothing to do with Harper’s conservatives. They rode out the storm unscathed because of it. You might recall that BMO and RBC and CIBC and TD wanted to merge. Martin killed the proposals that were widely supported by the Conservatives. “Martin tabled his mind-numbing 897 pages of financial-sector legislation” and both the NDP and the Conservatives felt it was crazy. "Conservative MP Scott Brison said Martin has given himself “unfettered power,” while the NDP’s Lorne Nystrom said he is “making himself a banking czar.” But Martin was unrepentant about holding onto the hammer when it comes to mergers. “Ultimately the government of Canada has the right to make the decision,” he told the House. "And, obviously, that voice is expressed through that of the minister of finance."Martin's New Banking Regulations | The Canadian Encyclopedia
I will agree with this 100%.
I would add though, that they went to extreme lengths to accomplish this goal. They did not so much have policies as they had strategies to get votes. They tried to get votes using quasi-legal means.
After nearly being caught with the Robocalls scandal last election (tossing Sona under the bus), they then made significant changes to Elections Canada that would have prevented them from even investigating future cases of cheating.
They did not govern; They simply were continually seeking power.
Sure, all parties have done this to an extent in the past. But the Harper Government was absolutely off the charts.
Yes, I know it’s provincial, but the City Mayors and the province is very happy to sit down with JT. We know that there will be supports from the federal government, partnering in a stimulus package.
Toronto is a big old mutha, but that doesn’t mean Hamilton, which is undergoing a renaissance in terms of revitalization to its city core shouldn’t get more than just crumbs. Moreover, Hamilton because of its housing prices is becoming a helluva lot more attractive to those who work in the GTA. Thus there is a need for better and effective mass transit. And our football team is just better. Oskee Wee Wee…
There are two modes of commuter transportation between Hamilton and Toronto: 400 series highways and rail.
The first 400 series highway that connected Hamilton to Toronto was the QEW, including the Skyway bridge and other significant bridges across 12 Mile, 16 Mile, Credit. In the 60s it served nicely, and in the 70s there was some congestion in the Burlington-Hamilton area during rush hour, but nothing like the congestion close to The Big Smoke. As population grew in the Golden Horseshoe, the highway system was expanded to improve the Hamilton-Toronto connection by adding the 403 and the 407. Note that both then and now the traffic problems for commuters are more serve closer to Toronto.
To attempt to mitigate the problems faced by highway commuters, the GO system was created in the 60s. At first, it’s regular service only went as far as Oakville (not even Bronte), with rush hour service to Hamilton. That was all that the demand supported. People from Burlington and Hamilton who commuted to Toronto but did not want travel by car used Via Rail or Gray Coach. GO proved to be popular, so it extended GO bus service to Hamilton. As population grew in the Golden Horseshoe, the GO system expanded its train and bus service to Hamilton, as well as to other areas on the edge of the Golden Horseshoe. The schedules were and are based on demand, and there is less demand at the outlying stations and greater demand at the stations closer to Toronto.
Shifting economies and changing governments of various stripes have affected the overall development of Golden Horseshoe 400 series highways and the GO rail and bus system, but there has been no indication of there being bias against Hamilton due to its politicians of various levels often being NDP or NDP friendly.
Edit: [del]Via[/del] CN/Via
That’s true if you want Hamilton to grow as a bedroom community similar to Oakville or Burlington, but if you want Hamilton to grow as one of Canada’s top ten cities, it should focus on economic and cultural development rather than GTA commuting convenience.
In particular, cutting consumption taxes when the economy was booming wasn’t a great plan – it’s something you might do to stimulate a struggling economy where nobody’s willing to buy things.
Further, the GST is actually a fairly progressive tax – starving students and low-income people living paycheque-to-paycheque, who hardly can afford to buy anything beyond groceries and rent, pay very little GST at all. There’s no GST on most of ‘the basics’ at the supermarket, and when I was a student I certainly was paying only a few cents a week in GST. On the other hand, for people who can afford to buy expensive luxury items, you might save hundreds of dollars on an RV or a boat or other such things.
So, like many of the Conservatives’ tax changes, it was billed as being for everyone, but actually disproportionately benefited people with a lot of money to spare.
TFSAs were like this too; the initial idea was well-intentioned, since it was identified that Canadians were not, by and large, putting a lot away for retirement, and it could be a companion to the very successful RRSP program for personal tax-sheltered investments. And a $5000 limit seemed reasonable, as was coarsely indexing it to inflation (it grew to $5500 after some years).
TFSAs are easy to open, and easy to contribute to. After a little initial confusion, people seemed to be taking them up, though a large fraction of account holders weren’t hitting their limits – a sign, most likely, that they didn’t have enough disposable income to take full advantage of the program. They were spending that money, or putting it elsewhere (perhaps their RRSPs), and didn’t have enough left over to fill out the TFSA.
For those people, increasing the limit to $10,000 was completely useless. The higher limit was, in fact, only a benefit to people who, after their spending, taxes, and other tax-sheltered investments, still had ten grand lying around every year that they weren’t doing anything with. They probably were already investing that money, but now they could invest it tax free. It was ‘for everyone’, but in practice it was tax relief for people with a lot of margin in their personal finances.
And there are more examples – all the boutique tax credits that provided a small discount on expensive things that you still would need to be able to afford up front; income splitting that only helped meaningfully if you had a married couple with drastically different income. Etc. All along, the theme was simplistic ‘lower taxes is good’ rhetoric, used to sell changes that had very little effect on the people most in need of financial relief, but left more money in the pockets of people with above-average means.
And, importantly and deliberately, left the federal government with a reduced revenue stream in the long term. After a decade of Conservative government, we have some $170 Billion in new debt, less reliable revenue, and tens of billions in spending needs of the coming years (for example in new military hardware – replacing the whole navy, and a lot of new aircraft). They barely balanced the budget in their last year, relying on asset sales and unspent program commitments to do it, but the financial reality remains. Future governments will have rebuilding to do in departments that were cut, major costs in infrastructure and hardware, and less fiscal room to maneuver. It is very likely that they will either have to further trim the federal government to free up funds, raise taxes, go into debt, or simply fail to meet these needs.
They will also have a knowledge and data deficit when trying to tackle these problems and understand where spending is needed (a ruined census, reduced scientific and technical staff and resources), but that’s another essay.
But indeed, I’ve heard plenty of Conservatives and their supporters expressing disbelief at how the low taxes (for everybody but really mostly for the rich) and balanced budget (well, now that we’re done adding massively to the debt) plan somehow was rejected by voters, who clearly are too stupid to enjoy lower taxes and responsible government finances. Must be that they were blinded by that pretty boy’s hairdo.
Absolutely spot on, as is the rest of your post. Well done.
These conservatives are simpletons. Plain and simple.
They don’t understand what is going on economically in their own country, and are easily fooled.
When does Trudeau take office?