Good Bye 2011

Jib Jab did it again. Every year Jib jab does a complete review of the year in the form of a song. You will notice they don't always get everything. In fact the song came out right after the world found out about the death of the North Korean president, so it's not in it. Enjoy anyway

Happy New Year!

Wouldn't it be Awesome if Ron Paul WINS!

Current polls in Iowa  is showing a three way tie. Ron Paul 21%, Mitt Romney 20%, Newt Gingrich 19%. Ron Paul might just win the Iowa Caucus. Quite frankly it is slightly scary, but also pretty awesome. I don't agree with Ron Paul on much, but there is one thing that even Liberals will admit is that he is a consistent Conservative who has believed in this Tea Party Ideal for decades. I think the Tea Party should be all over Ron Paul. Now I don't want Paul to be president, but one has got to say that Paul deserves the nomination more then anyone else in the Republican party.

Unfortunately for Paul  even though he is doing well in Iowa his numbers in other primaries aren't as good. The first states are always important, so Iowa Paul has a strong chance, but what about the other early states like New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida.

In New Hampshire Romney of course leads the race as he has done since the beginning with now 39% , Gingrich and Paul tied in 17%. Second place isn't bad, but if like Romney in 2008 too many silvers and no gold    in the early states doesn't help you get to the nomination.

In South Carolina Newt is leading with 39%, Romney a far second at 21% and Paul way further behind at 10%. This state still has a lot of time to change it's leads, but right now these numbers aren't very encouraging to the Ron Paul campaign. In Florida it's a similar story newt 44%, Romney 27%, Paul 8%.

Unless these states change their minds it is almost imperative that Ron Paul if he wants to be considered a serious candidate for the nomination win Iowa which the New York Times says he will most likely. Anyways we shouldn't count Ron Paul out at all. I think that soon Newts numbers will go so low like Perry and Bachman that voters may just in time vote for Paul. I am predicting a Ron Paul explosion very very soon.

Another Deficit Year in Washington DC!

The U.S again goes for the easy way out of a problem by extending tax cuts for two months. Just like the super committee it seems that this congress is going to delay and then delay again. Nothing this year has even seriously touched the deficit. The U.S is running out of time. The interest on the debt that is accumulating every minute will soon become more expensive then medicare. The U.S has just wasted another year arguing about how bad the current congress is at getting the deficit under control. Maybe next year they will talk about how terrible the first four years were under Obama. Hello the term isn't over you have one more year to do something. Then again I am an optimist (I think maybe the rich will get some sort of tax increase next year).

Every minute we wait the more severe the austerity is going to be in the future. Happy New Year Congress.

Compromise!?

Obama wants to push the so called compromise of extending the payroll tax cuts by another 2 years. If this is considered a compromise it a joke. Because first both sides for the most part agree with the idea, but yet there was still a lot of fighting over the bill? This bill extends tax cuts and there fighting over it! I wonder how long it would take to talk about balancing the budget? Now if they don't want to increase the payroll tax rates and do other things to balance the budget it will effect the middle class even more. See income tax cuts do help people, but if their wages go down even though the tax rate went down they make less money. WHY? Because if you don't help increase the median wage and allow the outsourcing of jobs, elimination of unions people will make less money even though the tax rates went down. With the Bush tax cuts the poor and middle class made less money then were the tax rates were higher. That why the Bush tax cuts must expire even for the middle class, because it doesn't work and the money can be better put to help people's wages go up or help reduce people's expenses like Health care. Same goes with the payroll tax it's a short term fix, and if middle class keeps dying the tax cut does nothing. That why the Payroll tax should increase to 6.2% and eliminate the Bush tax cuts for everyone. This will not only help balance the budget, but the country can help the middle class by reducing many families biggest cost like tuition, health care, and bring new good paying jobs.

Flarethy's Bomb Before the Holiday

Right before holidays is usually the greatest time to dumb documents that you don't want to know about. Our Finance minister follows suit with this bad tradition, and dumb the bomb that Canada isn't going to increase health care spending by 6% every year after 2017. Now for many people (including me) we all speculated even during the election that the Conservatives weren't going to increase health care sending by the same 6% like Paul Martin did. The Conservative platform barely had a page on this issue. And the paragraph that is was written on was barely worth the paper it was printed on. It had the most ambiguous promises. Like

we will work collaboratively with the provinces and territories to renew the Health Accord and to continue reducing wait times

 By the way when Flaherthy announced this "Six of them (premiers)  lined up to speak out against the decision, citing a lack of negotiation with two years left to reach a new agreement. The Conservatives love doing terrible things before a holiday break in the hope that no one will notice, but this issue won't go away Harper. This Health Care debate is going to go on till 2017.
The current Health accord increases health care spending by 6%. Jim Flaherthy says he will increase health care spending by Nominal GDP meaning take inflation and add it to GDP growth, and Flaherthy says 3% increase is the minimum increase. 


Flaherthy answer is taking us for fools by saying Health care spending will increase every year. Yes it will but the rate of increase counts! If you spend one dollar more every year on health care then yes health care spending will reach records every year, but the provinces will need more than low increase in spending to reduce waiting times like the Liberals did in 2004 and it worked! Thankfully the 6% will stay till 2018.


Now I agree we do need to think of spending over the long run. I think that our government should look at preventing people from even needing a lot of health care. By taxing junk food and fast food chains the, looking at a national policy to stop obesity etc.. if  we do this the amount of people who will need our health care system will decline and will lower waiting times. If our goverment did this then a MINOR decrease in rate of spending would make sense. Increases like 5%-4%, because wait times will be reduced by the policies mentioned above. So what Flaherty is doing isn't bad ONLY as long as he puts policies to reduce waiting times like the ones mentioned above and our Finance minister isn't.


P.S Flaherthy plan to link health care spending to growth and inflation is good idea, but it seemed like it isn't being forced on the provinces without much compromise. 3% increase in Health care spending is fine as long as prevention is taking care of reducing waiting times. If we battle obesity and tax bad food and have a healthier Canada our Health care system won't need 6% increase every year. 

Harper's Secret Taxes!

After Harper said he would like the provinces to pay half for his new (billion dollar) Prison system in which he intends to increase crime and reduce justice, Ontario and Quebec are screaming all the way to the parliament building saying NO! Harper doesn't care for his budget it's in deficit and there isn't much so far that has been announced that will make it go to surplus, but in Quebec and Ontario the primers are trying to balance the budget. something that is standing in the way is a billion dollar price tag for prisons they don't even want. If Harper get's his way our provinces will have to make deeper cuts or increase taxes to pay for the cost of the prisons that will only add more cost in the long run. So this is Harper's secret tax. Make the primers look like the bad guys increasing taxes and reducing services and Harper who doesn't care for fiscal responsibility do nothing. (probably blame the Liberals for not giving him 30 billion dollar surpluses)

I think the only fair way Harper can expect the provinces to agree to fork up the bill is if they get a say on the bill, but Harper doesn't want to. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to make a crime bill and force the provinces to pay for half of it, and the provinces don't get much influence on the matter what so ever.

Noting that it is “virtually impossible” to project actual increases, the document pegs the total cost of changes to legislation on young offenders at $717-million over a five-year period. It adds that the federal government would likely end up paying half of the price tag.

 Quebec’s Ministry of Public Security has estimated that Bill C-10 will cost the province an extra $294-million to $545-million to expand the province’s prisons and $40-million to $74-million every year to service the additional inmates.

 “Our position remains the same,” David Couturier, a spokesman for Mr. Fournier said when contacted by The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. “It’s their legislation … it’s up to them to pay the bills.”

 Ontario has also called on the federal government to cover the entire cost of the bill.

Harper and Kyoto a Bad History.

Harper since 2006 promised us that if he was prime minister he would scrap the Kyoto accord. He first just allowed Kyoto to stay alive, and just completely ignore it by creating "Made in Canada targets." Bow the Harper government has made it official we are out of Kyoto. The Environment minister even lied that extending the accord would cost 14 billion dollars. That statement was completely debunked by the Green party leader Elisabeth May.

It's completely untrue that we would risk a dime," May said.

And even if it was true 14 billion dollars should be no issue to Harper considering Harper has no issue spending 30 billion on fighter jets. Just shows that given the choice between the health of the world and building up our military Harper would chose the military hands down.

Stephen Harper seems like he is more interested in making sure that the Oils sands can expand then care about the health care of the planet. Extending Kyoto and making real cost will help us in the future weather the environmental and economic changes. The planet is moving away from fossil fuels. More money last year was invested in clean renewable energy versus fossil fuel. The planet is moving, and Canada is staying behind with Stephen Harper. 5 years already wasted, and hopefully no more than 5 years more to go!

"The message to the rest of the world is pretty clear: Canada doesn't give a damn," she said. (Elisabeth May)

"The Harper government has imposed a death sentence on many of the world's most vulnerable populations by pulling out of Kyoto," Greenpeace Canada campaigner Mike Hudema said.

Peter Kent: Let's do Nothing!

Our Environment minister wants Kyoto to die and wait until 2015 to make a new accord. Why not just start a new accord now why wait three years? Our Environment minister is playing in the past were it would be just enough just to say that we should talk about making an accord. While almost the rest of the world wants to do something now. The talk is over! action must be done now, and with the Conservatives doing nothing to help create a global accord we have no credibility when it comes to the environment. Why should the world listen to us if we are doing nothing? If we wait till 2015 we will be one of the only countries in the developed world to not have a carbon tax. Even China and India have a carbon tax. Kyoto isn't something from the past it is our environment minister and government.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who is also in Durban, says Canada's involvement in the negotiations has been overshadowed by reports it plans to withdraw from Kyoto a year before it officially ends.

 "I've heard some people suggest that given how badly Canada has performed, and how negative and obstructionist our delegation has been in meeting after meeting, it will be easier if Canada is not in the room."

Read more here

Canada Moving Years Back!

With The Kyoto deadline at the end of the month Canada is in no way going to reach it's target of 6% below 1990 levels. In fact in 2008 the only provinces who actually reduced their emissions below 1990 levels is Quebec and PEI. All the other provinces increased. I think it would be a complete miracle if Harper is going to have a strong new target. With Harper it is business as usual allow companies to continue to pollute the air we breath, The water we drink and the environment that allows us to live. It ecology 101 we need a sustainable planet on order for us to survive. The biggest polluting increase for the next decade will be coming from Transportation and Energy. Ways to fix that have been proposed for years. A carbon tax to reduce the consumption of CO2, Invest heavily like Ontario in changing the energy grid, Invest in high speed rail and mandate more energy efficient cars. Even though Harper isn't doing anything. BC, Quebec and Ontario are. In BC they have a 25$ carbon tax, 15$ in Quebec and The Liberal green energy plan in Ontario. The cost of doing nothing is mounting. The economic effects of Climate change will hurt Canada. From unpredictable weather that will effect the prairies, to more stronger storms and pollution increasing asthma rates and increasing health care cost will cost billions.

Arcand noted that the price of not acting on the climate crisis would be much higher than the cost of these emissions reduction programs.

“In Canada, the costs (of inaction) could go from $5 billion per year in 2020, to between $21 billion and $43 billion by the 2050s,” he said, noting leaving this bill for future generations to pay would be wrong.

Read more here

Democrats are Dreaming

In a somewhat strange turn of events it seems the Democrats who contiguous talk themselves as being the party that will save Social Security is now the party that quite frankly is giving it lip service.  The Payroll tax (the tax that generates a lot of income for Social Security) is at 4.2%, but it is usually at 6.2%. This tax cut is set to expire by the end of the year. If the tax cuts aren't extended then that would mean that the people making  in the low income brackets (as low as 35,000) will pay 700 dollars more and people making more than 110,000 will pay a few thousands more. Granted that the expiration would hurt people in the middle class, but the U.S is running a deficit it time to make hard choices. The Debt to GDP is too high and extending tax cuts like this will hurt the economy in the long run. Because the less money the U.S tries to save now means more than that amount they are going to have to save later. In Fact Obama and some Democrats want to not only extend the tax cut, but expand it to make people pay 3.1% he claims he will pay for it by taxing the rich more. Granted this tax cut will help people in the lower bracket and that the taxes on the rich need to increase, but the U.S can't live off on just revenue neutral ideas they need revenue positive plans.  So I say the best plan would be to eliminate the payroll tax cuts to the people making over 100,000 and in fact make it 7%, and for the middle class I say compromise on slowly re-introducing the 6.2% by only increasing it by 0.5% in 2012 year and 0.5% the next year and the other 1% the third year. The U.S has to start getting serious on debt , and make long term plans to stop the social security deficit and the countries deficit.

Read more here

PQ in Hot Water!

With another PQ MP leaving the party Pauline Marois and what is left of the PQ is in hot water. Not to mention that the CAQ is now coming with what some might suspect as a knight in shining armor. Nevertheless the CAQ is just a right wing party that seems to very much mimic the ADQ in many respects. With new poll shows that the CAQ would get 33% of the vote compared to the PLQ which would get 27%. The sovereignty party of Marois is at 19% (that's even worse than the Bloc Quebecois in May). The ADQ of course losses much of it's right wing support to the CAQ so it's left with a meager 6% and in a tie with the Crazy Quebec Solidaire. Interesting enough the person who was in charge during the collapse of 2011 in May is the person many Quebecois want. Gilles Duceppe although doesn't seem interested. It seems my Belle province is in a moment very similar to the Republican primaries south of the border. They are in a moment of not knowing what they want just yet and giving strangely enormous amount of support to any new comer in the race. Pauline Marois party is in for a bumpy ride, because her support is the most vulnerable to the CAQ. The Liberal support no matter what seems to be stuck at the high 20's. The reason the PLQ supporters aren't seperatist so they won't vote PQ, Quebec Solidaire or Option National and They aren't right wing so the ADQ and CAQ for many of them is out of the question. They seem stuck. The PQ has the most to lose from the CAQ, and if more MNA leave the PQ there might just be enough Independents in the National Assembly to be given officail party status.

Read more Here

What Super Committee?

It seems the so called committee that was going to save the U.S deficit crisis (yeah right) ended up doing nothing. And those so called triggers that would have come into effect in order to force politicians to work together was a big joke apparently, because since most automatic spending cuts are going to take place in 2013 the politicians can actually change the law to make the spending cuts zero. So no Harm no fowl right! Wrong the Super committee should have at least cut by 1.2 trillion over two years, and quite frankly that's nothing. They need to cut the deficit by 10 trillion over the next ten years to balance the budget. That means ten times the amount the super committee can't even accomplish. This is going to be very interesting how we go from here.

Dewar Ideology Lets Have Everything!

"The orange wave stopped in Manitoba," (Dewar) 

Yes it's true, but only in the sense that the west of the country didn't fly straight into the NDP like Quebec.  But there are to many things wrong with Dewar's plan for a western strategy to get seats The NDP can't have it both ways. They can't dominate Quebec and also the west. It's very hard and has barely ever been done in Canada. The most recent exception is Brian Mulroney. I do think that the NDP can grab the province of Saskatchewan , BC and Manitoba (in extreme circumstances), but this will come at the expense of Quebec and even Toronto. How can the NDP try and get the right wing Prairie province and still try and dominate the left wing Quebec province. Quebec won't like the NDP flirting with the West. The exact place were many people feel they give to much money to subsidies Quebec programs. So The NDP I think are going to play on sharp glass if they want to get the  majority  west to vote for them. True they might garb a lot of seats in the West, but lose almost every single riding in Rural Quebec to the Bloc, a bunch in Toronto to the Liberals and some in Montreal to the Bloc and Liberals if they try to push hard for western gains. The best chance (even though very unlikely I think) the NDP can get government is if they try to get some selective seats in the west and really push to dominate the province of  Ontario.But quite frankly I don't see that happening.The NDP have a bad history in Ontario and I don't see it get any better .The NDP even with the May election just barely got more votes than the Liberals in Ontario. Dewar's plan is as good  idea as a man on a unicycle trying to balance on a tight rope. It will be interesting where the new NDP leader tries to get votes, and how Quebec will react.

Read more here

Let Quebec Pay

The federal government is not only going to destroy the long gun registry, but is going to destroy all the data too. However, Quebec wants to keep the registry and maintain it on its own. They are willing to foot the bill as long as it gets the data.

Why not let them? If Quebec is willing to pay to keep the registry, then the Conservatives should let them. Getting rid of the data is just pigheadedness and unwillingness to arrive at a compromise. If Quebec believes, as do I in the benefits of the long gun registry, then we should be able to pay and keep it for ourselves without the federal government behaving like a baby.

The federal government is undermining Quebec’s ability to create its own long-gun registry by refusing to hand over the data that would allow it to do so, the province’s Public Security Minister says. 

Robert Dutil was in Ottawa Thursday in a bid to convince the government not to destroy the data when it passes a bill to end the registry.

Read more at the Globe and Mail. 

Economist: Universal Health Care is Good!

A new report done by top economist warns Canada that it should stay with Universal Health care. It states that although Health Care spedning is growing too fast for revenue's the principal of a public health care system should be kept. Him like me is worried about the future of our Public health care system. By 2030 Health care spending will explode and become between 70%-80% of the budget. In order to avoid this catastrophe the study states reforms that must be done. Including using technology for efficiency, billing rich seniors for their drugs and paying doctors on their quality and cost effectiveness. I say that there is other things we should consider. Like cutting back on administration in the health care system, target obesity so that their is less of a need to use the health care system and Tax junk food and put that money into health care. We don't need to privatize our vital public health care system what we need to do is look for efficiencies. Our Health care system isn't broke and wont be broke if we take the necessary steps to avoid catastrophe.

“A great deal can be done to improve efficiency in the system before privatization is considered,” Mr. Drummond says in the report prepared for the C.D. Howe Institute.

Canada should remain committed to publicly funded health care, and not open the door to two-tier medicine, says a new report by a top economist.

Read more here

High Speed Rail.... Study!

In Canada we are lagging behind when it comes to high speed rail. Europe has high speed rail and they have seen it to be very beneficial to the environment and the economy. High speed rail in Canada is profitable, and it is almost silly that we have to keep talking about it! It should be done and done now! We are one of the only developed countries in the world that doesn't have it. The Liberals support High speed rail, but with Harper Canada is moving backwards.

Thank you again Rick Mercer

Sanction on Syria!

Since the Arab spring has started it is as if a big chunk of the western world all of a sudden got glasses. They realize that these countries that in many cases are being ruled by dictators should have sanctions put on them. Last week the EU joined us here in North America in imposing sanctions on Syria. Very soon the EU nations will have an arms embargo on Syria and will ban Petroleum imports , and ban all investments and loans in the country. Not to mentions the millions of dollars they froze in assets. It seems the western world is listening to the need to stop supporting these dictators from staying in power. Because giving loans to dictators is supporting them. I am glad to see the EU put sanctions on Syria.


Read more here (P.S it is in french so for many readers you may have to translate it on Google translate)

A Win For Democrats.

In just a few days ago a few ballot measures (Referendums as we call them hear) were voted on. In Ohio they voted to repeal the Republican governors plan for unions. In Mississippi they voted against the anti abortion legislation. These two referendums shows that the swing state of Ohio ain't to keen on to much anti union legislation. In one of the most right wing states in the U.S to vote down a anti Abortion ballot measure then that means even right wing states aren't so keen on the Tea party ideology. This just proves that number one there is no way Tea party radicals like Ron Paul and Michele Bachman will win swing states like Ohio. It also proves that some radical ideas like Abortion believes of many of the Republican candidates won't prop more support from the Republicans in the right wing states. True that many Republicans will probably settle for whoever the Republican nominee is then vote for Obama, but when the Independents have to make up their mines a radical tea party nominee isn't going to get their shoes running to the polling stations.

Wow I Was Right!

I stated just a few post's ago that the Conservative would reduce their budget targets. Now This time around Jim Flaherty thinks he has a good case. Saying the economy isn't good and the budget is going to suffer. True, but why didn't you know about this decline before. Economics have been talking about a economic instability since even before the recession. Why then put in your election platform a promise to eliminate the deficit in 2014. Now the conservatives say they will balance it by 2015. Now I would understand this if a bad economy came out of nowhere, but why say in October of this year that the economy is strong when it's by are now Flip flopping Minster bad enough to delay deficit targets. Now I think this will be just the first delay in the Conservative budget target. Soon the cost of the Corporate tax cut, Mega prisons and fighter jets will force our minister to tell us that we must move the deficit target yet again.

By the way I thought our minister would take at least one year to move the deficit target, but I guess that will be the next time our minister tells us we will delay our deficit target.

Read more here

So What Happened In Saskatchewan?

The last of the provincial elections hora is over. It went from a Liberal win in Both PEI, and Ontario. To a NDP victory in Manitoba And two right wing parties winning in NFL and Sask. No incumbent party lost there power. In Sask the right wing party lead by Mr. Wall won a landslide victory! The Liberals well what is there to say about them. I read there platform It gave no specifics! Especially on the spending cuts. The Liberal party got not even a 1%. Last time around they got 9%. By the way the Green party got more votes than us! They ran a full slate and the Liberals didn't. It seems that these elections have taught us a few things.


1. The Orange crush in all provinces is no where to be seen

In Manitoba although winning the election actually lost support. In Ontario the NDP got nowhere where they were polled let alone there federal results in the province. In PEI they got less votes than the Greens at 3%. In NFL although getting 24% of the vote they not only are in 3rd party status to the Liberals, but also didn't reach there federal election results. In Sask they dropped in support even though the Liberals didn't run candidates in most of the province.

2. The Liberals aren't dead

With regaining nearly a majority In Ontario, a majority In PEI, at least one seat in Manitoba and being the official opposition in NFL Shows us that Liberals aren't gone. In Sask the Liberals lost terribly, but it's safe to say that even if the Liberals won a majority government in 2011 there was no way the Liberals would do any better in Sask.

I agree with my Blogger!

My Co-blogger says that the fact that the Liberal party walked out in protest to the Conservatives appointment for the auditor-general was outrageous. I think so, but for different reasons. If  you look at history many people do things that are very similar. When Iran speaks at the UN most of the developed world boycotted his speech. In many Parliament when a radical takes the stand and speaks his speech is boycotted in Parliament. The fact is that boycotting is an effective tool to show displeasure. Except I found that this situation isn't in need for a boycott. It wasn't completely as outrageous as Ahmadinejad dening the holocaust! I think marching out of the parliament should only be used when something completely outrageous is done. The fact that auditor general isn't bilingual is something to maybe disagree with, but not the kind of outrage that deems a complete walk-out of the parliament. On the question whether the Auditor general should speak french I think that it shouldn't matter, but the fact is that the Conservatives cheated there own legally binding rules. That's the problem. So I think if the Conservatives would have changed the rules from the beginning allowing all unilingual people a chance to go for such a job would have made it fair. But I don't think the appointment was a good enough reason to walk out. They should have stayed in the parliament and voted NO!

Walking Out is not Right

The new Auditor-General is not bilingual. Yet, that is one of the conditions of the job of Auditor-General.  No doubt then that the Conservatives are telling the truth when saying that he is the only qualified individual for the job. Out of the people in Canada, there must have been at least one who had all the competences and was bilingual.

Some say that being bilingual doesn't really matter to the job of Auditor-General. Maybe they do not need to be fluently bilingual, but a good knowledge of both languages should be a prerequisite. But, if the Conservatives are going to ignore the condition of being bilingual, then they should full out just say it publicly instead of lying.

I do not agree with the Liberal response to the government. The NDP had the right one. To walk seems like a desperate act to get attention and it does come off as one. If the decision isn't right then the job of the opposition is to show up in Parliament and vote against it, not to abandon its responsibilities as the Liberals did. 

Bob Rae and his Liberal MPs boycotted a Commons vote that approved a unilingual accountant, Michael Ferguson, to serve as Canada’s new Auditor-General. 

While Conservative and NDP MPs stood in the House, the real action was taking place outside the chamber, where an angry Interim Liberal Leader condemned the process as an “abuse” and “illegitimate.”

Read more at the Globe and Mail. 

Quebec Gun registry

If Harper kills the Gun registry then I would fully support a Quebec version of the gun registry. In fact if you calculate it 2 million for all of Canada about a quarter of that if not less would equal $500,000. Which is almost nothing on the provincial budget. The only problem is that our Conservative government will destroy all records to make sure that they make it the hardest possible to try and slow violence. Another problem Quebec will face is guns purchased in Ontario or other provinces. I think Dalton Mcguinty would make a Gun registry for his province, add the NDP premiers of Nova Scotia and Manitoba and probably BC you have practically a nation wide gun registry. With the exception of Saskatchewan and Alberta.  I guess this sort of Primer cooperation  will really put a punch in the Conservatives stomach. But with no old records we have to start the registry from scratch which makes it more expensive, because of start up cost of this program. No help from Harper again! I guess the Harper ideology stays true. Let the provinces deal with it!

Some good Polls

A new poll has the Liberals maybe in not so much good shape, but no where near invisible. The Conservatives are of course leading 37.7% and the NDP in second place at 30% while the Liberals are in 3rd place at 23.4%. If you compare this to the May results we went up 4% the Conservatives went down 2% and the NDP down 1%. In Quebec the New NDP buddy, still likes the NDP at 45% support. Our separatist Bloc friends are in third place at 15%. With these numbers the Bloc would be lucky to get one seat. Us Liberals are placed in second at 18%. Not much to brag about, but it's up. In Ontario the Liberals have been polling at a solid second place finish in Ontario.

Other good news Bob Rae is beating Nycole Turmel for second place on leadership issue's. On the issue of who is the most trustworthy.Harper dipped big time from high 30's to 30% from just a month ago! Turmel is now fighting May on this issue.From almost the moment Turmel became leader her Trustworthiness went from 33% to now 11%. Bob Rae at 16%. Not the best news, but this is the first lead on this issue since 2009.

On the issue of who is the most competent Harper faced a small dip now at 37% from just a month ago. NDP again similarly faced a major crash after Turmel become leader (from mid 20's to 7% by the way May is polling on this issue at 3.9%) Liberal leader Rae is up and at 18%.

On the issue of who is the best vision Harper again leads, but dipped by about 7% from just a month ago. On this issue the NDP faced crash again from 30% when Tyrmel became leader to now 13%.  Rae went up since he became leader and is now at 15%.

These polls are nothing much to brag about, but it's very nice to see that are party isn't dying away like many said we would. In fact if these trends continue the NDP and Conservatives will have to worry.

see the poll here

The Conservative "Target"

The Conservatives like giving out baseless targets when it comes to almost anything. They like to tell us things like the budget will be balanced by 2015 even though the PMO budget office says that it ain't going to happen. Then put on top of that billions more to corporate tax cuts and billions more in prison spending. When it comes to the environment the Conservatives make there baseless targets a joke. In 2006 they had one target that wasn't even close to Kyoto or anything else that countries were committing, then he changed that target and made it worse. And then changed it again and made it even worse. The sad fact is that the Conservatives under there current policy will not reach there lousy target and of course must reduce there target again. Now our Conservative government is setting out a target that by 2020 90% of Canadian electricity will come from non polluting resources. Environment Canada says that they won't even reach that target by 2030.  Can't wait to see how they are going to blame the Liberals on this one. Another one of there baseless target is that they will phase out coal plants in 45 years. Germany is phasing them out in the next decade, and they have less renewable spaces then us and more people. We our like the lazy child in school who continues to do nothing while everyone else does something.

Environmental groups said at a press conference Thursday the proposed regulations are too "weak" and will do very little to move Canada towards its greenhouse gas emissions targets.

 "The government has committed to having 90 per cent of electricity from non-emitting sources by 2020. But Environment Canada shows the government won't reach that even by 2030 with these regulations," said Dale Marshall from the David Suzuki Foundation.

 Bennett says the vast majority of comments urge the government to completely phase out coal fired plants in Canada within the next 15 years. The proposed regulations say that coal plants won't be phased out for another 45 years.

Historic change for Quebec.

Since confederation Quebec has always held it's fair share if not even more political power in the house of commons. Now for the first time in history Quebec will have fewer seats in the house of commons. The Conservatives go figure are abandoning there promise to give the province equal representation. Now I can't say that this isn't fair considering Alberta, BC and Ontario will be much more underrepresented then Quebec will, but it still shows that our parliament isn't following since confederation Rep by Pop. For Quebec this will be new to have less political power. Now will this effect the Quebec vote? Well considering only hard core separatist are going to be fighting very hard against this, while more NDP Quebers will be somewhat furriest I think it will be a win for both of them, but mostly for the Bloc. Since the Bloc need some fire I think this one is it at least for the next month if not a part of a Bloc platform in time for the next election. The NDP might scream and rant, but in all they will probably put this issue in a few weeks in the back of there heads. So it's somewhat of a moral booster, but for the Bloc this might be the fuel they are going to try and run on for some time.

Conservative Champions of Wasting Time

Heckling has returned to the House of Commons with a bang. Once again, politicians of all parties engage in this enormously hilarious act! According to Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, Deepak Obhrai said Mr. Speaker six times in a 30 second period. This allows him to use up his allotted time so he doesn't say anything important. But, it's also quite funny to watch.

It's horrible. Absolutely horrible for transparency and responsibility to the people and Parliament. Yet, this goes back years and years, deep into Canadian history. While it would be great if MPs were nice to each other, this would require a culture change and it simply will not happen. So, sit down and enjoy the wonderful back-and-forth of the House of Commons.Deepak 

Obhrai is one of the worst offenders, according to the opposition. 

Frustrated MPs say the parliamentary secretary to the Foreign Affairs Minister throws in a few “Mr. Speakers” and other set phrases to eat up his allotted 35-second answers to purposely avoid saying anything substantial in Question Period.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

What Waste!

The Conservatives are planning to eliminate the long gun registry very soon. ironic enough the public safety minister Vic Toews is saying that he is proud his government is eliminating the long gun registry. It's ironic that the minister that is suppose to try and keep people safe is saying he is proud to abolish a program that has been proven to save lives. Police say that the registry is effective, but still our public safety minister isn't listening to the people that keep us safe. The most silly part is these statements.

"That waste is finally coming to an end,"


"The long-gun registry is not gun control, and because of that it is an ineffective and a waste of taxpayers hard-earned dollars,"


the First quote is by our public safety minister who saying that it's a waste to the long gun registry. But apparently not a waste to blow billions more dollars on noncompetitive fighter jets purchases.the second is done by another Tory MP. The silly part of this quote is the end, because a part of the bill will not only scrap the long gun registry , but will abolish all records. That is a waste. They could have simply eliminated the registry and kept the files. What is the point of eliminating the files. The reason is, because this government is going to waste the millions of dollars and time that it took to make those records over the years into the gunners, and of course making the job of cleaning the Tory mess harder. Don't you just love there policies!


This government is really getting on my nerves with fiances. It continues to babel over a few million in spending every year and calling it fiscal responsibility, and doesn't even mention the billions it's wasting on fighter jets, prisons and corporate tax giveaways.  

read more here

Why do the Habs Suck?

Why are the Habs losing? It seems just like yesterday when they nearly beat the Bruins in seven. Yet the answer goes back before that. Before, the Canadiens were losing horribly, shut out of three games in a row before scoring. Their passes were not working, battles were being lost and they simply could not score. They seemed uncoordinated and out of sync. I feel that the problem wasn't completely solved back then and it is not now either. To win, they must get together and play as a team. We'll see if that happens tonight against the Maple Leafs.

9-9-9 plan means MORE TAXES!

A new study shows what the 9-9-9 plan actually does. This study shows who will benefit and who will not benefit in this tax plan. Under the current policy there is no sales tax. Under this plan there will be a 9% G.S.T , but supposedly the extra tax will be off set by creating a flat 9% income tax. Under this plan there will be a 9% sales tax on everything people buy. Under this study the average tax payment per person in the U.S will be 1,200 dollars lower. So is this plan really going to reduce tax payments to people. Yes some will benefit . So who are they? They are the rich go figure. As I stated just a few days ago, people who are rich will benefit and middle income and poor will not. So people who make more than 1 million a year in income will have there tax burden reduced by 581,000 dollars. People who make between half a million to a million will pay 80,000 dollars less every year. the next two tax brackets will have there taxes reduced two, But every single person making less than 100 k will have to pay more in taxes so that the rich in the country pay over half a million dollars less in taxes. In fact the federal tax rate on the people making more than a million dollars in income would be the lowest tax rate of any other bracket. While the people in the lowest tax bracket will have not only above average tax rates, but will also be the people having there tax rate increase by the most. Under this plan about 82% of Americans will pay more in taxes to give the top 18% a tax brake. But in reality the top 5% will get the most of the money from middle income and poor Americans. So yes the Rich pay less while the poor pay more and the middle class pay more. And by the way this plan will increase the deficit by 300 billion in one year.

So in summery taxing consumers to hurt the economy more, so that rich CEO's pay less money and have more in the bank. Will defiantly solve the economic problems of the U.S. This plan isn't going to help anybody except the rich and even them are going to have long term problems, because the rich need the poor to survive.

If you need some thing more visual click on this graph

A Rich Tax!

The U.S needs to look at ways to reduce the deficit without harming many Americans . An easy way is to tax the rich! Eliminating the Bush Tax cuts of the rich and putting a new 5.6% surcharge on millionaires will bring in a lot of revenue without big economic damages. Now the U.S is going to have to balance the budget by having to make tough decisions. Cutting around the edges in spending and taxing the rich more is a good start, but won't solve the U.S fiscal crisis. But we shouldn't completely disregard these simple ideas that do the less damage. In Canada we should also look at increasing taxes on the rich in order to try and make our fiscal house in order. In Canada we should implement a U.S style death where when people die they pay a 35% tax on there estate on everything over the value of 5 million, but a U.S style system of a death tax has so many lousy deductions that some rich people who would only be effected on this would pay little to nothing. It could bring in about 3 billion dollars in Canada and hurt no one to be quite honest. When countries look at balancing budget's they should start with the easy taxes on the rich. It barely effects the economy and brings in a lot of revenue. Granted never enough to fully solve the problem, but it does help the fiscal situation. Unfortunately the Republicans down south would rather see medicare destroyed then have the rich pay a single penny. The U.S  needs to increase taxes first on the rich and go from there, but the Republicans want the pain should start on the poor and should never dare to go up to the rich, because they create jobs, while poor people don't. Even though poor people are a bigger chunk of the population and create more jobs because they spend there money while Rich people don't spend there money, and are a very small part of the population.

Harper support unequal provinces.

Because Harper promised that Qubec's will not be under represented in the house of commons other provinces are going to suffer. Ontario instead of getting 18 new seats will only get 13 seats. Meaning that Ontario will have in total 119 seats, but that is less than the 124 it was going to get. BC and Alberta will still get the same seats they were expected to get. Interesting why Does Harper still give the same amount of seats to Alberta and BC, but not Ontario. Well if you do the math any new Alberta seat are going to be tory strongholds, and in BC the Conservatives have a good chance of winning new seats there. While in Ontario Harper might suspect that over the long run new Alberta and BC seats are going to have a good chance going blue while new Ontario seats (a bunch in Toronto) might not be so prone in the future to vote Conservative. Which is why Ontario is going to be hit in a new revised deal. In fact with these new seats Ontario will be the most underrepresented province in Canada. BC and Alberta would be almost completely represented for the time being and Quebec would practically be dead on.

So while Qubecers get fair representation Ontario, and in the long run still BC and Alberta will be under represented. How is that Fair? Harper isn't trying to make the provinces completely fair. I understand it's very had to open the constitutions and take away seats from smaller provinces, but the fact is why promise Quebec to have fair representation and Make Ontario pay for it. It isn't fair. I am a quebecer and I say it is un fair that we get o be properly represented and Ontario doesn't.

Put a Train on the Champlain

The Harper government has promised to rebuild the Champlain Bridge of Montreal which is a very good move. The infrastructure of Montreal falling apart and that bridge is necessary to the transportation needs of the city. But, when infrastructure must be rebuilt, it gives us a golden opportunity to build it smartly and sustainably.

The new Champlain bridge will have a reserved lane for public transit, it just hasn't been decided what mode. Quebec is studying putting a train on the Champlain bridge. This would be a good idea, to have LRT that can run on the surface downtown and have priority on the bridge. LRT has much more capacity than buses and is a much more attractive option than buses. The Champlain bridge is an example of how to implement the tram-train in Montreal.

MONTREAL - Quebec is working on a plan to put a train on the new Champlain Bridge, part of a 13-kilometre transit system that would link Longueuil and downtown Montreal. 

But it’s unclear who would foot the bill – hundreds of millions of dollars – or even if the train will ever be built

Read more at the Gazette.

Build HSR Now!

The newest study on high speed rail dating from an ancient January has been released. The findings are no surprise. Just like the other four studies done over the years this one supports building high speed rail along the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. We have the technology, Bombardier is a Canadian company and nothing is stopping us but politicians in Ottawa. We should build it and now.

QUEBEC — A study into the feasibility of a high-speed train link in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor shows the project could benefit the entire Canadian economy. 

The report conducted by the EcoTrain consortium — grouping Dessau, MMM Group, KPMG, Wilbur Smith & Associates, and Deutsche Bahn International — was released Monday by High Speed Rail Canada, an advocacy group which promotes the service.

Read more: http://www.canada.com/business/Study+says+high+speed+train+could+benefit+Canadian+economy/5561938/story.html#ixzz1b5tTyASx

Would a Tea Party President Help the democrats?

Now some would go off and think the question doesn't make sense, but think about it. If the Tea Party was in charge what would happen. Well the President would waver Obamacare which would rally the Democratic base. The Republicans president would veto any bill that has more spending. Which means that since we know cutting spending and decreasing taxes on the rich which they (Republican candidates) are all prepared to do doesn't really help the economy. Especially there plan for Medicare that will bring no support from the older voters. Cuts to the environment would get the environmentalist fired up, and cuts into education and making it less government funded as well with lower assistance for people wanting to go to university would get the youth more angry at the Republicans. What I am saying is maybe dating the bad terrible boy friend just once enough to make us swear him off forever?

Time heals many wounds just look at the 2008 results who would have known the Republicans would rebound so quickly. The only problem is that they would create a big mess even worse than Bush. The only path the U.S should take in 2012 is Democratic, because allowing the Republicans to win so the Dems could re grab everything in 4 years won't solve the problems that will happen in 4 years of Tea party rule. What I am trying to say is anyone in the U.S thinking of not voting or voting Republican so they can mess up things so America will swear them off forever. It won't work. Or anyone thinking that if the Republicans get in office the Dems over a two midterm and a general election get the House, Senate and white house with very strong majorities so they can pass what they wanted to pass is also wrong. Let's not be fooled by the bad boyfriend that he is are only option. Obama although nowhere near perfect is the best out of the worse for now at least.

Cains 9-9-9 plan

I decided to refute Cains 9-9-9 plan considering he is apparently now a rising star. Mr Cain has been screaming about 9-9-9 for quite some time , but is it really going to do what he says it does. First let's see the logic behind it. Cain would reduce the Corporate tax rate from 50% to 9%. That's a 41% decrease mostly for multinationals who don't even pay the 50%, because of loopholes, but it will reduce revenue from the Business section. Then he will create a flat Income tax. Meaning everyone pays the same tax no matter how rich or how poor. The income tax bracket is 9%. Biggest winners here will be the Rich who only pay 35% will now get a 26% decrease in taxes while the poor who pay 15% will have a 6%. That sounds fair right! So how will he pay for the loads of cash he is giving to already extremely profitable business, and reduce the tax rates of the rich to the lowest it has ever been. Well Cain suggest a G.S.T will do the fix. A 9% G.S.T! So who will that hurt. Well people who buy things! Consumers the one's that drive the economy. The G.S.T tends to attacks the poor and middle class. The economic policy means. That the middle class pay more in taxes while the rich pay less. So the consumers have less money and the poor have more. Yep that will fix the inequality in pay. The top 500 earners in the U.S make more money then the bottom 50%.Think of it even though the income tax is being reduced the G.S.T is being created and taking any money the middle class would get and take even more. The Rich would pay much less in taxes and the G.S.T would only take some profits away. Cain even admitted that the 9-9-9 plan would make difficulties for people.

 "Some people will pay more. But most people will pay less," 


he has that a bit backwards. The top 10% will pay less while the bottom 90% will pay more. The sad part about it is, because of all the money this plan will give to the rich. this plan will actually reduce revenue by 200 billion. How is that going to solve the deficit. How is not taxing the rich going to help reduce the deficit? How is taxing consumers and increasing the deficit going to solve the problem in America.

Quebec to be Represented in Parliament?

Representation by Population Brown's idea way back to even before confederation. In Canada we are not quite there at total representation. In Canada some Provinces are massively over represented while others aren't. Harper is going to give 30 new seats to the fastest growing provinces of Canada to make things more fair. The only problem is what will happen to the representation of the other provinces. Well Ontario, Alberta and BC will go up. While all the other provinces will go down. meaning that the Atlantic used to hold about 10% of the seats and about 7% of the population. With now 30 new seats the Atlantic will hold about 9.5% of the seats. Still over represented! The parries will also have less influence. They have about 9% of the seats and have 6.7% of the population with this new deal they will have about 8% of the seats. Again over represented!
What about Quebec though? Well under this deal we would get 22.2% of the seats and have 23% of the population. Harper might though give La belle province a few seats like he promised in his platform.

So Is Ontario, BC and Alberta really getting a good deal here? Ontario will have 18 more seats giving it 124 seats now. Ontario holds about 38.5% of the population and would get under this new deal 36.7% of the seats. BC holds about 13% of the population and under this deal it would get 13.0% of the seats.  In Alberta they have 10.4% of the population and would get 9.8% of the seats . Alberta, Ontario would still be under represented under this deal and if Quebec got more seats so would BC. So is this deal really helping out the provinces be more represented not even close! It is a little repair, but the way the demographics are going Alberta, BC and Ontario are going to need more soon. Our system isn't completely Rep by Pop and I don't think Quebec should get more seats if Alberta and Ontario and even BC are going to suffer for it.

Rick Mercer Thank You

Rick Mercer has outdone himself now. He ranted about the money the Finance minister is spending to try and cut government spending. 20 million dollars to find out how to cut spending. 90,000 dollars a day!

Rick Mercer is right Martin balanced a 43 billion dollar structural deficit in 4 years. Harper has taken the 13 billion Martin left him and brought us into deficit even before the recession. Better than giving Martin a call like Rick suggested. Why don't we kick out Harper and get back to the fiscal responsibility of the Liberal party.

What Cuts?

The Conservatives are planning to find 4 billion in permanent cuts to try and balance the budget. The Only problem is do we see these cuts in the deficit? No the way this government works with finances the deficit isn't going to get better. First the Corporate tax cuts that they are reducing again is going to cost billions more than 4 billion. Add that with the Billions the Harper government is giving Quebec (even though we really need a bridge) this government isn't at all fiscally responsible for cutting spending. Because like the Republicans in the U.S yes cuts do help cutting the deficit, but the right is fixated on cutting taxes and assume that it is free. If you cut 1$ in taxes and cut 1$ in spending guess what the deficit ain't changing. What would have been fiscally responsible of the Conservatives would be to cut more than they reduce in corporate taxes and maybe not cut corporate taxes! considering they are already low enough. We can save 10 billion in catastrophe spendign not passing Harper's stupid "on crime bill." The Conservatives are bad with money and they always disproportionally put the deficit on the poor. 4 years from now the Conservatives will be saying the reason there is a deficit is, because of too much money on social programs. Even though this government is cutting social programs left and right, and will be for the next 4 years. If this is all Harper has planned to balance the budget there will be a deficit in 4 years and it will be, because of reckless spending on useless prisons, fighter jets and Corporate tax cuts. So the question I have for Harper is what cuts are you really making to the deficit?

Sarah Palin Not Running!

What a week in politics. I have to say with the provincial elections and the 5 billion dollar Champlain deal it seems wired talking about U.S politics again. But yes Palin isn't running for president. With months and years of speculation you almost thought for sure she is running, but it seems the rogue governor is beholding to no one. She makes her own decisions all the time. It will be interesting now 10% of the people in the polls still said they would vote for her if they could, But what does this mean? Well Bachman might get a leg up, but the way her campaign is going she if she doesn't get some good weeks she will lose bad. For now at least it seems it's going to be Romney vs. Perry. Bachman is going to really need to catch the Palin vote to get a good chance to win. So now it seems we have the make up for our Republican nomination. All the contenders that we thought would run aren't and the one's that are seem like they're sticking. So Chirstie (the man Republicans are so in love with still want him to run even though he has done everything to say no except buying a posters on every highway saying "I am not running") is out, Palin is out. No more big speculations are left the race for the Republican nomination is on!

It will also be interesting watching who Palin or Chirstie will endorse, and how long it will take. One thing I think will happen is 1 year from now Christie will be speculated to be #1 for the VP spot no matter who wins in this current field with maybe the exception of Ron Paul.

Who Won in Ontario?

Last night was exciting to watch! The Liberals were up and down the majority level for hours, but it turned out that the Liberals have no majority status anymore in Queens park. So who won Ontario well the Liberals did win a minority government, and I think considering that they won the province that was just a month ago prepared to kick out the Liberals and create a new PC majority government I think the Liberals did great in this campaign. The PC grabbed 12 seats and did better than expected in the vote count so they are winners only because they managed to keep Mcguinty out of a majority, but considering PC were unable to win against the Liberals who were polling really low just a month ago I think this isn't that much of a win. The NDP had a bit of a disappointing night. They grabbed 7 more seats and 7% more votes than last time. They were expected to get in the mid 20's on votes, but even more importantly they were expected to more than double there seat count from 2007 (7).

So to recap
Winners (with a grain of salt)
Liberals: for regaining a third term in power with a strong Minority
PC: for grabbing a good amount of seats and putting the Liberals in majority, but not able to get there on governments like the governments polls said they would.
NDP: grabbing more seats and now having the most seats they have has in decades, but not able to break Ontario the way they were expected to early in the campaign and the day before the end. 

But I think that this has been a relatively good week for the Liberals. Winning another majority government in PEI and another strong government in Ontario. We had  a disappointing show in Manitoba, but all in all you can't complain much for all the great wins we had this week. And just one more thing a Liberal majority in Ontario is just one by-election away!

Ontario Has a choice

Ontario on October 6th has a choice they can vote for Hudack who will hurt health care in the province. Hudack will be a sell out to Harper in 2014 on the health accord. Hudack would cancel corporation deals that are going to create thousands of jobs. Hudack would eliminate the Green energy policies that would create more clean energy for Ontario. The Liberal party of Ontario has done good choices for Ontario. They simplified the tax code by creating the HST, and over ten years the HST will create 591,000 jobs. The Liberal party is on the right track to making the energy grid of the province more green. David Suzuki even supports his green plan. The Liberal party of Ontario won't sell out to Harper in 2014. The Liberal party of Ontario has done a good job creating jobs in the province. This year Ontario created more jobs then the rest of Canada combined. The Liberal party is going to reduce tuition by 30%. What have the NDP proposed? they are like the Republicans of the U.S always voting no, and just waiting for power. The NDP voted against the stimulus that has created many jobs in Ontario. The NDP you would think support Green jobs, but they are going to cut Green jobs. David Suzuki says her plan is more about getting political power than doing what's right. On October 6th Ontario has a choice. They can go with the Job killing agenda of Hudack,the Job killing agenda of Horwath or the Job creating record of Dalton Mcguinty. Ontario can go with Hudack's non priced budget or the fiscal responsibility Mcguinty is proposing of eliminating the deficit. Ontario can chose the NDP and PC terrible plan for the environment, or we can go with the plan David Suzuki calls "An example to the rest of the world." Ontario has a choice and the polls show they might chose what is the best for the province.

Canada #1

Canada was proclaimed #1 place for business in the world by Forbes. It mentions how Canada has faced the recession very well compared to the U.S and Europe. This of course thanks to the regulations the Liberals put on companies to make sure they would be solid in a worse case scenario. The magazine also mentions the HST which simplifies the tax code and takes taxes off manufacturing. Unfortunately B.C took it back. It didn't just look at taxes on business it looked at

11 areas in 134 countries, including property rights, innovation, taxes, tech, corruption, personal, trade and monetary freedoms, red tape, investor protection and the performance of stocks.

So as you can see the Corporate tax cuts weren't the only reasons Canada became number one. So it seems considering Canada is #1 place for business it only makes sense that we start looking to improve other things in our country.  So continuing to cut Corporate taxes is silly considering there are many other things to do with that money. Our Country has an enormous lead when it comes to taxes compared to are trading partners. So if we increase the Corporate taxes to balance the budget it seems it will have little effect on our rating. As it seems we are already number one. I think balancing the budget can help business in the long run, because cutting Corporate taxes that we can't afford to cut will only mean higher taxes on people or Companies later on which will effect business. In order for Canada to ensure the business community that there taxes don't go up we must cut taxes that we know we can afford. The Liberal party proved this as it cut the Corporate tax rate from one of the highest in the world to now one of the most competitive in North America and the G8. The Corporate tax rate needs to go back to 18% so we can balance the budget then after we have a surplus like the Liberals we will cut the Corporate taxes. Cutting them now gives business false hope.

Read more here

Harper Thanks!

I definitely am no Conservatives, but I give credit where credit is due. Stephen Harper and the Conservative party is definitely not the best for the country, but thanks to Harper the Conservatives will tomorrow announce that they will put a plan to replace the aging bridge. It will cost about 1 billion to rebuild a new bridge. I and the Mayor and most Montrealers think this is overdue. We need a new bridge and we need it now. The money that went to try and repair the Champlain bridge was pointless. So I won't say this very often, but thank you Harper for something Montreal really needs.

Who Won PEI?

Yesterday PEI had an election where they re-elected the Liberal government. The Liberals got 22 and the PC got 5 seats. No some would claim that since the PC won more seats they did relatively well in the election. The fact of the matter is that the PC lost 2 seats in there traditional stronghold of rural PEI. They gained 3 seats. One by a landslide and 2 by 30 votes each. If there were recounts in these riding the Liberal could pick up two more seats and get 24-3. Therefor the PC have 1 less riding then they had in 2007. Even if the Liberals grab no extra seats the fact that the only gains the PC made were won by just a few 10 votes is sad. .This proves that these riding can easily change sides within the day. Also consider that the PC got less votes this time than last time around again proves they really didn't win any more support. The PC I think lost this election, but they did to be fair do somewhat better than expected not being completely swiped out of the province. The Liberals are the clear winners I believe. In a re-election where governing parties as we now politically have a harder time getting elected the Liberal lost one seat and 1.5%. Not bad.  I consider that a win. The Greens and NDP both picked up some more support in this election. The Greens still a proving to get more votes than the NDP.

to recap
Winners in this election: Liberals for getting another solid majority
Losers: PC for barely growing in this election
Small victories: Green for gaining 1% more in the province and for still placing 3rd in the vote count , and the NDP for gaining 1% also like the Greens

Elections almost here!

Today is October 3rd and the first big test's for all the political parties on the provincial stage. First up is today in PEI. It seems that the Liberals will grab this province, but the question is will they be able to fully eliminate the Conservatives out of office. The Conservatives only need one seat in the province to be considered an official party, another test will be is the Green's in the province can grow there numbers, and if the NDP can get more votes than the Greens in the province. In 2007 the Greens got 3% and the NDP got 2%.Also today is the territorial election in NWT, but there is no provincial Liberals, Conservatives or NDP in the province. So hard to read anything from that election about federal politics, but I will still be watching it.

 On October 4th the day after those two elections Manitoba will be having it's election. It seems that it could be tied in votes. The last to polls had both NDP and PC very close to each other, but that doesn't seem to matter , because it seems that the NDP are going to get a majority government either way. I say the test here for the NDP isn't to win a majority government which it looks like it's going to get, but whether it can still get more votes province wide than the PC. For us I say are test is to try and get the same support if not grow from last election and keep the current seats we have. It doesn't seem we have much to gain here. If the Greens get the 4% they are polled it will be a win for them considering last time they got 1%.

Then it's the big prize of Ontario. The test for the Liberals is to maintain a majority government. Right now they are polling quite even with the PC, but in seats the projections have the Liberals at the border of a majority. The PC test will be if they can get more votes than the Liberals, and more importantly if they can put the Liberals down to a minority, but it won't matter I don't think the NDP will prop Hudack. The NDP there big test is today. in no other election are they going to make more gains. Last time they got 10 seats right now if they can get the 25% of the vote like they gor in the federal election just some month ago they will prove that there power hasn't diminished quite yet.

It seems the Tories aren't going to win anything. In PEI it looks like they will be swept away. In Manitoba they might get the exact same as the last time around. In Ontario what seemed to be a slam duck for them is now a big major upset by the Liberals. It seems all the incumbents will get another chance at the bat.

Survival of Israel is Dependent on Palestine

Firstly, I would like to thank my co-blogger, Vanillaman for having reposted the Avaaz video. This will help us bring our message of hope to the world. I will now proceed to criticize a few parts of vanillaman's post.

In his post, he mentions that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are actually legal. Maybe they are. Yet, it's irrelevant whether they're legal or not. That can be argued à la Monty Python and that would be extremely pointless. The real question is: what is the point of the settlements? Vanillaman's answer: defense of Israel. But, these settlements have existed ever since Israel took over the West Bank in 1967. These settlements have done nothing but enrage Palestinians and rightly so until they turned hostile. If the settlement's weren't there, maybe there would be more chance for peace.

These settlements are counterproductive and could make Israel lose an ally.

One more argument for an independent Palestine

My last argument for an independent Palestine is the survival of Israel itself. In a short amount of time, the number of Palestinians living under Israeli control (Gaza, West Bank and Israel) will be greater than the number of Jews living in Israel. There will be a choice to make. Maclean's magazine explains it better than me, so I will quote my favourite parts here as it is a long article.

Their country will either be Jewish, but not democratic — in other words, a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by Palestinians — or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because Arabs will form the majority in what will become a bi-national state.

[...] Still, the consequences of Israel's victory — namely the settlement of occupied territories — have frustrated prospects for peace in the decades since. And now, with Israel perhaps irreversibly entangled in the West Bank, these same fruits of victory threaten Israel's future as well.

[...] Matar is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state and believes Israel must annex the West Bank and Gaza. When she is asked how Israel could continue to exist as a Jewish state if Muslim Arabs were the majority, she looks genuinely surprised by the question. "I'm not going to give them voting rights," she says.

[...] Our road home skirts the Israeli security barrier. It has been credited with dramatically decreasing the number of terrorist attacks inside Israel, though Palestinians decry it as a land grab because much of it runs inside the West Bank, essentially attaching territory captured in 1967 to the rest of Israel. Mohamed doesn't think the wall has much to do with security because, he says, he's able to cross it at will.

[...] Most Israelis favour a two-state solution.Israel's diverse political landscape, which results in perpetually fragile governing coalitions, makes it difficult for politicians to move this agenda ahead, even when there is a genuine will.

Read more at Maclean's. 

Scary is Governing with Ignorance

It's been blogged about again and again, but that is because it's so stupid and at the same time, scary. With their majority government, the Tories are looking to spearhead an omnibus "tough on crime" bill to increase jail time among other things. Crime prevention will be cut in favour of these measures. You'd think that the Conservatives would pretend to be working with the latest statistics, to agree with the facts. Nope!

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” said our Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. So, we have a government that is admitting to governing with ignorance. That is: ignoring the latest facts and statistics, ignoring evidence and putting in measures that have been proven to be counter-productive. And not only does this not work, but wastes our money at the same time. The facts are clear; let's not ignore them.

“We’re not governing on the basis of the latest statistics,” federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said this week. “We’re governing on the basis of what’s right to better protect victims and law-abiding Canadians.”

Read more at the Globe and Mail. 

Palestine is the Best Bet for Peace

An independent state for Palestine is the best way to create peace in the Middle East. Since the creation of Israel in 1948, violence has never stopped, fueled by hatred on both sides. Then in 1967, Israel took over the remaining Palestinian land and subsequently started building settlements to take up the land and resources, squeezing the inhabitants into small pockets. Obviously, when foreigners take over one's land, one isn't too happy about it.

And neither are the Palestinians. That's why they fight against Israel. Because they are living in bad conditions and have no sovereignty. Having their own state will solve that problem. By removing the settlements, there will be no more reason to fight. Hamas will lose its importance as they would receive a victory far greater than any other achieved by violence. And the rebuilding would begin.

Using a UN General Assembly resolution to make an end run around potential negotiations and create a Palestinian state is not a new idea, of course. It’s exactly what was done in 1947, under strikingly similar circumstances, and the resulting Palestinian state became known as Israel. That experience taught us a lot about the hazards of statehood by declaration from above – and about its occasional necessity.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Vote Compass Ontario

The CBC is at it again. And being someone who follows politics I find it very enjoying to try these voting compasses. Even though I can't vote in the up coming election me being not in the province in question and all. It is still slightly interesting (not really) that my results were pared up pretty good with the Liberal party of Ontario. Try it for yourself. According to the vote compass I am slightly more to the economic left than the Liberals in the province and am slightly less socially liberal than the premier. And go figure the PC i was no where near close too. Try it for yourself 

Quebec Desreves Everything?

The NDP Brian Topp a man who is running to lead the NDP is proposing that the province of Quebec be given 25% of the seats of the house of commons no matter what happens. Not even considering of course that Quebec today doesn't even deserve 25% of the seats. I don't know if he knows about this, but there is something called "rep by pop" the Liberal party pretty much created it in this country. Even though some prairie provinces and Atlantic provinces including Quebec got some extra seats they got it, because of the laws that were created to make sure they get representation and not be overflowed by the bigger provinces.these sort of laws over represent some parts of the country over the other I think we should move to make our house of commons truly rep by pop by giving more seats to the provinces that are growing much quicker versus the rest of the country. It's to hard to take away seats, but giving Quebec 25% of the seats when it currently represents less than that, and is growing much slower than the rest of the country is just insane. My province doesn't even deserve the seats in currently has. Our commons should be trying to move into the direction of making it truly "rep by pop." This policy is a desperate attempt by Brain Topp. There is no justification for giving Quebec more seats.

The Jewish Vote!

Jews have at least traditionally voted liberal or left leaning when it comes to politics at least in N.A. In Canada they tend to vote Liberal or NDP more than Conservative. But now the Jewish vote has been moving to the right. Although Liberals and Conservatives strongly support Israel which has been seen as the biggest issue for many Jewish communities. Harper has made the case he is the only one who support's Israel. Even though this has no basis the Liberals have also supported Israel, by making sure that terrorist organization like Hezbollah didn't get any money from Canada, but Harper has been good at getting the Jewish votes for the past few years. 

and now in Montreal the ridings with a lot of Jewish votes gave Harper a chance to get a seat on the island. In Mont Royal where the biggest religion is Jewish and considered one of the most Liberal riding's for years gave the Liberals 41% And the Conservatives got 36% in of the vote (in 2011) compared to winning this riding by at lest 9% to as high as 80% for the past 70 years over the next contender . This was the closest the Conservatives have ever gotten into winning this riding since 1958 when Diefenbaker got 54% of the vote nationally and still lost this riding by 1%. In other more Jewish populated ridings Thorn-hill they helped Harper crack Toronto by voting for him in 2008 and especially in 2011. In the U.S Obama got major support from the Jews in 2008, but with Obama being considered to hard on Israel will the Jews go to the Republicans? Well ever since exit polls were taken Jews have voted with the Democrat (even in 1980 they voted for Carter over Reagan), but Antony Wiener's old district that has a lot of Jews helped him won in 2010 with 60% just went to the Republicans by 53%-47% last week. Now we won't know for sure in the U.S whether this shift is real until the exit polls of 2012 come out.

Ooh the Republicans!

Our Republicans to the south are at it again.

It's a very simple equation. Tax increases destroy jobs. And the Joint Committee is a jobs committee. Its mission is to reduce the deficit that is threatening job creation in our country."

This old rant "TAXES KILL JOBS", and while I don't disagree that taxes do kill jobs the Republicans are using this and saying therefore we should cut spending and only cut. This whole Republican idea that taxes hurts the economy and spending also hurts is very absurd. Guess what when you give pink slips to government employee's these are jobs that are being destroyed. The Republicans can't put this simple math equation in there heads. telling a government worker he doesn't have a job anymore is the same as telling a private worker that he doesn't have a job. So when the Republicans are saying that we should balance the budget just by cutting spending. That means cut spending by 1 trillion a year (10 trillion over ten years). This would mean practically killing medicare which if the Republicans didn't know employs many people. Those are jobs right, but they don't count because it cuts spending right boehner. The Republicans don't see that taxes are better than the spending cuts there proposing. Taxes on corporations would reduce revenue for companies making millions if not billion for some in profits. Meaning they would have to kill some jobs. While cutting spending on programs directly kill jobs. What the super committee should start with as a basis is work on the taxes or spending cuts that eliminate the least amount of jobs. Starting first with increasing the tax on the rich to 50% where it was for 6 years of the 8 years Reagan was in office. Then eliminate loopholes for major corporations who are by the way in many cases paying negative cooperate tax rates. Look at cutting defense spending to pre-Bush levels and even more. If they start with things like this the deficit would be much better and not many jobs will be destroyed. So speaker stop with this attitude that taxes kill jobs therefore we must cut and only cut spending, because sacking government employee's is guess what KILLING JOBS!

Read more here

Why Libby Davies Would Be Bad for the NDP part 2

The Last reason why Libby Davies would be bad for the NDP is the biggest one of them all

3: She Can't speak French!
It pretty much says it for itself. The NDP can't get votes from my 80% Francophone province IF SHE CAN'T COMMUNICATE WITH THEM! Making the NDP the leader of the party would be a death sentence in Quebec almost the next second. Having the Libby Davies the leader of the NDP would be a wish come true to the Bloc. The Bloc will grab all the rural votes again. I would suspect Quebec City would go blue for the Conservatives and Bloc. While the Island of Montreal is tricky. The East side would go back to there 2008 results while the west side would be a fight. Considering Quebec makes up the majority of the seats for the NDP she will not be able to get elected right. Wrong only 3% of NDP members come from the province. So it's more than plausible for the 97% non Quebec members to elect her as leader.

Why Libby Davies Would be Bad For the NDP Part (1)

Libby Davies would be the worst new leader for the NDP for many reasons.

Reason #1:

Libby Davies is much more father to the left than Jack Layton. In fact it's hard to find someone who isn't more left then any one else in the NDP. With this we in the Liberal party can say that they are the tax and spend lefties, we are the fiscally responsible party. We can make the point that the NDP isn't in the middle, and even far to the left, and I would be sure the Conservative party would help us make that point. 

Reason #2:

She is from the city. The NDP have been  trying for years to grab votes from prairie provinces. With Libby Davies coming from urban Vancouver someone who voted against the gun registry and supports a lot for cities. Not that she doesn't care for farmers, but it may be hard to sell to prairie provinces a leader who seeems to care more about cities. Even Jack Layton hasn't been able to get a seat in Saskatchewan for years, and the seat in Alberta was an Urban seat. The Only Rural prairie seat was in Manitoba and that was only NDP since 2008. So any Urban NDP candidate will have a tough time bringing the prairie's back to the NDP

Ontario Could Stay Red.

threehundredeight.com has a new projection in the province of Ontario. It predicts that Ontario will be an even split. 44 Liberals, 44 Tories and 19 NDP. Which means a split government that would probably give Mcguinty another term in office. It seems Hudack is moving down the polls, and Liberals are back and fighting for a government. This trend has been going on for quite a while, and if continued can give the Liberals another majority government. some polls even have the Liberals way ahead of the Conservatives. It seems the Liberals right now are on the up swing, and I hope to see Ontario stay in the red column in Ontario. 

The poll also found that only 45 per cent of respondents believed McGuinty had much of a plan for the province's future.

"While I'm not prepared to say I'm absolutely certain that it's a 10-point Liberal advantage, I feel pretty confident that what we're picking up is some narrowing of the race," Anderson said.

Hudak found himself defending Randy Hillier, a high-profile Tory candidate who has been embroiled in a long-running tax dispute with Canada Revenue Agency.

9/11 anniversary

Today we stop and think of the people who dies 10 years ago in the terrorist attack done by 19 people that killed more than 3000 people, and also the people who stooped a plane from killing thousands more by trying to take control away from the hijackers, and unfortunately died saving other people. I think that today is also a day to remember to be generous. 10 years ago after 9/11 when the U.S closed it's air space Canada opened it's doors to thousands of people and helped feed and shelter misplaced Americans.

Repealing HST Bad Move

BC moves to eliminate the tax that would now increase the deficit. In fact the B.C deficit is now tripled. The big loss is of course the 1.6 billion BC now has to give back to Ottawa. BC is still moving to eliminate the deficit by 2014. BC could have a much easier time going into surplus if they would have kept the tax that would create jobs (over 100,000 in the next ten years), and would increase revenue. It seems that the HST was good policy, but the Liberals in BC are crazy over popularity. Even though 45% of people were in favor of keeping the tax. I mean take a vote of the G.S.T and the federal government would be lucky to get close to these numbers. I mean there is only a slight win in this politically, because many people who want the H.S.T gone are guess what with the NDP! There isn't much political gain especially for something that would have done a lot of good for the province of BC. It seems like BC are moving a few steps behind so far this year. I hope these Liberals get there act together very soon.

In his latest quarterly report, Minister Kevin Falcon says scrapping the HST will cost the province $2.3 billion over three years

"This includes $1.6 billion in 2011-12 associated with reimbursing the federal HST transition funding and a more than $700 million loss from lower tax revenue and increased spending over the three years ending 2013-14."

 Read more here