NDP Hits First Wall.

I knew since the beginning that the NDP attempts to keep it's support in Quebec will pose them problems in the west. Yes the oil sands comments aren't going to give Mulcair a lot of new friends in the west. The Dutch Disease comments which I think is very off.

For those of you unaware of what Dutch Disease is. It is an economic theory is that oil development rises the dollar and makes exports too expensive. Mulcair says that this is happening in Canada, and therefor is harming jobs in the east.  Mulcair's also stated that the western Primers are like the puppets of the Prime Minister.I think that is insulting to the three premiers.

Mulcair has said that while shifting international trade patterns are responsible for some of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs that have been lost in Canada, "everyone concludes that more than half of them are being lost because we’re maintaining the Canadian dollar artificially high."

Mulcair continues to stand by his comments that the west should be slowed down to help the east. Even though a new report have come out, and said that Dutch Diseas is hardly effecting Canadian manufacturing.

It says it has caused "small surmountable problems for most manufacturing industries and larger challenges for the public finances of resource-rich provinces."

I don't think that we should be looking at the west as if it is the problem like Mulcair has portrayed it, but look at the west the solution. Yes the western Canada is polluting more, so obviously they must be part of the solution. I think we should always look at providing jobs for all Canadians.

I think any plan that involves taxing oil industries, which are a big driver for growth in the west should also come hand in hand with money to develop green energy jobs especially in the west. Therefor we aren't discouraging growth in the west, but promoting long term substainable jobs for western Canadians.

To summarize this whole situation I think Stephane Dion puts it best "We already have one divisive leader he is Stephen Harper we don't need a second one" 

west, but also a plan to develop a green energy sector and provide thousands of jobs for people in the west.

I Need A Million!

John Baird helped out the Canadian Federation of Chabad Lubavitch by helping them get 1 million dollars in federal money. The money that went to Chabad was out of a program to increase accessibility of disabled people. The expansion project that Chabad will be building is claimed to also include accessibility to disabled people. The application for this project was send by an Ottawa rabbi that is apparently Baird's friend and constituent.

The application that the Canadian organization sent to Ottawa was one of 355 application. Only 5 received federal funding. Of the 355 projects proposed this particular one got a very low grading. In fact the rating was so low that it didn't qualify except John Baird jumped in with the help of the minister of human resources to get this project 1 million dollars. 

This is plain wrong. Organizations should only receive money from a program if they are the best applicants for that money. No matter what the application that shows is most worthy to get the money. The same goes for a job. The best and most qualified person should get the job. No MP or Minister should be able to jump in and say who should get this money. This is the people's money that is being mismanaged (to be polite).

This is nothing new! Tony Clement spend millions of dollars on his riding during the G8 and G20 summit that had nothing to do with the actual conference, and don't even get me started on the 2 million dollar fake lake. 

So since the Conservative seem to be giving money to just about anyone may I kindly ask the government for 1 million dollars. I promise to spend some of it to make my house wheel chair accessible.

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America Moving Forward!

No previous president while in office has ever stated that he is for the legal recognition of gay marriages. And Today the U.S not only has a president , but also a Vice President that support the people of the same sex getting married. America on the other hand is divided. 50% according to a new poll support gay marriage while 48% of Americans don't. This may show that only a marginal majority of Americans support gay marriage, but the number is rising. Two years ago I wrote a blog post showing only 42% of Americans supporting gay marriage. 

Romney on the other hand supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. So as it can be seen this is a very divisive issue in the election. But the Republicans don't want to talk about it. Why? because they have nothing to gain but the support of their base. The Republicans would rather continue the discussion on the economy where their Republican candidate is for some reason according to some polls better to handle the economy.

I say all in all the election won't be effected much by this, but the big win I take away from this is Americans are becoming more tolerant of having people of the same sex marry each other. In Canada gay marriage has been legal for quite some time now, and well the sky hasn't fallen down!

Sixty percent of Americans polled were unchanged in their support of the president after he publicly backed same-sex marriage.

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Quebec Students Should Take It!

A tentative deal has been made and agreed by all student groups including La CLASSE. I personally feel that this deal is pointless. It is a political maneuver  to try and claim victory on both sides. Even though Tuition will rise for the next 7 years by over 250$ every year (instead of over 320$ for 5 years ) their will be no increase in the cost of education. Because surcharges will be eliminated which are valued the same amount as the tuition increase. So pretty much everything stays the same our tuition rises, but students won't even have to pay a dime more.

Now all that is left in this conflict seems to be the approval of students associations. Which I didn't think would be too hard. But already yesterday 6 Colleges and 10 university facilities voted against the agreement. I am still amazed by these students who are rejecting an offer to go back to a practical freeze on education cost. I am worried that a protest on tuition hikes will soon become a protest on the idea of tuition at all which will be even more dangerous.

The Quebec governments shouldn't make any new concession. This deal is sweet enough. I guess all that is left is too see what the rest of Quebec student facilities have to say.

Liberals Growing Irrelevance In West.

The Liberal party has a major problem. We seem for the most part since May 2nd 2012 to be up from our election results. All major projections have us gaining some dozens or more seats and racking up a few more votes. But in the West is our major problem. In Western Canada the Provincial parties although not completely similar to the national party do offer enormous showing of how Liberal values fair in the province. The answer isn't so well

In fact Saskatchewan and Manitoba had election recently. In the Manitoba provincial election 2011 the Liberal party got 8% of the vote (4% down from last time around) while the NDP and the PC got well over 40%. The Liberal party only got 1 seat (from their 2 last time around) and that was only given to the leader of the party. In Manitoba they practically have a two party system with a little dot of red in Winnipeg.

In Saskatchewan the situation was just plain sad. The Liberals even before the election were somewhat irrelevant politically getting 9% of the vote in 2007 and no seats. In 2011 is when the situation got sad. The Liberal party only had 9 candidates running out of the 57 ridings. The Green Party of Manitoba Saskatchewan at least had a full slate. The election result was predictable. No seats and only 0.6% of the vote. The Green party of Manitoba no surprise got third place in the vote count with 3%.

If you look at the polls for the national Liberals they are third place in the parries while the NDP and the Tories battle it out. Although there are signs of hope. In Alberta the Liberals did get pushed into third place and did lose a lot of votes as well as seats, but the fact remains that we didn't lose it to the NDP. Second pace went to the Wildrose. Not that this should bring comfort, but the fact remains we did 900 more votes and 1 seat more then the NDP. Which makes us the Progressive leaders in Alberta's politics for the next few years.

But the Liberal Party still has major challenges out in the west and they must tackle them now! Our party can't rebuild only in Toronto and Montreal. We need to look to the west!

la CLASSE It's Not About The Money!!

Broad coalition of the Association for a student union solidarity (CLASS) has offered a few ideas to eliminate tuition in Quebec by 2016. They say they have a plan to pay for the increase by:
1. Transfer 142-284 million in research spending towards education 
2. Freeze hiring of some senior executives, wages and eliminate bonuses
3. Stop building satellite campuses (campuses that is physically away from the main university center) 
4. Implement 0.14% tax on financial institutions


For me it isn't about the money it is about the principle. For me the 321 dollar increase is just a matter of the cost of education going up and students paying their fair share. It is no surprise that the cost of education should go up. Simply because of inflation the cost of teachers and education goes up. Likewise so does income (although sometimes not evenly). The fact is that I believe students should pay some part of their education or for that matter parents should. People should invest in their own education.

We shouldn't make education something only the rich can afford we should make education something everybody can afford. I think that even with the increase in tuition education is accessible, because of government grants and the fact that it isn't that expensive. The fact is students should pay for some parts of their education. Under the Charest plan students would in the end pay 17% of tuition. With 35% of the money from the increase going to help low income students pay for university.

The whole argument that accessibility will go out the window is silly. In fact Quebec even at the lowest tuition levels a few years ago had one of the lowest enrollment rate in universities in the developed world. As we can see tuition wasn't a factor other factors are stopping kids from graduating high school.

The Class proposes a solution to eliminate tuition, but for me the money isn't the problem. If the government should do the 4 solutions La Class proposes is irrelevant. It is just a principle that students should pay for some of their tuition. If let's say the government of Quebec finds an extra 200 million dollars in waste that money should either go to eliminating the deficit or better yet spend on eliminating poverty, hiring more doctors, building new hospitals, put into infrastructure etc...  It is a matter of priority of where money should go if any new tax is levied or any spending is cut. It is not the matter of just finding the money.


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