$1:
My wife's family is from Halifax, they see things differently than you do.
That's one family though, in one situation. Polling has the Conservatives flat or down, especially in some key ridings. I've also spoken to others from Atlantic Canada who would directly disagree with you.
$1:
Harper supporters don't expect patronage like Liberal supporters do. I suspect some will not vote CPC even though they know in their hearts it is the right thing to do.
How is giving a band, dance troupe, writer, artist etc. a grant so they can continue their work patronage in the political sense of of the word? It's not.
If this is the Conservative Party trying to decide what art is worthy and what isn't, then they aren't qualified. No political party is. When they make statements about their perception of the political leanings of the artists and use those perceptions to justify the cuts, then they've obviously lost all respect for some pretty basic democratic principles.
$1:
IMO, the Liberals did nothing. I find them responsible for the failure of Kyoto. If the were busy looking for answers instead of providing political lip service to Kyotophiles, them maybe Kyoto could be a success.
The Conservatives arrived too late to the scene. Kyoto was lost by the Liberals.
That's fine, except that when the AG audited their plan she said that it likely would have achieved or gotten us very close to our goal. That plan was very much based on action over the last couple of years, so those parts were never put into action, and personally I have my doubts, but that's what the audit showed.
It should also be noted that the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives were very effective, when in opposition, at disrupting the Liberals on this issue. They fought tooth and nail to disrupt committee work (especially Bob Mills and Monte Solberg) by using tactics right out of the Republican handbook, working with their allies in the US and the fossil fuel industry, and helping to spread denialist propaganda through the press. It slowed the Liberals down a fair bit.
When the Conservatives came to power, they immediately started moving backwards. They quietly cut funding to a bunch of scientific research. They chopped the home refit program, which was one thing the Liberals did that was accomplishing something. They moved the goalposts from the international standard of 1990 to 2006. They went to international conferences and backed the Bush regime's attempts to scuttle Kyoto.
They have ties to the "Friends of Science" (hey, there's another election spending scandal) and other parts of the denialist lobby.
Surely you can't tell me that they've performed better than anybody else on this issue. They are, if anything, even worse than the Liberals.
$1:
will hopefully realize that a tax is a tax. And, until governments start uding road taxes on roads, its naive to think that the GST(green shift tax) will be spent on the envirement.
Um, I think that's a misrepresentation of the Green Shift and I wish people would do the research instead of listening to Harper's rhetoric. By raising a tax on carbon and then reducing personal income tax, what happens is that people are encouraged to both reduce their personal carbon footprint and to buy green products that have less tax and therefore cost less.
It actually gives you the opportunity to reduce the amount of taxes you pay, because you can do things to reduce your carbon consumption, but not a lot of people are planning on reducing their income levels.
There are a whole bunch of reasons why I don't agree with Dion's plan, mostly because I don't think it will reduce emissions, but the whole "It's just another new tax," thing is, at best, dishonest. If you dislike taxes, you should love this plan. It gives you the opportunity to reduce your part of the tax burden.
$1:
I agree Harper has been less than stellar. A lot of mistakes have been made. Another one today if you check out the ‘plum appointment’ thread.
Yeah, that's yet another example. It isn't that the mistakes have been made though, it's that Harper and his party don't consider them to be mistakes. They hand out patronage appointments far more blatantly than the Liberals and have set precedents that the Liberals will take full advantage of when they come back to power, whenever that may be. A lot of the checks and balances that did exist have been weakened or removed.
$1:
You have some valid points, but your post just adds to the political and intellectual divide we now have in Canada.
A good chunk of us have really entrenched views and ideals, and we seem to be less open to conflicting opinions. It’s like we have drawn battle lines as opposed to engaging in the verbal jousts of true debate.
Again though, that is mostly the doing of the Harper Conservatives.
I'm going to use committee meetings as an example, but it's not the only one.
I've been watching committee meetings for...how long has CPAC been airing them? Committees are where the real work gets done. It's where the conflicting opinions are listened to and compromises are made. It's where weaknesses in legislation get caught and adjusted.
Or at least it used to be.
My first recollection of a committee becoming little more than a clown act actually goes all the way back to when Chretien was PM. While hearing expert witnesses speak about global warming, Solberg and Mills spent days filibustering the committee by demanding detailed CVs from every witness they didn't like and objecting like mad every time one of their witnesses was asked for the slightest evidence of his or her expertise. It was brutal and, quite frankly, an embarrassment to Canada.
That was mild compared to the tactics the Conservatives are using in committee now though. I'm not sure whether these guys are too stupid to understand the rules of parliament, or just don't care, but somebody should tell them what asses they are being.
What went on this past week was a perfect example of that, but it's been almost constant since the Conservatives took power. The revelation that Jay Hill had distributed a handbook on how to disrupt committee really wasn't surprising...it was pretty obvious that this was a concerted effort by Conservatives to shut down every committee they could.
The biggest problem though is that Harper and his crew refuse to acknowledge that they have a minority government. Instead of trying to bring others on board, softening stances on both sides to reach a compromise acceptable to representatives of a majority of Canadian people, they've tried to bully their way through on the weakness of the Liberals.
While that tactic has worked because the Liberals are weak, it has done little or nothing to strengthen the Conservatives in the polls and has led to a lot of hard feelings and outright hostility.
It was kind of funny this past week when Dean Del Mastro complained about Pat Martin swearing off-mic. Pat had been pushed to the edge by the misbehaviour of the Conservatives and was talking like a carpenter from the North End of Winnipeg, which makes sense because that's what he is.
So Deanie complained and Martin said he'd quit swearing if the Conservatives would quit disrupting the committee. The Conservatives, of course, made it clear that they had every intention of continuing to disrupt the committee.
So if you want to see where the real problem is, just watch the H of C committee meetings on CPAC. Remember that each party is allotted seats on those committees according to the percentage of seats they have in parliament...a representation of the will of the Canadian people. Remember that there are rules and precedents going back, literally, for centuries and everybody has access to those. Remember that the committee itself determines some of the rules and procedures and everybody has access to those as well. Now watch the actions of the Conservatives.
I lost ten bucks this last week because I made a bet that one of the Conservatives was going to physically assault somebody. That's how bad it was. It never happened, but I have heard that it looked really close a couple of times. That's how hostile they are to the other Members of Parliament.
So when you complain that people's positions have hardened and there is no compromise, perhaps you should consider where that comes from, EyeBrock.
CKA Elite 
