Canadians rank Arctic sovereignty as top foreign-policy priority

I really don't understand the problem here. According to Jean Chretien nobody is interested in the north.

And yet Harper is still too cheap to buy the three heavy icebreakers he promised back in 2006.

Guess he thinks this is still good enough...

Ya kinda have to give him a chance. He had the Military to rebuild that the libs decimated inorder to have extra money for the purchase of votes in Quebec. I'm thinking it's a little more important to assist the troops out of green combats and archaic equipment while in the middle of a war that the Libs involved us in. What kind of PM commits his troops without proper equipment?

Icebreakers are not run by the military, they are operated by the Coast guard - so your argument is totally wrong.

He's had a deficit of over $50 BILLION the past two years - and prior to that he a surplus of $10-12 billion - that adds up to over a 100 billion dollars. I think he could have found a few billion if this was a priority. Instead, he used that massive deficit to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy (cuts to GST).

The last two heavy icebreakers were built by the Liberals in the 70s and 80s. Harper has promised to build one (the Diefenbaker) by 2017. He's not doing any better then those awful Liberal you speak of.

Take off your partisan blinders!

Where do you think the money comes from? Tree out back or does he crap it out. The Treasury board approves all purchases from the government. Military/ Coast Guard/Public service and the list goes on. The only reason they had a surplus was do to the heavy taxes we were handed out and the rape and pillage from the military. The 50 billion deficit you spoke was also cause by the other three stooges.
He's trying to lower taxes for corporations to get more business into Canada. If you increase the taxes then business moves on or they start charging more for their products. Do you think their going to soak up the cost?
It really doesn't take a lot of figuring partisan or not.

Good god, you're all over the place.

The surplus largely came from having GST at 7% and increases in EI payments - not because the military had been gutted. Those cuts took place in the 90s, while the surplus was still huge AFTER the Liberals spent billions in the wake of 9/11. Defence spending was up to almost $15 billion when Martin handed over the government to Harper - well above the $9.9 billion low it reached in the 90s.

Lowering corporate taxes is going make our economy better? All it does is allow Canadian branch plants (Ford, Boeing, Esso, etc) of huge multi-nationals export more profits out of the country. If Harper wants to get this country moving again, how about cutting income taxes to the 20 million or so taxpayers in this country. If I had another few thousand dollars each year to spend it would go a long way to strengthening the economy.

And how was the deficit the fault of the three stooges (given your partisanship, I'm guessing you're trying to pin it on the opposition)?

They weren't running the government, Harper and Flaherty were. If those two had the principles they claim to have, they would have stuck to their guns and went ahead with a budget more in line with their supposed political views. Instead, depserate to stay in power, they caved in to opposition demands.

All they really showed was that they are as desperate as all the rest in wanting power.

Raising the taxes on those same firms will just cause more of the branch plants to be exported. Campbell's Soup, Ford, GM, Electrolux, Chrysler, & etc. have all closed and moved operations elsewhere.

Of course, none of their profits are exported anymore.

Thanks Bart for some common sense. You keep increasing the taxes on these corporations and they either charge more for their product or they move on. They can only charge so much for their product before people stop buying it. Why do you think China is capitalizing on this.
Bootlegga, do you recal what happened the last time a budget was read in the house. The 3 stooges forced him to increase spending. It's not a blame game but they had their hand in it.

Why should bootlegga even bother responding to you? In his last two responses he has completely pwned you and you've blithely moved on to another subject. You don't know what you're talking about, frankly, and what's worse, you have no interest in knowing what your'e talking about.

I agree with Bootlegga. Harper has constantly not made up on his promises concerning arctic sovereignty. Deep water port??? Where's the news for that? Icebreakers? Nope, armed patrol ships???? Nope, they just cut those down and now just 60 billion on stealth fighters that everybody else makes and could probably detect anyways. Now I hear upgraded radars that should have been done 40 years ago. Granted its not a easy task to update a total military that 10 years of Lib rule downgraded into total slop and decadence but still, you've had ample time to concentrate on OUR!!! country instead of Afghanistan and our arctic.

Hopefully now that we're done with the Liberals war in Afghanistan, the Conservatives can spend some money on domestic security.

Raising the taxes on those same firms will just cause more of the branch plants to be exported. Campbell's Soup, Ford, GM, Electrolux, Chrysler, & etc. have all closed and moved operations elsewhere.

Of course, none of their profits are exported anymore.

Oh please...I never said we should raise corporate taxes, I said income taxes should be cut BEFORE corporate taxes.

As for companies leaving Canada for elsewhere, it's hardly a phenomenon strictly in Canada. How much steel is Pittsburgh producing these days Bart? How many TVs are made in the US? I don't know the numbers but it's a far cry from what it was 40 years ago...

With the US flag?)

We're done in Afghanistan?

Well, just be thankful we're not in Iraq as well. Oh yeah, what party advocated that at the time? I forget. Could you imagine our budget situation now if we were paying for that horror show as well? We couldn't afford to keep native chiefs in a lifestyle they have become accustomed to and we all know that will never do. But I stray from the topic.

I think we need to have The Sharks Club open up a string of bars/restaurants across the north....We'll get some population up there with incentives like this...