Belinda Stronach appointed to Cabinet

Do you even check polls?

You just sputtered out rubbish. Analysts have been going on all day how if the Conservatives knew what they were doing they would not ask for this election now.

The MAJORITY of canadians don't want an election now ...but somehow u want to ignore that. The Conservatives chose to ignore that.

The latest polls show another Liberal minority. So u want to waste another 1/4 billion dollars on an election now instead of waiting for the Gomery inquiry like the MAJORITY of Canadians want. Wow, Harper would look good after forcing an election and ending up with the same minority government situation.

Cadman supported the government for 1 reason...2/3 of his constituents did not want an election now.

Maybe the Conservatives should take a lesson from Cadman.

It's been along time since then

No Biased here, I swear...

"Harper and others in the party have said many negative and disparaging about other regions of Canada over the years. One of the biggest complaints of the Conservatives is that Alberta doesn't have enough influence, yet it is proportionally better represented than either Ontario or Quebec."

Alberta should have more influence, considering thats where at lot of Canada's money is coming from.. Quebec should too.

By time the polls have hit Toronto the Elections usually over for us, doesn't sound fair to me. The west and the east have different needs therefore the west should have as much control over our needs as the the east regardless of the population.

Yeh I do watch polls but if you read the above post, you will see why it doesn't matter if I do or not.

I was not saying which "move" was best for the conservatives I was saying the liberals shouldn't commit such desperate acts to avoid one.

It wouldn't be wasting, because ones going to be called this/next year no matter what.


Also I wouldn't say the "MAJORITY" don't want one, that is only in Ontario..Oh I forgot that is basically the Majority.... Theres a reason they dont show alberta polls.

The majority in BC and Manitoba don't want an election either. Saskatchewan is split pretty much down the middle, but leaning towards no election.

So much for Alberta representing the west. You are out of step with the entire country.

No Saskatchewan is about the same as Alberta, BC is the opposite of what you say, and Manitoba is split. I am not saying Alberta should represent the west. Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan should.

Belinda will be on point now shooting Harper down in future debate, she has torn that party in two, as we will see in the months to come. First Belinda and now the chance to defeaat the government. Mr. Harper is toast. By the time the next election comes round Canadians will be thinking about different issues and the scandal will be part of history. The Tories destroyed themselves, pushing for an election that almost no one wanted.
I made Harper and his party look desperate for power, and the Liberals did that little political dance again, they set the trap and may well have brought down the Tory opposition.

< UNNECESSARY PERSONAL COMMENT >

I'm actually very grateful for the double standard; it paints an accurate picture of the left.

edited and put up in the moderator fourm. stop the crap of bashing moderators and trying to incite the same old usual arguments..

edited and posted in the moderator fourm. This is the second time I have told you to stop trying to incite the same old usual arguments.

Ooohh. I see I missed a post.

So you want to trade democracy in for an oligarchy? Whoever can pay the most gets what they want and the rest of the population is screwed? That's called oligarchy, Mark. It is considered one of the worst forms of rule in the world because it inevitably leads to massive graft and corruption even while human rights abuses run rampant. It always, throughout history, has lead to civil and class warfare. Usually the old oligarchs' heads end up on pikes in the courtyard and a new group takes over and makes all of the same mistakes.

The fact is that if any province has a right to bitch about being under-represented, it is Ontario. Like it or not, they have more people than we do out here. Also like it or not, they have far fewer MPs per capita than anyplace else in Canada. They also give a boatload of money to the rest of Canada through transfer payments.

So why should Alberta get more say? You shouldn't. Pretty damned simple.

"The fact is that if any province has a right to bitch about being under-represented, it is Ontario."

Thankyou Rev.

I don't even like Ontario, Jay. I do believe in democracy though.

How could you not like Ontario? Not only is it gorgeous, but if we haven't been the driving force in keeping this country together, no one has.

It's too busy, Jay. There's also a certain arrogance that comes out of the golden horseshoe. I'm from the west, remember?

That doesn't mean that I don't recognize or appreciate Ontario's place in Canada, just that I don't like Ontario.

Understandable. We are pretty industrious people out here, and Toronto can be pretty pushy at times.

I know this sounds crazy, but what if this was Belinda's plan from the start. Under the guise of uniting the right, she set up both Harper and his stiffest competitor within the party, she dangled her money and good looks to bewitch them and then jilted them at the alter. It looks like it is do or die now for the Conservative party. The unity acheived by merging the western reformists and the old time Tories is contrived at best. I don't think Harper has any credibility anymore, and MacKay is damaged goods too. From the start, I didn't think she would be able to reconcile her views on social issues with her party.
Just a thought.

You give Belinda WAY too much credit.

Yeah, I know.

look in his eyes... if those aren't the most power hungry eyes in Ottawa, I don't know what is. He's not PM material... and that's not saying Paul Martin is either... but the bad part of it is, there's not a good alternate.

Sorry about that, I didn't even know it was submitted. It was sitting in the background, I get interrupted all the time, then when I have to wait for anything I go back to, well that post in this case, and other things have happened, more gets added but I should have moved it into a text editor because it was just a draft, but I must have hit something and it got submitted.

Now I'm waiting for a phone call, went back to see if anything in the post was even relevant, given than the vote was over and there's nothing for markets to react to now, but it was already submitted. And now it's been pulled out of context so I don't know what to do with it.

You managed to get past the economic report from 8 months ago that had/has nothing to do with politics: which was the point of posting it along with the dollar being at US$75.22 eight months ago, not US$62, which is quite a difference. But the 6 key is also right next to the 7 key and it could have been a typo. But you had a chance to state so and didn't. So right off the bat of your assumption, you proved that you don't know what you're talking about.

72 is close enough but 62?

So you found something in the Financial Post this afteroon and ignored everything else. And didn't even quote it.

Where is this article? How am I supposed to address something I can't even see that might (it's not an accusation, just a possibility) have pulled things out of context or missed the point of the article, as you did with my (draft unfortunately) post.

Did they deny that currency speculators pay attention to headlines from all over the world or that political instability/uncertainty is one of biggest indicators (aside from war or radical monetary policy changes, that they don't have time to sit around analyzing) and that if they're not on the ball, everyone is going to trade, over bad economic news (which political uncertainty is), for other currencies "before the other guy" before the value drops as the currency is traded for others, which raises the value of other currencies (possibly for a tenth of a second), but the value could drop so much that they end up stuck with the currency, because no one else is going to trade for it until better news comes out?

But regardless, the main cause of the rise of every curency in the world that trades openly, has been the fall of the USD over its massive trade and budget deficits and "soft economic patches", like in Feb 2003, the whole U.S. economy created 100 jobs: 2 per state.

Why has the Euro, you can check every currency in the world that trades openly, gone up in relation to the USD, other than the one everyone bitches about, particularly the U.S., the Chinese yuan, which doesn't trade openly on world markets and is pegged to the value of the USD.

So while even the most obscure currencies in the world were rising against the USD, the yuan wasn't (due to the possibility that Harper would become PM of the Canadas?), which contributed/contributes to the U.S. trade deficit, massively.

But you think it's because of Harper? And hang on a sec before you say, "No you do!"

You made the assertion that the Canadian dollar was at 62 cents 8 monhs ago and has risen due to the possibility of "another government" (and your handle make the "other government" quite clear) would be running Canada.

So if that's true, in the context of this thread, why did the dollar go up when Stronach left the "conservative" reform-alliance party and joined the "liberals"?

The U.S. economy has picked up, and fallen and picked up and fallen, around the usual indicators and they've never all been down, but our currency value (in relation to USD, not the Euro) goes up and down with it. But the overall trend has been up, and it has nothing to do with politics in this country.

About six months ago when testimony came out of the Gomery inquiry that didn't look good at all for the government, the dollar started to fall: and who says it was due to the possibility of another political party taking over the government? If anything, if that's the theory, which is what I responded to, the dollar would have gone UP because the possibility of the "conservatives" taking over would have been good news. So why did the dollar fall instead?

Why did the dollar go up (in relation to the usual, the USD), which is the only context of this thread, when Stronach left the "conservative" reform-alliance party?

Why did the Canadian dollar drop when Parrish, who everyone knew was going to vote yea on C-78 yesterday, ended up in the hospital? Why did the dollar go back up when the news was released that she was released from the hospital and was going to be able to vote?

And why, as I stated yesterday, hasn't the Canadian dollar taken a hit today, over this "bad news" that the government didn't crash yesterday and the budget (that mattered) passed?

The markets are closed, and I just glanced at the board and the dollar is up at US$0.7898¢. Why isn't it down to 62 cents, as you claim it was 8 months ago, over this horrible news that the government didn't crash and the budget passed and the "conservatives" didn't get their way?

Now there's no possibility for an election until, as the majority of Canadians wanted, giving them 30 days to digest all the contradictory testimony of the Gomery report when it's tabled. So why didn't the Canadian dollar take a dive?

And whaddya know, I knew it was all sitting around somewhere, the values of the Canadian dollar, in Canadian dollars from our own central bank, not what someone else has to pay for it with whatever interest rate another country's central bank is charging on their currency, which the interest rate spread they have to deal with, not us:

March 27, 2004, US$75.85¢

Gold, insurance, TSX market corrections. Just a bit of context from over a year ago.

August 14, 2004, US$76.40¢

Why? Dollar lifts off record trade data Surplus contrasts with big U.S. deficit. Dollar gains 1.21 cents on greenback (from the previous week; these are all Saturdays when the economists, analysts, speculators are out playing golf or having lunch in the French Riviera. Well, the big CEO's anyway; not they're taking the day off, they're swinging deals over cocktails at the Golf & Country Clubs or wherever the hobnobbing is going on).

September 4, 2004, US$76.93¢ (8 months ago)

Why? Aside from the U.S. election coming up and there being almost 1 million fewer jobs in the U.S. since Bush became president (so why isn't Kerry pushing that and doing better, nailing Bush's Achilles heel, the horrible economic performance -- which really isn't up to any government but they like to pretend and people believe them; other than around budget deficits like in the U.S., but investment/business takes place on the business level not the political level), the Hollinger crap was going on, Black had a possible legal loophole, Martin should ignore pressure to cozy up to Bush (according to the U.K.) and even the 'conservative' Financial Times, crude prices were down, Intel shares took took a big hit (down $20.05 U.S. from July; ouch), technology stocks lower on Bay St., well up, but only by 0.12% on the week) and NY blue chips drifted lower.

No mention of Harper. And that was sort of 8 months ago, whatever you think happened 8 months ago, to drive the Canadian dollar up from 62 cents, steadily, which the numbers below will not show.

September 18, 2004, US$77.07¢ (8 months ago almost exactly from the date of your post -- and on a Saturday, all around the world, when no major trading is going on)

Why? "Loonie dives as rate of inflation slows". Hmm. Nothing mentioned about Harper at all. Down 0.43¢ from the previous week. That's almost half a cent, which is a fairly big dive. But not from the US$76.93¢ two weeks prior.

And now things start getting interesting.

October 30, 2004, US$82.10¢

Why? "Ford agrees to employment guarantees". And America's flu crisis over outsourcing vaccinations to Britain that got spoiled leaving them short and Conrad Black offered to resign as CEO of Hollinger, and a government report on economic growth that buoyed Toronto stocks, putting the TSX's key index to the highest level in three weeks. Wall St. posted a mixed finish; end of the month. No mention of Harper.

Here's the kicker I was looking for.

November 27, 2004, US$85.04¢

The Canadian dollar broke past 84 cents U.S. to 85 cents. But then...

January 1, 2005 US$83.19¢.

Why? What did Harper do from the end of November to January to cause the dollar to drop by almost 2 cents U.S.? Isn't it supposed to be a steady rise from the "62 cents" 8 months ago, due to the possibility of another government taking over, to the Canadian dollar being 6 cents lower than it was 6 months ago, today? But still up today and with interest rates holding steady, which the Bank of Canada would not have done had something as major as what the "conservative" reform-alliance planned for "Canada" yesterday, happened.

Annual % changes from Jan 1, 2004 to Dec 31, 2004:

TSX up 12.84%
S&P 500 up 8.99%
Nasdaq up 8.59%
London [FTSE] up 7.45%
DOW [Jones Industrial] up 3.15%
Tokyo [NIKKEI] up 7.61%
Hong Kong [Hang Seng] up 13.15%

No mention of Harper or anything political. The market had some good legs. But the question for "Canadian investors" (which doesn't mean Canadian citizens) was ... how much further would (or could, beating every other market in the world other than the Hang Seng) rise in the immediate future?

And the Canadian dollar closed 2004 at a three-week high against the U.S. currency, and was expected push higher next (this) year, due to Stephen Harper. I mean, nagging concerns over U.S. deficits, as the whole world knows and it's main reason every currency that trades openly has gained on the USD over the last three years or more.

It was the Canadian dollar's third conseceutive year of gains, adding another (or in reality, subtracting from the value of the USD; combined with the Canadian economic growth in 2004) adding another 7.5 "per cent" (cents, in USD) in 2004 after a rise from 2003's 21 "per cent" gain.

I'm sorry it's so long (again, and edited) but the main spike of getting over 85 cents U.S. with some context, had to be shown. The Canadian dollar was not at 62 cents U.S. 8 months ago and it has not risen steadily over anything to do with Harper. It took little hits that no one will even care about (now), every time something negative for the "liberals" was released and every time anything positive for the "conservatives" was released, but only since the revised budget/confidence vote have the "conservatives" been publicly determined to shut down parliament and try to crash the government.

And at crunch time, within the last week, they not only didn't change their position but lost their star MP for the entire Ontario section of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor -- and the dollar went UP over it, not down.

But it's a trick to just play the same game you are, which is why I posted some economic news as to why the dollar was really up or down, because it has a lot more to do with real economics (and world economics, not just here; particularly in the U.S.), not currency speculators, and business news doesn't cut it either. Economic reports for the month or better, quarter, are needed to make any real sense out of what matters: long term investments, even when they're short term, looking at them over some meaningful period of time, like per quarter and per year, not per day or week or even month.

?Are there people who are making fortunes speculating on the dollar's value? And,if so, is it really such a gamble?

“Dipstick,” someone said

By

James Bredin

A Judas, a Benedict Arnold but with a smirky smile,
Betrayed a friend, country, her party, secretly with guile,
Reminded me of some old cold-war turncoat communist spy,
Who went and joined the other side and we never did know why.

Add this to the Adscam inquiries that keep us awake,
And how many backstabbing cabinet members can they make?
Worthy of a Shakespearian play -- all this contempt,
No honor, justice, principles, respect and they never repent.

And we are held captive as we watch them all on TV,
Without referendums, recall, term limits and we agree,
A society of sheep captured by wolves, who want us sedate,
One free-fall Quebec referendum away from a failed state?


Thursday, May 19, 2005


--

That is true. Ours goes up and down with the American dollar. If memory serves me right we are pegged at 81.9 compared to US dollar.

Thursday our dollar closed at 79.38 US. In the nineties, Chretien deliberately devalued our dollar, for reasons I am unaware of. At that time, our dollar was below 70 cents compared to the US dollar, and for quite a time, was around 62 cents. I am going to find out the exchange rates to respond to another post here, but it has only been the last year or so our dollar came back. Trust me, we go to the US every year for vacation, I know that exchange rates have been brutal in the last ten years, the last one and this one excepted.

I trust you about the exchange rate, but that was not what I was really referring to.

Here is the historical exchange rate for the Canadian dollar vis-a-vis the US dollar. My source is The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Foreigh Exchange Rates Historical Search. I got the rates for every six months, June and December and also got the high and low during this period. Where rates were basically the same for a long time, I summarized:

Jan/94: 76 cents June/94: 72 cents Jan/95: 71 cents

June/95 - Dec/96: 73 cents

June/97: 72 cents Dec/97: 70 cents June/98: 68 cents

Dec/98: 65 cents June/99: 65 cents Dec/99: 69 cents

June/00: 68 cents Dec/00: 67 cents June/01: 66 cents

Dec/01: 63 cents June/02: 66 cents Dec/02 63 cents

June/03 74 cents Dec/03: 77 cents June/04: 75 cents

Dec/04: 83 cents May 19/05: 79 cents

The low was 62 cents in January, 2002, and the high was 85 cents in November, 2004.

So, from January, 1994 - June, 1997, the dollar was stable at around the 73 cent mark. However, from June, 1997 - December, 2002, the dollar fell steadily and stayed around the 65 - 66 cent range on average. In 2003 the dollar started to rise. Coincidentallyi, in 2003, Chretien announced he would retire in Feb/2004.The dollar contiuned to rise at the same time there was confirmation of an election. It continued to rise under a minority govenrment until November, 2004, when again coincidentally, reports from Gomery started to come out more publicly. Since then, the dollar has fallen again, to its present level, and fell after the NDP/Liberal deal was made.

Some people would like to ignore exchange rates, but they affect a great deal of our lives, in particular food we import from the US, especially fruit and vegetables. A low dollar is usually not good for consumers or people who travel. It is good, however, for the people who travel to Canada, mainly US tourists. So, in effect, by keeping our dollar low, Chretien was helping the citizens of a country he despises.

Anyway, while I was incorrect in stating when the dollar was in the sixties, it was there for about five years, 1997 - 2002. It appears to have only come back with the potential of a new government. It will be interesting to see where it goes from here. At any rate, I find it hard for anyone to blame the conservatives for the low dollar during the fourth - ninth year of Liberal government.

Makes you wonder about the hidden agenda of the Liberals. First Scotty boy Brison, then Barbie Belinda, and if I remember right, wasn't Keith Martin also a leadership candidate for the conservatives? If so, that is three former potential leaders of the conservatives now Liberals. Sounds like an attempted hostile takeover, but now we know why the true conservative Harper was chosen.

I wonder, though, maybe the entire Conservative caucus should cross the floor to join the Liberals, then they can attend the Liberal caucus meetings. Hmmm, I wonder......

Why, we know what goes on in those meetings, bribe cheat steal and smile while you do it.

Yeah, that is true. I guess we conservatives will just have to suck it up and learn to wallow like the rest of them. Anyone for "Non-ethical Politics 101"? Professors Martin and Chretien are taking students now