One Hundred Days of Change

Today, speaking to the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, P.C., M.P., the Member for Calgary Southwest and the Prime Minister of Canada, spoke in terms of the one hundred days under which Canada has been governed by the Conservative Party of Canada — he wished to highlight some of the major changes that have occurred since he was invited to form a government.

The Prime Minister re-iterated that the new Government of Canada:

• has reached a resolution to the softwood lumber dispute;
• has continued intervention in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan;
• has banned the Tamil Tigers in Canada;
• cutting ties to the Government of the Palestinian Authority; has implemented a new taxation plan; and
• has created a new universal child care program.

Click -- to read the entire statement.
Cliquetez -- pour lire le communiqué entier en français.

Sources
1. Click -- for the Web site of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Revision : Added a survey.

It's to soon to say, though some things seem to be moving along.

1. Well, since he went back on an election promise to get 100% of our money back, this doesn't qualify as a victory. Its more of a draw.

2. Continued something, someone else started. I guess thats something to be proud of. Draw.

3. Something that should have been done years ago. Victory.

4. Cutting ties to the Palestinian Authority isn't going to help anyone. When has not communicating helped anyone? Loss.

5. The new taxation plan has a very small margin of error, and has the possibility of putting the Government of Canada into deficit. Loss.

6. Ahem. Draw.

The first thing that should have been done is passing the Accountability Act in its entirety. Not changing what they had origionally promised, and not introducing manditory minimums.

Yes, things have changed in the pass 100 days. But for the worse.

In terms of the resolution reached for the softwood lumber dispute, I am happy that the Government of Canada has brought a conclusion to the situation, but simultaneously, I am disappointed in the content of the agreement. I think that the entirety of funds should have been returned to Canada, and that we should have continued to demand those funds from the United States of America.

Despite this agreement, it appears that agencies in the United States have issued new grievances in terms of softwood trade with Canada, so I would suggest that this situation is not over yet. I think we should also keep in mind that this agreement would not have been reached, had it not been for years of negotiation between the United States and the previous Government of Canada.

In terms of the mission in Afghanistan, no decisions have been made by the Government in relation to Afghanistan. The period of the intervention has not yet been required to be renewed — the only thing that the Government agreed to do was to facilitate a debate in the House of Commons, and an emergency debate probably would have ensued had the Government not made that concession. This debate would have occurred either way.

As for child care, I'm not going to get into that discussion again on this thread. Not at the moment, at least, I am not feeling up to it tonight. The membership is quite aware of my position on this issue, and my arguments to that end have been quite spent, I would think.

Like I said, "Ahem..."

I'm actually pissed about the soft wood lumber agreement. There never should have been an agreement because we already signed one called the North America Free Trade agreement. There was a ruling, the Americans ignored the ruling and the agreement is null in my opinion.
On the other hand, if their key industries like forestry collapse and their economy goes in the toilet, so will ours, so retaliation would be self destructive. Kind of a catch 22.

Helping out in Afghanistan is irrelivent to what government is in power, we went there when the liberals were in power and stayed there when the PC got power.

Who cares about the Tamil Tigers? How has it made Canada better?

Cutting ties with the palestinian authority is like spitting in their faces, and will only impede peaceful resolutions. Much of that money went to educating the youth, and without an educated youth all progress is in vaine.

As for the taxation problem, I don't really have a problem with the taxes I pay, only the results they're achieving. I just don't get how they can say they don't have enough money to improve healthcare and education, and then cut taxes.

The universal childcare program is a joke. It's nothing more than a payout to buy votes for the next election.


All in all, I'd say the Harper government is just another mistake, it's useless and full of old unsuccessful ideas, and will only set us back. They'd be better off to just no do anything, that way they couldn't screw it up.