Cutting down on government waste while making measured tax decreases will improve the standard of living in this country.
The Conservatives have no record of doing that though. They have a record of supplying corporate welfare and tax cuts to the rich while cutting programs to those who need them most. The Saskatchewan Party has no record at all, but they spew the same rhetoric as the rest of the far right.
I have an economics background myself and I have high confindence in Mr. Harper's abilities to cut the fat from the government.
I'll put mt economists up against yours any day...I've seen what yours have done. Besides, if I remember correctly the Sask. Party backed away from the promise of tax cuts during the last election.
I am just extremely thankful that we have a neighbour that provides the security for my country that my own government is unable to provide. They are paying a high price for my safety, and for that I owe them a debt of gratitude.
What security? Is Canada under imminent danger of invasion? According to Stephen Harper we should have joined in the illegal invasion of Iraq. How would that make us safer? By driving us hugely into debt while Canadian soldiers get killed? Makes no sense at all.
You know what would make us safer? More aid programs because aid discourages conflict in the first place. More participation in the UN because the UN discourages conflict in the first place. Staying as far away from the US military machine as possible because the US starts wars.
Mulroney put Canada back on the path to fiscal stability. He made tough decisions and paid a political price for them but Canada is better off for it. While far from perfect, he was hundreds of times better than the buffoons that preceded and followed him.
I'll just let the record speak for itself here. Also, everybody should read Hurtig's "The Vanishing Country."
The Conservatives implemented programs such as the GST and NAFTA that have created the fiscal stability that the Liberals like to take credit for. If Mulroney didn't make some unpopular choices, we would be far worse off than we are now.
And for all the old ladies on the hill, I feel sorry that Trudeau's lack of spending descretion put them in that position.
Since Lady C likes the word....Piffle. See above.
I personally like the Alberta method. Proper fiscal management allows for low taxes and high surpluses.
Ah, hospital closures, cut-backs to education, ridiculing those with handicaps even as you take away the programs that allow them to survive.
You may end up scrapping programs like nation wide nanny services, but there comes a point where people should start raising their own kids.
So now that people like you have promoted programs that eroded the living wage to the point where both parents have to work you want the kids to what? Raise themselves? What about single parents in low-paid jobs?
There is no reason why Saskatchewan should have any outflow of people. If we had a decent economic environment, people would be lining up to take advantage of a opportunities.
How are you going to build that economic environment? By offering corporate welfare and cutting labour and environmental standards until corporations are more than happy to create low-paid, low-benefit jobs. Then when the employees get pissed off because they are being abused and start a union, the corporations pull out and you end up with nothing.
Filmon tried that here. I've seen exactly where it leads.
The only diversification that the NDP has done is to add government union jobs to the mix of cows and grain.
Yeah, never mind the hi-tech sector or the science sector. They don't exist. Or does the fact that those jobs pay decently drive you right up the wall?
Let's see now. We have government owned liquor stores, gas stations, failed potato ventures, web site design companies, cable companies, security system companies, etc. etc. Well, gee whiz, I wonder why business doesn't invest here. Going up against a competitor that has bottomless pockets and controls the labour and tax laws is business suicide for a private investor.
First of all, you have privately operated liquor stores in most small towns, although they are licensed by the government. You have had privately operated off-sales for as long as I've been around. The the government franchise on the liquor business is a non-starter...it makes money for the province and it was in place long before the NDP were created. Similar systems remain in place in most provinces, no matter what the leanings of their government.
Second of all the government tends to start crown corporations because entrepreneurs aren't offering services or because private companies are gouging the public due to a lack of competition. After the people of Saskatchewan have invested in those crown corporations, why should they be sold off at a loss to fulfill some dogmatic wet-dream of the far right?
Putting money back in the hands of the public to spend is a good thing.
Only if you can afford it. That's the catch. It's what the neo-cons have never been able to figure out.
I work hard for my money and do not need a corrupt group of politicians redistributing it to their interest groups and cronies.
So you'd prefer that the money go to the corporate cronies of those on the right.
Liberal and NDP governments never stop froathing at the mouth when it comes to spending other people's economic output.
Again, there is no evidence that they are any different than those on the far right.
I am sick of Adscam too. I am really sick of the Liberal's that used my money as their personal piggy bank for that program. The whole lot of them should be thrown in jail.
Oh, stop it already. The NDP have been after the Liberals about that too, but they aren't demading charges be laid until the facts are known. You didn;t need to be a Libereal to access that money, btw.
If your believe the BILLION dollars wasted on the long gun registry will ever keep one person on the street safier, then I'm afraid you've been royally duped by the government. To think of all the better things that a billion dollars could have brought this country.
I don't support this registry. I do support gun control though, especially of handguns and automatic weapons. If those of you on the far right would have offered up a realistic alternative instead of inviting Chuck Heston up to rant about Canadians exercising their rights under the US constitution, you might have been able to avert this. Instead you were completely unrealistic so the people in urban centres who know little or nothing about guns said, "Right then, gun registry it is."
For all the yapping and rhetoric I hear coming from the right, I have yet to see a single one of them stand up and state the obvious...that most guns used in most crimes come up from the US illegally and the billion dollars should be spent at the border to keep the guns out in the first place.
I've also never seen one person from the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives stand up and point out that crime is the result of social problems and if we want our citizens to be safer we should address those problems.
You wanted to jump up and down and yell and scream and stamp your feet instead of playing politics like adults and now your right to bitch about the results are non-existent.
Doing whatever is in my power to get rid of the crooks and incompetents in government. It's my democratic right to do so.
So what are you doing? Have you joined groups for whatever it is you want, have you pushed you MP and your MLA for proportional representation and campaign reforms?
They've kept this province subjagated by the unions of this province, and this is paid for by what's left of the tax base in the province.
Again...piffle.
As for being a have province, this is nothing more than a ridiculous government formula in which Alberta and Ontario pay for the short-comings of the other provinces.
No, it is a formula to ensure that all provinces have at least some access to the unevenly distributed wealth of this country.
The fact that under the formula, $50 a barrel oil causes us to divert income to Quebec doesn't fill me with too much happiness.
That money doesn't just go to Quebec, it goes to all of the provinces. You've gotten your share of it in the past, so has Alberta. Quit complaining about it.
I would not shed a tear if the liquor store or cable company was privatized.
What is this cable company you keep yarking about? I know for sure that Shaw cable operates in Saskatchewan and CKOS in Yorkton offers or was offering something they called "country cable". The satellite providers are in the province...I know that for sure too. Those are all private companies.
I get out a lot. Being a small business owner from rural Saskatchewan gives me a little bit more clout on this issue than someone from Winnipeg.
Again...you shouldn't jump to conclusions. My oldest brother lives in Regina. The rest of my family...2 other brothers, my father and his wife, my mother, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my cousins etc all live in rural Saskatchewan. So do many of my friends there.
I communicate with people from your province on a daily basis. The Saskatchewan Party and the federal Reform/Alliance/Conservatives scare the crap out of a good number of them.
Here's a good read for you:
A right-wing editorial from a right-wing paper owned by the Aspers containing no proof of criminality and listing apologies for issues, many of which have roots in the Devine era and/or are the result of wrong-doing by people and organisations that the provincial government (no matter who that government is) has little or no control over.
And as I've said before, the things they did were peanuts compared to what the NDP has done. The only reason they aren't in jail is because they hold the ranes of government.
The reason they aren't in jail is because there is a difference between a political decision and a crime. Whether or not you agree with that political decision is immaterial.
They got scared by lies. It won't happen next election.
What lies?
I would like a job were I am paid what I'm worth, not based on what my level of seniority is.
Ya know, in every job I've ever had, the longer I had that job the more competent I became at it. At the same time I've seen people ...good people who worked hard and were good at their jobs...get laid off and replaced with with less-competent, lower paid workers. This legislation is a reaction to that brutal practice that has become rampant in the business world. This legislation also in no way affects the ability of a business to remove an incompetent from their job.
When people are paid more than their worth, there will always be someone footing the bill.
But the legislation is to protect workers, not CEOs.
A contest being run on socialist CBC has choosen a socialist. If I didn't have 300 other channels to watch, that might even matter to me.
Of course you are ignoring all those "socialists" who voted for Don Cherry and Sir John A MacDonald. The fact is that the Canadian people recognise how important Douglas was to this country. They like what he did.
Yeah, we wouldn't have wanted any of those oil companies to have kept their head offices here.
Oh come...do ya think Regina is suddenly going to become the next Calgary? Or maybe you thought Exxon was going to move its "god pod" up from Houston?
Yeehaa. Under the government's formula, Saskatchewan revenue gets sent to Quebec. Isn't that just lovely.
Don't tell me you're one of those who hates Quebec. It is the second time you've attacked them though. Why not Newfoundland or Manitoba? They get transfer payments too. Why Quebec?
When most of the province has unionized government jobs it's just hard to say no. Unless you're paying for those jobs.
I've just got to ask for a source on that. Does more than half of the province of Saskatchewan have union positions in the government? I find that incredibly hard to believe.
That shudder is caused from another 5,000 people crossing the border out of the province.
And how would a xenophic, francophone-hating government handing out corporate welfare while cutting social programs solve that?
Having government make my hiring decions will hurt alot more people than it will help.
Except for they won't be...they will keep you from abusing staff, but if you are a fair and honest employer in the first place the legislation will not affect you at all.
I feel sorry for those college studnets who I'll be unable to hire back for the summer. Maybe they can find some jobs in Alberta.
So you were going to lay off senior employees and replace them with under-paid students?
Look at the Asper's track record. They are red through and through.
I have. Thoroughly.
Nothing more than a smoke screen designed to deflect attention from the real issue. I will admit that Hermanson was a tough sell. Not because he wasn't a great guy or would have been a good leader, but his physical appearance turned a lot of people of. Voters are fairly superficial I guess.
It wasn't a smoke screen at all. The Saskatchewan Party said they were going to privatise and people have seen what that's meant in other places so they voted against it.
They didn't vote against Hermanson because he was ugly. Have you seen Calvert? Not exactly a male model. Hermanson lost because of his platform, pure and simple. Considering that Saskatchewan doesn't have a record of keeping governments past their second term, that says loads about that platform.
The province of Saskatchewan was painted a nice shade of blue during the last election.
...and even the Conservatives have admitted that they picked up two NDP seats because people were voting Liberal to vote against Stephen Harper and his socially regressive Conservatives.
