Stephen Harper - The Canadian Public Don't Care I Broke The Law - YouTube
Arrogant never change their tune....
Arrogant never change their tune....
Tory attacks against NDP getting little media traction
- Thread starter mentalfloss
- Start date
The NDP doesn't need to attack the Conservatives in the same cynical way the Conservatives did to the Liberals while the Liberals were in opposition. They just need to do their job as the official opposition and hold one of the least democratic governments we've ever had to account.
So the Conservative smear campaign against the NDP won't get any traction because it has no real foundation, while all the NDP really needs to do is keep reminding Canadians just how badly we're all being served by a Conservative government that could care less about our future.
Please go down to post #28 on this thread.....that was off the top of my head!
The NDP will lose seats in 2015, IMHO.
It's hard to say if they'll lose seats, but there are things we need to consider. It's quite clear that last election many Quebecers voted blindly for the NDP with no clue who they were voting for and were often surprised (pleasantly so, I don't know) to find out whom they'd actually voted for.
Now if they're actually satisfied with those MPs, they may vote for them again, but either way there is the possibility they'll pay more attention to the candidates this time around, which would thus make the party affiliation less important next election at least in that province, thus making Quebec much more unpredictable.
Would that also apply to Mulcair’s tactics of a high oil dollar causing the Ontario - Quebec economic problems- His pandering to separatists- his trying the old split the country for votes - Pit Ont- Que against the West. Does the last part sound Liberal to you??????????
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Mulcair's dutch disease comments are getting him some major attention - and not in a bad way either. I think a lot of people are looking at this in terms of short and long-term economics. If we have an unbalanced system, it will be good for the short term, but then we become completely dependent on the resource sector.
While I agree with the problem of the high dollar, I also think Mulcair ought to focus on solutions, not the problem. If the dollar is too strong, then eliminate the minimum wage so as to allow the east to become more productive in the face of a strong dollar.
But he didn't present a solution. Sure we could consider reducing resource exploitation as a solution for the next election, but waht's the solution in the mean time until that election while people in Quebec and Ontario are looking for work?
Will he see if the Conservatives might be interested in retraining the unemployed for the jobs taht are available? Will he propose eliminatig federal minimum wage and encouraging provinces to scrap theirs? Will he propose that provincial ministries of education standardize standards for various trades and professional training to make certification more mobile across Canada? Or maybe he could find some other solution the Conservatives could agree to? What solution could he present until the next election that the Conservatives might agree to?
Starve out the working poor? I'm for providing free education to the unemployed along with room and board to raise their employability. I'm all for decent social security too. I'm just not for legislating the poor out of the workplace.
Then I have a question for you: should the government guarantee the equivalent of full time minimum wage for the unemployed, or does it live up to a lower standard thn the private sector?
If you're prepared to legislate people out of the workplace, then at least compensate them well. And from my understanding, social security is pretty crappy. Morally, the government should not raise the minimum wage unless it's prepared to guarantee that same wage to the unemployed, some of whom might be unemployed precisely because of the minimum wage.
Ontario- Quebec manufacturing sectors are failing for a few reasons -Cost per unit of production- higher than the US – Guess where they move- Power costs – McGuinty’s plans over the past 5 years or so for electricity are a freaking economic disaster- That is Ontario’s fault – Not the West’s - so cost per unit in energy intensive manufacturing increases-
Labor costs – Look to how Ontario has to make cuts – massive cuts that will make Harris look like a Piker- Yet he has barely started – they also impact manufacturing – Monies removed from the economy – Why – Good old Liberal mismanagement of the economy – buying labor peace – which only lasts until you have to cut
As to the Dutch disease many economists disagree with that description –
AB – Oil sands – 1 Billion every 2 1/2 weeks spent on investment- aprox 60-70 of the hard dollar costs for materials goes to Ontario – Quebec companies –
Mulcair pulled his policy out of a Liberal Play book- East against West – Perhaps you should consider the impact of that – How it will affect Inter Provincial relationships-
All the education in the world isn't going to get you a job in regions where there isn't work. Sure minimum wage has put the price of McDonalds out of my range. Union scale is pretty much putting a loaf of bread into the big-ticket category for those of us on disability pensions too. What's it matter to the grocer? Vale people (around here) don't mind. Two bucks is pennies to them....
McGuinty's green energy thing - in competition with a privatized Ontario Hydro - has pretty much killed Ontario as place for cheap industrial power.
McGuinty's green energy thing - in competition with a privatized Ontario Hydro - has pretty much killed Ontario as place for cheap industrial power.
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I think his point is that you can still develop the oil sands, but just not as abruptly.
I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for people to grasp. Probably the same peeps that believe he's pitting Alberta vs. Ontario.
Don't take this the wrong way Machjo, but it's the kind of thinking in your post that has doomed Canada to always being the globe's "hewers of wood and drawers of water" .
Perhaps it's time that the mfg sector looks at what the S.Koreans, Japanese and the Germans are doing and why they are competitive in an environment where their respective currencies are impacted by the same mechanisms.
A special 30% manufacturers tax will help things too.
CDNBear, on page one my comment was tongue in cheek, Harper in view of the circumstances
has about 30 to 35 percent popularity. It is down from the 39 to 41 percent previously. All the
incumbent governments suffer losses of support, and they have some chance of being elected
majority or minority as long as they don't fall to less than 25% with less than eighteen months
from an election.
Harper is making himself unpopular, nothing the other parties are doing is making it worse.
Besides all the stuff about socialists, capitalists, fascists or even communists is applicable to any
of the current parties. If you look at where the NDP has evolved to one could hardly say they are
opposed to free enterprise at all. Slogans and labels are going to be much less important with the
younger generation of voters.
The problem is at the moment, the people like Mulcair and they are not afraid or opposed to where
the New Democrats want to go. Alberta, different story, its an age old struggle between the feds
and Alberta no matter who is in power. I think in the next few years even the Alberta Provincial Tories
will edge toward a form of a national energy policy. It is in their interests to do so, in that they can
have a measure of control over that agenda.
has about 30 to 35 percent popularity. It is down from the 39 to 41 percent previously. All the
incumbent governments suffer losses of support, and they have some chance of being elected
majority or minority as long as they don't fall to less than 25% with less than eighteen months
from an election.
Harper is making himself unpopular, nothing the other parties are doing is making it worse.
Besides all the stuff about socialists, capitalists, fascists or even communists is applicable to any
of the current parties. If you look at where the NDP has evolved to one could hardly say they are
opposed to free enterprise at all. Slogans and labels are going to be much less important with the
younger generation of voters.
The problem is at the moment, the people like Mulcair and they are not afraid or opposed to where
the New Democrats want to go. Alberta, different story, its an age old struggle between the feds
and Alberta no matter who is in power. I think in the next few years even the Alberta Provincial Tories
will edge toward a form of a national energy policy. It is in their interests to do so, in that they can
have a measure of control over that agenda.
Three years is a long time and the NDP could absolutely kill the Conservatives on the climate change issue alone.
In recent years the most prolonged recorded solar minimum has coincided with one of the strongest La Ninas resulting in conditions that in other times would have produced a record average cold global temperature, in the next few years we could have a solar maximum coincide with an El Nino probably producing record global high temperatures. How well are the Conservatives going to be able to maintain their "don't ask don't tell" policy on Global Warming under those conditions.
The ice fields in the Rockies are rapidly melting, people in the Prairies are no strangers to drought and the spectacle of the North and South Saskatchewan as well as the Athabaska and other rivers drying up in the summer in a few decades could well motivate voters like never before to support a party that actually has a sane view of environmental issues.
Economically, I guess if you believe in a model that would eventually have a tiny precentage of the population with all the wealth then go ahead and support the Conservatives, history tends to indicate that societies do best when there's a more balanced distribution of wealth. The NDP could make the economy grow in more sustainable ways that have more to do with our history and real potential in Canada.
Also if we actually want to have a real democracy in this country then we'd better put some other party in power than the traditional red and blue machines that alternate between seeing who can abuse the system worse.
How is pointing out the obvious a tactic, it should be a basic responsibility of the opposition leader.
The high Canadian dollar is in part produced by the strength of the energy sector in Canada and this does make it harder for Canadian manufacturers to compete with other nations where their currency isn't as strong. It's says a lot about the political landscape in this country that in simply pointing out the obvious someone is seen as having some sinister agenda. I guess when you live in a time with so much dishonesty from those in government the truth can appear threatening.
As for pandering to separatists, it was Harper who recognized the Quebecois as a distinct nation within Canada, and it's something all parties do.
We happen to live in a country that includes regions with distinct cultural and historical backgrounds, the fact we've been able to stay together is reassuring when you look at all the countries that have undergone fission in recent decades under some of the same pressures we face here. It's all going to be a compromise on one level or another when it comes to the east/west- French Canada/English Canada question.
The NDP tends to be a party with much better grassroots representation, something that's going to be neccessary to effect positive change in this country. Despite the claims of caring about what we think, neither the Liberals nor the Conservatives act like they give a damn.
And the recession would not have an effect- Also people move to higher paying jobs in the resource industry- No stats on that
The US is Canada's largest buyer of goods- They do not have a pot to literally piss in- Guess that would not have any effect.
House building - laborer- 20-25 per hr - Framer - good one - a hell of a lot more-
Yes a high dollar can cause effects - so can a host of other reasons brought forward - Yet they are excluded and it is Dutch disease. Well of course it is if you limit your perspective -
I wonder how many manufacturing jobs in Ont-Que are positions based on selling products to the Western resource industry.
PS- WTF is a deep?