I am genuinely concerned that there is no viable alternative party for conservatives in Canada who have, to this point, put all of their eggs into the Harper basket(case) Conservative Party of Canada. It’s staggering, the amount of intellectual fortitude (dishonesty) it takes to justify the crimes, the lying, the harassment, and general bad-neighbourly things the Harper Conservatives have done to Canadians.
http://twitter.com/#!/unfuckwithabIe/status/201203913196711936
It must taste awful to have to claim that Stephen Harper is a sound fiscal manager, while there are indisputable lists everywhere showing how he’s not even close to such a title.
The Harper Cabinet is filled with liars, habitual ethics violators, and hypocrites. Cynics will say it’s always been this way, but it doesn’t have to be, with this group of distasteful, mean people ruling by fear, while simultaneously ^NOT fearing an early end to their own cushy jobs. “If you vote NDP, they’ll destroy the economy and you’ll lose your job,” can’t you hear the Info Alert emails spreading that line? “Strong, Stable, National Conservative Majority Government”? How many strong and stable people do you know who describe themselves that way? Isn’t it a bit like someone driving a Hummer or Corvette to compensate for, uh, intrinsic shortcomings?
There are so many millions of Canadians willing to put up with the abuse, but it really should stop. There are people without proper shelter, or enough food or hope, but the rail line is luxury travel these days, so good luck seeing a fruitful On To Ottawa march in the world’s second largest country. What will be the flashpoint of democratic change, if RoboCon and the F-35 $10B+ lie haven’t been it?
It’s been more than a month that many ministers of the government should have resigned or been fired in disgrace for openly lying to the House of Commons. What happens when mere commoners like you and I lie in court? For Conservative MPs, there is special treatment from the Speaker. If you find yourself on the stand entering your words into the public record, and are caught in a lie, see how far you get claiming it’s your constitutional right.
Has the media been pushed too far to accept the Harper government as acceptable, and even endorsement worthy? Still, it’s been months since RoboCon became widely known among well informed Canadians (like journalists), and still there is great hesitation in their papers and shows to identify Poutine, or mention that his scheme took place in only half a percent of the ridings affected by similar democracy-stealing crimes. That kind of forgiveness is really Christ-like. Maybe they’re all Christians before Canadians, or before journalists, or before people who want to live in a free country with a functioning democracy. Who among them are not cowards, or are edited by cowards?
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Ouch, how mean.
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As an aside, I wrote most of this on April 9, and decided to finally publish it.
And before I forget to mention it, but it’s important that the Liberals and NDP do not join into a single party. If you forgot where this article started, it’s a window into the future if the Liberals and NDP (and even Greens) swallow each other up for power. What I suggest instead is what Nathan Cullen (and I as far back as ~2008) have been asking for, and that’s joint nomination meetings. A bit of co-operation with the understanding that once government is won through coalition (or otherwise a majority), that electoral reform would be the first item to be taken care of, so future elections can be contested on each party’s own merits. Bonus points for giving MPs a little more freedom away from party whipped votes, too.
An interesting point, that assumes the Elections Canada investigation doesn’t conclude with the deregistration of the Conservative Party of Canada, is that falling polling numbers may make Conservatives realize that PR is their way to hang onto more seats in the coming electoral bloodbath reminiscent of the PC’s Kim Campbell (when 2 seats were won). No one would see that one coming, but you heard it here first; it’s possible.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
The Conservative party was conceived in lies featuring Mr. McKay- just carrying on as they started. I agree joint nomination meeting and prop. rep. I also called for that after the last election. There seems to too many pig heads among the NDP and Liberals that put party before country. The true conservatives- the honourable ones we trust as neighbours but can respectfully disagree with-will they hold their noses and vote Harper? Probably, rather than vote NDP. Is there not still a PC party?
Canadians love Harper because he is making Canada better. Plain and simple. Rather than be distracted by baubles and sparkles, which this blog exclusively writes about, Canadians are more focused on the economy, energy and unemployment. As such things like this are important to us “Canada booked its best two-month employment gain in three decades with news Friday that the economy churned out 58,200 new jobs in April… The report was far stronger than anyone anticipated with Canadians able to find net new jobs in seven provinces across the country, many full-time and in the high-paying manufacturing, construction and resource industries.”
“Combined with March’s 82,300 jobs number, the 140,500 total is the best two-month employment performance the country has seen since 1981… Bank of Montreal economist Doug Porter said the Canadian data suggests the country is a kind of island of tranquility in a sea of turbulence, noting that while jobs climbed in Canada, the U.S. had shown signs of losing momentum and Europe slipped back into political and economic turmoil.” http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/economy-adds-58200-jobs-but-labour-force-rise-pushes-jobless-rate-to-73-151105145.html
Perhaps when the GreenLibDipps realize this their parties MAY return to relevence. Until then, like the election results show, they will continue to be a non-alternative.
Unless you loved Rae-days, of course.
Canadians don’t love Harper. He’s not making Canada better. Fewer than 1/4 Canadians of voting age, voted for a Harpercon candidate, and the polling that led to that tepid support has dropped since last year. The full time jobs you speak of are not long term, they’re boom jobs, followed by a bust of recession or depression.
You’ve already been spanked by Thwap one for your erroneous “Rae-days” timeline, don’t make him do it again.
No offence, but, Thwap doesn’t even know what a recession is. For a liberal arts economist such as yourself, it would indeed appear as a ‘spanking’. Or gullibility.
Any comment about the number of jobs or economic tranquility? No? Didn’t think so.
Jobs? Really? You mean the minimum wage jobs created in our increasingly-service sector economy? You mean McJobs? Timmy’s jobs? Oh yeah… there will be more and more of them… And mostly less than full time… With no real benefits, and nowhere near a “living wage”.
Let’s not forget the single greatest scam pulled on this economy by the Harper-Party (let’s NOT call them “conservative” – they couldn’t wipe a real conservative’s behind): “Temporary foreign workers”. Let’s subtract the 10s of thousands of temp-foreign workers that are completely distorting those wonderful stats. The 10s of thousands who are given temporary work permits to come and work the tar sands and farms. They don’t bring families, and rarely spend much in the local economy. Instead, they do their time, while spending money back to the families back home.
Not only are immigration numbers a lying distortion from this government, due to the Temp worker numbers, but so is the benefit to the economy. Not allowing these poor folks settle here with the family ROBS the economy of untold $Billions. Only people who benefit are Big Oil and the people who live off the Alberta oil industry. Once the oil is all gone (or too cost-inefficient to extract), they will simply move on to the next big site… leaving a barren wasteland, a diseased population (see cancer rates in the tarsands areas), and a LOT of unemployed Canadians.
A REAL immigration policy would allow these workers to settle here, and build a life for their family. Canada NEEDS to mature into a larger economy, so we become a market of consequence for trading nations. Canada would be 1000-fold better off with a population of at least 100,000,000. We would no longer be shadowed/dwarfed by our Southern Neighbor, and would have a massive tax base to ensure our infrastructure doesn’t continue to deteriorate and crumble.
No, I mean, as the article states, “many full-time and in the high-paying manufacturing, construction and resource industries.” jobs. As an aside, as a result of the oil patch, Alberta McJobs and Timmys must pay upward of $20/hour, pay schooling benefits, dental plans and pay attendance bonuses just to ensure staffing or workers leave for oil money jobs. Supply and demand. You must be thinking of jobs available in provinces that handicap their resource sector.
While decrying the “increasingly-service sector economy” you seem to want to kill off the only alternative, our resource economy. What’s up with that?
Another of your fears is that “Once the oil is all gone… they will simply move on to the next big site”. With an estimated 173 billion barrels (27.5×10^9 m3) available at current pricing and technology I really don’t see the ‘oil all gone’ in either of our lifetimes.
Lastly, how do you propose employing your 100,000,000 population without the resource industry bringing in foreign money? How do you employ all of these people in service industries with no one to service? What massive tax base exists with low paying jobs? Telemarketers? What but resource sales and leasing counters our trade imbalance?
We are a “market of consequence for trading nations”… you just haven’t a clue what our most valuable and marketable commodities are.
We need a new NEP.
We’ve hit peak oil, and using the tar sands at all is a really bad idea for climate change. Using up natural gas, water and screwing the and up to sell it off to the chinese in exchange for cheap shiny crap is an even stupider idea. We need to figure out how to ween ourselves off oil and use the energy to transition ourselves into a post carbon economy that doesn’t depend on selling raw products but using them to build an economy here.
Gerald Caplan had a good column in the Globe (online since they’d never print it) showing that the amount the 1% got richer is equivalent to the tax breaks they’ve been given and the amount of the debt we’ve gained.
The tories keep trying to bring us back to the dawn of the industrial age, cut environmental protection, cut worker protection, cut the social safety net to cut wages down.
It’s amazing that folk who say ‘trust the science’ about global warming, considering the ‘science’ is nothing more than an ouija Xbox with a 100 year prediction, are so ill informed about observable reality.
We’ve hit peak oil??? The ethical oil sands contain “173 billion barrels (of oil) recoverable at current prices, using current technology” (Wikipedia). The question is how much more is recoverable with improved technology?
In addition to this, ” The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.” cnsnews.com/news/article/gao-recoverable-oil-colorado-utah-wyoming-about-equal-entire-world-s-proven-oil
Peak oil has been peaking since the year 1900… the only constant is the premise has been proven wrong in every instance. My advice, get an oil patch job and you’ll be able to afford the “cheap shiny crap” like the computer you’re using. It certainly pays a hell of a lot more than the job you’re (perhaps) working now!!! ;)
The NEP was/is an unpopular thing in the West. The perspective here is that any such plan to limit the pace of unsustainable energy development is an unfair burden on energy producing provinces, and thus an unfair boost to manufacturing economies like Ontario.
The very unfortunate thing is that there are trolls who exploit this perspective to argue that the tar sands should be free to pillage resources and pollute indiscriminately while killing wildlife and people, so we can develop markets in Texas and China. They even go so far as to make ludicrous claims as Redjefff does that there’s no peak oil, even though the States hit theirs (domestically) in in the 1970s as very intelligent people correctly predicted about two decades before it happened.
Sask, nice US stat tossed in there… unfortunately it’s a red herring in that world ‘peak oil’ (conventional technology) won’t happen till 2020 according to experts. Then again with exploration comes discovery. As for unsustainable, you do realize that the price of natural gas has been decoupled from the price of oil solely due to the vast amounts of gas available through fracking… a technology now over 60 years old.
As for “indiscriminately while killing wildlife” your utopian green energy companies have now asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service to freely kill golden and bald eagles… “commenters recommended that we extend the term of the permit, as we are proposing to do with this rule. Since publication of the 2009 final rule, we have reviewed applications from proponents of renewable energy projects, such as wind and solar power facilities, for programmatic permits to authorize eagle take that may result from both the construction and ongoing operations of renewable energy projects. During our review, it became evident that the 5-year term limit imposed by the 2009 regulations… needed to be extended to better correspond to the timeframe of renewable energy projects. We propose to amend the regulations to provide for terms of up to 30 years…” https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/04/13/2012-8086/eagle-permits-changes-in-the-regulations-governing-eagle-permitting#h-9 This is no different than current legislation here in Ontario concerning bird kills and wind turbines. The wind industry is exempt from the Migratory Bird Act and thus immune from prosecution for killing birds. Unlike ducks in a tailings pond at the ethical oil sands.
Such eco-hypocrisy is nothing short of a disgrace.
Your phony concern for birds must come from your affinity to protect other small brained creatures.
I know it was unpopular, but look at the state of Norway and the fund they’ve set aside nationally. Alberta has just foolishly given it all away as low tax rates while it dwindles.
The tar sands require vast amounts of water and natural gas to keep them going, though insitu work limits it, it ups the CO2 output. Shale gas in the US is very iffy, its only really been in play a couple of years and there are problems, earthquakes, ground water you can light on fire and wells/plays that don’t last as long as they should. Deep water in the gulf gave us one of the worst environmental disasters of this century, the wells are at the very limits of what we can do technically. The big fields are all in decline in Saudi Arabia, Mexico and the North Sea, leaving us only with these very difficult, very dirty and very expensive options.
Some sort of NEP plan that at the very least sent pipelines across the country to ensure Canada of its energy security, as opposed to the Mulroney free trade deal that doesn’t let us ever turn the tap off to the US, would have been much smarter, if we are to burn what we really shouldn’t.
Peak oil is here, the IMF is warning of $200 oil, the IAEA knows it and all the major powers know it.
Gzap, Alberta has spent their savings, not “foolishly given it all away as low tax rates”. The same ideology as Dipp spending or EU bankrupcy spending… this is a simple fact.
Secondly you say “Shale gas in the US is very iffy, its only really been in play a couple of years” yet historical fact tells us that ” On March 17, 1949, Halliburton performed the first two commercial hydraulic fracturing treatments in Oklahoma and Texas… Since then, hydraulic fracturing has been used to stimulate approximately a million oil and gas wells.” (Wikipedia). Just a fact.
As for “ground water you can light on fire” that was shown on an advocacy TV show, it is caused by methane naturally present in the groundwater… a preexisting condition that has absolutely nothing to do with fracking.
Thirdly, deep water drilling has been forced on the oil industry as US government permits, necessary for exploration and operation, are refused for shallow water exploration. It’s akin to a murderer killing their parants and asking the court for mercy because they are an orphan!!!!!
We in eastern Canada use oil imported from Norway and Algeria because ‘environmentalists’ protest and hold up every pipeline proposal. I’m sure you’ve heard of Keystone and Northern Gateway pipelines. Are you seriously advocating something that leftists lose their knickers over???
Once again, peak oil isn’t here… the factual numbers clearly show that.
Sask, you’re not a small brained creature… you just don’t use yours as much!!! ;)
Despite your utter and complete ignorance of my birding hobby, your faux-environmentalism is clearly showing. Someone truely concerned with the environment wouldn’t advocate bird-shredder technology… mind you an agenda based hack using anything to promote their cause surely would.
Your shameless lack of integrity won’t even allow you to acknowledge the devastating impact on birds and bats that your, frankly embarrassing, corporate cheerleading promotes.
As I’ve said, such eco-hypocrisy is nothing short of a disgrace.