Who will be the next Liberal leader?

[Abeja de Almirante]

The Liberals stole millions? All the Liberals? If a member of the Conservative party committed a crime, does that mean that all Conservatives are criminals?

The previous Liberal gov't funnelled millions to Liberal-friendly firms with little or no work received. Only one small potato has gone to prison. Surely this must indicate that the dirty fellows within the party must still be active. Even the several Liberal leadership candidates have said that the party must get rid of the unelected backroom influences in the party.

Yes, the gun registry was badly managed during its establishment; no doubt about it. But the Conservatives promise to do away with it, making that investment a total waste.

The gov't says something will cost $20 million, and it costs $2 billion and you call that mismanagement? I'd call that theft and misappropriation of taxpayers' dollars. If I did this on my job, no matter the final merits of the project, I'd get fired, likely prosecuted and the project would get cancelled.

As for Kyoto, if you are so committed to Kyoto, WHY THE HELL DID YOU VOTE FOR THE CONSERVATIVES?

I don't care specifically about Kyoto. What I care about is that the Liberals over 13 years funnelled billions of your and our dollars into the project and have zero, no, negative results. Greenhouse gas emissions are over 30% worse today than they were 13 years ago. Where is the accountability? If you spend X billions of $ without any results, either the management was faulty or the project was not feasible from the onset, which should have been noticeable by good management. I can't stand government waste, waste of our dollars, this is why I voted Conservative. I'm not holding the Conservatives up as the gold standard here, and they'll likely make plenty of mistakes, but if my realistic choices for governing party was between continuing the 13-year liberal rule or the Conservatives, I'd choose the party without billions of our dollars on their dirty hands.

Are the Conservatives committed to ending child poverty?

In 1998 the Liberal government voted to end child poverty in Canada by the year 2000. They've done nothing. The Conservatives also will do little, but it wasn't their promise.

Do you mean the handing over of $1200 to parents instead of a viable and inexpensive daycare program?

There was no Liberal national daycare plan. After 13 years of Liberal rule, and billions spent on guns, Adscam and Kyoto with little measurable result, you honestly beleive that the Liberals would have followed through with any national daycare plan. The $1,200 is not intended to be a daycare plan, it's a child care supplement.

I want the out-dated, turd-quality ideas of Conservatives put out to pasture. But that's politics, isn't it.

No, that's elections. I think by 2007 we will likely have another vote, and we'll all have our chance to either relect the Conservatives or bring back the Liberals. Any other vote is a spoilt ballot, IMO.

As for a potential left-of-centre candidate, what's so wrong?

Iggy wants to take the party to the left, which generally means higher taxes, more deficits and debt. No thanks. That's just my opinion, if you see merit in a left of centre candidate, that's fine by mean (I know, who cares?).

Are we to believe only right-wingers? What makes the better? I look at the right wingers to the south and have to wonder.

Goodness, believe whatever you want. Conservatives are inheriently no better than Dippers, Greens, Liberals, etc. The next election will test what the people believe. As for the USA, our Conservative party looks like the Democrats more than anything. Personally I have no time for all their right wing moral thinking, and I think Harper is of the same mind, he knows he's got the western socon nutbar vote guaranteed, so now he's dropping most of their views in favour of where he must win, Quebec and the Maritimes. The liberals can have the rump of Ontario.

 

[afransen TO]

"The Conservatives also will do little, but it wasn't their promise."

Didn't both Conservative parties vote in favour of eliminating child poverty, in principle? It's as much their promise as the Liberals...

 

[bizorky]

The previous Liberal gov't funnelled millions to Liberal-friendly firms with little or no work received. Only one small potato has gone to prison. Surely this must indicate that the dirty fellows within the party must still be active. Even the several Liberal leadership candidates have said that the party must get rid of the unelected backroom influences in the party.

Just for your information, trials are ongoing. As to your third sentence, your allusion is not indicative of a fact without proof.

The gov't says something will cost $20 million, and it costs $2 billion and you call that mismanagement? I'd call that theft and misappropriation of taxpayers' dollars. If I did this on my job, no matter the final merits of the project, I'd get fired, likely prosecuted and the project would get cancelled.

If you want to call it theft then you would have to provide evidence as to how this would be so. The burden of proof lies with you. There is no "misappropriation" since the monies spent went to the program. The Auditor General found no evidence of "misappropriation." If you have proof otherwise, I suggest you report it to the RCMP.

What I care about is that the Liberals over 13 years funnelled billions of your and our dollars into the project and have zero, no, negative results. Greenhouse gas emissions are over 30% worse today than they were 13 years ago. Where is the accountability? If you spend X billions of $ without any results, either the management was faulty or the project was not feasible from the onset, which should have been noticeable by good management. I can't stand government waste, waste of our dollars, this is why I voted Conservative. I'm not holding the Conservatives up as the gold standard here, and they'll likely make plenty of mistakes, but if my realistic choices for governing party was between continuing the 13-year liberal rule or the Conservatives, I'd choose the party without billions of our dollars on their dirty hands.

If you want to blame the government, and the Liberals, for greenhouse gas emission increases, then I have to suggest that you are being a little naive. Greenhouse gases are part of larger structural economic and technical issues that are hardly changed over night. You are dealing with a complex subject that is not the responsibility of government alone. Just out of curiosity, where would you fit in the responsibility of individuals with respect to greenhouse gas emissions? Would you bother to factor in all the increased growth in the economy, particularly those which contribute to increases in greenhouse gas emissions? How about the growth of suburban homes and gas heating, along with the increased purchases for cars and subsequent consumption of gasoline? How about the largest growth in greenhouse gas emissions: the oil and gas industries and all the money they bring to the Canadian economy? Is is starting to look a little more complex to you? It is so easy to blame it all on the one political party you don't like.

The Conservatives have done more in two weeks to undo attempts to bring about reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than the Liberals did, that's for sure.

There was no Liberal national daycare plan. After 13 years of Liberal rule, and billions spent on guns, Adscam and Kyoto with little measurable result, you honestly beleive that the Liberals would have followed through with any national daycare plan. The $1,200 is not intended to be a daycare plan, it's a child care supplement

Yes, there was a plan. The agreements were in place with the provinces. Yes, the Liberals would have followed through. You can always to the research yourself if you want to read up on the details. Just out of curiosity, what exactly did the Conservatives cancel, then?

The Liberals spent money on guns?

As for the so-called child supplement, so what? It does not help low-income earners.


*Just as a note, allow me to introduce to you a little known fact, one that you should become aware of right now: throughout history very few government programs have ever had accountability or performance measures applied that can actually be called pbjective. While measures are quantatative, the selection of measures are qualatative. In other words, owing to the complexity and impact of a given program, different qualatative measures for accountability or program effectiveness could provide quite different results, even when examined in great detail quantatatively.

Here is an example: In terms of measured performance, accountability and justification, is the purchase of one CF-18 worthwhile? The aircraft is purchased for tens of millions of dollars, numerous pilots and crew are trained, the aircraft is used for training at great cost, and yet may never be used for its intended purpose: war. Can one account for its purchase? Can one justify all the millions spent on a warplane, people, training, arms fuel and so on if we actually work hard at avoiding war? Is the purchase of the aircraft measurable in terms of deterrence? How so?

Now go and try to do this to the thousands of federal and provincial programs that are in operation.

 

[bizorky]

Iggy wants to take the party to the left, which generally means higher taxes, more deficits and debt. No thanks. That's just my opinion, if you see merit in a left of centre candidate, that's fine by mean (I know, who cares?)

And Conservatives have never run up debt or increased taxes? Historically speaking, that is news to me.

How do you know that is what he intends to do?

 

[Abeja de Almirante]

The Conservatives have never been in power, so we can't review their history on taxes, debt, etc. We can only judge on what they've promised, and decide at the next election.

The old Progressive Conservatives are gone, some merged with the Conservative Party of Canada, others left entirely. This new CPC party has little history, as they'e build it now.

I think we can agree that there is little support for Conservative parties of any type here in this forum. I believe the English expression is birds of a flock or fish of a school stick together, or something like that. The politics forum here must not be very exciting when everyone thinks the same.

 

[cacruden]

Actually, the PCs took the government from an operational deficit to an operational surplus (taxes raised - taxes spent on services [excluding interest on the accumulated debt]).
Unfortunately before that point the deft had been built up to a point where it was spiraling out of control because of high interest rates on existing debt. If we had not started down that road -- there would not have been massive interest payments. Actually, what made a great difference was the GST -- which once the economy started humming provided a large amount of the money to close the gap (in addition to cutting transfers to the provinces). When the Liberal government came to power -- Martin did not believe in balancing the books -- but to his credit -- was convinced of that by industry etc.

 

[afransen TO]

I don't think people are drawn to UT for the politics discussion, but I do think that people who have appreciation for urbanity and the building of communities tend to be less conservative.

 

[bizorky]

Actually, the PCs took the government from an operational deficit to an operational surplus (taxes raised - taxes spent on services [excluding interest on the accumulated debt])

If you mean Mulrooney/Campbell, then I'm afraid you have bought into the PC Legacy Propaganda Program. Old PC's make this claim constantly, but never bother to back it up.

 

[building babel]

There is a shocking photo of Ignatieff in today's Globe. If he can't even win the battle against his own nose hair, how can he be trusted to run the country?

 

[afransen TO]

If it's the Trudeau Liberals' fault that the Mulroney Tories ran a deficit, it's the Tories' fault that the Chretien/Martin Liberals had to cut back so drastically to balance the books. Nothing's to say that Mulroney couldn't have done likewise. It's a cop-out, plain and simple.

 

[Abeja de Almirante]

Chretien/Martin Liberals had to cut back so drastically to balance the books.

I wouldn't call leaving a net federal debt of over $523 billion after 13 years of Chretien/Martin Liberal rule as balancing the books. If my credit card debt is $10,000, and I make the minumum payment each month and finally stop charging purchases to my credit card, I can not claim to have balanced my books. If the Liberals truly wanted to balance the books over their 13 years, they would have budgetted $40 billion each of the 13 years towards budget reduction. This would represent 20% of the approximately $200 billion Ottawa collected in revenue in 2004/05. It would have been even better if the ten or so years of Mulroney PCs had set the example of paying down the debt by $10 billion per year, leaving the Liberals to match it for their 13 years, thus truly balancing the books.

Obviously some serious spending cuts are necessary to bring Canada back into the fiscal black. If I were PM, I would enshrine into law that $10 billion each year must go toward debt reduction, above and beyond any interest payments on the existing debt; before we spent money elsewhere.

 

[spmarshall]

Wow. More spending cuts just for the sake of more spending cuts. Balancing the books means you aren't spending more than getting, so therefore they balanced the books a long time ago.

You just hate government spending money, don't you? (except maybe on wars and police).

My example is you have a low interest line of credit from the bank, with which you are a fairly good customer, and the bank is in no hurry to have you pay back. But since you do not In order to pay it off as soon as possible, you decide to go without entertainment, you sell your car, buy only enough food to keep you nourished enough to function, you stop paying for the unnecessary utilities such as cable, telephone and you have absolutely no life. In two years, you can pay off that line of credit.

If you decide to slowly pay it off, you can have a life and enjoy things, and you can afford to pay it off in six years. Yes you pay more in interest, but the amount you pay goes down with you slowly paying off that line of credit and yes you carry debt for a longer period. But life becomes much more worth living.

 

[ganjavih]

I wouldn't call leaving a net federal debt of over $523 billion after 13 years of Chretien/Martin Liberal rule as balancing the books. If my credit card debt is $10,000, and I make the minumum payment each month and finally stop charging purchases to my credit card, I can not claim to have balanced my books.

In terms of public spending, "balancing the books" means no deficit. It's a widely used and commonly accepted term.

If the Liberals truly wanted to balance the books over their 13 years, they would have budgetted $40 billion each of the 13 years towards budget reduction.

Uh, how?

It's unfortunate previous government spended so recklessly but paying off the debt has to done with a balanced approach. The early years of the Liberals involved painful spending cuts and everyone sacrificed a lot. Even then, only a modest dent was made in the national debt. What you're proposing would involve eliminating the health care system, the army, and a whole bunch of other things.

Obviously some serious spending cuts are necessary to bring Canada back into the fiscal black.

We've been in the black for years now.

If I were PM, I would enshrine into law that $10 billion each year must go toward debt reduction, above and beyond any interest payments on the existing debt; before we spent money elsewhere.

With all due respect, that sort of idealogical policy would be foolish. Yes, we need to pay the debt off little by little, but we need to keep making the important investments in education, infrastructure and health care or the country collapses and we won't have any money for anything.

 

[afransen TO]

Some government debt is actually beneficial to the economy--not to mention, but your suggestion is incredibly naive.

Our federal government debt to GDP ratio has fallen drastically over the course of the Liberal government, going from roughly 70% in 1993, to perhaps 40% today. In other words, Canada's real federal government debtload was almost cut in half. Most of this difference was achieved by growth in the economy, and not by debt repayment. So, it would actually be wiser to "pay off" our debt by investing in our future prosperity, such as investing in education, training, research, health promotion, capital investment, and infrastructure investment. These things also tend to have the added benefit of making Canada a nicer place to live. We could alternately eliminate the health care system (which wouldn't really save any money in the grand scheme of things, just "off-load" the expense to taxpayers), eliminate welfare, etc. making Canada a worse place to live, significantly harming the economy and stunting our future prosperity.

I think budgeted debt repayment (called the contingency reserve) is fine at $3 billion per annum. It shows the world that Canada is dedicated to fiscal prudence and keeps our bond rating high and debt costs lower. Any unforeseen revenues (let's call it surplus) should be spent on things that are investments in Canada's future prosperity--especially infrastructure. We currently have a $60 billion - $100 billion infrastructure 'deficit' which is as real as our $500 billion national debt, only this deficit hurts our economic development and lower Canada's quality of life.

I have a question for you, Abeja, if you are so keen on debt repayment for its own sake. If you think we should run continuous surplusses in our to reduce our liabilities, would you be in favour of the federal government continuing to bank say, $10 billion per year even after the debt is paid? When should we stop amassing funds, and why is your proposed level of debt repayment anything but arbitrary?

 

[scarberiankhatru]

"Our federal government debt to GDP ratio has fallen drastically over the course of the Liberal government, going from roughly 70% in 1993, to perhaps 40% today."

Here's a better link, to where we stand compared to other countries:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis...ublic_debt