Alberta, Taxes, and Socialism

[17to85]

I get I'm not in their target demographic but some tax breaks for single people would be nice at some point

single people already have the greatest tax break in the world, no money pit kids. 

[Rich]

 

I get I'm not in their target demographic but some tax breaks for single people would be nice at some point

single people already have the greatest tax break in the world, no money pit kids. 

 

 

Single people still have kids.   Sometimes things do happen outside of wedlock.

[kelownabomberfan]

"At least one media relations expert" ... now that is some unimpeachable sourcing, man. Rock solid.

Thanks. I didn't realize that I was supposed to supply an entire thesis with a bibliography, but I already know that wouldn't matter anyway. You didn't supply any links whatsoever, and just concluded that Harper is "muzzling scientists". I don't believe it, because I haven't seen any real proof that this is actually happening.

I did see a few years ago here in BC - we had a really bad sockeye salmon run. Supposed "government scientists" fell all over themselves running to the media predicting that this was the end of the sockeye salmon and of course it was all due to that horrible villain, man made climate change. Millions of dollars was needed "immediately", according to these supposed scientists, to launch "studies" and they ran around blathering alarmist bullshit non-stop about how the salmon were all doomed. Then the next year, there was the biggest sockeye salmon run since 1913. Tons and tons of sockeye salmon. So those scientists all looked like total idiots. Perhaps they shouldn't have been "muzzled", but also perhaps, there should have been some kind of media reporting system in place, such that they didn't just alarm the public over nothing, and also wouldn't make such giant fools of themselves. I'm just spit-balling here, but it seems like maybe, just maybe, if you are taking government money to study something, you should also follow some kind of reporting procedure on your findings. But "Harper is muzzling scientists" makes a great soundbite, so why not just say that I guess.

 

Why didn't you copy in the first half of the article, that talks about a study that shows that Canadian federal scientists are, in fact, less free to talk about their work than American scientists are?

Why didn't you? I supplied the link.

What really pissed me off with this whole muzzling thing was that stupid march last year where supposed "scientists" marched on Parliament Hill to protest being "muzzled", and it turned out about 99% of the people marching were just loser leftists who march in every one of these stupid marches, be it a march against the oil sands or a "insert brain dead cause here" march. And of course the CBC reported that "thousands of scientists" were present. Just pure bullshit. And that's why it's hard to get behind anything or believe anything anymore because there is so much obfuscation and lying and fear-mongering going on. What's the actual truth? Are scientists "being muzzled"? I don't know.

[Mr Dee]

- Over the last few years, the government of Canada — led by Stephen Harper — has made it harder and harder for publicly financed scientists to communicate with the public and with other scientists. - By VERLYN KLINKENBORGSEPT. 21, 2013 - NY Times

- In 2007, the Harper government established new rules that controlled Environment Canada scientists’ interactions with the media - See more at: http://www.academicmatters.ca/2013/05/harpers-attack-on-science-no-science-no-evidence-no-truth-no-democracy

- In 2008, the Harper government eliminated the position of National Science Advisor, a role that created an important link between the scientific community and top political leaders.

- In 2008, the Harper government eliminated the position of National Science Advisor, a role that created an important link between the scientific community and top political leaders, including the Prime Minister

- In April 2011, a group of scientists from Environment Canada were prevented from speaking with the media about their paper recently published in Geophysical Research Letters. The paper concluded that a two-degree Celsius increase in temperatures worldwide might be unavoidable in the next century.

Harper’s attack on science: No science, no evidence, no truth, no democracy - By Carol Linnitt | From the May 2013 - Academic Matters

- Canada's Government Won't Let Its Own Climate Scientists Speak to the Press - Rebecca Leber - The New Republic Aug 20 2014

- "When science goes silent"

With the muzzling of scientists, Harper’s obsession with controlling the message verges on the Orwellian

Jonathon Gatehouse - May 3 2013 -Maclan's

There's more...tons more, but I just got a call from the PM's office for something about a date for my muzzle fitting..whatever that means.

[Jacquie]

 

Trudeau's already on the national stage, and rather than embarrassing himself, he's running neck and neck in the polls with Great Leader.

 

 

Great Leader? Is he related to Fearless Leader or the Big Giant Head?

 

Whomever wins, I'd like to see a minority government. As a Federal employee, I'd also like to see Tony Clement lose his job. That goofy looking pos has called me overpaid way too many times. Maybe I'll fly out to his riding and drop a deuce in his fancy new gazebo that we all paid for...

 

Public and civil servants aren't overpaid. It's the private sector workers who are underpaid. 

 

 

 

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

 

Sometimes I wonder how we've had the NDP in power for so long in this province... then I read threads like this and see opinions like these and it all starts to make sense.

 

Otherwise intelligent people who think there's a Conservative "hidden agenda" to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And as if somehow it's a bad thing for more women to be able to be stay at home moms. 

 

 

Except many of the people posting in this thread do not live in Manitoba.

[Fatty Liver]

 

 

 

 dumping GM stock at a steep loss,

 

 

I've seen a lot of people who I know have never owned a stock in their life crying about the sale of GM stock "at a steep loss".  When the government received that stock of GM, it was pretty much worthless.  Everyone was just hoping GM would survive.  The fact that the government was able to get $3.5 billion for a company's stock, that was essentially bankrupt, is a big win, and it's too bad people want to play partisan politics and criticize the government for realizing some value on something that could easily have been a complete zero.   Should the government have held on to the GM stock?  If they had, and GM had gone back in the dumper, then the same people would be crying about how they could have had $3.5 billion and pooped it away because they didn't sell when they had a buyer on the table.  The one thing I've noticed is that any information can be spun to the negative if put through different filters.

 

 

I don't object to our Gov. selling stock of any company…at the right time.

I just don't necessarily consider "the right time" being when you're balancing the budget.

Could be a coincidence…but I doubt it.

 

 

 

abolishing the senate is a god damned stupid move. The upper house does serve a purpose, that's even completely ignoring how ******* impossible it would be to even try and abolish it. Here's the problem with senate reform, any kind of significant changes to the senate require changing the constitution, that require getting everyone, absolutely everyone together and agreeing to change the thing. They still haven't been able to get Quebec to agree to the thing in the first place, it's just too much of a quagmire to get into. The conservatives really did the best they could saying they would appoint elected senators. 

 

 

Abolishing the senate was never a conservative goal, they wanted reform of the senate, specifically elected senators,and I do believe that Harper has appointed senators that provinces have actually elected so let's at least get the facts straight. 

 

 

I agree that the senate does serve a purpose…but not the way it's being done now.

BUT

 

The Cons didn't do the best they could in Senate reform because despite appointing Senators that the Provinces have elected, they still have "appointed" Senators whenever they see fit. They were not alone in that practice, and that practice must stop…for true Senate reform.

 

You can't just leave senate seats empty, they need to be filled and if the provinces can't be bothered to get off their asses and put senators on the ballot then what's to be done? 

 

 

Actually you can leave the seats unfilled if you create and follow a plan to minimize the amount of seats that would represent true Senate reform. You don't "need" that many Senators.

It would take work, but if you're true to your words...

 

 

Sounds easy but it's not.  They would need the full approval of the provinces to implement reductions like this and the Maritime provinces approval is coming....NEVER.

 

Here is a list of the Senators by province.

 

Original signers at the time of confederation:

 

ON 24

QC 24

NB 10 

NS 10

 

Followers:

 

PE 4

MB 6

BC 6

SK 6

AB 6

NT 1

YT 1

NU 1

 

Blackballers:

 

NL 6

[Fatty Liver]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ddIyLVzRI#t=45

 

Oh my...By posting a link to an Ezra Levant video you have dealt your credibility as a clear thinking individual an enormous swallop.

[kelownabomberfan]

Oh my...By posting a link to an Ezra Levant video you have dealt your credibility as a clear thinking individual an enormous swallop.

LOL. Did you actually see what he said? He was actually very complementary of Notley and hopeful that she'll be a good premier, which for Ezra I am sure was hard for him to say. He also blasted Prentice and the Wild Rose leader who crossed the floor. I don't post much of Ezra's rants but when there's one that does seem to be at least somewhat non-partisan and not completely laced with far rightist rhetoric I'll share it here.

And as for full disclosure - I went to school with both Ezra and Naheed Nenshi, who were best buds at that time, and got to know them pretty well, especially Naheed, who was and still is a great guy. Both of them were so involved in extra-curricular activities that I don't know when they slept. As a team they were amazing. In fourth year they took over the U of C Students Union, and in one year cleaned up years of mismanagement and debt created by idiot leftist arts students who had controlled council for far too long. Over the years, I've watched Ezra go far too far to the right, but that's where his bread is buttered, and Nenshi go a bit too far to the left. Both of them were dynamite when they were more in the center, to center-right, where the majority of voters in this country reside.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

bah, you and I both know that income splitting is the conservative notion of "Women are supposed to stay home, cook and clean and pop out babies!" so they created an incentive to keep women outta the workforce and stay at home doing "Mommy" things. Such an old school conservative "Focus On The Family" idea...

 

Sometimes I wonder how we've had the NDP in power for so long in this province... then I read threads like this and see opinions like these and it all starts to make sense.

 

Otherwise intelligent people who think there's a Conservative "hidden agenda" to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. And as if somehow it's a bad thing for more women to be able to be stay at home moms. 

 

The NDP is here to save our women from being forced to stay home by their evil conservative husbands.  I think, in the most general terms what I dislike about the left is their sense that they are smarter than everyone else and know whats better for everyone whether we know it or not.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

 

People went way too far demonizing Harper in his early days. It's happening again with Trudeau, only with different talking points. People are scared of what's new in politics.

A few things I dislike about Harper:

- the new security bill seems unconstitutional and overreaching for what a government should be able to keep secret

- very little debate has been allowed in the house

- He wanted to abolish the senate, but has since appointed more of them than any other pm in history

- has very little use for the collectively bargained agreements with the Public servants that the government signed

- the Supreme Court has had to slap him down several times, then had a little fit after his choice for judge was disallowed

- lowering the GST and income splitting are bad ideas imo.

- his views on pot

- mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent crimes

- wearing a Canada jersey instead of a Jets jersey

I'll add:

- Parliamentary privilege was reached 3 times by his Gov. This is the 1st time for any democracy.

- wilfully violated the election spending limit in 2006

- Changed a $16 Billion dollar surplus into a record $56 Billion dollar deficit

- one of the Cons promises was more accountability - but Harper has shut down Parliament twice, once to stall on a vote, and then again to avoid a vote of non-confidence.

- the latest Budget was fudged by cuts to Health care, Coast Guard, dumping GM stock at a steep loss, raiding the the federal emergency fund and spending the UI surplus

I could go on, because there is way more to Harper's bizarre politics, but I tire of these "politics" and so I'll stop.

I just wanted to point out that the man who represents Canada isn't all he's made out to be. Or maybe he is.

I'll add "the muzzling of government scientists" to Harper's rap sheet.

Scientific work shouldn't flow through the PMO. Science is not politics or public relations.

 

Dont play the deficit card, please.  It was the opposition that forced a larger deficit then the Cons intended and had it been the Liberals or NDP in power, that deficit would be a lot larger...and I doubt we'd be ahead of the game on returning to surplus.  I mean, really, that's pretty apparent.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

 

I'll add "the muzzling of government scientists" to Harper's rap sheet.

Scientific work shouldn't flow through the PMO. Science is not politics or public relations.

 

 

I looked into this and from what I could read, this whole mantra that the government was "muzzling scientists" was a bunch of alarmist BS, much like the alarmist BS being spread about Bill C-51.  Is the government really "muzzling" scientists?  No.  Not really.  It's amazing how a soundbite these days gets into the public mainstream and then is repeated as gospel over and over again.  Today all I see are idiots posting "#Harperisabigot" everywhere. Just ridiculous.  These people truly are their own worst enemy.

 

 

However, according to at least one media relations expert, the Harper government’s PR strategy is simply prudent with a 24/7 media cycle. 

"As opposed to what most people would think, the reality is that it takes a while to gather all the communications pieces in a puzzle," Matt Wilcox of the Wilcox Group said in an email exchange. 

"One scientist may not know the bigger picture or have all the facts, or they may have a particular focus which is not relevant to today’s story. Or worse, they are off-topic or so specific that it doesn’t give the full answer to educate."

Wilcox adds that it behooves any organization, government or otherwise, to put out measured and developed responses.

"No matter what organization you are in, there should be no surprises. Not easy to do in today’s 24/7, [where] everyone communicates with every social media tool available to them," he said.

"Politics aside, no one should knee-jerk react to anything unless there is solid data behind the answer. It is not about secrets … it is about giving a full and in-depth answer to the question. And most questions don’t have a solid-pat, easy answer."

In other words, the government wants to ensure that there aren’t false or multiple message being shared to media. 

 

As for the Tories, they say they are being transparent in regard to science.  

"Canadian federal departments and agencies produce over 4,000 science publications every year," Minister of State for Science and Technology Ed Holder said in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Environment Canada fielded nearly 2,500 media inquiries and published about 700 peer-reviewed articles this past year. Fisheries and Oceans Canada … fielded 1,600 media inquiries and published 500 peer reviewed articles last year."

"When it comes to science and technology, this is side of the House where we’re interested in facts."

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/myth-or-fact-is-the-harper-government-really-muzzling-203405672.html

 

great post.

 

Yes, "Stop Harper"  "Harper is a bigot"...big bad scary Harper.  All made up alarmist conspiracy theory nonsense.  Just like Harper hates Aboriginals because he responded to the "murdered and missing aboriginal women" issue by saying it's a police matter.  Realistically, it's probably an Aboriginal matter but somehow it's Harper's fault.  Okay.  I guess Justin the wizkid will somehow stop that.  Probably as successfully as the NDP will end hallway medicine in manitoba.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6ddIyLVzRI#t=45

 

Oh my...By posting a link to an Ezra Levant video you have dealt your credibility as a clear thinking individual an enormous swallop.

 

Not really.  Ezra is a right wing personality.  But he often makes a lot of wonderful points.  I've watched a few of his videos recently and he's actually very even keeled.  Not sure if he's making an effort to be less of a "personality" and more of a mainstreamer but his stuff on the convicted murder Kadr and the left's love of the terrorist have been very good.

[Atomic]

Ezra Levant, even-keeled?  You must be joking.  He is the biggest clown in Canadian media.  You've gotta be leaning pretty damn far to the right if you agree with anything he says.

[The Unknown Poster]

Ezra Levant, even-keeled?  You must be joking.  He is the biggest clown in Canadian media.  You've gotta be leaning pretty damn far to the right if you agree with anything he says.

Try watching his his stuff this week on Kadr and the election.  Its easy to paint people in generalities without actually looking at specifics

[Atomic]

I've read and watched my fair share of Levant.  Let me guess, he opposed letting Khadr out.

[Mr Dee]

 I think, in the most general terms what I dislike about the left is their sense that they are smarter than everyone else and know whats better for everyone whether we know it or not.

 

 

Its easy to paint people in generalities without actually looking at specifics

 

 

Need you say more?

[The Unknown Poster]

 

 I think, in the most general terms what I dislike about the left is their sense that they are smarter than everyone else and know whats better for everyone whether we know it or not.

 

 

Its easy to paint people in generalities without actually looking at specifics

 

 

Need you say more?

 

That's the NDP ideology.  I was making a general remark about my general opinion about a party in general.  Not a nasty comment about a person specifically that was actually incorrect.

[The Unknown Poster]

I've read and watched my fair share of Levant.  Let me guess, he opposed letting Khadr out.

Well I think Levant has some intelligence and common sense (regardless of his political leanings) so yes ofcourse he did. 

[Atomic]

I've read and watched my fair share of Levant. Let me guess, he opposed letting Khadr out.

Well I think Levant has some intelligence and common sense (regardless of his political leanings) so yes ofcourse he did.

I think intelligence and common sense would dictate that Khadr should have been released.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

 

I've read and watched my fair share of Levant. Let me guess, he opposed letting Khadr out.

Well I think Levant has some intelligence and common sense (regardless of his political leanings) so yes ofcourse he did.

I think intelligence and common sense would dictate that Khadr should have been released.

 

Terrorist fighting on behalf of al-Qaeda, convicted of murdering a US medic, confessed in a statement approved by his lawyers, from a family of al-Qaeda supporters, reportedly racist and sexist and demonstrated no remorse for his actions.  He shouldnt be a political propaganda toy.  His lawyer would not allow any difficult questions to be asked of him and the lefty media ate it up.  I guess he's the western world's first al-Qaeda rock star.

[Atomic]

He was a brainwashed kid. He has shown plenty of remorse.

Reportedly racist and sexist? Lol better send half of Canada to Guantanamo. What a ridiculous point to make.

[kelownabomberfan]

Looks like Ezra has a beef with Joe Beef...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/joe-beef-owner-david-mcmillan-ignites-boycottjoebeef-with-omar-khadr-tweet-1.3066175

[The Unknown Poster]

He was a brainwashed kid. He has shown plenty of remorse.

Reportedly racist and sexist? Lol better send half of Canada to Guantanamo. What a ridiculous point to make.

Goes to lack of remorse and an opinion of the people embracing him.  If a vile racist was wrongly convicted of a crime, I'd want justice to prevail but I wouldnt treat him like a hero.  He was just shy of 16.  Are we going to let 16 year olds who commit murder here get off because they were kids and potentially influenced by people around them?  We are to accept that he didnt know right from wrong at 16 but does now?

 

I really dont want to argue the point because Im no expert on his case.  But my main point being this is not politics, its justice and he's being held up as some sort of anti-government lefty hero.  If he's innocent then the media shouldnt have a problem reporting on all the facts that we have to do more digging to find, like his behavior in Cuba for one.  He wasnt on a camping trip in the Middle East.  It makes me very uncomfortable how he is being portrayed right now.

[The Unknown Poster]

Looks like Ezra has a beef with Joe Beef...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/joe-beef-owner-david-mcmillan-ignites-boycottjoebeef-with-omar-khadr-tweet-1.3066175

HAHA yeah i saw that yesterday.  Stupid remark from a business owner but its his right to be disrespectful of the PM I suppose.  Im sure he will have just as many customers wanting to eat there now as he will those that dont.  Silly what politics reduces some people to.

[Atomic]

TUP I get what you're saying, I really do. But you're talking about how the guy is being portrayed as a hero, well that's not his fault. He shouldn't be punished because the left want to hold him up as some kind of hero. That is playing politics with a person's life.