Search results

Not opinion at all, Kirkhill.  Look at Ralph Goodale's website - it mentions his balanced budgets and those of the Liberal Party.  Did you think they would forget to mention that? https://ralphgoodale.liberal.ca/ Harrigan

I don't need to rephrase it - you know exactly what I am talking about and are being deliberately obtuse.  You know what we would think of our CO's if they always put "political considerations" above all. - How does the federal government know what the provinces would want in return for Senate...

Who is evading reality?  The Liberals can point to their actual results from 1993-2006, with real numbers.  You are basing your comparison on what you think the Harper government would have done if there had been no recession.  Those are imaginary numbers.  (and besides, you know the trendline...

I didn't say it was easy.  I agree that it is hard.  And I agree that the PM would have to spend some of his political capital to make it happen.  What irks me is that when push comes to shove, the Party's political calculations always come first.  And, I will add, that was also the case with...

Really?  That's your response?  I expect the PM to put the good of the nation ahead of personal political considerations.  You, clearly, do not.  Fair enough - you apparently have the PM that meets your aspirations. And what contemporary political considerations that are so much more limiting...

Context matters.  I didn't say the Liberals would compare a hypothetical Liberal/NDP coalition government in 2008 to the Harper government's term.  They wouldn't need to use an strawman argument.  I said they would compare the Chretien/Martin era from 1993-2006 to Harper's term, and it would...

Mr.Campbell, I like your response, and your suggestions (will discuss that later). However, the response is completely based on an incorrect assumption: that the SCC is somehow a HHQ compared to the poor old PM.  That is a CPC myth that they have been pushing for years - ever since they made...

Replace "PM" with "CO" and tell me if he still gets a pass. No, I expect better from my PM, and that is fair warning to Trudeau and Mulcair.  Oh, OK. We get that Harper believes that the constitutional and political conditions make it impossible.  Of course, those conditions were the same...

Yes, Harper is the same, but the Liberals campaigning against them will boast of more balanced budgets than the entire Harper 9-year term.  Ralph Goodale was the Finance Minister from 2003-2006.  John McCallum was the National Revenue Minister at the same time.  They are both running for...

I agree with you there.  It is unlikely, which is a shame.  I think we badly need a new Security Strategy and a new Defence White Paper, particulary if we are going to commit to two major projects (Shipbuilding program, and F-35) that will consume most of DND's budgets for decades to come. Harrigan

Apologies for the multiple posts.  I haven't figured out how to have quotes from different sources in the same message box.  On a separate issue, I haven't seen much talk from any of the three main parties about their election strategy for the military and procurement.  Yes, we have seen lots...

I may not agree with it, but I suspect the Liberals would happily compare their economic performance between 93-06 to the Harper Government's between 06-15 any day of the week, and twice on Sunday. Harrigan

So 41% of Albertans are socialist?  Wasn't it entirely the big urban centres in Alberta that went to the NDP?  Harrigan

Do you actually think the PCs in the 80's, Liberals in the 90's and 00's, and CPC since '06 didn't (and don't) use patronage to, in your words, "grease their system of recruitment and development of functionaries and candidates"?   You have defeated your own argument.  If it is failing of the...

I agree that it is a perfectly valid theory, but what evidence is there that Canadian voters are on a Bell Curve?  It's not in the electoral results.  The problem with most political discourse at the moment (and I am guilty of it as well) is that we tend to see things as linear - left vs right...

I am using the latest aggregate from Eric Grenier on http://www.threehundredeight.com/  Yes, of course it is a snapshot, though at least a time-compensated aggregate of all the election polls.  Certainly no worse a figure to use than the last election 4 years ago.  And I assumed the Greens as a...

The Supreme Court didn't say the Senate couldn't be abolished, and everyone knows it.  The Supreme Court said it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to do it unilaterally.  Laws are pesky that way.  The method to change the senate exists, and was reiterated by the SC: amend...

Are you suggesting that Mulroney, Chretien, Martin, and Harper have not used patronage ad nauseum since 1984???  That line certainly did in Turner in 1984, but it didn't hurt the four following PM's at all, who have shown no reluctance to use patronage whenever it suited them.  It seems to me...

I'm afraid I have to disagree 100% with that assertion.  Any coalescence between Liberals and NDPers into one party would doom the CPC to eternal opposition, because they would be facing a left-centre mixture of the two.  Historically, right-of-centre parties in Canada have earned more than half...

I think you have made some very good points.  I agree that the CPC and NDP are theoretically transformative, and the Liberals are theoretically transactive.  The CPC does just enough to keep their 'base' towing the line, and presumably the NDP would do the same.  The short form of all this is...