Hell hath frozen over

The Toronto Star just published a story that.... Aghast!.... doesn't take a single cheap shot at the Prime Minister. Ok, one small one about election timing, but I'll make a post about that tomorrow.

After the debate, the math is still on Harper side

Oct 02, 2008 11:26 PM
James Travers

OTTAWA – Two nights of debate and another day of market turmoil are turning an election about the economy and Stéphane Dion into one that's still about the economy but also about Stephen Harper. For the first time since he prematurely killed the last Parliament, partly to avoid campaigning in hard times, the Prime Minister and his fiscal policies are emerging as ballot questions.

Four-against-one debates with the economy as the focus are driving that change. So, too, is the Liberal leader's belated shift from the environmental "e", his personal passion, to the economic "e", the national preoccupation.

...

While watched across the country, the first debate was primarily a battle for Quebec with Harper and Gilles Duceppe the principal combatants. The second was loaded with broader implications and higher stakes – a possible Conservative majority and the determined NDP run at the Liberals for second place.

Tonight those two struggles centred on the economy and Harper's claim that Canada's fundamentals are so strong that the safe course is to stay the Conservative course. As he has done since the campaign began, Layton chipped at that proposition, effectively recasting extraordinary economic events as kitchen table concerns. Dion's attacks are more abstract but effective enough to force Harper to pre-emptively distance his policies from the laissez-faire U.S. mess blamed, a little unfairly, on George W. Bush. [Note from Glen: Emphasis added. And don't take this to mean that I don't blame Bush]

...

Ganging four against one is good way to win a debate...Harper knows this, just as he knows that being pounded in the debates won't crack his core support.

What's less certain is how undecided voters will react to the cumulative opposition criticism and their own rising financial fears. However they ultimately cast their ballots, the Prime Minister and his policies are now an election issue and that is as it should be.

Golly. Ok, I realize I took the "math" part out. It basically says that the Left is split, which is going to result in a stronger minority (most likely). Maybe the Left should coalesce. With Layton as PM.... right.... hell hath indeed frozen over.

Please refer to Capital One tv ad.

The Changing Face of the Ontario Economy

In Response to Toronto Star Article: Harper won't guarantee Ontario jobs

This simply goes beyond politics. No amount of political posturing is going to change our economy's present troubles.

Face the facts. Our economy is changing. We can no longer rely on the manufacturing industry, for one simply reason: the cost of labour. We can no longer use the cheap dollar as a crutch in helping our exporters; we had an opportunity to improve efficiencies in the late 90s, slept on that, and now we are paying the consequences.

The bottom line: You aren't going to keep your jobs CAWs. Because you get paid $70/hr in an unskilled position.

The Future: Ontario must start to reshape itself as a place for skilled workers, especially in the areas of innovation. I may be on the other side of the political spectrum as McGuinty, but I will give him due in this area. Premier McGuinty has himself realized the importance of innovation in securing Ontario's place in the emerging global markets. Check out the work that he has done as Minister of Innovation, and the work being done by the newly reorganized Ontario Centres of Excellence. (www.oce-ontario.org/) This group is working to build connections between industry, research and academia, to find the next RIM or Imax.

You simply cannot guarantee jobs, as the NDP or the private unions would have you believe. You cannot bully private companies into keeping jobs in Canada. What you have to do is reshape your industries, keep your workforce current, up to the times, and WELL EDUCATED! As such, the decision to reopen a Windsor plant over the one in Oshawa was simple: The Ford facility is an engine plant, and the money is earmarked for investment in fuel-efficient technologies. That's the future.

Toronto Star continues to suck b@!!s

An update on the Toronto Star calling the past government productive. TODAY they decided that the Conservatives record is somehow flawed.

Harper is running on flawed record

"...Canadians have seen what kind of government he runs over the past 32 months. Of course, it was a minority government, held in check by the opposition parties."

Held in check? All that Mr. Dion did was run and hide every time the Conservatives wanted to pass a bill.
Every time something came up, all the Liberals decided that they needed to take a piss.
Every time something came up, they needed to run home and check their toasters.
Every time something came up, they needed to take their dog for a walk, instead of actually voting, as they were elected to do. At least Jack Layton and the NDP had the balls to stay in the House.

The Liberal Press Machine: The Toronto Star

This from the Toronto Star editorial, entitled: War of Words on Green Shift.

"The Conservatives are seeing red over the Green Shift.

Last week, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion announced shifts to his Green Shift, some $900 million in concessions for sectors hit hard by the carbon tax plan.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper promptly lashed out at the changes as 11th hour improvisations that suggest Dion is rewriting his plan "on the back of envelopes."

...

it is hard to see his announcement last week as anything other than a legitimate political response from a responsive leader to public feedback – precisely what Dion said he was setting out to do when he road-tested the proposals over the summer."


My Opinion:

The bottom line is this: The Toronto Star's editors and "analysts" are simply a privately funded corporation acting as part of the broke Liberal election machine.

How do the announced changes (read: flip-flops) constitute a "legitimate political response"? This is simply the Liberal party pandering to whomever can shout the loudest.

What it also does is make an ill-conceived plan even more complicated. OUR TAXATION SYSTEM IS COMPLICATED ENOUGH AS IT IS! If you are going to do something, make it easier for me to hand over my hard earned dollars for you to spend in ways that do not benefit me, or the country.

Every new tax system, every new tax credit or taxation exemption makes it harder and harder for an individual to do their own taxes. Why should I have to SPEND money having someone do my tax reporting? This reduces the collective disposable income, which hurts the economy. Imagine the effect on corporations. They won't have the time or money to invest in new innovations; they'll be hiring more tax lawyers to figure out what the hell they owe to whom.

Politics and the Media

I really do hate the Toronto Star. For the entire time that the Tories have governed, they have criticized every single move that they have made. Now that it serves their purposes, they are claiming that this past parliament was "productive". This now allows them to say that the Conservatives are now calling the election for political gain. Why not "report" that this, and I quote, "has been one of the more productive and long-lasting minority governments in Canadian history"? The simple reason is thus: The Toronto Star is not interested in providing and reporting facts for the general public, they would rather force feed the masses their political spin.

Another great example is today's front page article. Click Here. I have never before seen such a blatantly partisan front page article from a major newspaper. What the Toronto Star did, in effect, was make an endorsement BEFORE the election had even been called.

My next complaint is of the CBC. Take a look at what they had to offer on the Palin baby story, a full two days after this story was debunked on the internet: Click Here. I'm not saying that they are biased (they are). I'm just saying that they're stupid. (And a slight waste of tax-payers dollars, although I love CBCSports.)

I'll definitely be posting some more thoughts as the campaigns start to ramp up, but do yourselves a favour: Read the National Post.