Who will get the job done?
The Liberals under Michael Ignatieff are joined at the hip to the Conservatives and will remain in solid support of Stephen Harper until such time as the polls give the Liberals a chance of winning if an election is called.
Unfortunately for the Liberals and for all Canadians, that is not likely to happen because the longer Iggy waits to force an election, the stronger the dissatisfaction among voters. We gave Iggy the power to thwart Harper as a trust, expecting him to curb Harper's dictatorial tendencies. Instead of upholding that trust, Iggy chooses to play cynical politics in hopes that by some miracle he will gain popularity in the polls at some time down the road. The question is, how can he expect to gain in popularity as he continues to ignore the sacred trust that voters handed him?
I wonder why so many voters can be so easily duped by the elitist bugaboo that The NDP, or any other party that advocates social, environmental & economic justice don't have enough intelligence to run an economy. According to these people it's better to stick our heads in the sand and vote for one of the two identical elitist parties and hope that they will do better next time. If anything, both the Liberals and the Conservatives have proven through a long history of economic mismanagement that they are incapable or unwilling to run an economy that is not dysfunctional and moving inexorably towards collapse. We will never see improvement from these parties, so why do we accept their propaganda that they are the only ones qualified to lead. Surely you don't believe that the NDP and the other alternative parties are bereft of intelligence, education, and a truly powerful desire to make Canada work for a change. I have no doubt that if they were to form a government, they would at least make an effort to address the systemic miasma that we have inherited from the Liberals and the Conservatives. They may not succeed in everything they try, but at least they will make an honest attempt and they could certainly do no worse than what precedes them.
The Liberals and Conservatives are joined at the hip
I wonder why so many voters can be so easily duped by the elitist bugaboo that The NDP, or any other party that advocates social, environmental & economic justice don't have enough intelligence to run an economy.
Those are the same voters who believe for some reason that right-wing parties are more fiscally responsible, even though every Republican president since 1980 provides glaring proof of the opposite.
Here in Toronto, we've got a new right-wing mayor pledging "respect for taxpayers," and his proposed transit plan would cost at least twice as much as the one proposed by the outgoing "left wing" administration.
In a nutshell, progressive parties and candidates need to do a better job of selling themselves - which involves shedding the mindset that you shouldn't have to sell yourself if you're right; that progressive ideas somehow sell themselves.
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Those are the same voters who believe for some reason that right-wing parties are more fiscally responsible, even though every Republican president since 1980 provides glaring proof of the opposite.
Here in Toronto, we've got a new right-wing mayor pledging "respect for taxpayers," and his proposed transit plan would cost at least twice as much as the one proposed by the outgoing "left wing" administration.
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- - this has been a good trick for a few years now, even in Canada, the 'fiscally responsible' rightwing gov running up big debts, then the 'fiscally irresponsible' "left"-wingers making big cuts in the name of the terrible debt and deficit they find themselves facing when they get elected. Started here with Mulroney running up the big debt, then Martin (under Chretien) slashing social spending back to levels (he bragged about) not seen since the 50s - and now Harper and Flaherty running up the deficit again through tax cuts and military spending - when they get ousted, Ignatieff et all will finish the job of dismantling the social programs etc in the name of the new 'austerity' mantra sweeping the world - the biggest scam ever, and nobody seems to see it (I talk about it here to no interest at all - http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/they-call-it-austerity-i-call-... ). Interesting in many ways - when 'leftie' governments are in power, the media screams no end about having to control the debt - when rightwing governments are in power, it's no problem. And interesting that so few Cdns seem to recognize the outright lies of the mainstream media, constantly screaming about 'fiscally irresponsible' lefties/socialists, when quite obviously the reverse is the case. Not that I in any way support the cuts etc of the Libs/democrats - the whole thing is kind of rabbit-hole-ey, news from cloud cuckooland or something.
The idea that "we" the people have "money" for "our government" to spend on us according to our "vote" for the political "right" or "left" is a big mind game anyway. We humans have been living beyond our means for a long time, but in areas generally limited in size by how far we could walk carrying provisions and small children, until fairly recently on an anthropological scale. Now it's global, that's all. Back then you blamed your tribal chief or a religious scapegoat for the bad hunting or the drought or the locusts or whatever. Now we blame Ignatieff or Harper or the failure of the left to provide a meaningful alternative, or ourselves/others for picking wrong.
as bad as things are, most people still have a job that they can save a few dollar in the bank every month, when most canadians become poor like me, where we will take any job that is willing to take us, and have credit card bills we cant pay off, and work from hand to mouth, than there will be changes, unless we are all put in prison by then.
as bad as things are, most people still have a job that they can save a few dollar in the bank every month,
I dunno.
[url=http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/Federal-Politics/2010/08/18/WorseOff/]Ca... even worse off than Krugman thinks: CCPA[/url] August
"You actually have to go back to 1938 to see Canadian savings rates this low."
Apparently they are saving money in China. Personal savings rates there are anywhere from 40% to 50%.