Federal Election Talk (6)

The Tories...In it for themselves.

OTTAWA - If Stephen Harper's Conservatives are re-elected on May 2, political aides in ministerial offices could find a nice bonus when they return to work.

The Harper government has quietly approved increases in the maximum salaries political staffers are entitled to receive.

In addition, suddenly out-of-work staffers could find the blow considerably cushioned if the Tories were to lose the election. That's because the government has also approved a 50-per-cent increase in the maximum separation pay political aides can receive — up to six months from four. That's on top of severance pay.

The changes went into effect April 1, just one week before Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced budget cuts to eliminate the federal deficit one year ahead of schedule, in 2014-15. He said that feat would be achieved "by controlling spending and cutting waste."

Whether a staffer actually receives the maximum allowable salary or separation pay is left up to the discretion of each minister, who must still keep within their total office budgets.

This question has been raised a few hundred times in the past 2 weeks so one more time won't hurt...

Why are Canadians going to give these people a majority?

The polls show the Conservatives are hovering around majority territory, so it is a reasonable comment to make.

Ken, are you saying you are confident the Cons won't win a majority?

Doug wrote:

I think this really explains Conservative voters well. It turns out they're kind of like iPhone 4 buyers.

 

I want a Harper Government 3!

There should be a 24 hr TV channel playing that video over and over again...Think we need a polar opposite Sun TV/Quebecor outfit.

The Libs are going after NDP seats, and the NDP are going after Con seats. Brilliant strategy on the Liberals part to re-elect Harper.   

JKR wrote:

The story about the Conservatives sneaking in fat raises for their staffers for after the election while they are claiming they're going to cut spending for the the civil service is beginning to get more headlines.

This issue seems tailored just in time for the debates.

Tory staffers to benefit from changes approved by gov't - CTV

Tory staffers to gain financially under changes approved by Harper gov't - Winnipeg Free Press

Quote:

If Stephen Harper's Conservatives are re-elected on May 2, political aides in ministerial offices could find a nice bonus when they return to work.

The Harper government has quietly approved increases in the maximum salaries political staffers are entitled to receive.

...

The changes went into effect April 1, just one week before Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced budget cuts to eliminate the federal deficit one year ahead of schedule, in 2014-15. He said that feat would be achieved "by controlling spending and cutting waste."

...

Adding it all up, Tory aides who have worked in ministerial offices throughout Harper's five years in government would be entitled to as much as 9.5 months of pay should they find themselves without jobs after May 2.

The policy document specifies that separation payments "are to be funded through departmental operating budgets," a policy that does not apear to have changed.

However, the offloading of international trips onto departmental budgets is new.

 

How's Harper going to refute this during the debates?

 

Hopefully this story will get a lot of coverage tonight and over the next few days.

Is it making the evening news broadcasts?  How many Canadians are aware of it so far?

Hopefully it will spread.

JKR wrote:

The story about the Conservatives sneaking in fat raises for their staffers for after the election while they are claiming they're going to cut spending for the the civil service is beginning to get more headlines.

This issue seems tailored just in time for the debates.

Tory staffers to benefit from changes approved by gov't - CTV

Tory staffers to gain financially under changes approved by Harper gov't - Winnipeg Free Press

Quote:

If Stephen Harper's Conservatives are re-elected on May 2, political aides in ministerial offices could find a nice bonus when they return to work.

The Harper government has quietly approved increases in the maximum salaries political staffers are entitled to receive.

...

The changes went into effect April 1, just one week before Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced budget cuts to eliminate the federal deficit one year ahead of schedule, in 2014-15. He said that feat would be achieved "by controlling spending and cutting waste."

...

Adding it all up, Tory aides who have worked in ministerial offices throughout Harper's five years in government would be entitled to as much as 9.5 months of pay should they find themselves without jobs after May 2.

The policy document specifies that separation payments "are to be funded through departmental operating budgets," a policy that does not apear to have changed.

However, the offloading of international trips onto departmental budgets is new.

 

How's Harper going to refute this during the debates?

 

"Coalition! Soft on crime! Why do you hate our troops?"

More bad timing for Harper
VIH: le programme fédéral est un désastre

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/sante/201104/10/01-43...

Is this more silliness from quess who?

Iggy caught double-talking

Liberal leader needs to come clean on voting record

http://www.torontosun.com/news/decision2011/2011/04/11/17944426.html

NorthReport wrote:

Is this more silliness from quess who?

 

Iggy caught double-talking

Liberal leader needs to come clean on voting record

http://www.torontosun.com/news/decision2011/2011/04/11/17944426.html

Yup.  It's more silliness from right-wing hack Brian Lilley.  He's the one who accused Mulcair of trying to depose Jack Layton last month, remember?

Harper's Tories leave Mulroney cold

It was an illuminating moment in a remarkably candid conversation.

Brian Mulroney, the most successful Conservative prime minister since Sir John A. Macdonald, was sitting down for a rare television interview the other day in Montreal.

TVOntario’s Steve Paikin, always adroit at coaxing politicians to dish, broached the subject of the May 2 election and Conservative Leader Stephen Harper.

“You’re voting for Mr. Harper, I take it,” said Paikin, coincidentally the moderator of Tuesday’s English-language leaders’ debate.

“At this point,” replied Mulroney with a pause that seemed to hang in the air longer than its mere second, “I’ll vote for the Conservative candidate in my constituency.”

Although the architect of decisive Progressive Conservative victories in 1984 and 1988 conceded that Harper is “clearly a competent Prime Minister,” his unease with the current Tory leader was barely concealed.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/972525--harper-s-tor...

As if anyone cares what Mulroney thinks.

And on and on it goes.

Ignatieff on voting in another country

http://davidakin.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2011/4/11/4792947.html

Isn't David Akin with Sun Media?

Leading in to the debates, I've been thinking about Harper's legacy, what it would be if he were to lose power in this election. To me it is very clear what his enduring legacy will be: bring in the largest deficit in Canadian history. We will be paying off this accumulated debt for years, particularly in the form of reduced social spending as Canadians are required to use future surpluses to pay down the debt.

So what do babblers think: was $55 billion in pork, fake lakes, etc. worth years of reduced health care, education, and other social spending monies?

Harper has got to go...

More Liberal nonsense.

too funny - white suprematist as lib candidate on the ballot!

NorthReport wrote:

Liberals are such a bunch of screwups, I can see them being reduced to perhaps 50 seats
Liberals can't sack controversial candidate

 

http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/News/national/2011/04/11/17946146.html

gadar wrote:

If the AG report cant sink the Cons I will lose whatever faith I have left in the electorate. Not that there is much left considering how spin and spam has been working well so far.

If you are going to set yourself up for dissapointment, at least be clear about it.

Its not a question of people buying the Harper spin and spam, in that they believe it. The general sense out there is that the whole discussion is too disreputable for words- the problem people see is not just with a party or even with all of them. In that context it makes sense: so what if Harper lied [again]?

A great many people- across the political spectrum- think at least partly like that.

True.

But unfortunately for us, that is not self evident.

And we doom ourselves to the degree we act- let alone actually believe- as if it is self-evident.

The AG says she will not release the report. Duceppe says Harper already has the report, so if Harper is not releasing it, it must be damaging to the Cons. Duceppe wants the report public before the debates.

In a way not releasing it will be more damaging because it leaves it to the imagination which is usually worse then what happened because imagination is endless and open to embellishment.

We've had this discussion before - babble is not the exclusive forum for the NDP - others are welcome.

-

2 problems that I can see with politics in Canada:

1) Harper's relentless negative campaigning, as a strategy to turn off enough voters to get his majority

2) Even though 60% of voters are left of centre, by splitting our vote 4 ways, we enable the possibility of a right-wing majority.

None of the 4 parties will go away easily, although I suspect the Bloc and Greens will both fade a bit in this election. Even in the long term, convincing Canadians to vote NDP in sufficient numbers to ensure an NDP victory is unlikely. I've been thinking long and hard about it, and although you might not like my solution at first, please hear me out.

I've joined the Liberal Party.

My view are further to the left then just about everyone that I've met in the party so far, and some of the more 'blue Liberals' are downright annoying. However, in my riding where there is not a hope of ever electing an NDP MP, it really is the best option.

I didn't stop at just joining the party - and this is the key: I joined the riding association; and got on the policy committee. Its hard work, and although I'm usually the lone voice at the table, occasionally I can see them stop and think about an idea that was never considered before. I have also attended Liberal policy conferences, shared ideas, voted on the policy that ended up in the current platform, and whenever the next leadership vote happens, I'll have a vote because they have an open leadership process. Imagine for a moment what the outcome might have been in 2006 if 20 dippers in each riding joined the libs to vote for leader. I actually have no idea - but with 10+ candidates and an unpredictable process, our voice would have been worth something.

The Liberal brand is still strong in this country. Even in the very worst case scenario, more than 25% of Canadians will cast a ballot for the Liberal Party every time out, and "Liberal" an acceptable option to as many as 50% of Canadians. The brand has power, regardless of what's in the platform.

There are people who believe what we believe, but will never vote NDP because of brand association.

If we can't beat 'em, join em; but not just to adopt their views. We can move the Liberal party to the left, and make real change from within.

I agree with knownothing. Like Polarbear, back in 1992 I was young and joined the liberal party. I helped run the local campaign office, and for sure the lib got elected - all lib MP got elected in Ontario in 1993. Ended up electing the most rightwing lib ever - lol - more rightwing than the reform party candidate but I sure didn't know it.

And Chretien/Martin completed did about face, and broke every promonent shiny redbook promise - SCRAP the GST (not in your life); rejig NAFTA (nope signed on the dotted line right after the election), cut social programs and health, education, social welfare transfers to the provinces, kept 1% goal of bank of Canada inflation rate (and kept Canada in recession a lot longer than the USA), stole billions from EI to make Canadians believe they balanced the budget & great $ managers - no just thieves!

So no, I don't believe any of that crap polarbear - I got the lib lie t-shirt.

I'm won't ever be associated with such a corrupt party such as the Liberals - every ask yourself why there is so swing in MPs or candidates between those 2 parties? Well, that's because the power behind both their thrones is the same. And they need those like polarbear to convince the public that libs are progressive as the moneyed cronies laugh all the way to the bank!

Polar, we've seen in the US what happens when your proposed model comes into being. President Obama, elected with more excitement than any US president in modern memory has repeatedly capitulated to the Republicans, as have his congressional allies. Why? Because the right wing in the US continues to successfully move the so-called "centre" further and further to the right. Because there is no powerful left presence (and within any major brokerage party, like the US parties or the Liberals in Canada) within the Democratic party, or without for that matter, to pull it back. Regardless of where the centre actually lives brokerage parties will always swing that way because a true brokerage party does not give two sweet damns about ideology, despite the best intentions of members like you. they care only - ONLY - about obtaining and maintaining power at all costs, beliefs or values be damned. This is dangerous and leads straight to corruption (see: scandal, sponsorship) - if the only "value" a party has is "win" then that party will do anything to keep it. Anything. With no party on the left to pressure that brokerage party we see what has happened in the US with the serial capitulation from the Democrats, or we see 1993-97 under the Liberal party government in Canada. 

I would never join the Liberals even if there were no NDP. In the end it would matter naught. As soon as the centre line or public mood shifts so will that party regardless of the well intentioned who happen to reside within it.