Contrary to Liberal Party insinuations on this site...

Debater wrote:

Well, I guess I'm trying not to overanalyze its impact too much.

There are also those here such as mark alfred who claim that Trudeau is being treated as 'boy wonder' whereas in reality Trudeau faces a very hostile and conservative media that are already going after him this weekend for not taking a stronger position in favouring of the bombing strikes.

I think some NDP partisans forget how anti-Liberal a lot of our media is and forget how conservative-dominated it is.

Hey, be fair.  I clearly outlined in post #43 that I potentially am open to supporting Trudeau.

So far I feel Trudeau has handled it well.  Bill C-51 still needs to go, though.  And he needs to stick to his promise to end the bombing.

Debater wrote:

Yes, I was angry about it.  I didn't think the Liberals should be supporting overbroad security legislation.

It was Harper legislation and Conservative legislation ,and I didn't like it.

But I'm also aware that we live in a world that is dominated by 2 powerful forces:

1) a conservative, right-wing media

2) the military-industrial complex

So I can also see the quandry that the Liberals are in.

Just look at what's been happening this weekend since the Paris terrorism.

What do you suggest be done at a time like this?

Stand firm on the need to repeal C-51. Public opinion may be one thing, but people who state their opinions honestly when it is unsafe to do so are very well respected. This is why the Democrats were unable to take down Bush over Iraq in 2004 because the Democrats mostly signed on in the early stages, shifting their positions only when public opinion shifted. The Republicans then rightly derided the Democrats as softies who couldn't make tough decisions.

Yes, Sean, the Liberals regained some progressive voters who had left the Liberals earlier in the year over C-51.

Once Trudeau explained during the election why the Liberals had chosen to support C-51 while pledging to bring in more oversight, it seemed to make some progressive voters feel more at ease.

It's also possible that support for C-51 may start rising again now that the Paris attacks have happened.

It may be the NDP that starts getting called out of touch on this issue again.

The Conservatives have been out in force all weekend with Chris Alexander & Jason Kenney launching attacks against Justin Trudeau & the Liberals online.

Some of their rhetoric has been over the top and even conservative-leaning journalists like Paul Wells have called them out for it today.

But the point is that the situation is not as easy to deal with as some anti-C-51 partisans claim it is.

I was against C-51 myself, but I can see where the NDP's position on it may come across as unrealistic to some people.

Debater wrote:

Yes, Sean, the Liberals regained some progressive voters who had left the Liberals earlier in the year over C-51.

Once Trudeau explained during the election why the Liberals had chosen to support C-51 while pledging to bring in more oversight, it seemed to make some progressive voters feel more at ease.

It's also possible that support for C-51 may start rising again now that the Paris attacks have happened.

It may be the NDP that starts getting called out of touch on this issue again.

The Conservatives have been out in force all weekend with Chris Alexander & Jason Kenney launching attacks against Justin Trudeau & the Liberals online.

Some of their rhetoric has been over the top and even conservative-leaning journalists like Paul Wells have called them out for it today.

But the point is that the situation is not as easy to deal with as some anti-C-51 partisans claim it is.

I was against C-51 myself, but I can see where the NDP's position on it may come across as unrealistic to some people.

That could be a failure of leadership. C-51 was the wrong response and remains so today.

Much of the problem with the debate about C-51 is the failure of those opposing it to be clear enough on what we should do as well as what we should not and we are now paying the price for that in the debate.

C-51, in my view would only make security worse. It is the wrong direction and would only create an arms race of sorts insecrecy and privacy to the extent that Canadians would lose their freedoms and gain nothing in security.

Canada, and many countries, are facing a crisis. We have a significant confused, angry, mistrustful population adn many in that population are seeing injustices that are not being addressed. This population exists in the context of a mostly non-existent mental health strategy. We are losing our youth offering little hope and even less support for mental health crises when they occur. The response in a security apparatus makes our society more dangerous rather than safer.

Canada is definitely at risk of a Paris-like attack in my view. If we opt for doubling down on the direction of C-51, I would call such an attack inevitable. What is needed is a massive support for the mental health of our citizens. Such support will benefit our society in many ways so can be justified even if you do not make the connections I do. Suicide and depression among youth has long been a problem. That is is now associated with an attraction by some to the messages of radicalism is a disturbing trend but one that should be addressed at the root rather than symptom.

Yes, there are others who might want to come to Canada and harm us. There always have been. And this is true of most places -- and in some it is Canadians going to harm people there (and not just in terms of military). You need reasonable security. But if we support our own population such that they are not atracted to joining the attraction of extremism dues to their own mental illness we can be safer. Any investment in mental health both serves to benefit the population as well as make our society safer.

The NDP failed utterly to make this case and this is tragic in part since Mulcair articulated this in a CBC interview before the election began.

Canada has just had an election that failed to engage in the central conversation required about security and what that means.

Foreign terrorists trying to enter Canada to do harm are a real but manageable threat. Desperate people suffering from mental illness lured by the hope of being part of something as they express their anguish is only manageable at the root. C-51 is a direction that can only make this worse while making our society more unjust.

And let's take the lesson of Paris: French security already have all the tools. They already invade privacy. They are already at a high level with huge investment. How well did that work? And it is European born people not infiltrators from outside who appear to be responsible- at least this is true of all involved who have been identified.

wage zombie wrote:

Pondering wrote:

It never had any revelance in terms of swaying anyone's vote. This is the first election I have paid close attention to and found it fascinating how few people were ever aware of anything that wasn't major headline news and even then they didn't know anything about it only that it happened. The people who decide the election are those who start paying attention no more than 3 or 4 weeks before the election and they make up their minds in the last week. Turns out when I wasn't paying any attention to politics I was in the majority. Even the impact of the Duffy trial faded almost right away. Harper's government was openly smarmy and dirty yet was still re-elected multiple times.

https://www.facebook.com/everythingmtl/videos/1061443130541460

OMG that was hilarious. I hope I was never quite that bad but one of those people was intending to vote. I've always known who the PM is and known the relative political positions of the parties in the sense of left right and centre. All the time I voted for the NDP I didn't know about the Sherbrooke Declaration or any other specific policies. I just knew the NDP was on the left. Same goes for QS even now. I vote for them because they are the only party on the left and in a riding they win. In a non-QS riding I would vote Liberal because they are the only non-sovereignist party. There hasn't been any reason to be more aware than that.

I was aware of the happenings in November/December 2005 and the Gomery Inquiry but through television 6 o'clock news, not reading. All I know about adscam is that Martin and Chretien weren't implicated. I don't know what happened to the people who were nor who they are or their positions. I was mad at Layton so I voted Dion because of the green shift but went back to Layton in 2011 because I couldn't stand Ignatieff and because in my riding it would go Bloc or NDP anyway. It had nothing to do with any policies.

I am very well attuned to "low-information" voters and people who only tune in during the last week of an election.

8 PM tonight, Canada's smartest person. We can play along but I am not sure I want to find out where I rate.

Debater wrote:

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Canada is definitely at risk of a Paris-like attack in my view. If we opt for doubling down on the direction of C-51, I would call such an attack inevitable. What is needed is a massive support for the mental health of our citizens. Such support will benefit our society in many ways so can be justified even if you do not make the connections I do. Suicide and depression among youth has long been a problem. That is is now associated with an attraction by some to the messages of radicalism is a disturbing trend but one that should be addressed at the root rather than symptom.

As you may recall, in Justin Trudeau's very first interview as Liberal leader in April 2013 with Peter Mansbridge, he raised the need to examine the "root causes" of terrorism.

Harper was so outraged that he rushed out of Margaret Thatcher's funeral in the UK and screamed at Justin Trudeau across the ocean about the need to denounce the terrorists with fire & brimstone.

I did not disagree with Trudeau at the time. I did think his support for C-51 was a contradiction and I still think so. Now we get to see what he meant and we get to judge him on that.

Northern PoV wrote:

And I don't blame the NDP for hoping the same thing as Harper in regards to the desired destruction of the Liberal party.  That's now their shtick. I just stopped voting and working for them when Layton & the party put electoral success as their number one goal.

Bruce Anderson wrote a piece earlier this year which documented how the NDP is best-viewed by Canadians as "the little engine that could".  Many Canadians view the NDP positively when they think about it as the "conscience of Parliament" or a "principled protest party".

I think you are right that when the NDP really developed a hunger to be the Government after they won Official Opposition that it changed them in some way.  Some people in the NDP became focused on winning at costs, and may have been effected by the lust for power.

Political philosphers over the centuries have written about the corrupting effects of power, and we may have seen that in the Mulcair NDP.

Debater wrote:

Northern PoV wrote:

And I don't blame the NDP for hoping the same thing as Harper in regards to the desired destruction of the Liberal party.  That's now their shtick. I just stopped voting and working for them when Layton & the party put electoral success as their number one goal.

Bruce Anderson wrote a piece earlier this year which documented how the NDP is best-viewed by Canadians as "the little engine that could".  Many Canadians view the NDP positively when they think about it as the "conscience of Parliament" or a "principled protest party".

I think you are right that when the NDP really developed a hunger to be the Government after they won Official Opposition that it changed them in some way.  Some people in the NDP became focused on winning at costs, and may have been effected by the lust for power.

Political philosphers over the centuries have written about the corrupting effects of power, and we may have seen that in the Mulcair NDP.

And then there are Canadians and New Democrats who think there does not ahve to be a contradiction between having principles and aspiring to govern. Mulcair could not get it right but someone else could.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

Debater wrote:

Well, I guess I'm trying not to overanalyze its impact too much.

There are also those here such as mark alfred who claim that Trudeau is being treated as 'boy wonder' whereas in reality Trudeau faces a very hostile and conservative media that are already going after him this weekend for not taking a stronger position in favouring of the bombing strikes.

I think some NDP partisans forget how anti-Liberal a lot of our media is and forget how conservative-dominated it is.

Debater, actually you are very happy Trudeau is getting such treatment. But what you are worried about is his not iving up to expectatons. That is what is really behind your comments. Its called downplaying, lowevering expectations.

As to anti LPC meidia, how can you say that with a straight face after the LPC love fest during the last election. You are so disingenous all the time, and like other LPC sycophants on here, think no one notices. Stop treating us like we're stupid Deabter.

And by the way, I am CERTAIN you voted Liberal in this election. You may have stepped down, but you NEVER had ANY inteniton of voting differently. Drop the act and be a little more upfront. This is another reason why may on here don't hold you in any kind of regard.

Trudeau had better not fall on his face; I dont think he will though he isn't going to come close to delivering on his promises. And that will make it a lot harder for him to blame any failures on someone elese. That is REALLY what the LPC game is going to be this whole time. The Liberal stragegy is CLEARLY about always managing expections, and trying to manipulate the MSM and public opinion.

I don't think we can be certain and I don't think we should be challenging a person about how they said they voted. To claim his intentions, which likely evolved over the election, were never one way or another is going too far.

Debater is a partisan Liberal. That is as far as anyone should go. Calling him out beyond that is really not okay. In my opinion.

Debater wrote:

I am a Liberal in the broad sense, yes, but I am not as partisan as you claim since I have severed my ties with the party from time to time in the past such as this year during 2015 and also back in 2004 when Paul Martin forced out Sheila Copps.  I spoke about that several years ago.  It might still be on one of the old threads.

But I am also someone who has voted NDP in the past and even worked on one of Ed Broadbent's campaigns.  I agree with some of the NDP policies.

What I dislike is the anti-Liberal nature of this board and the inability of the NDP partisans here to engage in a more cooperative dialogue with other progressive voters.

Why are people who support the Liberals called trolls?

It's particularly ironic considering that the NDP has increasingly moved closer & closer to the Liberals, and even has a former Quebec Liberal as its leader.

And btw, Sean, you just posted your misgivings about Mulcair on one of these leadership threads.  Wasn't I one of the people who asked NDP supporters here over the past 2 years why the party had selected a centrist leader like Mulcair?  I was repeatedly told I was out of line for pointing out Mulcair's Liberal/centrist leanings.  I turned out to be right about Mulcair, as you yourself have now acknowledged.

Mulcair was leader of the party and for the most part I did not challenge that -- I have been outspoken about policies and directions and the tone of campaigning that I did not like.

Liberals have been called trolls sometimes unfairly and sometimes because they were using trolling behaviour. Sometimes becuase they had used trolling behaviour in the past and the irritation had not gone away.

Arthur Cramer wrote:

How did this thread become one about what a scumbag Jack Layton was and how perefect the Liberals are? Boy the Libs on this board hate taking about FACTS! Well Pondering, Terrytowel, Debater, Pookie, Cody87 et al, once the Libs start acting like Libs, don't expect us to be any nicer than you've been. Dance on graves and gloat all you want. You'd better hope that Junior, isn't just more of the same, or, I, for one, will enjoy, IMMENSELY, rubbing your faces in it! I'm just sayin'.

Hey, just don't start. We don't need another thread derailed by petty and vindictive behavior. If I see you attacking Liberal supporters again I will suspend you.

Debater wrote:

My point about Mulcair is that it was well-known by everyone in 2012 that he was not a left-winger.  He was a centrist.  He was a Quebec Liberal.  He was someone who served under a Mulroney Conservative (Jean Charest).

So it's a bit rich for progressive NDPers to now claim they didn't know what they were getting with Mulcair.  They knew he came from a very different political tradition than Broadbent or Douglas.  Mulcair won the 2012 NDP Leadership because NDPers thought he could WIN.

He wasn't chosen for his ideological commitment to core NDP principles -- he was selected so that he could be the centrist NDP leader who would appeal to Liberals & Red Tories.

Mulcair was basically hired to be a Liberal, so while I'm no fan of Mulcair's opportunism, you can't totally blame the guy for being what he was hired to be.

I have to agree with this assessment except that IMO the biggest reason he was elected leader was he was seen as someone who could hold and consolidate the new Quebec base for the party. Apparently the Quebec voters in 2011 voted for a bunch of cummunity and labour activists and after watching them being silenced by a former Quebec Liberal for four years they made it a one election vote not a comittment to the grand principles of the NDP. Of course if the NDP had any principles it was willing to stand on the election would have been different. But instead on every divisive issue they said we need to study them before we can decide what to do.

quizzical wrote:

thought you said above you didn't pay attention to politics before this election pondering!

I didn't. All that got through were the headlines and the headlines gave Layton credit for bringing down the Liberal government before Kelowna and daycare were finalized. I didn't find out about any of the details until Sean insisted that Layton had nothing to do with the fall of the Liberals in 2005 because they didn't have enough votes to "save" them. Layton not Harper was all over the news. So I did research.

Sean was right about Layton not having enough votes to "save" the Liberals but wrong because that vote would never have been held without Layton's deal with Harper. He completely dismissed Layton's willingness to work with Harper to take down the government to the extent that Layton entered into an agreement with Duceppe and Harper to defeat the Liberals in a letter to the GG. Layton didn't have a hope in hell of winning an election in 2005 or 2006. All he wanted was more seats and if that meant making Harper Prime Minister so be it.

After Ignatieff's loss the Liberals were decimated. The executive had lost all credibility. The old guard was responsible for the Martin/Chretien war, deposing Dion in favor of Ignatieff, and finally making Rae interim leader with the agreement that he would not seek the leadership. During Rae's interim leadership the executive wanted to go back on the agreement. The press was waiting for Rae's decision on whether or not he would run. As soon as Trudeau agreed to run, Rae stood down.

There had been rumours that Trudeau might run but most pundits dismissed the idea saying he needed a few more years of seasoning but people inside the party had recognized Trudeau's potential probably in no small part to the people around him, like Dominic Leblanc and Scott Brison among others. When Rae stood down it was because he recognized the shift in power.

The Liberals were in 3rd place for the first time in history. That was a huge shock and they knew it would be a longshot for them to win in 2015. They weren't thinking in terms of who will win in 2015, they were thinking in terms of who could rebuild the party. So Trudeau won the leadership with a huge majority which put his team in charge of the direction of the party. Generational change gave the Liberals a chance to rebrand.

The NDP is facing a similar situation. The old executive needs to step back not just Mulcair. Power is shifting away from the boomers. It is not agism to acknowledge that generations tend to have different perspectives and expectations based on their collective experience of life.

Even after electing Trudeau the Liberal party stayed quiet. They focused on rebuilding the ridings and collecting volunteers, outreach, and a new data system. They designed a platform from scratch based on feedback. They developed a campaign strategy and stuck to it despite dropping poll numbers and predictions of doom.

Now the NDP is in 3rd and instead of focusing on a post mortem the old guard is putting on a bright face and bragging that this is their second best win. The NDP needs to go through a process of renewal more profound than the Liberals went through. Boomers have to step back. The Layton era is over.

MegB wrote:

Arthur Cramer wrote:

How did this thread become one about what a scumbag Jack Layton was and how perefect the Liberals are? Boy the Libs on this board hate taking about FACTS! Well Pondering, Terrytowel, Debater, Pookie, Cody87 et al, once the Libs start acting like Libs, don't expect us to be any nicer than you've been. Dance on graves and gloat all you want. You'd better hope that Junior, isn't just more of the same, or, I, for one, will enjoy, IMMENSELY, rubbing your faces in it! I'm just sayin'.

Hey, just don't start. We don't need another thread derailed by petty and vindictive behavior. If I see you attacking Liberal supporters again I will suspend you.

Further to which:

It's "pookie".  With a small "p".

Please and thank you.

 

Debater wrote:

jjuares wrote:

Many leftists I know voted for him because they thought he could hold our Quebec seats.

Exactly!

That's what I said above, too:

Mulcair won the 2012 NDP Leadership because NDPers thought he could WIN.

No Debater. You sre not being accurate here. This is what you said:
"He wasn't chosen for his ideological commitment to core NDP principles -- he was selected so that he could be the centrist NDP leader who would appeal to Liberals & Red Tories."
It wasn't about being centrist or left wing at all for many people. It was about him being from Quebec, speaking French and being popular there. One of my friends still calls himself a Marxist and he voted for Mulcair for the same reasons as I did and that was " despite" him being a centrist.

mark_alfred wrote:

<SNIP>Responding with "hey, the NDP are still way to the left of Libs, since the NDP are for raising corporate taxes, advocating national child care, national cap and trade, introducing anti-scab laws, etc," is useless with Liberals because they don't give a shit about ideas and policy (if they did, they'd never be loyal to a fickle shape-shifting entity like the Liberal Party).  They simply continue attacks to keep NDPers, who actually do care about ideas and policy, on the defensive.  And if that fails them then they respond with their trump card:  "Attacking the Liberal Party only helps the evil Conservatives."

Mark, examine your own motives perhaps, rather than assuming and slanging others.   (Thanks MegB for your intervention above.) 

Speaking for myself, I care deeply about policy.  We just disagree about how to get it done....  like the Senate nonsense all along,  both the Child Care and min. wage promises blew up on Mulcair when voters started "'reading the fine print" about mid-campaign.   Voters want this stuff ... but they don't like being fooled by un-deliverable promises.)

Lets focus on one of the most important issues you raised: Taxes.

The right has been demonizing taxes for at least 35 years.  Harper has trumpeted this with huge media backing in Canada.  He dramatically shifted the "overton window" in Canada on this issue .. more successfully perhaps than even the USA tea-party cause he did it incrementally and administratively and he started with a populace way left of the USA.  He has de-funded the gov't of Canada.

No one personally likes paying tax. (Does any one actually like buying insurance or ... going to the dentist?)  So it is up to leaders to set the dialogue to support taxes.  Taxes are the foundation of modern society.  They build physical and social infrastructure, transfer wealth efficiently and mitigate the negative effect of capital out-earning labour.   Tax rates and applications have always been a political football but there was a basic consensus before Reagan/Thatcher about a rising tide lifting all boats (including the wealthy).

So, yes the NDP tax proposal made more economic sense than the Liberal one in terms of raising $ to pay for stuff.  But Trudeau's team found a visceral way to escape Harper's paradigm.  He borrowed and built on Notley's launguage if not exact policy, by the way.  "let the 1% pay their share so the good middle class folks can pay less.." (note the use of the 'occupy language'.)   A small victory... we at least got  a tax increase along with the inevitible cut. 

I believe/hope Trudeau will continue copy Harper's low key approach to address this.  Perhaps a "Royal Commission" to reset the dialogue around our ridiculously low corporate taxes might be used.  This could give cover to raise the GST back to 7% as well.   It won't get done during an election campaign in the curent corp. media enviroment, Kim Campbell had that much right.

Northern PoV wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

<SNIP>Responding with "hey, the NDP are still way to the left of Libs, since the NDP are for raising corporate taxes, advocating national child care, national cap and trade, introducing anti-scab laws, etc," is useless with Liberals because they don't give a shit about ideas and policy (if they did, they'd never be loyal to a fickle shape-shifting entity like the Liberal Party).  They simply continue attacks to keep NDPers, who actually do care about ideas and policy, on the defensive.  And if that fails them then they respond with their trump card:  "Attacking the Liberal Party only helps the evil Conservatives."

Mark, examine your own motives perhaps, rather than assuming and slanging others.   (Thanks MegB for your intervention above.) 

the bolded part above is a pretty slimey action. megb was not supporting anything about your being attacked nor was she chastizing mark-alfred for atttacking anyone. this is cheap shit politics propaganda of trying to silence bs imv.

 

 

as you well know pondering it was WHERE he expressed it.

MegB was cautioning someone else.  I wasn't slanging anyone.  I was disagreeing with Sean's feeling and posting my own general impression (identified as such), in relation to the thread topic.

Northern PoV wrote:

So, yes the NDP tax proposal made more economic sense than the Liberal one in terms of raising $ to pay for stuff.  But Trudeau's team found a visceral way to escape Harper's paradigm.  He borrowed and built on Notley's launguage if not exact policy, by the way.  "let the 1% pay their share so the good middle class folks can pay less.." (note the use of the 'occupy language'.)   A small victory... we at least got  a tax increase along with the inevitible cut. 

I believe/hope Trudeau will continue copy Harper's low key approach to address this.  Perhaps a "Royal Commission" to reset the dialogue around our ridiculously low corporate taxes might be used.  This could give cover to raise the GST back to 7% as well.   It won't get done during an election campaign in the curent corp. media enviroment, Kim Campbell had that much right.

Perhaps you're correct about it (the tax hike to fund a tax cut) doing something to shift the paradigm.  But we in Ontario have been down this road before. 

I recall when McGuinty first got in that he imposed a health premium, which I felt was something that would help support the idea of taxes for services, even though the "premium" wasn't properly progressive (proportionally poorer paid more than wealthier).  It really didn't support the paradigm, though, even though it did help finance health care. 

Later Wynne, being pressured by Horwath, imposed a surtax on the wealthy.  Good thing, which I feel did help open the door to that idea.  Her campaign later also had the creation of a new upper middle-class tax bracket to bring in some extra finances, accompanied by a vague promise of good things to happen.  They opposed raising taxes on corporations, though.  Anyway, now they're privatizing Hydro One.  In fairness, full day kindergarten was something.  Still, coulda been more, I feel.  Privatizing Hydro One will further limit government capacity. I expect they're going to be cutting more public service workers in the future.  Previously they had imposed contracts on teachers with very harsh bargaining.

These small little tax tinkerings, accompanied by vague promises of good times, while refusing to hit big business, and refusing to consider any concrete fix-cost services (opting instead for tax cuts or enhanced credits or whatever), and then following it up with divestment of assets or cuts to public services, I don't think is a wise road to choose.  It's what I suspect we're going to get from the federal Liberals.  We could have had so much more.

mark_alfred wrote:

<SNIP>  Anyway, now they're privatizing Hydro One. 

Yes, Wynne gets the 'stupid award' for this move. ...  Gov't should not sell assests to balance the budgets short term. (& enrich their friends) 

Ontario CONs selling th 407.... dumb.  (you'll get it back eventually ...99 yrs?)

Fed. CONs selling off all kinds of gov't real-estate (at home and abroad) ...dumber.  (a mostly unreported scandal of the Harper yrs)

Ontario Libs selling a historic, incredibly successful, precedent setting, socialist, heritage enterprise.... words fail 

edit: I meant that Ont. Hydro used to be successful before that scoundrel Maurice-whatever-his-name-was-Strong and his crew wrecked it.

JKR wrote:

Debater wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

Anyway, Trudeau and his government may be fine, though the people he surrounds himself with give me shudders, like Morneau and Freeland (heck, for a while he was trumpeting Eve Adams).

Justin Trudeau is already turning out to be the most progressive Prime Minister we have had in Canada in many years.

He's already standing up to the right-wing pro-war propaganda from the Conservatives & the Canadian media.

Most leaders wouldn't have the guts to do that.

I think it is great that the Liberal government is preparing to accept 25,000 refugees from Syria.

I'm very happy about that too, but Mark does have a point about Trudeau's economic team. There is a definite tension between economic conservatism and progressive policy. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Sean in Ottawa in both Paul Wells Book (The Longer I'm Prime Minister) and John Ibbitson's book (Stephen Harper) Harper & Layton worked together (agreeing to how each would act in their dealings with Martin) AHEAD of that budget to bring down the Martin Government. It was in their both best interests to get rid of the Liberals.

Once Harper had his minority, he was able to govern like he had a majority because Harper was able to work with Layton. For instance the retrofit tax credit was a concession to Layton to get his budget through. After Harper came into power with his minority, he never dealt with the Liberals. Just with Layton's NDP to get his budgets through.

This is not me saying this. But Paul Wells & John Ibbitson in both their books. I suggest you read them.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

terrytowel wrote:

Sean in Ottawa in both Paul Wells Book (The Longer I'm Prime Minister) and John Ibbitson's book (Stephen Harper) Harper & Layton worked together (agreeing to how each would act in their dealings with Martin) AHEAD of that budget to bring down the Martin Government. It was in their both best interests to get rid of the Liberals.

Once Harper had his minority, he was able to govern like he had a majority because Harper was able to work with Layton. For instance the retrofit tax credit was a concession to Layton to get his budget through. After Harper came into power with his minority, he never dealt with the Liberals. Just with Layton's NDP to get his budgets through.

This is not me saying this. But Paul Wells & John Ibbitson in both their books. I suggest you read them.

Please site the relevant passages.

Seems like a misreading or BS to me.

Especially odd since it is Liberals who supported Harper's budgets not the NDP.

 

Also when you say ahead of the budget -- do you mean the Feb 2005 budget? That was Martin's last budget.

Initially the Conservatives suprised people saying they woudl support it and the NDP was against.

Later the budget was amended to please the NDP and so the NDP voted for and the CPC against.

Where was the cooperation -- exactly?