Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

[Bob Gillanders]

Bill C38 - break it up!

Vlad, your attacks on Elizabeth May are pathetic. They are also off topic. The problem with the budget bill (C38) is that it contains way too much stuff unrelated to the budget. How are politicians supposed to properly debate and vet legislation when too much is thrown at them all at once. If the measures are good, why hide them away. Let the sunshine in.

Here are a few of the items contained in C38:

Overhaul of environmental laws – C38 is repealing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and replacing it with the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012.

Changes to EI laws - C-38 removes definitions of "suitable work" from the Employment Insurance Act and gives the federal cabinet the power to create new regulations about what constitutes suitable work and reasonable efforts to find work. The budget bill gives no details about what the new criteria will be.

The Auditor General will no longer be required to audit several agencies. The agencies will instead report directly to the minister.

C-38 will amend income tax act rules concerning political activities of charities.

Among the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is a move to wipe out a backlog of 280,000 applications under the Federal Skilled Worker Program. Applications made before 2008 would be deleted and the application fee refunded.

Legislation currently protects fish habitats that are defined as "spawning grounds and nursery, rearing, food supply and migration areas on which fish depend directly or indirectly in order to carry out their life processes." Bill C-38 would instead protect fish based on their use: bodies of water that support commercial, recreational and aboriginal fisheries or fish that support such fisheries. It rewrites the Fisheries Act's rules against work that can cause the destruction of a fish habitat. The bill also would allow the federal government to transfer Fisheries Act responsibilities to a province with equivalent laws.

The budget bill creates a new law to implement the Framework Agreement on Integrated Cross-Border Law Enforcement Operations that was signed between Canada and the United States in 2009. It applies to joint operations between authorities in both countries on the seas.

The budget bill scraps the office of the inspector general at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The office is meant to be the public safety minister's eyes and ears overseeing CSIS. It also makes other changes on how CSIS reports to the minister.

Bill C-38 shuts down several government-funded groups and agencies, including the National Council of Welfare, the Public Appointments Commission, Rights and Democracy, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal and Assisted Human Reproduction Canada.

The age of eligibility for OAS will rise gradually to 67 from 65 starting in 2023. C-38 lays out a complicated chart showing how that change will be phased in.

Whether you agree or not with these measures is not the issue. C38 needs to be split up into several pieces and debated properly. Those that can stand up to debate and public scrutiny will be passed.

ps. No I haven't read all 420 pages. I pulled most of these comments from another website. I wanted to give you all the link, but then I lost it. :(

[Paul Beckwith]

Re: Elizabeth May - opposition leader for this week!

Elizabeth May has more sense and intelligence than the entire Harper government.

[Ken Craft]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Intersting article by Brad Lavigne on the Orange Crush.
http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/jun12/lavigne.pdf

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Elizabeth May - opposition leader for this week!

It would seem Elizabeth May is the true leader of the opposition. Well, at least for this week anyway. May will be leading the opposition forces into the filibuster this week to convince Harper to breakup the omnibus budget bill. :D

A lot of unrelated stuff has been crammed into the budget bill, including gutting various environmental laws, and much much more. We should not be jeopardizing the future. Majority or not, bills need to be properly vetted by parliament. It's called democracy.

Elizabeth May is a joke striving for significance in a world that doesn't care for her brand of paganism anymore. The only pockets of support are the people who hope to benefit by the new order and they have been thwarted for the time being. The problem with predicting imminent catastrophe is that people get inured to it especially when the predictions don't pan out.

We'll see how the filibuster works out.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Voters will get to see three more years of a lot of things, Vlad. Mr. Mulcair is counting on it.

If your long term strategy is to wait for your opponents to blunder in a catastrophic manner, you might need more than three years. The Liberals will make a resurgence next time and most of that will be at the expense of the NDP.

[Bob Gillanders]

Elizabeth May - opposition leader for this week!

It would seem Elizabeth May is the true leader of the opposition. Well, at least for this week anyway. May will be leading the opposition forces into the filibuster this week to convince Harper to breakup the omnibus budget bill. :D

A lot of unrelated stuff has been crammed into the budget bill, including gutting various environmental laws, and much much more. We should not be jeopardizing the future. Majority or not, bills need to be properly vetted by parliament. It's called democracy.

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

I did not vote for Mulcair in the leadership race - I had some severe reservations.

But I decided I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, though, and throw my support behind him once elected, and that seems to have been a good decision.

He has performed well above my expectations to date, and my fears have not come to the fore.

I think we will see this neck and neck polling for the next three years, regardless of the new Liberal leader. People will get used to the idea, that Canada COULD have a democratic socialist government - and the European situation is not relevant to what is going to be a " made-in-Canada " democratic socialism.

Bob

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Voters will get to see three more years of a lot of things, Vlad. Mr. Mulcair is counting on it.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

The cynic in me supposes that Craig Oliver (who can hardly be accused of political impartiality from what I have seen of his work) encouraging Mulcair in his suicidal mission is that it is all part of a poorly hidden agenda to ensure the self-destruction of the NDP so that his former pal's son Justin Trudeau may emerge victorious as a future leader of the Liberal party. I don't see how this NDP veering off into divisiveness can be construed as any kind of a middle ground.

Attacking Alberta is like attacking the lottery. Objectively the numbers suggest that you can get away with it but in reality you will be punished because more people believe that they will somehow defy the odds and benefit from a winning ticket. Many see Alberta as that get out of jail free card in Canada's version of monopoly. In reality the whole west is like that. It is sucking the young people out of Windsor chasing the dream of a better life. Mess with that at your own peril.

Almost immediately the oil industry launched a fairly effective ad campaign that reframed the oil patch and its impact on the Canadian economy as a resource for all Canadians. Western premiers attacked Mulcair since they know that they are next in line. You can't attack Alberta without attacking Saskatchewan and Manitoba at least along the lines of the National Energy Program Act Two. British Columbia has thrown its lot in with the rest of the west. The NDP does stand to lose some seats in this scenario.

I think Gary is right. In three years when the thought of elections is back in the air in Canada we will have some good examples of cautionary tales courtesy of the socialist thinkers in charge in Europe.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Thanks for the chuckle about the family compact.

For the NDP to win so many ridings in Quebec next time, the Bloc is effectively finished. I don't think that. Some of the incumbent MP's will have a difficult time holding their riding in my own estimation.

Who wins the Liberal leadership will be important.

The politics of division and envy play well for awhile. But I have to wonder if Mulcair is the person to keep Canada united.

A pipeline is currently a big issue. What do you personally think would happen if all the pipes in Canada were shut down? The gas pipelines, the oil pipeline, the water pipelines and the sewage pipelines? The proposed pipeline is basically nothing in comparison to the pipelines already in existence. Educated people understand that.

Let's look at the wealth tax in Ontario which the Liberal government has in their budget with the NDP urging. Ontario lost 18,700 jobs last month.

The socialist paradise is wonderful. Nobody works because the wealthy bosses take the jobs and move them elsewhere.

[Jonathan Berry]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Mulcair appears to be the wrong person for the job of replacing Layton. He is neither a good tactician nor a clever strategist. He doesn't have Jack Layton's likeability quotient. Subtract at least five points in an election campaign.

CTV's go-to political commentator Craig Oliver likes what Mr. Mulcair has done so far, leadership-wise. Is it that at least one of [Craig, Vlad] is wrong, or are they talking about different things?

Putting aside the possibility that politicians might take a stand on principle, and thinking only of strategy and tactics, Mr. Mulcair's oil sands gambit seems aimed at capturing voter share in (Nova Scotia and) Ontario, where NDP is strong, versus losing it in Alberta, where there is scant hope of NDP seats anyway. Pundits spoke about "the West" because NDP has seats in BC. I don't think that BC voters will care either way, except on principle (or to put it another way, both Alberta and Ontario are "back east" to us).

Mr. Mulcair could have saved this gambit for the heat of the election campaign, but he chose to do it immediately upon acceding to the NDP leadership. I can see at least two good reasons for this tactical move. First, the Liberals are in disarray (even moreso now in Quebec and BC, provincially) so what better time to stake out the middle ground? Second, as Gary pointed out, Upper Canadians don't like the idea of anybody other than the Family-Compact-approved Grits or Tories ruling the country. By making a big move early, the NDP are getting the Ontario voters used to the idea. Like the frog in the saucepan, if you like.

It's difficult to know what's a good move or a bad move in politics, though you can check in for partial results at the next election. Polls are less informative than Fritz. But at the very least, I'd have to say that Mulcair was thinking before he acted.

Or maybe Mr. Mulcair should shave before Mr. Harper makes beards illegal. "You can stand with Schick, or with the pinko child pornographers." Now that would be a tactical move.

[Aman Hambleton]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Mulcair is neither a good tactician nor a clever strategist.

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

He's perfect for the job if you want him to lose the election so that you can win your bet. :)

It's not about the money. :) It's about political ideology. If the majority of the voters are willing to embrace a political party such as the NDP at that point in time.

Over the next few years as the Eurozone churns with their financial problems the voters will most likely see the results of the free spending policies of some of the governments involved. Some nations may well leave and we'll see what their new currency will be worth. Then the Canadian voters can decide if they want NDP policies.

Anyhow, there's a long time to go and we don't know who the Liberal party leader will be.

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

I think he's perfect for the job.

Sometimes when wagering on a horse race I bet the jockey. :)

He's perfect for the job if you want him to lose the election so that you can win your bet. :)

[Gary Ruben]

Re: Canada - Next Federal Gov't?

Mulcair appears to be the wrong person for the job of replacing Layton.

I think he's perfect for the job.

Sometimes when wagering on a horse race I bet the jockey. :)