Uh, I became a new member just prior to the election of Todd Doherty, and have received my membership card, but this is the first I’ve heard of a meeting. I wonder how they were advertising this?

Hopefully they spend a little time discussing the tidal wave of debt that is engulfing this country.

Over the last several decades the Canadian people, their elected politicians and Bank of Canada governors have teamed up to create quite the economy, standard of living, and way of life in this country.

At the end of Dec, 2014 the total household, government (all levels) and business debt in Canada (bottom line of the credit market summary data table – total debt outstanding) was $5.75 trillion. In the calendar year 2014 the total debt outstanding in Canada increased by $243 billion. In 2013 it increased by $287 billion. In 2012 it increased by $272 billion. (The start date of the data table can be changed by clicking on the “add/remove data” tab at the top of the page.)

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/pick-choisir?lang=eng&p2=33&id=3780122

To put these numbers into perspective, in the fiscal year 2015-2016 the federal government is expecting to spend $263.2 billion on program expenses. (Table 5.2.4 in the following link:)

http://www.budget.gc.ca/2015/docs/plan/ch5-2-eng.html

The approximate beginning of the global financial crisis was June, 2007. At the end of June, 2007 the total debt outstanding in Canada was $3.74 trillion. In the 7 1/2 years which has gone by since the start of the global financial crisis the total debt outstanding in Canada has increased from $3.74 trillion to $5.75 trillion. This is an increase of 53%.

Take a breath Charles We just gave Iraq 136 million Were awash in cash

Conserve what? The only thing I’ve ever seen a conservative conserve is their seat , their revolving door in and out of business . Everything else is for the chop .

Oh, so that smell isn’t the pulp mills or the refinery.

Well, I hope the EDA is restored to a fair and equal representation of the entire riding and certainly not the clown show that went on last AGM w/ Green and her people. Best option for success is to remove Stolz from the board.

Charles… It’s just the results of the governments economic action plan. Sponsoring jobs and trying to keep everybody out of bankruptcy has just been accumulating debt in the background.

The only way that Harper can dig his way back out is to sell off ALL our resources. Too bad our air wasn’t a profitable resource, otherwise it would be for sale too.

Iraq will spend the $ 136 million right here in Canada. To buy Canadian made goods or Canadian provided services for export to Iraq. This will add to, or sustain existing, Canadian ‘jobs’ ~ having one of which, as we all know, is the be-all and end-all of every Canadian’s existence ~ he or she’s primary purpose in life. I wonder if there ever will come a time when we begin to realise a very simple fact. That the only sane purpose of ‘production’ is ‘consumption’. Not creating a bloody ‘job’. You all talk about debt, which in reality is simply a financial tool. The big problem isn’t the debt itself, but the other very simple fact that if we can’t fully ‘financially’ pay for what we ‘produce’ from all the incomes distributed in the course of producing it, in EACH and EVERY ongoing cycle of production/consumption, then how can we EVER pay for it? We can give Iraq or any other country virtually unlimited credit (because they can never pay us back, even if it was called a loan instead of a grant), but we can’t change the bookkeeping to augment consumer incomes so that they collectively match the flow of prices they’re expected to be able to fully liquidate. But can’t.

cdz, I think it’s the NDP that likes something called ‘Cap and Trade’. If that isn’t “selling off our air”, I don’t know what is.

No way cred . Cap and trade is making polluters pay for using the worlds airshed as an open sewer . And it’s a pittance for poisoning us all .

Yeah right cred . Give Iraq $136 , while bridges in Ontario and Quebec are raining hunks of concrete .

‘Polluters’ have to GET the money ‘they’ pay from somewhere, Ataloss. So just WHO do you think is REALLY doing the paying? Ultimately it’s the consuming public that buys their products, no? Only after ‘cap and trade’ at a higher price, no? Or they go out of business. And with them go your cherished ‘jobs’.

They don’t use Canadian dollars in Iraq, Ataloss. Our dollars don’t buy anything THERE. They’re only effective demand for CANADIAN goods and services. And to get those they have to be spent HERE. Anyone can argue they might be better spent on fixing bridges in Ontario and Quebec, or similar infrastructure in other Provinces, and hear hardly any objection. But when we do that it also means the monetary ‘figures’ have to REFLECT the ‘facts’ that physically we could do this. Not financially mis-represent the ‘facts’, as is currently the norm, that we can’t.