Congrats Trent…
Certainly good you don’t have excess baggage like the others

All it takes is for the five other camps to hold their collective noses , vote stratigicly and Stevie is over . Let’s hope leadnow.ca gets enough donations to do a survey in pg .

Yes Yes Yes. Voting NDP this time. First time ever in 50 years.
Congrats Trent . Finally a good clean cut forward thinking young
man .And yes, NO baggage.

Ataloss. Take a look at the numbers from the 2011 Federal Election.

Conservatives (Harris) 24,443
Liberal Sangeeta Lalli 2,200
NDP Jon Van Bareveld 13,135
Independent Jon Ronan 394

Total Votes for all parties that ran a candidate, excluding the Conservatives. 19,075

So the Conservatives got more votes than all the other parties combined, and beat them by a total of 5,368 votes. They beat their nearest rival the NDP by a total of 11,308 votes.

So you can see that there is a uphill battle to take this riding away from the Conservatives.

Have a nice day.

Mulcair keeps preaching affordable living. I would like to know exactly how he is going to help the middle class? If his platform is to steal from the rich and give to the poor I guess the middle class will become poor when the rich stop employing them.

It is nice to see that the NDP has finally nominated someone, all the other parties are well ahead. Now the ballots can start being printed.

Palopu… it may seem like a uphill battle to you, but Harper keeps shooting his foot and making it easier for voters to vote for other parties now

Stillsmokin, any idea why the mainstream media doesn’t seem to want to mention any of the NDP or Liberals gaffes?

The NDP has been ordered to repay, what, 2.7 million if misappropriated funds?

The NDP wants to bring in a national day care program, modeled after Quebec’s, even though Quebec’s has gone something in the order of 700% over-budget?

The NDP wants to bring in a $15.00 minimum wage. After all, Seattle did it! But they don’t mention that according to a report released Sunday by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the $15 minimum wage has caused Seattle restaurants to lose 1,000 jobs — the worst decline since the 2009 Great Recession.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/10/report-seattle-restaurants-suffer-worse-job-loss-since-the-great-recession/#ixzz3jnpGBaKi
Seattle

A Veteran’s advocacy group has been criticizing the Harper Government, but the media rufuses to mention that the group is run by Liberals!

And so on and so on and so on….

“There are several issues that should be up for debate. How about tackling the moral hazard at the heart of the boom? After all, the protection from losses that CMHC provides to Canada’s banks inherently reduces their need to be cautious about how much, and to whom, they lend.”

Why Canada’s political leaders won’t talk about the housing bubble

Despite a slew of warning signs about the health of Canada’s housing market, none of the party leaders want to rock the boat

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/why-canadas-political-leaders-wont-talk-about-the-housing-bubble/

Household credit numbers from the Bank of Canada (to the end of June, 2015)

http://credit.bankofcanada.ca/householdcredit

(I would think the numbers to the end of July, 2015 should be out within a few days)

The number one concern for Canadians is the economy, the NDP knows nothing about the economy, they brought BC down to a have not province, they wrecked Ontario, they are destroying Alberta’s economy, what do you think they would do if they lead this country? Yikes! One could only imagine. :(

It appears the facts are getting in the way of that fabricated story the righties keep clinging to, Cheetos! Conservatives have lost edge they had on the economy, polls suggest.

Oh crap, That is a compliment. because I am a Todd supporter.

I see the NDP supporters neglect to see what their party has done to this country in previous elections.

superdave:-“Mulcair keeps preaching affordable living. I would like to know exactly how he is going to help the middle class? If his platform is to steal from the rich and give to the poor I guess the middle class will become poor when the rich stop employing them. ”

————————————————————————

That’s what happens. If you tax away the money of the few who could afford a luxury yacht, or a private jet, or even a new Cadillac, etc., all that happens is these things are not made. And those who made them are unemployed. This certainly doesn’t advance anyone’s ability towards getting an affordable living. Unless the material standard of living, for all, falls. But when that happens there’s still more unemployed, and the taxes on those still working increase to keep them. Eventually you get to the point where you are not able to have a free choice in attaining the material goods you need and desire. Instead, an all-powerful bureaucracy totally decides what will be made, and how much you’ll be allowed to have of it.

PG101:
Have you looked at what the Conservatives have done?

Right from Diefenbaker scrapping the Avro Arrow after we spent $400 million 1958-59 dollars,( and our aerospace industry people left to help create NASA) to the mess left by Mulroney (a national debt approaching $40 billion) they have a poor record.
After the Liberals turned around the Mulroney mess, for the the next 10 years they had a surplus of $13 billion per year. Harper took power and in little over a decade ran up a $158 billion deficit.

From the Schreiber/Mulroney ouster of Joe Clark to the Duffy affair. I don’t trust the Conservatives. To me they are a party of deceit and deficit.

Check out Ralph Goodale’s article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ralph-goodale/mr-harpers-economic-recor_b_8020980.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-politics

PG101: “I see the NDP supporters neglect to see what their party has done to this country in previous elections.”

It’s an election; how can any party do anything to the country in an election?

Voting results were not released by the party.

——–

Doesn’t sound very open to me. I’d like to know how badly Munoz lost out…

No Axman your confusing them with the conservatives they are the ones that cheat in elections. They’ve even been sent to jail over it.

I love that the Conservatives have the reputation of being best for the economy, yet the numbers clearly show they have a much weaker performance in our history compared to the Liberals.

Also – I love the talks about what the NDP have done to Alberta. The NDP have only recently taken government while their main commodity is not performing well. What do people want from them? Economic policy isn’t like flipping a switch. It will take time before the public notices changes caused by the NDP

Congrats to Trent!

Posted on Tuesday, August 25, 2015 @ 8:42 AM by Dave with a score of 3

No Axman your confusing them with the conservatives they are the ones that cheat in elections. They’ve even been sent to jail over it.

—–

Huh? I just want to know how badly Munoz lost. Not really following how that causes any confusion with another party and/or cheating?

Fair enough Axman. I’m sorry for taking it that way.

Karrman. Pretty bad when you have to go back 55 years and slag Diefenbaker and the Avro Arrow. I doubt you know much about that issue.

Furthermore. You seem to overlook the fact that it was the Conservative voters, that gave Mulroney a huge majority Government and it was the Conservative voters who kicked his butt out of Government and reduced them to 2 seats in the House of Commons when he screwed up.

Conservatives have the ability to change their vote and get rid of those who seriously screw up. You can rest assured that if those who vote Conservative thought that Harper and the Conservatives had screwed up, they would do something about it.

The only people who are slagging the Conservatives at this time are the Liberals and NDP voters, so whats new?? Actually who cares what they think. Their next original thought will be their first.

Mulcair is a closet Liberal/Conservative running under the NDP banner. He should be running under the **Opportunist Banner**.

Trudeau is a faded image of his father.

So there you have it. Stick with the winners in this election and you will be much better off.

History revisionist Palopu . The conservative voters ousted Mulroney ? What colour is the sky in your world Palopu ? On second thought don’t tell me , I love the mystery .

“Mulroney (a national debt approaching $40 billion)”

“Harper took power and in little over a decade ran up a $158 billion deficit.”

You mean he added 158 billion dollars to the national debt. Debt and deficit are two different things.

I remember Mulroney posting a deficit (budget overruns) of about 40 million and I think the biggest annual budget deficit was Joe Who’s 60 billion! When asked about that he said (famously?) that he actually had a balanced budget and that adding 60 billion to the debt was the right thing to do! Some things do not add up.

Harper actually did away with all the progress Martin and Chretien had made of reducing the national debt. Annual interest payments have to be made on the national debt, so reducing it is not a bad idea.

Your turn, socredible.

Ataloss. I will make it simple for you. Mulroney had the biggest majority in the History of Canadian politics. ie; 211 Seats. In the 1993 election this was reduced to 2 seats. So we can conclude that the Conservatives lost their base. Why?? Because Conservative voters kicked them the hell out of office that’s why.

The same situation doesn’t exist to-day;. The Conservative base is more than happy with Harper and the Conservatives.

Don’t forget that most NDP’ers vote NDP because their Grandfather did, and their Father did, and so on and so on. They rarely change their vote. Conservatives on the other hand vote intelligently and are prepared to change their vote if the situation warrants.

If on the other hand you want to waste your vote, then you could vote Liberal or the Greens.

Have a nice day.

Palopu you are delusional. The cons are the only voters in your world , right ?

What is a Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Green voter?

How can Conservative voters kick a Conservative party out? The voters obviously were undecided voters. That is the big question in this election. Not how many are traditional single party voters for life or a significant length of time such as registered Republicans, Democrats and Independents in the USA for example, but how many are “undecided” or “independents”.

The Conservative Party of today is the most disjointed Federal Party of the modern Canadian political period. They go back to Progressive Conservatives, Reform and Canadian Alliance.

So far, the Conservatives have had only one leader. There is no long term history there and with that comes, in my opinion, and no long term commitment by its followers.

This election is going to be an interesting one on a national scale, and possibly in PG Cariboo as well. I believe there is nothing “in the bag” this early in the game.

Yes, Prince George, reducing the National Debt WOULD not be a bad idea. BUT only if it doesn’t INCREASE other governmental, business and consumer debts. All of which will bear interest at a higher rate than the federal government pays on the National Debt. The thing that you don’t seem to understand is that a National Debt is a ‘distributing agent’. It is how needed new financial credit currently enters the economy. I don’t believe it SHOULD be the way this happens; I think there should be a change in the way the government accounts are organised, so that the National Debt would only be what most people think it is. But NONE of the Parties have called for that to happen. My guess is that the Conservatives eventually will. The Liberals and NDP? Never.

I’ve had debates with card-carrying conservatives. Unlike Palopu I’ve found that they are the most intransigent, and least likely to realize the error in their ways. To quote one, “I can’t tell you why, but you’re wrong.”

Socredible is another example of being partially blind- chatting as though trickledown and free trade hasn’t failed miserably, and that profitable businesses haven’t stuck hundreds of billions in offshore tax havens (in Canada) via the double irish arrangement (google it – I’m not making this up), rather than invest it in the lowest taxation regime in decades. Harper laid off 6500 Revenue Canada auditors. Tell me that doesn’t stink?

If we lived in a world where there were only 100 people, and 5 of those people had 95% of the food/goods, etc. we’d soon have either 5 fewer people or massive wealth redistribution. That is the current state of affairs, like it or not. Even Warren Buffet thinks that the game is rigged (google the buffet rule).

The reality is that what we’ve been doing for the last couple of decades hasn’t worked either here or in the States. Our economy is currently But you have to have your eyes open to see that. Mayhaps the NDP isn’t the solution. But it seems that the conservatives and the liberals have sufficiently screwed up that we need to try something else.

We ranked 7th in GDP in 1970, when corporate taxation was at 50%. We are now ranked 15 with the corporate tax rate at 15% and corporate investment is at an all time low. Tell me again how a rising tide floats all boats? Reaganomics has failed miserably, as has free trade. Both have allowed the upper class to bully their way into concessions from the masses.

Time to change.

SocredibleL:” It (the distributing agent called the National Debt) is how needed new financial credit currently enters the economy.”

Well, that is only partially correct. New financial credit currency enters the economy all the time via the banks creating it out of thin air (think mortgages, for instance). That is not part of the National Debt, neither is consumer debt and credit card debt.

Joe Who simply did not pay the interest due on the National Debt and just added the billions to the debt. The debt story can be discussed in ivory tower and bankers lingo, but realistically it boils down to how it affects the ordinary taxpaying working stiff! We hear the claim every day that the corporations do not pay their fair share of the taxes, and it is probably true. Ipso ergo the ordinary taxpayer ends up paying an unfair share! So, at the end of the day an amount of debt is added to the National Debt and this includes an unfair liability borne by the ordinary taxpayer. So this goes on and one. More unfair taxes need to be extracted from the taxpayers since the corporations rather move their business elsewhere rather than pay taxes deemed to be more fair.

Consequently, the lower the National Debt, the lower the unfair interest payment demand on the ordinary taxpayer!

The NDP has been ordered to repay, what, 2.7 million if misappropriated funds?
—–
Found to be at fault by a conservative dominated committee, not an unbiased investigation…If it were actually against the rules, don’t you think the Cons would call in the RCMP to investigate over $2.7M? I sure hope they would. But they haven’t and wont because they know it wouldn’t survive an unbiased investigation.

“If we lived in a world where there were only 100 people, and 5 of those people had 95% of the food/goods, etc. we’d soon have either 5 fewer people or massive wealth redistribution.” I like this analogy, but in fact, this has happened throughout history. Just go back a couple of centuries to feudal England where the Lord lived in the manor and his serfs happily worked away to provide for his needs. A 95 to 5 ratio if there ever was one, and yet, they did not rebel. In many cases they saw the well being of themselves, directly tied to their Lord. The 5% have just replaced the feudal system to a system of wealth based on initiative vs entitlement by birth.

Here’s another analogy. If the world was a leaking life boat of 100 people that needed 50 people bailing to keep it afloat, how long would it float when 5 people claimed they were in the boat first – so they don’t have to bail, 20 people claimed they were too old to bail, 10 people claimed they had strained their wrists bailing, and should be allowed not to bail for awhile, another 10 claimed they couldn’t bail because it offended their beliefs, and 5 refused to bail because they owned the boat. Only one more person has to come up with a reason – and the boat sinks.

It seems to me, that socialism often caters to those who shun personal responsibility, and conservatism caters to those who like to live in denial. But end of the day, one boat, one people, either we work together or?

If you tax away the money of the few who could afford a luxury yacht, or a private jet, or even a new Cadillac, etc., all that happens is these things are not made. And those who made them are unemployed

===================================

Is this a proven theory, like say from a period of time when we had high taxes and the production of things stopped? How did people get to work? How did they clothe themselves? What did they eat? Did they buy watches? What about golf clubs? Jewellery? Gasoline? Boats? Everything else that people consume in a modern society?

1984 Election. Cons. 6,278,818, Lib. 3,516,486, NDP 2,359,915
Turnout 75.3%

1988 Election. Cons. 5,667,543, Lib. 4,205,072, NDP 2,685,263

1993 Election. Libs. 5,647,952, Bloc. 1,846,024, Reform 2,559,245, Cons. 2,559,245, NDP 939,575.
Turnout 70.9%.

So its pretty obvious that the Conservative vote went to the Reform in 1993, some 2 1/2 Million votes, which basically sank the Conservative party of Brian Mulroney. The NDP votes went to the Bloc, the others went to the Liberals, and 5% stayed home. A number of those would have been Conservatives.

So much for thinking that the Conservative voters did not change the Government. They certainly did.

This time around there is no problem from the Conservatives with Prime Minister Harper, or the Conservative Government.

If I was the NDP I would be reviewing how the Bloc took all their votes in Quebec in 1993, as they are poised to do the same this year.

Have a nice day Ataloss.

@NMG and Socredible.

The idea was that taxes on the rich lower consumption, as the rich had a higher propensity to save and lower taxes were to encourage them to spend – or to quote Damien O’Connor (british mp) ‘the rich pissing on the poor’.

Reaganomics has been disproven as the middle class spends a much higher percentage of their disposable income on goods and services, while the rich put it in the bank or invest offshore.

In a nutshell, if an economy had 5 000 000 and had the choice to give it to 95 people they would each get 52 000 or thereabouts. They would spend ~ 20 000 of that on goods and services. For a net spend of 1.9 million to the local economy. Contrast that with giving the 5 mill to 5 people. They would have a million each, and while they might spend 100,000 locally, most likely they would not spend the needed 380,000 each to equal the first option. They just stick it in the bank, or invest offshore or even spend it offshore – maybe get a place in Mexico….

There is a good argument to be made that our current policies are what killed our manufacturing sector. We don’t have a part made by Bob next door to buy anymore, and thanks to regressive polices we don’t have the money to buy what he made anyhow. The rich only needed to buy one, even if they wanted to, and probably bought the one imported from Germany anyhow, while the other 95 % can no longer afford the widget.

Perhaps that is why we are still hewers of wood and drawers as we have enough resources that the rich are not compelled enough by circumstance to invest in manufacturing, and the rich like those imports anyhow.

apoliticalgeek:-“Socredible is another example of being partially blind- chatting as though trickledown and free trade hasn’t failed miserably, and that profitable businesses haven’t stuck hundreds of billions in offshore tax havens (in Canada) via the double irish arrangement (google it – I’m not making this up), rather than invest it in the lowest taxation regime in decades. Harper laid off 6500 Revenue Canada auditors. Tell me that doesn’t stink? ”
————————————————————————-

What really stinks was the Bronfman family moving a trust fund out of Canada to one of those tax havens, AFTER seeking an advance ruling from the CRA on whether such a move would be taxable or not, and being told by the tax experts there that it would be, and then going to Paul Martin, who was LIBERAL Minister of Finance at the time, and getting him to overturn that advance ruling.

Socredible:-“If you tax away the money of the few who could afford a luxury yacht, or a private jet, or even a new Cadillac, etc., all that happens is these things are not made. And those who made them are unemployed.”

===================================

NMG replied:-“Is this a proven theory, like say from a period of time when we had high taxes and the production of things stopped? How did people get to work? How did they clothe themselves? What did they eat? Did they buy watches? What about golf clubs? Jewellery? Gasoline? Boats? Everything else that people consume in a modern society?”
———————————————————————–
Yes, NMG, it’s not only a proven theory, but an actual fact. It happened in Britain, and it was the outcome of the desire of the ‘left’ there to soak the rich. They quickly found an Income Tax just wouldn’t cut it. Those who are already wealthy don’t really need a high income. So they imposed a ‘capital tax’ instead. It was similar in nature to the way Property Tax works, only instead of being levied only on land and improvements it was charged on an arbitrary assessment of one’s wealth. It had the effect of wrecking British industry. No one invested in plant improvements they might otherwise have normally made, because such improvements were subject to this kind of arbitrary assessment and taxes charged forevermore on them. So the captains of British industry just let all their plant become outmoded and worn out. And gradually the once great ‘workshop of the world’ descended into a debt ridden basket case, saved only by North Sea oil.

Palopu > If you were to drop the term “Conservative vote” and replace it with “right-of-center vote”, your position might begin to make more sense.

I do not think that the instigators of the change in government in 1993 were the right-of-center voters as much as the right-of-center party members. There is a distinction between voters and party members. Furthermore, there is a distinction between party members and party operatives.

The instigators of the change came from the Western right-of-center party operatives who were discontent with the Mulroney Progressive Conservative party operatives. We have to remember that Mulroney might have been of Irish descent, but he was a Quebecois nevertheless.

A new party was formed which fielded only 207 candidates compared to the CPC full contingent of 295 candidates. They won 52 seats. The Bloc fielded 75 candidates and won 54 seats. We ended up with two regional parties taking up a third of the seats in parliament. Not only that, but one was right of center and the other was left of center. The Right was split and the Left was split due primarily to regional whiners.

The Liberals ruled until 2006 when the new Conservative “alliance” of Reform-Alliance-PC apparatchik under Harper managed to switch the minority Liberal Government to a minority Conservative government.

I predict we will find ourselves with another minority government and soon after that, a new Conservative party leader, even if it is going to be a minority Conservative government. The Conservatives continue to be bogged down by western regionalism. As Harper once stated, he and the parties he has been a member of could learn a lot from the Bloc and their Maître chez nous mindset.