"The same economic principles that ensured Canada had the best fiscal position in the G7 going into the global recession with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio, will also secure Canada’s prosperity into the future. And while our government is a team, Jim Flaherty’s tenacity and leadership deserve much of the credit."

Jay you might be interested in reading an article which was posted on the Globe and Mail web site on Sept. 23, 2010. The article is entitled "How Canada is among most indebted nations in the world"

The following is the link to the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/how-canada-is-among-most-indebted-nations-in-the-world/article1720366/

I do not blame you for "leaving" politics. If I was in politics now, I would be doing the same thing. The day of reckoning for our profligate ways is just around the corner, and it is not going to be pretty.

Jay avoids mentioning that it was their Liberal predecessors (Chretien/Martin) who built the sounder fiscal platform (strict banking regulations, elimination of deficits, seven years of surpluses...)from which he is now doing his preaching and for the successes of which he, Harper and Flaherty have been attempting to take credit here and internationally!

What are the latest numbers for this year's federal deficit, Jay?

It will take a Liberal government and many years of belt tightening to get the fiscal house back on track again.

The propaganda out of the Federal government is overwhelming at best. They have been on a total spending spree since they came into office. I will not trust or believe a word that comes from the Harper government EVER!

http://www.serenityglobal.com/Steven%20Harper%20and%20the%20Bilderbergers%20Secret%20Meeting.htm

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20060609/bilderberg_group_060609/

http://www.straight.com/article-327416/vancouver/leaked-list-suggests-premier-gordon-campbell-bilderberg-2010-meetings

http://snardfarker.ning.com/profiles/blogs/gordon-campbell-and-peter

ANYONE in government who meets with this group is a Traitor to Canada and its people. Why we are not doing something about this is pure confusion for me. I try to tell people at every opportunity but no one seems to care. Anyway please get informed at the very least.

Why does no MP from this government talk about anything candidly? They all stick to the talking points given to them by the PMO. Interesting book released this week about the control freak. Harperland by Lawrence Martin. From the excerpts I have read it is pretty consistent with what I have seen from this government.

It's understandable that the Harper Conservatives would try to avoid the same kind of media attention any 'candid' comments like those regularly made by many of their members in their former incarnation as Reform MPs used to get.

Insignifigant comments, often taken completely out of context, and magnified by a hostile press anxious to use them to create an image far different from the reality.

Historically, I believe this has its roots back in Depression, in the first term of office of former Alberta Premier William Aberhart. When, in order to attempt to get accurate news coverage of his government's actions ~ not a non-stop plethora of highly slanted hostile editorial opinion posing as news ~ his government enacted what was called by his opponents the "Press Gag Act."

This action ensured the long lasting emnity of the press to the Alberta Social Credit League, later Party, and every offshoot remotely associated with it, right down to the present day.

The former Reform Party, and that component of the present day Conservative Party, are two of those (remote, and increasingly so) offshoots.

The Act itself did not "gag" the press, it simply provided that what was reported as "news" be verifiable as fact. That editorial opionion be just that, and not printed on the news pages under the guise of something other than what it really was.


Today the newsprint media is in decline. But the subtle nuances of the nightly TV news anchors can slant a story just as effectively to the viewer as the practised wordsmithing of the "bias for hire" editors of old could.

So, yes, it is a shame that there has to be such 'control' emanating from the PMO. And, yes, it does impede the democratic process, and is even a real danger to it. But what is the alternative?

The media, and those who control it, actually determining which 'method' will be used to implement the universal Policy ALL our political Parties now subscribe to? Which Party, in other words, will be annointed (by them, not us), to govern?

We have already, for all practical purposes, pretty well lost our ability to change that Policy. Are we to be stripped of the ability to choose the method of its introduction, too? That's what it really amounts to.

Maybe it just doesn't matter. That what goes on in politics now in regards to the "average Joe" is about as analogous to giving an innocent man condemned to death the choice of whether he'd rather be shot, hanged, or gassed. He'd rather be spared all those fates, and freed, but he's not going to get that option. So is it any wonder the particular executioner chosen wants to retain his position?