For those that want to defend the Conservative's spending on corporations (that is, you honestly believe they're cutting corporate taxes in order to help the economy and produce jobs), someone put it beautifully with an great example: Do you really think that the directors and head cheese of any major company recieving a tax-break is going to pass that along to employees, or higher more employees? Did they do that when the governments bailed out major banks? Here's a hint: The top-dogs cut themselves hefty bonusses during the recession... Thatt's well documented. So where do you think the savings fromt hose tax-breaks are going to go now?

Originally Posted by doppelganger

@Icecream, I like the NDP's platform better than the Liberal's but in my riding it is not likely that the NDP will win (it got around 10% of votes last time) . The Liberal candidate won the last election by only 0.3% votes more than the Conservative candidate. Though I want to vote NDP, I don't want to risk having a Conservative win in my riding.

Woah, somebody who actually knows how to vote..

p.s. : http://www.projectdemocracy. ca/

Originally Posted by RyanC

Woah, somebody who actually knows how to vote..

p.s. : http://www.projectdemocracy. ca/

it is better to vote for NDP in that case. In the last opinion poll :

C 34%
NDP 31%
LIB 22%

Originally Posted by thedog123123

it is better to vote for NDP in that case. In the last opinion poll :

C 34%
NDP 31%
LIB 22%

That really surprised me, actually. Are those polls based on % of seats won, or overall voting support for C, NDP, LIB?

Originally Posted by RyanC

That really surprised me, actually. Are those polls based on % of seats won, or overall voting support for C, NDP, LIB?

I saw similar numbers on the Toronto Star today, they are based on public opinion right now. It should be noted that the NDP previously have had surges of support mid-campaign, only to have it fade away on election day.

Edit: Project democracy's results repeated what I was thinking all along.

Also, those numbers are for Canada as a whole, in Ontario the Liberals are still ahead of the NDP.

Hopefully they will merge with the Liberal Party, under the leadership of Jack Layton of course (if he's still healthy enough), and create a new centre-left based party that blend their ideas, while referring back to the budgets of Martin and Chretien. I believe this will generate a lot of success for the government like we experienced during the 90s, bring prestige back to the Liberal Party, and put the most deserving politician in power.

Originally Posted by Icecream

It was the Canadian middle and lower classes who suffered the most from the recession not the richest 1% and ceo's. And Harper wants to give them a tax cut.

Originally Posted by mike_302

For those that want to defend the Conservative's spending on corporations (that is, you honestly believe they're cutting corporate taxes in order to help the economy and produce jobs), someone put it beautifully with an great example: Do you really think that the directors and head cheese of any major company recieving a tax-break is going to pass that along to employees, or higher more employees? Did they do that when the governments bailed out major banks? Here's a hint: The top-dogs cut themselves hefty bonusses during the recession... Thatt's well documented. So where do you think the savings fromt hose tax-breaks are going to go now?

Corporate tax /= income tax. Those who have the highest income are still taxed at the highest rates. A corporation is not a person and so Harper is not giving the richest 1% tax cuts, these people just get to pay less tax on what they produce which is as it should be.

If a "head cheese" decides not to pass on benefits to employees, then that is their decision. Although if these benefits are passed on to employees or more employees are hired then the employees will likely be happier and harder working and this will further increase productivity and profits. A CEO/head cheese/whatever leader of a well run corporation will figure this out.

Smaller government and lower taxes is a good thing.

On the fighter planes...

a) There is difference between when a plane was designed and when it was purchased. The fact that the F-18 came up for sale in the 80's does not automatically make all F-18's 30 years old. Also as someone mentioned they will be overhauled periodically. However, our current stock of CF-18's are showing their age. Which brings us to the next point.

b) Technical air superiority. It doesn't matter whether our planes are in peak condition if they cannot out maneouver what the enemy brings. Success in air to air combat is largely determined by the performance of the aircraft relative to its enemy. This includes strike range, stealth and maneouverabilty. The F-35 is a stealth fighter. The range is a little longer than the CF-18 (approx 200km estimated). The combat radius is double the CF-18. The F-35 has a higher top speed and higher thrust/weight ratio when half loaded with fuel (which would be at the same combat radius as the F-18). So yes overall it is projected to be a much better and more versatile plane.

c) Price. It costs ALOT for a jet fighter. Anyone who has been involved in a contract administration or engineering situation for a major project knows that things change and costs get overrun. This jet is a joint collaboration between multiple countries. If we don't buy in now, we will not be cost sharing and taking advantage of economy of scale and we will get destroyed on the price later. Unfortunately the other option, unmanned air craft, are not ready for air to air combat and we have no infrastructure in place to use them.

d) Bargaining chips. We are Canada. We are not a military superpower and when you tender a fighterjet you are looking for the best design and tightest manufacturing from approved defense contractors, not the cheapest guy on the block.

So please let's drop the fighter jet issue. Should they have been more honest? Yes. Are the figures accurate? Probably not, but neither are the inflated ones. At the end of the day, no one knows how much this will cost but you can be sure it would cost us more to buy later than it does to buy now.

Now I very much agree on a good portion of what you said: I've never said that Canada should not be buying fighter jets... Personally, I've tried very hard to make it clear that my issue with the fighter jets is the lack of realism from the Conservatives on the plan. If the Conservatives stopped telling Canadians, three years before they plan on signing a contract, that they will have these planes delivered within their budget, I'd be happy and incapable of picking a fight with the topic.

Eng. coop I had last summer: Working on a 46 million dollar construction project, and in 4-6 months, it was 52 million. Please read: MONTHS. This is block, concrete, steel, and other construction materials making a state-of-the-art arena. When a state-of-the-art fighter jet is still in R&D, three years before signing a contract for them, I think a government is extremely irresponsible with money to be promising that they will be delivered on budget, unless they (also irresponsibly, because that's locking up a lot of money) earmarked double to triple the amount of money that it will cost.

Originally Posted by 19841984

On the fighter planes...


So please let's drop the fighter jet issue. Should they have been more honest? Yes. Are the figures accurate? Probably not, but neither are the inflated ones. At the end of the day, no one knows how much this will cost but you can be sure it would cost us more to buy later than it does to buy now.

Wow, you know nothing about warfare. Sot us more later? That's like saying :Oh go buy a laptop or it will cost more later.... If I don't need a laptop why buy one ?

Canada doesn't need fighter jets or stealth ones, it needs more money for the armed forces, more anti-air missiles, and defensive weaponry. Why ? Look at the size of Canada. Yes Canada has strong allies but it's better be safe then sorry.

And Canada should also get out of Afghanistan. 9/11 didn't happen in Canada and I'm pretty sure the US doesn't need Canadian Soldier. The only reason the US got NATO involved in Afghanistan was because they didn't want all the pressure to be put on them (economic, political). They wanted the war to seem "right" since an organization of more than 16 countries got involved.

The economy point is one that always annoys me, we didn't have a horrible recession DESPITE the Harper government, not because of them >_<