More news that the OLO does not want to see.

While Michael Ignatieff is busy thinking thoughts at his villa in France.....

A global economic forecasting group says Canadian economic growth will outpace that of other G7 nations by a wide margin during the first half of 2010. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation is forecasting that Canada’s economy grew 6.2 per cent in the first quarter, well ahead of the 1.9 per cent overall growth for the G7 nations. The OECD predicts that Canada’s second-quarter growth will be about 4.5 per cent, nearly double the 2.3 per cent growth expected from the combined G7.

The front runner for Finance Minister under Ignatieff.

John McCallum speaking at the AGM of the Liberal riding association of Windsor-Tecumseh was asked what type of car he drives. His response: McCallum stammered for several seconds before responding: “I drive a North American-made car.” Asked to be more specific, he responded: “I drive a General Motors car.” Asked again to be more specific, he said it was “a Chevrolet.”

Question asked, question answered. Or was it?

Within a couple of hours of answering the simple question about what type of car he drives McCallum phoned The Star to retreat from those comments, offering this explanation in a voicemail: “I said the wrong thing without thinking. The fact of the matter is that I do not own a North American-made car.” He followed with an e-mail sent from his Blackberry that said: “To confirm message I left on your voicemail, to clarify, I do not own a North American made vehicle.” McCallum never divulged what kind of car he owns.

Well one might think that being caught in a lie like this could be detrimental to ones political career, that may not be the way it works in the Liberal Party of Canada led by Michael Ignatieff who on the very same day denied that he had said "We will have to raise taxes" at a Cambridge Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting on the 14th.

This should put McCallum into the front runner position for Finance Minister in an Ignatieff led government where emulating the leader will get you further ahead than telling the truth.

H/T BBS & BLY

Save the Hollow Tree!

Sorry Kate, but I say we need to save Vancouver's famous Hollow Tree which stands (with much help) in Stanley Park.

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It stands as a symbol for all things that would, or perhaps should, die a natural death if it were not for taxpayer* dollars being spent. After all, we do know more than mother nature about this kind of thing don't we?






* before someone jumps in to tell me that this is all going to be private money I would like to point out the matching grant from the Heritage Legacy Fund of BC which was funded by tax dollars, and such additional costs as the cost of about $100,000 to landscape around the site and restore the roadway curbing, as claimed by Stanley Park board staff.

Squandered. Lost in translation?

Stephane Dion: "They inherited a surplus of $12 billion, which they have squandered within two-and-a-half years,..."

Really Stephane; Squandered?

I know that you do not balance your own cheque book, and that your ideas such as carbon tax would harm the Canadian economy, but squandered?

Maybe I as a conservative do not understand what a Liberal thinks the "function of government" is, but it is you who do not understand that this money is not Liberal money but money that was taken from the pockets of taxpayers.

It is our money.

Money that was returned to the taxpayer through cuts to the GST and the income tax rate is not squandered.

Money that was given to the Provinces in transfer payments for such things as health care (which was decimated by Paul Martin and Jean Chretien) is not squandered money. Opps, I forgot; Liberals do not believe in any fiscal imbalance.

Money, about $40 billion, that gets paid off against our national debt and reduces interest paid on that debt by over 120 million dollars a year is not squandered money.

You see Stephane; that is what the average Canadian does when they are lucky enough to have some extra cash. We try to pay off our debts. It is simple economics and common sense, but you wouldn't know that because you have no idea about the life of the average Canadian and you do not even know how to handle your own debt.


You sir are out of touch and not worth the risk.

How many government employees will lose their jobs to Dion's ideological cuts.

According to Stephane Dion he is going to pay for his entire platform and create a surplus by making cuts to existing government services, and I guess the government employees who operate within them.

What is going to be cut Stephane? Which programs are going to get the red Liberal ideological axe?

Considering that the Liberals have screamed about any and every funding cut the Conservative Government has made in the last 3 years, which the Liberals have now promised to reverse, (BTW has this been included in the costing of the Liberal platform?) it should be interesting to see just where Dion plans to make these cuts. Plenty of people have speculated that the military would be the biggest target, but with the Afghan mission not concluding until 2011 it would even be below the Liberals to not properly fund our troops.

I want some answers Stephane and Co. Which programs or government service are you going to cut to pay for all of your promises?

FITNA should receive tax credits from the Canadian government

Or at least it should have if FITNA were made in Canada; according to NDP shill Oscar-nominee Sarah Polley and everyone else on the left crying censorship over bill C-10.

The left and various Harper haters are in an uproar because the government wants to pass Bill C-10 which contains a provision, originally created by the Liberals by the way, which would allow the government to refuse tax credits to film or television productions deemed offensive. Imagine that, a government in its role as the steward of our tax dollars, trying to make sure those dollars are not spent on hard core porn or other such projects that the majority of Canadians would not want that money spent on.

The crux of the argument against c-10 is that someone (meaning a government bureaucrat) would be deciding which projects qualify for the tax credits and which do not. Even though the minister responsible has stated that she will work with the entertainment industry to draw up a precise definition of what projects would be deemed too offensive to receive government tax credits, the lefties are against the idea and are crying censorship. Funny how in the case of films or television productions that many on the the left think that tax money must flow to all projects regardless of their nature, but with other issues such as child care or tax cuts, they are more than happy to decide for everyone just who should qualify, and more importantly, who should not.

Because this deals with the so called arts, does not mean that it should be exempt from any rules. If we are going to be putting tax dollars towards this industry, there must be some kind of rules as to how and where those dollars get spent. It is more than just common sense, it is what I and most Canadians would expect the government to do whenever anyone comes with their hands out looking for our tax dollars.


All this faux outrage makes me wonder just how many of those against C-10 would have an issue with homegrown remake of Triumph of the Will . Or is even Nazi propaganda entitled to our tax dollars without any rules or government oversight? What say you?


Update: Another view from Chuckercanuck on C-10.

Rick Mercer, modern day political Nostradamus.

Rick Mercer must be some kind of seer of the Canadian political scene, and frankly his Nostradamus like powers scare me.

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It is the only logical explanation, otherwise how could the second segment from The Rick Mercer Report that aired earlier tonight on the CBC possibly be explained?

Sometime recently he had the "vision", perhaps while he was in the centrifuge or perhaps it was in a dream, but at some point Rick Mercer foresaw the future. Then he rented a choir, some acrobats, a couple of unicycle riding jugglers, procured some low budget but flashy pyrotechnic devices, rehearsed what by Canadian television standards would have to be called an extravagant musical number, filmed it all, did the editing and still managed to get it to air the same day as the Federal Budget comes out.

How did he know Dion would again cave? I mean with Liberal MPs, all of of the bloggers who thought otherwise, , and MSM pundits thinking an election was near; how could Rick Mercer know this in advance? And will he promise to only use this power for good and not evil? That my friends is the real question.


I think after I call CSIS, I am going to line my walls with tinfoil and hope Rick Mercer doesn't mind being exposed.

Al

Update: Thanks to Christian Conservative for finding this on YouTube

Sign o' the times

I have a feeling we will be seeing this one again in an election campaign.

© CPC
In what could only be described as a dumb political move; Dion again demonstrated his lack of political/leadership skills by saying, that if the Liberals are ever returned to power, he might rescind the cuts to the GST made by the Harper Government. Wow! What an election platform plank this will make. Good luck with that one my liberal friends.

Mayor Miller, Jim has a foolproof idea for you.

Attention Mayor David Miller.

Jim Travers from the Star has a great liberal idea that is guaranteed to solve your money problems.

You see, and the statistics do not lie, because the crime rate is down there is no real need to worry about crime in general, and subsequently there will be no need for Toronto to have such a large and costly police force. You could cut about 25% right off the top, and save the city MILLIONS of those badly needed dollars.

Simple, and how can it fail? A great liberal idea, carried out by a liberal mayor; a dynamite combination for success if there ever was one.

It could get even better once this country wakes up to Harper's secret agenda and we return the Liberals to their rightful place in power. With the Libs back in power it is obvious that an even greater drop in the crime rate will be sure to follow, and the police force could again be easily cut to a size of about half of what exists today.

Just think what you could do if you had 50% of that police budget to do the things that really matter.

This is going to be tough for some Ontatrio Liberals to swallow.

The Liberal Premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, backs the Harper Government budget. The very same budget the the Liberal dominated Senate is thinking about amending or even killing completely,which seems to be against the wishes of their great leader Dion.

That last set of commercials are starting to look more brilliant as each day passes.



Update: Joanne has a blog entry and a link to an article from Chantal Hébert warning Liberal Senators that playing around with the budget may not be in the best interests of anyone, including Dion and the Liberal Party.

Paying down the debt

In an economic update delivered to the House of Commons finance committee, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the government will continue to cut income taxes and will reduce the GST by another percentage point, to five per cent, not later than 2011, and Flaherty hopes to eliminate billions of dollars in net debt within the next 15 years, calling it "a matter of fairness for future generations."

Sound financial strategy that is the correct thing to do (there has been a lot of that lately from the new government) . It is common sense that we pay down the debt in the same way millions upon millions of Canadians try to do for themselves every month. Paying out money, that could be going elsewhere, as interest is stupid and most Canadians know this; but not all seem to see this basic financial truism.

Jack Layton is one such Canadian, and he called the plan "reckless." While I am not surprised at this answer coming from a socialist like Jack, I am surprised that he considers what millions of Canadians try to accomplish with their own finances, the same people he claims to represent, would be considered reckless. You are out of touch Jack, at least with those who have jobs and pay taxes in this country.

This is not the first time the Conservatives have made debt reduction a reality in their short time in government, but Jack was upset at that one as well. Go figure.

Can you see the difference?

Yesterday our Federal Government did something that should not only go over well with the general population, it also clearly illustrates the differences between the Conservatives and the opposition Liberals and NDP with regards to finances.

To highlight the point here are a couple of quotes on the announced cuts/surplus/debt payment.
source

"To do these announcements of huge cuts to the least privileged Canadians at the same day you announce a $13-billion surplus, it tells you a lot about the Conservative frame of mind," said Liberal finance critic John McCallum.

Said NDP MP Charlie Angus: "We've seen an exercise in ideology. They're sitting on a massive surplus, the debt is at its lowest level in 30 years, and it would continue to decrease regardless of what was done today."


These 2 have figured it out, but yet they do not really understand. It will be the fact that they do not understand that will also keep them both in opposition for some time to come.


Have you figured it out yet? I think most of you have judging by your choice of internet reading material, but for those of you that might be of the leftist persuasion please allow me to explain it to you.


In the simplest terms possible; It is not their money!

The money that made up the surplus and the money that was being wasted on questionable programs belongs to the taxpayer and not to the government. The Conservatives know this and respect this fact, while the other guys have not figured it out and continue to think that it is their own money to do with what they wish.



The NDP socialists are a lost cause, but you would think that perhaps the 'new + improved' Liberals might have done a little re-think recently on their treatment and respect for the tax payer and our money. Does anyone over there not remember that little Adscam thing?


Now which one of these differing styles do you think closer reflects the views of the average Canadian who has to make their own tough monetary decisions on almost a daily basis?

I will leave the answer to the last question up to the hardworking taxpayers of this country.