More, More Politics (Ot But Relevant)

[Guest]

This may be the first government elected on POT. First the Liberals and now the NDP, I would bet most Pot Heads might be too buzzed to vote.. So far the NDP are promising to be more Green than the Green party and more Liberal than the Liberals. Hmmmmm

VIDEO Mulcair pledges NDP will decriminalize pot 'the minute we form government'

The NDP has supported decriminalizing marijuana for decades

By Michael Bolen, CBC News Posted: Aug 21, 2015 5:06 PM ET Last Updated: Aug 21, 2015 5:06 PM ET

>http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ndp-mulcair-marijuana-decriminalization-1.3199532?cmp=rss

[Don Hudson]

This too, is an ages-old notion: - I view this as removing possession, (but not trafficking), from the Criminal Code, not as an NDP endorsement of the use of marijuana. Too many young lives have been sacrificed on the altar of moral indignation.

From its inception a dozen or so years ago, I have been 100% behind Vancouver's Safe Injection sites, not because I endorse drug use but because I would rather my government make a health decision for the community than a moral one of stupid prohibition as that route has been proven a failure here and in the U.S.

Mr. Harper has done all he can to shut down the Site because he refuses to accept the scientific research behind the program. It appears that here as well as in plenty of other cases Mr Harper has chosen to place before Parliament, the Supreme Court disagrees with this Prime Minister.

Whether other leaders are any more enlightened is certainly open to question as they collectively throw chaff to the winds of daily public opinion, but we know only too well, the cut of Mr Harper's sails.

Although both the leaders of the Conservative Party and the NDP have made it one, the Safe Injection site, and the recreational or medical use of marijuana are no longer just political decisions.

[Guest]

This too, is an ages-old notion: - I view this as removing possession, (but not trafficking), from the Criminal Code, not as an NDP endorsement of the use of marijuana. Too many young lives have been sacrificed on the altar of moral indignation.

From its inception a dozen or so years ago, I have been 100% behind Vancouver's Safe Injection sites, not because I endorse drug use but because I would rather my government make a health decision for the community than a moral one of stupid prohibition as that route has been proven a failure here and in the U.S.

Mr. Harper has done all he can to shut down the Site because he refuses to accept the scientific research behind the program. It appears that here as well as in plenty of other cases Mr Harper has chosen to place before Parliament, the Supreme Court disagrees with this Prime Minister.

Whether other leaders are any more enlightened is certainly open to question as they collectively throw chaff to the winds of daily public opinion, but we know only too well, the cut of Mr Harper's sails.

Although both the leaders of the Conservative Party and the NDP have made it one, the Safe Injection site, and the recreational or medical use of marijuana are no longer just political decisions.

[Don Hudson]

Yes?...;-)

[Guest]

Yes?...

[Don Hudson]

Standing by for incoming...

[Guest]

Standing by for incoming...

[Don Hudson]

Now, THAT is incoming!

Have a nice evening.

[dagger]

I share Jeffrey Simpson's lament that there is a lack of grand vision in all the federal parties. As a byproduct of niche campaign strategies in which each party has target voters in target areas, we forget the need for nation-building. If I were leading a federal party - it would be an avowed centrist party - I would propose a number of 10 year plans.

1. Electricity grid enhancement from Manitoba to Labrador. Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland/Labrador would gain customers for their power, the other provinces secure sources of renewable power.

2. National oil and gas pipeline strategy, ensuring western resources get to markets within Canada and to the coasts for export, while consuming provinces are treated fairly with respect to gas supplies and pricing, and environmental protection.

3. Western irrigation strategy. Snow in August notwithstanding, drought is going to be an increasing issue for the Western agricultural community. We are an agricultural superpower and need to preserve that. The federal government should bring the provinces together to decide which projects would deliver the most good, and create an environmental assessment process that would get those projects off the ground, so to speak.

4. Urban transit strategy. A national strategy to supplement provincial and local dollars in which the decision on which projects to subsidize will be removed from the realm of politics where it is now and results in ploughing money into the wrong projects (Scarborough subway, I mean you!)

5. Supply management phase-out. This will take federal subsidies and leadership. The result would compensate small dairy and poultry farmers for their invested capital, while allowing in more imports that lower the prices for consumers, often dramatically.

[Don Hudson]

dagger, I concur with your thoughts on what I would view as a conversation and what should be an election on "whither Canada?". The dialog is long, long overdue and seems as problematic as ever, doesn't it?

How do we get both the political parties and the voting public to engage at that level is a question for both. I get the distinct feeling that Mr Harper would prefer that ordinary people would just go away and stop interfering with his running of government. In fact his decision not to participate in the network's public debates conjurs the image of a bully who takes his ball home if the game isn't being played just the way he wants.

We've seen this kind of behaviour from previous governments - that of Chretien & Mulroney. We need a far broader vision of our nation than that illustrated by, to give just one example among many, the present disturbing alignments with foreign policies of the United States and Great Britain.

We are not at the kind of crossroads in which, for example, Jean Chretien famously almost gave the country away, nor do we have the social and political milieu that nurtured the October Crisis and the implementation of the War Measures Act. Instead, as comparisons in a post-2008 world economy showed, we remain relatively fortunate among the world's nations. That makes the points raised in "the grand vision" of Canada all the more important.

Yet old stumping rules are trotted out once again as our votes are bought with our own hard-earned cash, and babies are kissed for cameras. It makes one ill.

I'd be interested in visions from all here of how we get there from where we are today.

[J.O.]

Dagger, I will vote for you on one condition. Your elimination of agricultural supply management must be accompanied with real, honest to goodness food standards that focus on the health of Canadians first and not on the profit margins of food suppliers and their shareholders. Knowing what I know about what US farmers are allowed to do to increase production and reduce costs, I have no interest in increasing imports from there. There's too much already and don't even get me started on the thought of importing foods from the cesspool that is China.

[Don Hudson]

J.O., re, "and don't even get me started on the thought of importing foods from the cesspool that is China."

We research foods if we don't know where they came from, and do not buy foods imported from China at all.

This is as much a "family policy" based upon my mistrust of the Harper government as it is of China's food-exporting standards and methods.

Conservative governments are characterized by relaxing standards, de-regulating various industries and reducing/eliminating oversight of private enterprise, all in order to facilitate private interests and priorities which, because of the nature of business, are almost always short-term.

I don't trust that a good balance has been struck by this government between strong public oversight and such private priorities.

I don't trust what Mr. Harper's government may have done in order to facilitate profit over consumer protection.

At this point this is more a matter of plain trust and belief that Mr Harper looks out for the best interests of Canadians or not. In my view, neither he nor his government have given cause to earn such trust.

[Fido]

Boy the arguements against Harper get weirder all of the time.

[Guest]

Seems to fit with Dagger's post:

Alberta declares agricultural losses from extreme weather a 'disaster'

The Canadian Press
Published Saturday, August 22, 2015 6:57PM EDT

EDMONTON -- The Alberta government has declared that the hardship to agriculture from this year's drought constitutes a disaster.

Agriculture Minister Oneil Carlier quietly approved the decision on Friday.

Agriculture department spokesman Renato Gandia says in an email that it allows the province's Agriculture Financial Services Corporation to access more funds for insurance compensation.

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Gandia says the dry weather and hail in 2015 has resulted in a "significant increase" in the number of claims across the province.

Many Alberta counties and municipal districts have already declared local states of agricultural emergency due to heat and drought and are seeking government assistance.

Earlier this summer, Alberta's Progressive Conservative agriculture critic Wayne Drysdale said crop insurance isn't enough and that the provincial NDP government should establish a disaster recovery program to address this year's drought and grasshopper infestations.

"While we agree that insurance provides a solid safety net most years, there are times when it isn't enough. It is pretty clear that 2015 is such a case," Drysdale said in a statement on Aug. 14.

A spring and summer with insufficient rain has withered crops in many regions of Western Canada, including hay used by livestock producers to feed their animals.

Producers worry they may have to reduce their herds due to the price and lack of availability of hay, and the federal government has agreed to grant tax deferrals to western livestock producers in regions hit by drought.

The Alberta government has responded by cutting rental fees for a program that helps farmers pump water to fill their dams and dugouts, and is also helping municipalities identify additional public lands for grazing.

Saskatchewan announced a similar measure last month to help its producers.

Drysdale has said that the failure to implement a disaster recovery program is effectively telling the counties that have already declared agricultural disasters that they're not facing them.

Gandia said the Alberta government is keeping an eye on the situation.

"We continue to monitor the situation very closely to assess the effectiveness of our programs and services, and evaluate how to best support our producers facing challenging circumstances," Gandia said in an email.

[Guest]

Two very different POV on our PM

Harper's plan to steal Canada

http://montrealsimon.blogspot.ca/2015/06/stephen-harpers-monstrous-plan-to-steal.html

Harper didn't steal Canada

http://www.calgarysun.com/2015/08/23/canada-didnt-get-stolen-by-prime-minister-stephen-harper

[J.O.]

The Calgary Sun writes a pro-Harper puff piece? I'm shocked.

Not.

It's also interesting that the Sun doesn't allow comments on their opinion pieces.

[Guest]

J.O.

The Calgary Sun writes a pro-Harper puff piece? I'm shocked.

Not.

I guess I could voice the same for the opinion from Montreal.

[Don Hudson]

I thought both articles were great satire, even though the Sun takes itself seriously.

[Guest]

Hair today, gone tomorrow. Means nothing of course but fun to watch . Mr Trudeau has gone from floppy curls to close cut locks, now he is even showing a hint of grey (only his hairdresser knows for sure). I guess this is his reply to the too young etc attack ads. On the other hand our PM is getting greyer and greyer (please excuse the non US spelling of grey)

For those who don't know

http://grammarist.com/spelling/gray-grey/

[Super 80]

This election is really hitting home the extent to which Canada is just dead to me. I want Jean Chretien back. Somebody go drag John Manley off whatever golf course he is on.

Harper seems to be offering nothing but an uncontrolled plunge into a commodity and housing bonfire economic crisis, the NDP and Trudeau seem to be offering a slow descent into Venezuela with the same potential for an uncontrollable meltdown.

[mo32a]

Hair today, gone tomorrow. Means nothing of course but fun to watch . Mr Tredeau has gone from floppy curls to close cut locks, now he is even showing a hint of grey (only his hairdresser knows for sure). I guess this is his reply to the too young etc attack ads. On the other hand our PM is getting greyer and greyer (please excurse the non US spelling of grey)

It wasn't the grey vs gray it was the Tredeau and excurse that was the problem.

[Guest]

It wasn't the grey vs gray it was the Tredeau and excurse that was the problem.

fingers moving too fast and .... spell check in neutral. fixed. chers err cheers

[dagger]

Not the ideal way to run a campaign - taking the wrong message to a particular location and then getting excoriated for it the next day in the lead editorial in the local newspaper.

http://yukon-news.com/letters-opinions/stupidity-outbreak-mars-harpers-visit/

What a remarkably stupid position for the prime minister to take. These comments were offered as Harper’s rationale as to why a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women is, in his view, not needed. Marian Horne, president of the Yukon Aboriginal Women’s Council, has rightfully deplored this take.

She’s far from alone. Harper’s opposition to an inquest stands in contrast to all other federal parties, save his own, and all Yukon parties. Heck, even Harper’s MP for the Yukon, Ryan Leef, has publicly called for an inquiry, in a rare case of him veering from the party line.

[Lakelad]

.

Harper hysteria a sign of closed liberal minds

Monday, Aug. 24, 2015 - Globe and Mail
Konrad Yakabuski

If even a fraction of the darkness that his haters say has descended upon Canada under Stephen Harper was real, then the opening line of any election victory speech by Thomas Mulcair or Justin Trudeau could only be: “My fellow Canadians, our long national nightmare is over.”

In less than a decade, during most of which Mr. Harper led a minority government, Canada has gone from a “haven” of enlightened liberalism and goodness to a hermit kingdom run by a small-minded tyrant propagating, in the words of one excitable critic, “know-nothing conservatism.”

Just what it is about the Conservative Leader that sends reasonable people into such fits of hysteria is best examined by historians, or better yet, psychiatrists. But it surely can’t be evidence, for Mr. Harper’s political style is not particularly novel, nor have his reforms been that transformational.

Rather, Mr. Harper cultivates his base with mostly rhetorical, and only occasionally policy-driven, validations of their beliefs and value systems. It’s largely window dressing. For the most part, he governs from the centre, upholding the long Canadian tradition of middle-of-the-road pragmatism. So much so that movement conservatives who once considered him one of them feel utterly betrayed.

If the Harper government seems more obsessed with spin than its predecessors, it’s partly because the science of political message control and targeting has undergone a revolution in the Internet-Big Data age. Mr. Harper’s government, like President Barack Obama’s administration south of the border, has simply been in the right place at the right time to make the most of it.

Yes, the Conservatives have made some questionable policy choices in the name of stroking their base. Killing the long-form census was one. The form had been a long-standing bugaboo among conservatives who felt the state has no business knowing the granular details of their lives. Its demise has inconvenienced some researchers, but it has hardly led to a “subtle darkening of Canadian life.” Somehow when it comes to critiquing Mr. Harper, all perspective gets thrown out the window.

Nothing infuriates the critics more – and this is where their slip shows – than his success at usurping the political tools their side once used to corner the market. He’s turned the Liberals’ invention of multiculturalism against them. He’s wooed suburban couples with kids away from the Liberals with an array of dubiously useful family-friendly tax credits.

'Autocratic, Stephen Harper? Well, yes, like just about every other successful prime minister from John A. Macdonald to Mackenzie King to Jean Chrétien.'

.'

[Guest]

Could not get the goto to work so here is one that does along with the last few paragraphs from the article.. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/harper-hysteria-a-sign-of-closed-liberal-minds/article26055892/

The truth is, Mr. Harper does not play to his base any more than the NDP’s Mr. Mulcair or the Liberals’ Mr. Trudeau play to theirs. But because elites in the media and academe have deemed Conservative supporters a less evolved species than the progressive subclass to which they themselves belong, they are beside themselves at the loss of their own influence.

Autocratic, Stephen Harper? Well, yes, like just about every other successful prime minister from John A. Macdonald to Mackenzie King to Jean Chrétien. The centralization of decision making in the Prime Minister’s Office is a phenomenon much bigger than Mr. Harper and it would take wholesale parliamentary, if not constitutional, reform to reverse the trend.

What’s fairly clear is that a Mulcair PMO would not be expected to operate in a meaningfully different manner. The NDP Leader is as much a control freak and ruthless enforcer of caucus discipline. How else do you think he has kept his neophyte MPs in Quebec from embarrassing him too much? The worry with Mr. Trudeau is that his lack of experience would allow unelected political aides or bureaucrats to wield most of the power in a Trudeau PMO. But that doesn’t mean the PMO would be any less dominant in a Trudeau government.

Mr. Harper may deserve to take a hit for the Senate expense scandal. The questions raised at Senator Mike Duffy’s fraud trial about the conduct of Mr. Harper’s closest staff in the PMO, and the Conservative Leader himself, are not flattering. But in the annals of Canadian political scandals – a fairly tame volume to begin with – this is a footnote.

Most voters basically believe all politicians are self-interested maximizers and judge them on their intelligence, competence, likeability and integrity. They know they can’t get everything on their wish list. It could be that, after 10 years, they’ll decide they’ve had enough of Mr. Harper.

And the hysterics won’t have Harper to kick around any more.