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Post by phil on Apr 3, 2006 12:09:09 GMT -5
Total disagreement on your “anyone could do it take” we’ve had oil revenues for decades you must remember. If anyone could have done it we’d have had that surplus years ago.
Rockkid ~ In case you haven't noticed, oil barrel prices
have more than tripled in the last 10 years ...
Surely that can explain part of Ralph Klein success
in dealing with the province budget ... !!
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Post by rockkid on Apr 3, 2006 12:17:11 GMT -5
Only in part Phil, only in part.
We’ve had very regulated spending in the past, t’is only now blowing up in the other direction.
Just one of the things that’s now causing party infighting.
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Post by phil on Apr 3, 2006 12:25:22 GMT -5
A big part I presume ...
combined with the fact there are just over 3 million people over there
with relatively recent infrastructures(compared to Ontario and Québec) ...
Doesn't take rocket science to balance a budget
when you're swimming in oil revenues along with a solid working population !!
Triple the price of electricity in the last 20 years
and Québec budgets are in the black
and the accumulated debt is cut in half ...
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Post by phil on Apr 3, 2006 12:59:12 GMT -5
Dr. Dr. gave us the perfect example just last week !
Newfoundland in black
Province books first definitive surplus on back of offshore oil revenue
JANE ARMSTRONG
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Canada's poorest province is projecting an unqualified budget surplus for the first time in history, thanks to new royalties and corporate taxes from Newfoundland and Labrador's thriving offshore oil industry.
This year alone, the province is expecting to reap $927-million in royalties and income taxes, giving it a $6.2-million surplus. The budget forecast is predicated on oil staying above $57 (U.S.) a barrel.
"I am pleased to report that for the first time in our history, the province is budgeting a surplus on a fully consolidated basis," Finance Minister Loyola Sullivan said in his budget speech.
How much mullah does Alberta rake in each year ... ??
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Post by phil on Apr 3, 2006 13:35:03 GMT -5
she[Pam]'s dumber than Paris Hilton.
Though choice ... ! Man ... Tough choice ... !
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Post by poseidon on Apr 3, 2006 15:52:11 GMT -5
Do your jobs Canada...protect the borders...follow the freakin' rules dumb shits.
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Post by poseidon on Apr 3, 2006 15:58:08 GMT -5
she[Pam]'s dumber than Paris Hilton.Though choice ... ! Man ... Tough choice ... ! Nah Pam's the real feline that Paris hopes to one day inspire to be... Wanna Be...Purchase some tits Paris. |
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Post by rockkid on Apr 4, 2006 9:26:29 GMT -5
Whose rules pat? The states? We kind of make our own being a different country & all.
Whoops just reminded him they don’t own us………… prepare for melt down in 5 4 3 2 ……………
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Post by Dr. Drum on Apr 5, 2006 6:33:03 GMT -5
So the new session of Parliament is begun... Who's gonna be the one to throw the spanner into Stephen's script?
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Post by Dr. Drum on Apr 7, 2006 6:09:33 GMT -5
Good piece.
Punishment feeds the crime
By RICK SALUTIN
The Globe and Mail
Friday, April 7, 2006, Page A15
My problem with Stephen Harper's effort to be hard on crime and terror is not that it lacks compassion, empathy and other mushy left-wing values. It's that it will create more crime and more terror.
Take crime. Doubtless his policies are tough on criminals: higher mandatory sentences, end the "faint hope" clause, make parole scarce. The trouble is they aren't tough on crime. Criminologists, or a little common sense, suggest the measures will result in more crime by leaving people in jail longer, with less hope, and then releasing them without the supervision they get on parole. If that sounds speculative and theoretical, look at the U.S.
But our new leader seems to get satisfaction from announcing the policies, so at least someone is benefiting. When he told a police meeting this week, "If you do a serious crime, you're going to start doing serious time," he looked relaxed and expansive, as he did when he began ending speeches with: "God bless Canada." His comfort zone is clearly American, he can imagine himself as George Bush or Ronald Reagan and it works for him -- just like having some war heroes acknowledged during Tuesday's State of the Union, I mean Speech from the Throne. Nice for him. He feels better. He's taken a stand against the bad guys. But about those shootings . . .
Now terror: Peter Mansbridge asked the PM if our Afghanistan role puts Canada in al-Qaeda's crosshairs. The PM said no, because the people who destroyed the World Trade Center would equally like to destroy this country. With all respect, Mr. Speaker, that is what kids at camp call horse puckey. When George Bush said something similar about the inevitability of the U.S. being attacked, Osama bin Laden replied, "Perhaps he can tell us why we did not attack Sweden." Ex-CIA expert on al-Qaeda, Michael Scheuer, says "Theirs is a war against a specific target and for specific, limited purposes." It is, in a standard bin Ladenism, to make America "pull out of the Arabian Peninsula" and "cease its meddling in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world." If Stephen Harper doesn't know that, he is one ignorant policy wonk. If he does, he's being disingenuous. Either way, his Afghanistan policy is like painting a bull's eye on us. I'm not against that at times -- I do it to myself -- but don't pretend you don't know what those big circles you're making mean.
Then they pull Canadian funding from the elected Hamas government in Palestine. What will be the effect? Everything that happens in Palestine ripples through the Arab, and then Muslim, world. When the blind leader of Hamas was assassinated by U.S.-made missiles fired from Israeli helicopters in 2004, there was immediate rage from Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, followed by the killing of four U.S. security men in Fallujah, whose bodies were dragged behind cars bearing pictures of the dead Hamas leader. Many "insurgents" are shifting back to Afghanistan from Iraq. There will be a line drawn marking the Canadian role from Palestine to Kandahar.
What is the point of acting in the world if you don't take account of the consequences of your acts? Canada's mildly independent stance in the region used to suggest "the West" was not monolithically aligned with U.S. policy. It was a straw of hope for pro-secular, anti-fundamentalist forces in the region. But now Canada carries out U.S. policy -- like cutting off Hamas -- even before the U.S. does. This becomes an argument for monolithic, fanatical responses. "They" mistreat us; "we" must hit them back. The terror meter rises.
Move the arrow up another colour. Are we there yet?
It's like the crime-punishment stuff. You may think you've taken a moral stand, it makes you feel good. But that's not what policy is about. Policy is about consequences to others: war, peace, life, death.
A final note on domestic policy. I read Margaret Wente's column yesterday on how national child care would benefit the middle classes, not the poor. I'm earnestly searching for her 1964 column about how public health care will do the same. I'm sure it was as clear then as it is now. It's taking time because the files aren't computerized and your fingers get inky.
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Post by Dr. Drum on Apr 7, 2006 6:12:46 GMT -5
Tories will neither kill nor live up to Kyoto OTTAWA — The Conservative government will not pull out of the international Kyoto agreement on climate change even though it has no intention of meeting the deal's targets. tinyurl.com/frst9I guess, in one sense, 'surprise, surprise' but it looks like for the time being, at least, we’re no worse off on this issue than we were under the Liberals. Not that that’s good enough, of course.
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Post by phil on Apr 7, 2006 7:31:07 GMT -5
Somebody should tell Steven Harper that crime rates
have actualy decreased 12 % in the last decade ... !!
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Post by Dr. Drum on Apr 7, 2006 8:50:36 GMT -5
They’re more or less stealing a page from the Republican handbook – policy is now driven more by politics than any notion of good governance. Tick off the "5 priorities": crime rates are down but there’s a few high profile shootings in major centres, so play up those fears. Economists say that cutting the GST will stimulate an economy that doesn’t need stimulating; most people will be marginally worse off when they reverse the Liberal’s income tax cuts to pay for it; it runs counter to cutting greenhouse gas emissions – but it has a feel good effect on the upper middle class and well off voters in central Canada most likely to be swayed to the Conservatives. The patient wait-times guarantee affects relatively few people and does next to nothing to sustain the health care system but again, it’s feel good stuff for the voters. And so on…
It’s all about getting a majority next time out and if recent polls are to be believed, so far it’s working.
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Post by phil on Apr 7, 2006 10:50:58 GMT -5
As soon as the Feds cut a percentage on the GST
Québec has a plan to raise the provincial sale tax by the same amount ... LoL!!
Just wait till "Reform" gets a little too comfortable
and they will put one or two feet in their mouth !!
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Post by Rit on Apr 12, 2006 15:02:45 GMT -5
This is an actual radio conversation between a U.S Navy aircraft carrier (USS Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October 1995. (the radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95, authorized by the Freedom of Information Act).
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Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.
Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES TO THE NORTH OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
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