Imagine Nation in Motion

As with many people, I've had a couple days to ponder the Quebecois nation motion. My thoughts are extensive as they include much history and what Canada is as a whole, so bear with me, but please hear me out.

The Bloc's proposed motion caught the Prime Minister off guard. Who'd suspect this motion would come forward given that the Bloc has been around since 1993? Why now?

Blame the Liberals. Duceppe saw the Quebec wing of the federal Liberals, mostly supporters of Iggy, about to have this debate at the Liberal Leadership Convention this weekend. Politics is all about timing and momentum, and Duceppe knew there would be no better time than this ever in his career. It had probably been in his mind for many, many years, but now was the time to play his cards.

Duceppe thought he had a royal flush, but then Harper quickly got a consensus, even from Bill Graham and Stephane Dion, and laid down the trump card with the motion put forth. 266-16 were in favour, including the Block, as Duceppe, not expecting this, announces that this motion of a Quebecois nation within a united Canada still plays into their hands. But does it?

Many pundits and top bloggers like Andrew Coyne and Warren Kinsella quickly lambash any notion of a nation within Canada as they say it opens the door for another Meech or Charlottetown. History showed that this caused Bouchard to split from the Mulroney coalition and start the Bloc Quebecois. Canadians rejected special gifts to Quebec and the separatist movement was alive and well again.

The last federal election in Quebec saw 10 Conservative MPs -- something no one was expecting, which drew support away from both soft-Liberals and soft-Bloc votes, or to put it another way, soft-federalists and soft-sovereignists, neither on the extreme end.

Constitutionally, the current status-quo with Canada stems from Trudeau, which were later solidified by Chretien.

Trudeau's extreme federalist policies were originally embraced by Canadians, but then later rejected as they obviously didn't work. The result was simply a bloated government and bureaucracy, deficits and higher debt, a stagnant economy, forced bilingualism, the National Energy Program, higher taxes, and more, all in the name of unity. Keeping in mind that Trudeau, as a student, protested against our participation in World War II while Nazi subs floated in the St. Lawrence and blew away civilian ships, and was a card carrying communist.

Mulroney tried to reform Trudeau's federalism, but failed, and Canada remained to be mired in Trudeaupian federalism for a long time.

But I digress, extreme federalists like Bob Rae and others are afraid to open the constitution as they believe it will mean more powers to Quebec and we'd have to go through another separatist vote, which would break up Canada.

Albertans, and westerners for the most part, don't like this Quebecois nation thing because the western provinces, if you look at their representation in the Senate, is a mere colony in comparison to PEIs, so why should they get more? That's why they rejected the two Accords. A bunch of years later, Quebec almost left, and many westerners were wishing it were actually true too.

But now we supposedly have the Clarity Act, which idea originated with Stephen Harper when he was an MP in the 90's, was finally brought forth by Chretien many years later to help stave off Quebec sliming its way out.

The simple fact is the the federal government is so bloated with such high taxes and overlaps so many provincial jurisdictions, the provinces and cities have resorted to begging. It's like a feudal system again.

Harper's pending discussions with the premiers to open the constitution but only related to spending powers is one step in realigning this country to its original and workable intention, not by dictatorial federal government. How the federal Liberals can create a health care system, give 50% to the provinces, then reduce that number to 11%, and continue to threaten provinces over their original jurisdiction makes no sense--neither does the federal government getting involved in education.

Health care and education have been the #1 argument by federal socialists to ensure taxes continue to stay high for their socialism program experiments and to bribe voters with their own money, when its actually the provinces, by the constitution, who have to deliver. This jurisdictional lack of respect by the feds began with Trudeau federalism and continues to this day. This is what fuels separatism in Quebec and the west. The worst part is that the feds have given so much money and attention to Quebec, they've become unknowingly dependent on it, but are now unphased by this bribery.

It's simply about respect. This country would be far better off fiscally and thus would be more efficient if the provinces were given that respect to spend their money their way in their areas of jurisdictional power. Why is it whenever a province goes about their business away from socialism, the lefties cry the need for a "stronger" federal government to prevent this stuff from happening? It's because socialists don't respect individuality or trust people to take care of themselves--don't worry the government, or nanny state will handle it. Look at the national day care debate, same thing.

Supereconomies like the European Union and the United States are examples of how independent states can unite on a common economy, on areas of military defense, and a set of democratic ideals. Scotland has its own parliament now within a United Kingdom. Even Australia and its states are in a better position than Canada, and we're falling behind.

We should be an imagine nation in motion...not stagnant in its development.

It's time Canada moved forward and not be held back by separatists and their threats, otherwise quit your whining and look at the big picture. I welcome the idea of opening the constitution again and so the federal government can stay out of everyone's pocket so provinces can be provinces again, (or individual nations within a confederation for all I care), and give respect where jurisdictional respect and democracy are long due.

And it's that respect which will unite all provinces and nations in Canada.

Debt and Taxes

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's report yesterday was excellent. Let's look at this shall we?

Incoming splitting -- It was hinted in the last election, but now it appears to be coming to fruition. You couldn't find a more a family-friendly middleclass tax proposal than this. This will save families thousands each year. Hmmm.. methinks that amount money could be nicely applied to, I dunno, let's say... saving for a child's tuition!

Lowering the EI rate -- Saves me a few bucks each paycheque. Considering the EI fund is bloated, this is obviously a wise move.

Debt and Taxes --

And he promised to begin using the interest rate savings from paying down the
$480-billion national debt to reduce income taxes each year. Last year's
debt reduction of $13.2 billion translates into $700 million in personal
income tax savings — to be shared among all taxpayers — next year, Flaherty
said. By 2011, this measure would generate $1.4 billion in tax savings
annually, he said. Liberal finance critic John McCallum scoffed at this
measure, saying the tax cuts would be "absolutely trivial."

Absolutely trivial? Did anyone notice the big tax cut the Liberals made several years ago? I didn't. As well, how else do the Liberals propose cutting taxes? Isn't the point of reducing debt to free up interest money to help pay for tax cuts? Duh. Sounds absolutely trivial to me.

Doing less --

Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said that Ottawa's plan to pay down more
federal debt and cut income taxes will leave Ontario in the lurch.
"I don't see any help there," Sorbara told reporters. "I see the potential of incurring
more expense because the federal government is doing less."

Exactly. Less. Oh, poor Liberal Ontario. Too afraid to cut their own spending I see. Not that the Liberals would ever cut taxes in that province, but now they can't go begging to the feds anymore and will actually have to do something instead of passing the buck.

Tearing down welfare walls --

Flaherty also said he would like to bring in a tax break to help low-income
earners who are struggling with the so-called "welfare wall," in which taking a
job results in a loss of social benefits that leaves them worse off than before.

Ah, there's something that would really help a lot of people, especially single parents.

Notice how this update doesn't give any ammo to the Liberals or NDP to say "the Tories are giving tax cuts for the rich". The Liberals can only complain that the cuts don't go far enough and the NDP can only say, as MP Libby Davies said, that these measures will gut important social programs (although there's no plans to gut social programs).

Methinks the middle-class voters the Conservatives have locked up can read through this socialist tripe.

I'm already looking forward to the next election.

Waiting to exhale...

I'm a global warming skeptic--meaning that I don't believe the hype and environazi claims that CO2 levels have everything to do with global temperature and climate change.

It seems that the way the media (and Al Gore) spin and sensationalize climate change into doomsday scenarios which scare people into believing that carbon taxes will circumvent our inevitable destruction, is foolish. I admit, sometimes, the spin is so powerful, I tend to sympathize, because hey, it's the environment. But it's not in this case. It's a global-socialist's (read: Maurice Strong, Paul Martin's buddy) wet dream.

Here's further reason why:

Both Drs. Ball and Soon went into long and scientific reasons why they
believe there is no link between rising CO2 levels and rising Earth
temperatures, even forwarding complicated scientific articles and papers for me
to read.

Both men agree since 1680, the tail-end of the Little Ice Age, the world has been warming, but they attribute most of the warming to sun cycles, not CO2 -- which makes up less than 4% of the atmosphere.

Indeed, ice-core data show when CO2 levels were 16 times higher than they are today, the world was covered in ice!

"The world has actually been cooling since 1998 even though man-made CO2 levels have increased," said Ball, from his home in Victoria, "but I bet that's not going to be mentioned in Nairobi."

Call it an "inconvenient truth."

"If their theory is correct, that increased CO2 levels causes warming, then the temperatures should be going up all the time, but they're not," pointed out Ball.
Dr. Soon gets more poetic. "Looking for the climate impact of CO2 is really like searching for a needle in the haystack.

"The idea that you have a CO2 knob that you can adjust up and down just to
get an optimal climate is a great flaw in the non-scientific discussion of global warming," added Soon.

How the U.S. Election 2006 will affect Harper

U.S. Election 2006: Democrats beat the Republicans = Giuliani next president = good news for Harper

I haven't commented much on the U.S., but what will this mean for Canada? With the Democrats controlling both houses, Bush will have to adjust some policy, that's for sure, but what about the next U.S. and Canadian election?

Americans went out on a limb having the Republicans control both houses AND the presidency, but generally they want to balance things between the executive and legislative bodies. That's why this is good news for Rudy Giuliani, who I predicted to friends and family would become the next President of the U.S. and beat Hillary Clinton by at least 5 points. Polls have indicated this for sometime now.

There is talk that the next president should be an outsider. Well, Bush was an outsider, so I'm not sure if that has any credence or perhaps that these are quietly planted spin doctors in favour of Rudy, who is an outsider to Washington DC, and well respected in both parties.

So with Rudy in the White House starting in 2009, what about Stephen Harper?

Ontario likes to balance things out too. Typically if they have a Liberal or NDP government provincially, they then vote conservative federally. So as long as Dalton McGuinty continues as he has, he'll likely win the next election.

Assuming everything is as it is now, even after the Income Trust decision, next election, which some say is next year, the federal Conservatives would win another minority and Stephen Harper would still be Prime Minister. (Really, do any of the current Liberal leadership candidates stand a chance?)

What about the election after that, whenever it is? I think if a Canadian federal election were held next year in 2007, and a minority results, the next election would be 2009, after Rudy becomes president. And if the McGuinty Liberals are still in Ontario then Mr. Harper will be Prime Minister for quite some time.

And I think Stephen and Rudy will get along quite well and we won't hear the tired leftist argument comparing Harper to Bush.