Harper's MP pension reforms vs. Redford's MLA retirement package

The Redford PCs continue to disgust me.

HARPER
For MPs:  Instead of 66% of salary after 6 years, now 3% of salary for each year of service after 4 years, paid at 67 years of age.  Huge overall decrease.

REDFORD
For MLAs:  100% taxpayer-funded RRSP maximum limit contributions (2013:  $23,820).  100% increase.

What a difference in leadership styles.  What a joke the Redford PCs are.

Worst argument ever by a Senator...

Current Alberta Liberal Senator and former Alberta Liberal leader Grant Mitchell thinks because of the new pension rules brought in by the Harper government, his fellow Senators may resort to accepting bribes because they get "pressure all the time".

Sometimes, you just gotta say, "WTF?"

Marc Garneau is what the Liberals need

Best thing for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals would be for him to lose a close race and then take his energy and youthful team and get behind Marc Garneau.  Is there a bad thing you can say about the former astronaut, engineering doctorate, and head of the Canadian Space Agency, other than he's a bit older and not as charismatic?

“I’d make the necessary adjustments in industrial strategy where we’re getting the pants beaten off us. We have a huge talent pool of educated people but it’s clear to me that we’re underperforming. Thank God we have commodities,” he said.

He gets it.  That beats Trudeau's entire kick-off speech.

Dalton McGuinty?  Where to begin...  Yes, I hear he's a nice man.  If I was Harper, I'd want the Dad to run. For sure.

Liberals could vote for Trudeau out of celebrity and seeing some polls that put him ahead, but do they REALLY know what they're getting?  Are the retiring moms still dreaming of Trudeaumania telling their sons and daughters around the holiday dinner table what his father was like 44 years ago?  Maybe.

For the Liberals sake, hopefully dad at the table with deep Liberal roots will tell them that Garneau is a much better choice for the party, and for Canada.  Because I could live with Garneau as PM having a handle on the economy, but Justin?  Not a chance.

Trudeau would take us where we have no idea where we're going.  Garneau could at least take us upward.

Justin Trudeau tops in poll for liblead

Latest Canadian Press Harris-Decima poll has Trudeau waaaaay ahead.  Like way ahead of really smart, experienced folks like astronaut Marc Garneau, Bank of Canada guy Mark Carney, journalist Andrew Coyne and more.

Well Liberals, I guess after trying substance (Ignatieff, Dion, Martin) you'd prefer to go with style, once again, you don't necessarily care about policies, but simply gaining power no matter what.

In his kick-off speech, Trudeau was very big on rhetoric but not specifics.  Middle class this, middle class that.  But really, how's he going to help them?  There's Harper's approach--tax them less on various things so they have more money to spend on what they want, which he implemented, and there's the Liberal/NDP approach, where they tax them then spend on big useless bureaucratic gov't programs, not direct tax relief, because those progressives, you know, they know what's best for you and society than you do.

Will blue liberals buy into Trudeau's rhetoric or continue to be in their current ideological home, the centre-right Harper Conservatives?

Will soft-NDPers in Quebec, BC, and Ontario flock back to the Liberals under Trudeau?  Would a merger be even necessary with Trudeau?

Also note Liberals, where's the women besides Martha Hall-Findlay?

Trudeau's speech was very good

.. if you're a progressive/liberal.  You should be very excited.  There was lots of good visionary, forward-looking inspiring rhetoric in his speech that will certainly rally the liberals and many soft-dippers back into the fold.  

But there was one part that stood out for me in why heir Trudeau is no where near my belief system.

"To millions and millions of Canadians, their government has become irrelevant, remote from their daily lives, let alone their hopes and dreams. To them, Ottawa is just a place where people play politics as if it were a game open to a small group, and that appeals to an even smaller one."

As a libertarian-conservative I'm right glad that the government has become irrelevant and remote from my daily life and my hopes and dreams.  Why should the gov't be involved in my hopes and dreams?  That's the last place I want them.  His words embody the strong central government approach of Liberals.

Let's face it, the reason the Liberals sucked last time is because Ignatieff didn't inspire and rally the lefties and Quebeckers and Jack was in turn elevated to an icon, causing the Liberalism to be squeezed out.  Further to that, Bob Rae is interim and there was a huge vacuum.  

The left LOVES to cling onto and rally around iconic leaders.  It's part of their nature.  They WANT someone to lead them and others to some promised land.  Whether it's Lenin, Mao, or the kids who wear that murderous communist Che Guevara on their shirt, they say they want a revolution.   Jack Layton became an iconic left leader and Tom Mulcair is trying to be one too, but I don't think he quite has it.  

Justin?  Absolutely.

I certainly see Justin Trudeau being a rallying point for the left.  The issue with his liberalism in Canada is that it's almost become irrelevant--with the NDP on the left and Conservatives on the right both taking up parts of the centre.  It's even happening provincially with parties on both ends strattling the middle.

So with that, I applaud Justin for actually having the guts to make the case for liberalism.  He needed to do that to inspire the Liberal base and mark out territory.

"And as we face these challenges, the only ideology that must guide us is evidence. Hard, scientific facts and data. It may seem revolutionary in today's Ottawa, but instead of inventing the facts to justify the policies, we will create policy based on facts. Solutions can come from the left or the right, all that matters is that they work. That they help us live - and thrive - true to our values."

This is liberalism ideology at it's core and as I mentioned in a previous post, what made the Liberal party successful.  Push back on the left and right and say some of both parties ideas are good.  Tout the "balanced approach" with big visionary rhetoric.

Liberals should be ecstatic.

And Tom Mulcair should be very afraid.

Alison Redford at the trough...

Photo image courtesy of Jeff McIntosh, Canadian Press for the Toronto Star.  Text added by Hatrock afterward.