Canada's next Prime Minister?

[lordmandeep]

imo the Liberals have lost the fiscal conservatism in thier party.

There is now to much focus on social issues.


Jean Chretien won on fiscal conservatism...

 

[Long Island Mike]

Canadian political parties idealogically....

Whoaccio,Afransen and Brandon: Thanks for the maps and insight on this subject of political party comparisons.

I find it interesting to think of the Conservatives in Canada being a Centrist party-if they are indeed are that is good to me!

In the US I have heard of the Republican Party in the US today being a wary alliance of moralists dominated by the Religious right types on one side along with the capitalists and supply-siders-the more wealthy on the other side.

Canada does not seem to have a problem with right-wing moralists in their political parties-certainly a good thing.

I like Canada's system of naming their districts-instead of numbered representative districts as in the USA. The name "riding" instead of "district" takes some getting used to but it works!

LI MIKE

 

[King of Kensington]

Jean Chretien won on fiscal conservatism...

Actually he got elected in 1993 by saying he'd focus more on unemployment than on the deficit and that he'd abrogate NAFTA.

 

[afransen]

Oh, we have those people, and they mostly vote conservative, but Stephen Harper has been pretty effective at being the one and only voice of the conservative party. When the right fractured in the early '90s, the evangelical christians and far right conservatives were left to wander in the wilderness for over 13 years without a strong voice in Ottawa or much chance of gaining power. Now that the right has reunited, they have muscled to the centre in their desire for power. I think this inevitably leads to a lot of frustration for the hardliners. Harper occasionally tosses some red meat to them, such as the cultural diplomacy program he axed just before the election and the free vote on same-sex marriage. I think Harper will likely continue to be able to hold this coalition together for a while, but I don't think his successor will be as able.

The Conservative's version of Carl Rove, Tom Flanagan, suggests that there ultimate strategy is to destroy the Liberal party and become the new de facto ruling party. I think there is no way they can do this and still own their right flank all the way to the extreme. I suspect that they recognize that they will probably get one more mandate in (either majority or minority) before the Liberals get their act together. Which is to say, their next mandate will be interesting!

 

[kEiThZ]

Yet it was the Liberals that balanced budgets for a decade while the Conservatives have pushed Canada to deficit in a recent quarter and likely to push it into a yearly deficit in the near future.

So for good fiscal management Dion would be the man to support.

I have made this point before. One quarter of deficit means nothing. It means the government isn't running 10 billion dollar surpluses and sucking those funds out of the economy during a downturn.

As for the Libs, I still haven't forgotten the HRDC boondoggle, the Gun Registry, the Liberal sponsorship scandal, etc. I am more than willing to let the Conservatives make their own mistakes, especially if that means their worst is running a tiny deficit that amounts to less than 0.01% of GDP.

 

[Brandon716]

I have made this point before. One quarter of deficit means nothing. It means the government isn't running 10 billion dollar surpluses and sucking those funds out of the economy during a downturn.

As for the Libs, I still haven't forgotten the HRDC boondoggle, the Gun Registry, the Liberal sponsorship scandal, etc. I am more than willing to let the Conservatives make their own mistakes, especially if that means their worst is running a tiny deficit that amounts to less than 0.01% of GDP.

Its not about one quarter deficit, its about the trend and where its heading. The Conservatives have had plenty scandals in the past 3 years to amount to plenty reason to give them the boot.

 

[afransen]

The Canadian economist Stephen Gordon blogged about the deficit talk recently. If you want an injection of fact rather than spin, it's probably worth a read:

Link

One graph I found interesting was this:

It's a 12 month rolling sum of government spending vs. revenues.

 

[kEiThZ]

Its not about one quarter deficit, its about the trend and where its heading. The Conservatives have had plenty scandals in the past 3 years to amount to plenty reason to give them the boot.

Really? Somehow, as a taxpayer, I am not really that upset....how much money have they lost the federal government with their scandals? And how much of it was directed to the Conservative party? The Libs lost 1 billion on the HRDC scandal alone. Then hundreds of millions on the gun registry. Then pocketed millions through the sponsorship scandal. Show me how much the Conservatives have pocketed while in government for all of what 2 years.

As for discussing trends....the Conservatives have not really slowed the growth of government spending at all. So the argument that they are damaging social programs is bunk. As to the so called deficit....500 million for two months at the beginning of the fiscal year. That amounts to 0.0004% of GDP. Moreover, they missed the target during an economic downturn. Any government in power during a recession or a slowdown has a hard time. The Ontario government is delaying its uploading promises because their books look weak. Nobody is accusing them of mismanagement. That's the reality of a slowdown. One can hardly call a deficit of half a billion in a 200 billion plus budget during an economic slowdown fiscal mismanagement. And from a strictly Keynesian point of view, running a deficit will help cushion the impact of the coming recession.

It's fair to criticize specific polices, but to say that they have mismanaged government because they have lower revenues during a slowdown is not really a cogent argument. I didn't support the GST cut, but I am not going to say that it was fiscal mismanagement and certainly not on the scale that the Liberals have committed. It provided stimulus during a slowdown and might well have pre-empted a recession. To me that's good economic management.

So tell me what you think the solution should be? Should they raise the GST just as the economy is slumping?

 

[kEiThZ]

The Canadian economist Stephen Gordon blogged about the deficit talk recently. If you want an injection of fact rather than spin, it's probably worth a read:

Link

One graph I found interesting was this:

It's a 12 month rolling sum of government spending vs. revenues.

And that chart proves a good point. It's the slowdown, not the GST cut that's holding back revenue. For example, look at the first GST cut, July 2006. The graphs are still parallel. Now look at the second cut, Jan 2008. Revenues have already begun to level off (see slope of the graph not the data points) before the cut. So I highly doubt the cut is to blame. Indeed if you see the slope of spending, we could argue that it's spending that needs to be trimmed....

Anyway, second quarter numbers will be released a week before Canadians go to the polls, so they will have plenty of time to judge. It's unlikely that they will run a deficit. And they can always cut spending if they wish to maintain balanced book, if it ever came to that...

 

[Whoaccio]

I tend to lean towards the Liberals, but that party has some serious soul searching to do. After 13 years in power, especially with a less than grand ending, I think it is fair to expect the Liberals to go away and come back with something new. I have some sympathy for Dion, as he has been maligned right from the get go by the Tories and even his own party. At the same time, he seems to have missed every opportunity he had to build reputation. His attempts at mud slinging were anemic at best and the constant threat of an election, only to abstain, really does hurt his image. You have to question what some of the Liberals are thinking. Their centerpiece, the so called "green-shift", is so riddled with compromises, spending promises, and flat out political opportunism (the "rural resident" clause comes to mind) that anybody with half a decent campaign team could tear it apart.

The Liberals are like the Leafs. They need to carry out a controlled burn, plan for the long term (NEXT election) and rebuild from the ground up. They have strong brand equity, but running with a few broken tires is ruining the undercarriage. (enough political folks-isms for you?

 

[lordmandeep]

Troubling news...

The local Mp's who are Liberals are going all out to make sure they will win and these are safe Liberal seats.

Prehaps they know of a up coming disaster.



PLus this election is getting overshawdoed by Obama and Palin big time.

A girl in her mid 20's came in to our class and she had the hair style, skin colour(not really white a bit tanned") and the glasses and everyone was like "hey she looks like that Palin"

 

[Hydrogen]

The Libs lost 1 billion on the HRDC scandal alone.

Can someone actually show where that billion dollars was lost? In all these years, that number has been brought up over and over again, and yet there is no actual proof of a loss so significant. The billion dollar figure has become a believed truth only because the accusation has been repeated over so many times. Please remember, the billion dollar number became widely quoted before an audit was done.

Never underestimate the ability of the media to latch onto an alliterative phrase that makes for easy headlines (billion dollar boondoggle).

Then hundreds of millions on the gun registry.

The gun registry went way over budget, no doubt about it. Another problem not mentioned is that the original budget for this project was low-balled. However, there was a gun registry, so the worst one could say that too much money was paid for it. However, the money became wasted when the program was castrated by the Conservatives.

 

[afransen]

The Libs lost 1 billion on the HRDC scandal alone. Then hundreds of millions on the gun registry. Then pocketed millions through the sponsorship scandal. Show me how much the Conservatives have pocketed while in government for all of what 2 years.

Well, the HRDC scandal involved a $200 million portion of the overal $1 billion fund. Not all of that $200 million was deemed to be spent improperly, either. So I think you're exaggerating more than bit.

And if you're going to hold 9 year old scandals against the Liberals, can we go back to the Mulroney years for Conservative dirt? I think the only Conservative funny business involving government money that's come to light so far is the $1.3 million they spent in excess of the spending cap in the 2006 election cap, which they want Elections Canada to reimburse.

As for discussing trends....the Conservatives have not really slowed the growth of government spending at all. So the argument that they are damaging social programs is bunk.

Well, I don't think an argument that simple really washes. What the heck are they spending the new money on? There was some things for the military, but then some of that was canceled a couple weeks ago...

It's fair to criticize specific polices, but to say that they have mismanaged government because they have lower revenues during a slowdown is not really a cogent argument. I didn't support the GST cut, but I am not going to say that it was fiscal mismanagement and certainly not on the scale that the Liberals have committed. It provided stimulus during a slowdown and might well have pre-empted a recession. To me that's good economic management.

Economic stimulus != good economic management. If they bought every Canadian a $100 gift certificate to Tim Hortons, that would be economic stimulus, but not good economic management. They cut the worst tax they could cut. Cutting Personal and corporate income taxes would have had as immediate an effect as the GST cut (lowering amounts withheld means bigger paycheques), and would have been much better for the economy in the long term.

 

[afransen]

And that chart proves a good point. It's the slowdown, not the GST cut that's holding back revenue. For example, look at the first GST cut, July 2006. The graphs are still parallel. Now look at the second cut, Jan 2008. Revenues have already begun to level off (see slope of the graph not the data points) before the cut. So I highly doubt the cut is to blame. Indeed if you see the slope of spending, we could argue that it's spending that needs to be trimmed....

Well, the chart doesn't 'prove' anything. And, as Stephen notes in his blog, the data is noisy enough that I don't think you can draw such conclusions from the lines on the chart.

You can't ignore the fact that they cut revenues by about ten billion vs. where they would be otherwise (excluding the taxes they raised, I suppose).

Anyway, second quarter numbers will be released a week before Canadians go to the polls, so they will have plenty of time to judge. It's unlikely that they will run a deficit. And they can always cut spending if they wish to maintain balanced book, if it ever came to that...

Well, the 'uh oh' point is at the end of the year. Mayhaps this why Steve was in a hurry to cash in those votes. He better hope for a majority if things turn pear shaped....

 

[adma]

Those NDP volunteers are working FAST! They're just a blur! Gerard Kennedy has a battle head of him!

From what I'm seeing in my neck of the woods, I'm a little shocked, too--like when it comes to signage groundwork, Team Kennedy hasn't (thus far) learned from Sylvia Watson's Cheri DiBacle...