[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

We need to cut the tax breaks & subsidies to the Oil Companies and use that money to build a deep sea port in the Artic.

Gawd, fucking damn it.

There were originally tax incentives for companies to develop the tar sands when oil prices were not high enough to justify companies investing in the infrastructure needed to exploit those resources.  I am not sure if the economics are such that companies would continue to invest there if there were no such tax incentives.

The main call for ending the subsidies seems to be from an enviornmental perspective - end the subsidies so that companies will no longer exploit the resources in the Tar Sands.

However if the stated goal - as set out by Buddha is to end the plight of workers who are underpaid and overworked this would seem to be a very poor way of going about it since the oil patch workers are anything but.

[viper37]

MPs don't have expanse accounts since the early 2000s.  They make more money, but pay for most of their expenses while in Ottawa.
The state will pay for travel in their ridings (I don't think there's a limit on the # of travels allowed per year), and foreign trips when it's on official business.

[Grey Fox]

We need to cut the tax breaks & subsidies to the Oil Companies and use that money to build a deep sea port in the Artic.

Gawd, fucking damn it.

There were originally tax incentives for companies to develop the tar sands when oil prices were not high enough to justify companies investing in the infrastructure needed to exploit those resources.  I am not sure if the economics are such that companies would continue to invest there if there were no such tax incentives.

The main call for ending the subsidies seems to be from an enviornmental perspective - end the subsidies so that companies will no longer exploit the resources in the Tar Sands.

However if the stated goal - as set out by Buddha is to end the plight of workers who are underpaid and overworked this would seem to be a very poor way of going about it since the oil patch workers are anything but.

I just want a deep sea port in the artic

[HVC]

Opps

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2011/06/17/18297201.html

The Newfoundland and Labrador government mistakenly sent out a press release Thursday that contains a link to a pornographic website.

The URL at the bottom of press release about Inuit education was www.xxx.ca. It was supposed to be www.itk.ca, the National Strategy on Inuit Education.

About 15 minutes after the computer screens of local news offices lit up with unexpected graphic sex, the aboriginal affairs department recalled the release and corrected the link.

[Josephus]

Was it native porn at least?

[HVC]

Was it native porn at least?

No. Canada doesn't care about native initiatives and thus Native porn is woefully underfunded. At best it'd be a white chick with some painted chicken feathers in her hair.

[crazy canuck]

I didnt think the motion to remove the word "Socialist" from the NDP constitution would be a big deal but it is turning out to be a significant issue if local media are accurately portraying the debate.  I didnt think the NDP still had hard core socialists (for our US friends I mean real socialists) but it appears they do.

[Neil]

That's interesting.  I haven't really seen any dissenting pieces in the national media yet regarding the shift away from socialism and towards 'social-democratic'.

[viper37]

Was it native porn at least?

No. Canada doesn't care about native initiatives and thus Native porn is woefully underfunded. At best it'd be a white chick with some painted chicken feathers in her hair.

that's what happens when you cut funding to the arts, no more good porn is being made

[Josephus]

Was it native porn at least?

No. Canada doesn't care about native initiatives and thus Native porn is woefully underfunded. At best it'd be a white chick with some painted chicken feathers in her hair.

that's what happens when you cut funding to the arts, no more good porn is being made

Right. It's Harper's fault. 

[BuddhaRhubarb]

We need to cut the tax breaks & subsidies to the Oil Companies and use that money to build a deep sea port in the Artic.

Gawd, fucking damn it.

There were originally tax incentives for companies to develop the tar sands when oil prices were not high enough to justify companies investing in the infrastructure needed to exploit those resources.  I am not sure if the economics are such that companies would continue to invest there if there were no such tax incentives.

The main call for ending the subsidies seems to be from an enviornmental perspective - end the subsidies so that companies will no longer exploit the resources in the Tar Sands.

However if the stated goal - as set out by Buddha is to end the plight of workers who are underpaid and overworked this would seem to be a very poor way of going about it since the oil patch workers are anything but.

I'm not sure how you got to the oil patch, but yeah I'd like to see those companies get less breaks, but what I meant (as usual my clarity lacks :p) the big ass companies (Banks, multinational retail/wholesale chains etc) that hand out the McJobs that the majority of Canadians do. The largest workforce is the lower paid people. Give them some "breaks" if not in the form of less tax, maybe better healthcare, education opportunities, and infrastructure to improve the quality of life rather than the value of the piece of ground we are on.

[Admiral Yi]

The best way for Canadian oil comapanies to hold on to those tax breaks would be to convince someone in the US to bring an illegal subsidy complaint to NAFTA.

[Neil]

More educational opportunities are a bad idea anyways, and health care is a waste.  Infrastructure might not be a bad idea though.

[Grallon]

A recent column (June 11th)  in the Globe & Mail, from André Pratte, Federast-in-Chief at La Presse, following the last federal elections, the debacle of the Bloc and the recent convulsions in the PQ.



G.

-----

Why are so many young Quebecers still sovereigntists? It's cooler


A week ago, Pauline Marois seemed firmly in control of the often temperamental Parti Québécois, destined to become Quebec's first female premier, replacing an extremely unpopular Jean Charest. Suddenly on Tuesday, the floor fell from under her feet. Four prominent Members of the National Assembly (MNA) announced they were leaving the PQ caucus, discontent with Mrs. Marois' leadership, especially her decision to put independence on the backburner en route to the elections two years from now.
This crisis is only the latest of many that have threatened to tear apart the party founded by René Lévesque. After each, the death of separatism is predicted. It won't happen now or in the foreseeable future.

For the past 30 years, support for independence has been remarkably stable at 40 per cent, except for two brief periods (after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord and in the last weeks of the 1995 referendum campaign). That stability has frustrated separatists, whose constant efforts to convince Quebecers to follow them has fallen on a majority of deaf ears. It also confuses Canadians outside the province, who wonder why on Earth so many Quebecers still believe that separation would be good for Quebec. Hasn't the province become one of the most prosperous regions on Earth (Statistics Canada announced yesterday that Quebec's unemployment rate had gone down to 7.3 per cent, significantly lower than Ontario's)? Aren't French-speaking Quebecers in control of their province's political and economic affairs? Doesn't Quebec receive billions in equalization payments, thanks to which Quebec taxpayers can afford very generous social programs?

For older separatists, these facts do not compensate for the historical wrongs – their list is endless – suffered by French Canadians since the 1763 conquest. Theirs is generally an emotional nationalism, although rationalized by political and economic arguments.

Younger separatists' reasons for supporting independence are different. They are full of confidence in themselves and therefore do not fear separation. They travel all over the world to study, work and visit but have never found a reason to go to Toronto or Vancouver, let alone St. John's or Regina. To them, the rest of Canada is a foreign country, with a different culture and different values. They see the election of a majority Harper government and Quebecers' massive vote for the NDP as the latest demonstration of the unbridgeable canyon between Quebec and English Canada. They believe the federal system is inefficient and that Quebec could better tackle the challenges it faces if it had all the tools of government in its possession.

Younger Quebecers are rarely exposed to passionate, intelligent arguments in favour of federalism and the Canadian experience. Most of what they hear from English Canada transmits, at best, indifference toward Quebec and the French language (witness the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Games). Having not lived through two referendums and endless constitutional debates, they don't understand English Canadians' hostility toward changes that would be advantageous to Quebec.

Meanwhile, separation is promoted by their professors, by the artists they admire and by brilliant politicians young and old. Two weeks from now, when tens of thousands of people attend the huge Fête Nationale shows in Montreal and Quebec City, they'll hear pop singers and rap groups yell "Vive le Québec Libre!" at the beginning or the end of their performance. At l'Université de Montréal, there is an annual "semaine de la souveraineté," when students can listen to figures like Jacques Parizeau and Bernard Landry explain why separation would be in Quebec's economic and cultural interests. Needless to say, there is no "semaine du Canada."

Nowadays, no one speaks to Quebecers, especially the younger generation, about Canada and the principles and values that are the foundation of the federation. To Quebecers under 40, sovereignty seems both logical and natural, good for Canada as well as for Quebec, as Gilles Duceppe often said.

So whatever happens to Pauline Marois and to the Parti Québécois, a very large number of Quebecers will continue to favour separation. Increasingly, that choice will not be based on what they have learned in history books but on what they perceive as a fait accompli: Quebec and Canada are already walking on divergent paths.

[Neil]

I don't see how having an extremely poor, dangerously nationalist state right in the middle of Canada is helpful to us.