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I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. 

I was a fan of Joe Clark, I was a fan of Paul Martin.  That middle of the aisle approach to both finance and social issues. 

 

The issue is that under people like Andrew Scheer, or Doug Ford provincially, or the others who are the current leaders of the conservatives, they have gotten wacky.   The people leading them now have taken their cues from trump and have gone so far right wing on social issues that they are just wacky and I cant support that. 

Meanwhile Trudeau isn't anywhere close to where people like Paul Martin were from a fiscal standpoint.  They are running NDP type fiscal policy. 

So where is that centrist position?  Doesn't exist right now. 

That said, if forced to pick between the wacky conservatives who don't value human life IMO, or a fiscal policy i disagree with in Trudeau, I have to take the lesser of the evils and go for Trudeau cause people over property/money for me. 

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Ya, Weber says he has full gym in his home in Kelowna and should be ready to go!:clap:

 

Isnt Brossard training place up and running now?

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2 hours ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Screwed.  You either get a wingnut or someone left of Karl Marx.

 

thats why politics is so messed up these days.  In Alberta everyone I work for is pro trump, because he is pro-pipelines.  Doesn’t matter what kind of leader he is or whatever else happens in the world as a result of his actions. 

 

with the exception one election where the NDP got elected, In AB we had  almost almost 60 years of a conservative government.  I don’t like Rachel Notley’s economic policy, but have more respect for her as a person than I ever can/will for Jason Kenny.  Liberals will never win in Alberta and NDP blew their one chance. Their last win was such a surprise that you had new grads and yoga instructors who won - when they just ran for the heck of it and in town halls were clearly out of their depth. 
 

At the federal level I would prefer a fiscal conservative, but I’d take Trudeau over anyone the conservatives have and NDP are a non-starter.  For some reason Globally, conservative are almost all right wing wingnut/racists now.

 

That's interesting, up here in Redmonton almost no one I work with likes Trump but I work in the financial sector not oil and gas. I agree about Notley, highly intelligent and ethical but I am not an NDP person. I think the NDP in Alberta were more a victim of low oil prices than anything else. I miss Stephen Harper. I guess we are getting off topic but it's more interesting than debating the merits of Alex Belzile (no offence to Alex, he is probably a very nice guy). 

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25 minutes ago, Commandant said:

I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. 

I was a fan of Joe Clark, I was a fan of Paul Martin.  That middle of the aisle approach to both finance and social issues. 

 

The issue is that under people like Andrew Scheer, or Doug Ford provincially, or the others who are the current leaders of the conservatives, they have gotten wacky.   The people leading them now have taken their cues from trump and have gone so far right wing on social issues that they are just wacky and I cant support that. 

Meanwhile Trudeau isn't anywhere close to where people like Paul Martin were from a fiscal standpoint.  They are running NDP type fiscal policy. 

So where is that centrist position?  Doesn't exist right now. 

That said, if forced to pick between the wacky conservatives who don't value human life IMO, or a fiscal policy i disagree with in Trudeau, I have to take the lesser of the evils and go for Trudeau cause people over property/money for me. 

 

I agree with everything you said except the Joe Clark part. I just couldn't warm up to that guy, likely more of a personal than policy thing. I also think that Doug Ford has shown leadership during the COVID crisis.  Is he any worse than kathleen Wynne?

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Just now, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

I agree with everything you said except the Joe Clark part. I just couldn't warm up to that guy, likely more of a personal than policy thing. I also think that Doug Ford has shown leadership during the COVID crisis.  Is he any worse than kathleen Wynne?

 

He's been surprisingly good during COVID... but I look at that the same way as you see Trudeau being good with the Racial questions. 

Eventually COVID will be gone, and we'll be back to his shitty policies, some of which made COVID worse (cutting funding to nursing homes, and then nursing homes being ill-prepared for COVID kinda go hand in hand)... but yeah, he's made good policy and had good response once he knew of the crisis.  Once its gone though, I wonder if he'll focus on buck a beer again instead of fixing systemic problems we have. 

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On 6/10/2020 at 9:54 PM, Commandant said:

I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal. 

I was a fan of Joe Clark, I was a fan of Paul Martin.  That middle of the aisle approach to both finance and social issues.

 

That's me, too. I actually volunteered for some federal PC campaigns back in the Joe Clark era, and I still have a lot of respect for him. Martin converted me to the other side of the aisle (was never a big fan of Chretien). And then Reform took over the PCs, and their social conservatism has been a big red flag for me.

 

Fiscal conservatism, sadly, is pretty much dead at the moment: none of the parties in Parliament promote fiscal responsibility, it's only a question of whether they want to spend more or cut taxes more. And this is really part of a global trend: I think the historically low interest rates have enabled politicians to toss fiscal responsibility in the bin and spend money like drunken sailors.

 

We have to wait to see what the post-COVID world looks like.

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7 minutes ago, tomh009 said:

 

That's me, too. I actually volunteered for some federal PC campaigns back in the Joe Clark era, and I still have a lot of respect for him. Martin converted me to the other side of the aisle (was never a big fan of Chretien). And then Reform took over the PCs, and their social conservatism has been a big red flag for me.

 

Fiscal conservatism, sadly, is pretty much dead at the moment: none of the parties in Parliament promote fiscal responsibility, it's only a question of whether they want to spend more or cut taxes more. And this is really part of a global trend: I think the historically low interest rates have enabled politicians to toss fiscal responsibility in the bin and spend money like drunken sailors.

 

We have to wait to see what the post-COVID world looks like.

 

Well, three thoughts here. One is that COVID is an emergency, and there is almost universal agreement that, if you shut down the economy, you can't just let people flounder about and starve to death. So of course there is massive spending to help people and businesses through the emergency. That's not "fiscal irresponsibility" per se; it is a sensible and humane reaction to a national disaster.

 

A second is that the fear of any deficits and debt which marked the 1990s is no longer characteristic of the thinking of economists. These days, "debt-to-GDP" tends to be the preferred measure. That's not to say that infinite deficit spending is sensible, merely that we should be careful not to freeze our thinking into an outmoded 1990s consensus (especially considering that a lot of damage was done in the 1990s, much as I admire Chretien-Martin's good governance). The new mainstream thinking is not necessarily an abandonment of fiscal prudence so much as a redefinition of what it means https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/01/17/economists-reconsider-how-much-governments-can-borrow

 

Third, your point about tax increases is well taken. At present, we seem to be locked into a false binary between structural deficits and austerity. This binary could easily be overcome if we took the simple expediency of reversing one of the single worst policy decisions of the past 20 years, i.e., Harper's irresponsible and cynical 2% cut to the GST. Such a reversal would put tens of billions back in the kitty to be spent on health, infrastructure, you name it. But that's just an example. If Canadians want to overcome the aforementioned binary, we need to start talking intelligently about tax increases.

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Given the recent public health issues, long-term care problems and policing challenges (and even ignoring the environmental crisis), I think a lot more people would be willing to consider paying some more taxes now than would have been the case a year ago. If we restore the GST/HST rate, we would need to look at the HST rebates to ensure that the increase would not be too regressive and hurt low-income Canadians.

 

And a thumbs-up for the Economist quote! 👍

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3 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Well, three thoughts here. One is that COVID is an emergency, and there is almost universal agreement that, if you shut down the economy, you can't just let people flounder about and starve to death. So of course there is massive spending to help people and businesses through the emergency. That's not "fiscal irresponsibility" per se; it is a sensible and humane reaction to a national disaster.

 

A second is that the fear of any deficits and debt which marked the 1990s is no longer characteristic of the thinking of economists. These days, "debt-to-GDP" tends to be the preferred measure. That's not to say that infinite deficit spending is sensible, merely that we should be careful not to freeze our thinking into an outmoded 1990s consensus (especially considering that a lot of damage was done in the 1990s, much as I admire Chretien-Martin's good governance). The new mainstream thinking is not necessarily an abandonment of fiscal prudence so much as a redefinition of what it means https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/01/17/economists-reconsider-how-much-governments-can-borrow

 

Third, your point about tax increases is well taken. At present, we seem to be locked into a false binary between structural deficits and austerity. This binary could easily be overcome if we took the simple expediency of reversing one of the single worst policy decisions of the past 20 years, i.e., Harper's irresponsible and cynical 2% cut to the GST. Such a reversal would put tens of billions back in the kitty to be spent on health, infrastructure, you name it. But that's just an example. If Canadians want to overcome the aforementioned binary, we need to start talking intelligently about tax increases.

 

I'm fine with tax increases.  I wouldn't put it on the HST/GST though.  I think the cut to that tax, which is a regressive tax is not as big a problem as the cuts to income taxes and corporate taxes over the years have been. 

I'd rather raise the income tax rates, and corporate tax rates, raising them progressively in each tax bracket. 

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1 hour ago, Commandant said:

I'm fine with tax increases.  I wouldn't put it on the HST/GST though.  I think the cut to that tax, which is a regressive tax is not as big a problem as the cuts to income taxes and corporate taxes over the years have been. 

I'd rather raise the income tax rates, and corporate tax rates, raising them progressively in each tax bracket. 

 

Some people complain that small businesses can't survive with higher corporate taxes. But corporate taxes are only payable by corporations that are profitable in the first place ...

 

And, yes, I am also OK with moderate income tax rate increases.

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On 6/10/2020 at 9:54 PM, Commandant said:

I consider myself a fiscal conservative but a social liberal ... 

 

Me too ... the current binary political atmosphere ("I" am always right and "they" are always wrong") has destroyed the political centre ... 

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On 6/10/2020 at 10:18 PM, Habs Fan in Edmonton said:

 

... I think the NDP in Alberta were more a victim of low oil prices than anything else ...

 

Agreed ... similarly, Bob are was a victim of an economic crash and a caucus filled with many members who likely didn't even expect to have a chance to win ... not the best pool from which to form a cabinet ... not to say whether either government could/would have done better under different circumstances

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