Monday, June 26, 2006

Monday News Round-Up

1) Trouble on the Rock

2) Meanwhile, the money is flowing in Alberta. It will be interesting to see the PC leadership candidates all come out with detailed plans about what they intend to do with the embarrassingly large surplus. Ha ha ha!

3) That said, under Dalton McGuinty's latest plan, more money would be transferred to Alberta, and all the provinces, as part of a GST transfer. Uh-huh. Here's an idea: raise the provincial sales tax to make up for the GST cut (as pointed out by Paul Wells and...everybody else in Canada).

4) I'm glad Gilles Duceppe and Andre Boisclair are raising the important issues which effect each and every Quebecer... Harper may have sold out on the fiscal imbalance thing, but at least he's refusing to get sucked into the whole "is Quebec a nation" debate.

5) The book Ralph Klein threw at a page is up on e-bay. Place your bids!

6) The Hill Times has an article on the difficulty in signing up members for the Liberal leadership race. From personal experience, I'm fairly sure the numbers will be quite bellow what they were in 2003.

7) Politics did a series of interviews with the Liberal leadership candidates last week (although I don't think Dion made an appearance):

Monday: Dryden, Fry
Tuesday: Volpe, Findlay, Bennett
Wednesday: Kennedy, Ignatieff, Bob (interesting question on missile defense was asked...more on that later...)
Thursday: Brison, Bevilacqua

Also, Mike Duffy's interview with Stephen Harper is online.

4 Comments:

  • Ontario has the capability to post a surplus now, and likely will next year. I don't really see where the "imbalance" comes from.

    When you transfer 1% GST to the province, it's the exact same thing as cuting the GST 1% and raising the PST 1%. The feds have already done their part so there's an opening if any province wants to complete the transfer.

    By Blogger calgarygrit, at 8:56 p.m.  

  • CG you make a good point that McGuinty could be running a surplus now - in fact he probably could have ran one last year as well.

    It's all politics for him because he has no successful record to run on, he has to pretend to be "Capt. Ontario" standing up for the people he has ripped off for the past three years.

    By Blogger Unknown, at 9:32 p.m.  

  • "It's all politics for him because he has no successful record to run on"

    Marked improvements in education, and I believe reduced waiting times in healthcare.

    I guess those things aren't very important...

    By Blogger Dan McKenzie, at 10:36 p.m.  

  • hmmmm, I think its fair to say Quebec is a nation. i don't even think you would catch jean charest deny that Quebec is a nation. i actually found it somewhat odd harper would say that quebec isn't one, when all the areas he wants to win seats are full of quebeckers who think it is.

    the dispute isn't whether quebec is a nation it really is whats good for quebec? to stay in canada or not? for me, quebec is a nation but should stay a part of canada.

    By Blogger bza, at 4:28 a.m.  

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