Blue Like You

I am planning to take Sunday off (and give my wrists a well-deserved rest), while I join extended family members for Thanksgiving dinner.

I just want to leave you with this very fine Thanksgiving editorial from my new favourite newspaper, The Record - Giving thanks in uncertain times (excerpt below):

…Well, let us stop and take stock — then send fear packing. Let us count the blessings of life in Canada and the things that even recession cannot easily strip away. And if we do, we should not only be less apprehensive, we should be a whole lot more thankful.

We should be thankful for a country that is, in reality, half of a continent, filled with the beauties and wonders of nature and endowed with almost every natural resource the modern world requires. We have enough farmland to feed ourselves and entire nations besides. We have cities, teeming with skilled, educated workers and enriched by the wisdom and experience of millions of immigrants who have come from every nation. We have one of the world’s most advanced economies, some of the world’s top universities and most effective hospitals. We have police who protect, rather than oppress. We have dissent that respects the law.

Let us be thankful for our freedom. We have democracy. We have the right to choose who leads us. We have good and dedicated people who want to serve us. We have a citizenry which, if our record of persevering through history’s worst depressions and wars can serve as any example, are able to rise to any challenge, withstand any crisis and stand shoulder-to-shoulder to help those around them who should stumble and need a hand back up. If such patriotism is unfashionable, we plead guilty. We call it realism.

None of us can know what the coming weeks will bring. But we can know that there is no better place on Earth to be now and in the coming days, however tough it gets, than this home we call Canada. To paraphrase the words of a very old prayer: For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful.

Amen.

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BTW, could someone please send that line that is highlighted in red to Danny Williams, Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion? (What a crew!) Thanks.

Last night a loyal reader emailed me about an interesting comment that Mike Duffy made on his ‘Prime’ show last night at 8.  Fortunately I had recorded the show so I reviewed it this morning.

What was Duff trying to tell us when he was discussing the Scotiabank announcement that they are forecasting a recession for Canada?

"Well, I find it amazing that a week to go before the election, they feel it important to put this out at this time, and when one considers the political leanings of some of the people at the top levels of that bank, I wonder if it wasn’t done on purpose to help Liberals scare some of that NDP vote back to the Liberals. .."

(Transcript from my own notes, therefore I may have a word or two out of place.)

We already know that a high-ranking ‘expert’ from another bank, who often appears on MDL has endorsed Dion’s Carbon Tax.

Are there any Canadian banks out there without Liberal leanings?

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And on a totally unrelated note : Sun Life sells stake in CI to Scotia - Financial Post.

Prime Minister Dion - Conservatism.ca

Welcome SDA readers!

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Kitchener today announcing a Conservative plan to offer first time homebuyers some assistance in the form of a tax credit.

Sounds like a good idea to me. My son was saying just the other day that he fears he’ll never be able to buy a house. Perhaps this will give him some hope to keep working hard and continue to save up for a down-payment.

But what really bothers me is that I didn’t get a heads-up from anyone about this Harper event! I must really be out of the loop.

*sniff*

Another item for Sandy’s list of Harper accomplishments - The Harper Government will be introducing tougher laws for products bearing the label "Product of Canada" labelling. And if the opposition gets on board, then it will be their accomplishment as well. (CTV - Harper Announces Changes to Canadian Food Labels .)

Ever since I saw CBC’s Marketplace episode, "Product of Canada, eh?" , I’ve been very skeptical of buying any processed food labeled "Product of Canada". Watch the clip and you’ll see why.

Now, instead of being able to say that their product is a ‘Product of Canada’ if "51 per cent of production costs were incurred here and the final transformation of the product was in Canada", manufacturers will have to be more honest and accountable:

…Under the new rules, a "product of Canada" label will mean that virtually all of the contents are Canadian in origin.

Harper said the new labels would reflect whether some of the ingredients in a Canadian-made product come from another country.

This is excellent news for the Canadian consumer, good news for the environment and great news for the Canadian food industry.

Read the comments at the end of the CTV article. This is a winning policy and most people are saying that it’s about time!

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Update : And this just isn’t fair…

Jim Flaherty is doing an awesome job handling the Canadian economy. He had the foresight back in October to introduce personal and business tax cuts, which are now starting to take effect.

Contrast this with Dalton McGuinty’s ‘Cherry-Picking’ approach to handling the Ontario economy. Or Dion’s Tax-Shifting trial balloon which is already starting to lose steam .

This Conservative Government continues to handle the Canadian economy with strength and vision.

For the Highlights of Harper Government accomplishments , please see Sandy’s list which she has edited for ease of reading and referral. For a more comprehensive list, click here .

Hunter has also done some excellent YouTube work on this topic. Enjoy.

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Related : End of the Hargrove era - National Post .

…Turning Ontario into a ‘WEAKER SISTER’ .

Well at least we’ll have Danny Williams to bail us out.

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Update : One thing Dalton could do is crack down on the illegal cigarette trade , and try to regain control of the lost tax revenue. But Weak Sisters don’t do that kind of thing.

Anyway, who would want to invest in a province where natives are allowed to barricade highways at will, and told they have the legal right to intimidate business developers ? Go west, young man!

Thursday 10:00 a.m. update - 570 News’ Jeff Allen will be interviewing TD’s Donald Drummond next regarding Ontario’s possible future status as a have-not province.

Sunday Update : Lessons heading into a recession - Toronto Sun .

My brother’s keeper? Not if he lives in Ontario - Herald.

Have-not status a blow to the psyche, expert says - Citizen .

Reader Rich feels that we’re wasting too much precious time talking about Brenda Martin . Instead, he would like to focus on the economy. Sounds like a good plan to me.

Just to get started, here’s his comment:

"Joanne; Enough of BM rantings, I would like to get an opinion on the state of Canada’s economy.

The LPC keep harping on their 8 (eight) balanced budgets and 8 years of surpluses and critize the CPC for bringing Canada to the brink of deficit. If a government continually does this it usually means that the Canadian people are overtaxed to the max with no services provided. Services like the Canadian Armed forces, Cities Infrastructure, Highways & bridges. Under the LPC what we got was spending of 2 billion dollars to an ineffective gun registry, HRC commissions, CPP that do nothing for the majority of Canadians.

The CPC believe that they are the stewards of tax payers money and if there is any left over after providing for necesaary services, it should be returned to the tax payer in the form of refunds. I for one am glad for the handling of the economy."

Thoughts???

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Update : Ontario will be a have-not province:TD !!!

Campbell’s closing in Listowel, Ontario - The Have-not Province?

And from the Record :

…Falling to have-not status is an important psychological barrier for Canada’s largest province, Drummond added.

"It gives the signal that Ontario is not the mighty king of the economy anymore,” he said. "It’s one of the weaker partners, but again it’s not so much Ontario’s being weak as the other provinces are really roaring along.”

So…. Is it Jim Flaherty’s fault for slagging Ontario or Dalton’s for not listening to his advice ?

Thursday Update : Carbon Tax a fuels paradise . - Lorrie Goldstein .

And from the Post : How Stephen Harper ruined our national balance sheet - Ralph Goodale .

Angelo Persichilli’s column in today’s Sun is a must-read - Ontario must create jobs to prosper.

Great to have a job-training program, but at some point you need to have places for those people to work. So if we spend a pile of money re-educating the work force only to have them leave the province for greener pastures, what have we accomplished?

And how can Dalton’s pet projects in health care and education be sustained with a dwindling tax base?

And how can a burgeoning public sector be sustained? John Tory noted recently in the Post:

...Mr. McGuinty boasts that he has created new jobs in Ontario, but he fails to mention that almost half of the new jobs created are public sector jobs, paid for by taxpayers’ dollars. Ontario is the only province in Canada where over the past five years the growth of public sector jobs has exceeded the growth of private sector jobs. Mr. McGuinty wrongly believes this is sustainable. It’s not. We need private sector jobs to pay for those in the public sector…

In spite of what we think of Mr. Tory, his message rings true. If we continue on this path we will end up being the ‘caboose’ instead of the economic engine of Canada.

Jim Flaherty was right that the conditions need to be made favourable for investment to be attractive in Ontario. At the moment, they’re anything but.

Persichilli says we have to start immediately to create the jobs that the skilled labour is being groomed for. He wonders why we are selling our raw resources to other countries to be manufactured, and then shipping the products back to be bought by Canadians?

Of course, nobody is addressing the real issue - that we have priced our labour right out of the market.

Unless we’re willing to accept lower wages and abandon the union mentality, we will never be competitive.

And then the other provinces with natural resources will become the economic engines of the country - until everything has been depleted.

For Canadian political junkies, these are interesting times.

The Globe’s Daniel Leblanc gives us a peek into the inner turmoil of the Liberal party’s Quebec ranks, and it ain’t a pretty picture (Dion facing revolt in Quebec ranks).

We first heard of this discord several weeks ago when Joël-Denis Bellavance alluded to a révolte silencieuse on Mike Duffy Live. Both Bellevance and Jean LaPierre had heard rumours that Bob Rae had control of the Quebec wing and was wanting to wait until the March 17th by-elections had passed and Rae had time in front of the cameras in Parliament before forcing an election.

However, the Silent Revolt is getting louder - LeBlanc suggests even more serious in-fighting and lack of faith in Stéphane Dion. Lisa Frulla in particular is surprisingly candid with her remarks:

“He has no instinct,” former Liberal minister and political commentator Liza Frulla said in an interview.

“At a certain point, people feel it if there is something wrong, even if they don’t know exactly what it is. But he, poor Stéphane, doesn’t feel it.”

She also has strong words for Dion’s Quebec lieutenant:

Ms. Frulla also said publicly what many Liberals are saying privately about Mr. Dion’s lieutenant in Quebec, Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette.

“She is abrasive and she is narcissistic,” Ms. Frulla said.

The former minister of Canadian Heritage argued that Ms. Hervieux-Payette is failing to connect with grassroots organizers.

“The more people know her, the more they run away. She has met a number of riding association presidents, and these people … are leaving,” Ms. Frulla said.

(I sure can agree with her on that one. I can barely stand to watch the woman on MDL.)

In any case, it would appear that Quebec cannot be counted on for Liberal support at this moment in time, which may push the likelihood of an election off until the fall or later - especially after the dismal performance of the LPC in two of the four recent by-elections.

If that happens, it will be hard to imagine Bob Rae ranting about the government on one hand, but then actually joining the Party of Hand Warmers on the other, as the LPC continues to run away from votes in the Commons. Will Bob Rae declare mutiny?

Which leads me to the slugfest between Jim Flaherty and Dalton McGuinty. Why would Flaherty continually poke McGuinty in the eye regarding tax policy and its alleged affect on the economy?

The answer may lie in John Ivison’s observations in today’s Post:

…But Mr. Flaherty’s unprecedented interference in Ontario’s budgetary process was not designed to persuade his Ontario counterpart, Dwight Duncan, to shred the already printed budget and present a cobbled-together alternative more to his liking.

It was designed to send the message that, even though many Ontarians often think of the federal Conservatives as villains, they are really the “goodies” — the guardians of fiscal probity. By contrast, Liberals, both federal and provincial, are spendthrifts who will lead us all into a new era of deficits, unemployment, homelessness and rickets…

So all this may well be a carefully honed-plan to set up the CPC as looking like the party to rely on in times of economic difficulties which would, if it all goes according to Hoyle, allow a rich harvest of discontented Ontario voters assuming a worsening of the economic downturn - especially if provinces that follow Flaherty’s advice end up faring better than Ontario.

And with the Quebec wing in tatters and Ontario voters looking for responsible, effective fiscal policy, the scene becomes fertile for either an election with positive results for the Conservatives, or else the Liberals continue to enable the present government to enjoy a tacit majority.

Your move, mon petit empereur.

After watching the dynamic between Jim Flaherty and Dalton McGuinty these days, I’m torn between assessing it as a parent-child relationship and at other times I wonder if Jim Flaherty feels he needs to take over the role of the Ontario opposition parties, which occasionally need a little instruction on how to critique Liberal policy.

McGuinty’s effectively boxed himself in a financial corner and can’t afford to cut taxes, so he goes crying to the feds.

Now that Dalton’s whiny ‘Gimmee Ottawa’ attitude threatens to affect the rest of Canada, I think that the Premiers in other provinces should be backing Flaherty in driving home the message that Dalton needs to be accountable for his actions. The Big Federal Liberal Nanny State is not in power at the moment, but Dalton just doesn’t seem to get it.

He’s still acting like a spoiled little child trying to defy his parents, and expecting a bail-out at the end.

By contrast, the Federal Conservative approach is to allow the provinces the freedom to make their beds, but they have to lie in them afterwards - even if they wet them. (I could throw in a Smitherman- diaper reference here, but I won’t.)

So Daddy Flaherty is now trying to guide little Dalton and Dwight on how to make the best of the mess they find themselves in now. Raising their allowances won’t teach them a thing about responsibility and the consequences of pandering to special interest groups and other bullies that steal their lunch money.

And if Ontario voters finally wake up one day, perhaps we can even take some responsibility ourselves, and get rid of a provincial government still caught up in the whining-entitlement era.

Until that day, we may as well get used to Rick Mercer’s chant, “Ontario is the last place where, we don’t check the rear view, no one there!”