Trudeau government to smash debt and deficit records

[Donald G]

[quote]Postby K_teela » 49 minutes ago

Also during Harper:[/quote]

Your dislike for Past PM Harper is again noted but what does it have to do with this thread ??

[erinmore3775]

K_teela wrote, " Having a budget for something, and actually using that budget are two different things...Harper was a master manipulator, and having some people believe he increased spending for veterans is one of his many accomplishments."

Truer words were never spoken. A government needs to be judged not on advertisements and budget announcements, but on their actual actions. The previous government used the men and women of the military as a disposable asset. While this may be a good business model, it is not one that when used by a government is ethical or supportive or recruitment. No wonder the previous government did not get re-elected!

[dieseluphammerdown]

More manipulation of numbers from the Harper cons. It's true the budget increased from $3.2B to $3.55B from 2006/2015, however if it was to keep up with inflation that number should have been $3.72B in 2015.

Also when many Canadian solders were comming back from Afghanistan, about 2,000 Canadians were injured and their treatment consumed a major portion of the money allotted to the Vets. Not to mention in in 2006, Harper moved $1.13B and moved it to the federal treasury, which could have been used to support the injured.

Also during Harper:
In April 2006 during the "New Veterans Charter", he erased the obligation for Canada to care for injured veterans and their families, and replaced a life-long monthly pain-suffering payments with a small lump sum payment...so small in that fact "Deputy ministers make more on average in one year than a person who loses two legs in Afghanistan can expect to be paid out for the rest of their life". The vets then took the Cons to court, of which the government spent $700,000 to declare it was under no obligation to provide vets with any treatment.

When the percentage of returning solders with mental health issues had increased 6x between 2002-2014, there was a 24% refusal rate for disability benefits for veterans. Almost 3000 disturbed veterans have been cast adrift, and are not even tracked...so nobody even knew if they were a danger to themselves or anyone else. When the Cons knew the report was coming, they mislead the defense stating it would inject $200 million over 6 years for mental health - only later admitting the money would not be over 6 years, but over 50.

While vets struggled to get claims accepted, senior bureaucrats hoarded millions of dollars that were allocated for veterans - returning to general revenue $1.13 billion between 06/15.

Having a budget for something, and actually using that budget are two different things...Harper was a master manipulator, and having some people believe he increased spending for veterans is one of his many accomplishments.

Seems the veterans themselves have a different take on this than the media themselves did.

Well, well, well. It seems that the truth is that the silent majority of Canadian veterans believe the Harper Conservative Government respects and appreciates them. Which is exactly what I suspected.

Yet, we have heard a lot in the mainstream media that veterans are angry at the Conservatives and want rid of them. In fact, most of what we read in the media regarding even active military is negative, as though any attempt by a governing party to reform practices — even outdated ones — was a bad thing.

Well, as it turns out, the ABC (Anything But Conservative) veterans group is in the minority and the only reason we have heard their voices is because they have been the noisiest. Of course, there may be other reasons we have heard about them as well — given alleged union funding.

Anyway, here we are, a little more than a month from voting day, and we finally get to the truth. And, that truth, according to Veterans Doug Furchner and Lee Humphrey, is that the majority of veterans have received positive supportive treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs over the nine years the Tories have been in power
http://cotmblog.com/2015/09/13/majority-of-canadas-veterans-appreciate-harper-conservative-govt/

A group of military veterans is standing up to support Stephen Harper’s Conservatives at the tail end of the federal election campaign.

Retired warrant officer Lee Humphrey says he was upset that another veterans group — “Anyone But Conservatives” — claimed to speak on behalf of military personnel when it announced plans in August to campaign against the Conservative leader.
Humphrey, 52, says he believes most who have served in the Canadian Forces support the Conservative government and he’s launched “Veterans For The Conservative Party of Canada” as a result. He said it’s important that the “silent majority” have its say.

“I think civilians, non-veterans, hear from these groups that we are all not being treated well and the government’s disrespecting us and they’re concerned with that. I think that there needs to be another voice out there to counter that message,” said Humphrey, who served in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry and the Canadian Airborne Regiment before retiring in 2002.

“I thought there should be a voice that represents what I believe is the overwhelming number of people who have served and do support the current government.” http://thechronicleherald.ca/federal-election-2015/1315112-new-veterans-group-backs-harper-tories

[Ka-El]

Your dislike for Past PM Harper is again noted ...

Oh the irony. Tell me you posted that with a straight face

[K_teela]

Your dislike for Past PM Harper is again noted ...

It's true, I dislike Harper. At least I did give him a chance when he was first elected, but then proved himself to be controlling/secretive/manipulative/corrupt and used public money for private profits. I'm not alone in disliking Harper, it's the reason for the 'Anyone but Harper' movement...he literally made people dislike him so much, that he himself was the one responsible for uniting the left just for the sake of getting rid of him.

[Donald G]

Are the people writing the tirades about Past PM Harper aware that Harper is no longer the Prime Minister ??

The thread is about what Prime Minister Trudeau has done, is doing, or intends to do regarding Canada's finances. Rattling on about what PM Harper did or did not do is in my opinion no way related to this thread or what PM Trudeau chooses to do.

[K_teela]

Are the people writing the tirades about Past PM Harper aware that Harper is no longer the Prime Minister ??

The thread is about what Prime Minister Trudeau has done, is doing, or intends to do regarding Canada's finances. Rattling on about what PM Harper did or did not do is in my opinion no way related to this thread or what PM Trudeau chooses to do.

The same thing could be said about people rambling on about Pierre, and consistently referencing Justin Trudeau to his father. I'm sure they're also aware that he is no longer PM.

Or if people are complaining about Justin Trudeau running a deficit while still on Harpers budget, meanwhile defending the fact that our previous PM also ran large deficits...comparisons will be brought up.

At least so far, Trudeau and his party have been honest about the deficits without trying to fudge around numbers in attempt to report a surplus.

I'm not accusing you of this, as you for the most part are fairly reasonable in your arguments...but its difficult for the topic not to come up when it's brought up on both sides.

[Muzza]

I promised this a few days ago in response to posts that the Canadian economy has not performed well over the last few years. This shows how wrong those criticisms are.... some of which are quoted below:

but many other countries have come back stronger than [Canada] ever since then...not us.

Are saying only the Conservative supporters ignore the real statistical evidence that reveals Harper's devastating record

Canada's economy during a period when the US economy relatively boomed and commodity prices were high, stagnated.

So why don't you provide some evidence/proof that he had a good record, rather than just calling everyone liars

They won't provide data, because there is none to support their claims.

This shows that Canada has performed very well against other western economies. To compare apples to apples, only western style democracies are included.

From https://www.gfmag.com/global-data/econo ... gdp-growth

The data was from the IMF

2011

Poland 4.5
Germany 3.4
Sweden 2.9
Austria 2.8
Australia 2.6
Finland 2.6
Canada 2.5
New Zealand 1.9
US 1.6
Norway 1.3
United Kingdom 1.1
Denmark 1.1
Switzerland 1.8
Belgium 1.8
France 2.1
Italy 0.5
Spain 0.1

2012
Australia 3.6
Norway 2.9
New Zealand 2.5
US 2.3
Poland 2.0
Canada 1.7
Switzerland 1.0
Sweden 0.9
Germany 0.9
Austria 0.9
United Kingdom 0.3
France 0.3
Belgium -0.1
Denmark -0.4
Finland -1.5
Spain -1.6
Italy -2.4

2013
New Zealand 2.8
Australia 2.3
US 2.2
Canada 2.0
Switzerland 1.9
United Kingdom 1.7
Poland 1.6
Sweden 1.6
Norway 0.6
Denmark 0.4
Germany 0.5
Austria 0.3
France 0.3
Belgium 0.2
Spain -1.2
Finland -1.2
Italy -1.9

2014
New Zealand 3.6
Poland 3.2
United Kingdom 3.2
Australia 2.8
Canada 2.3
US 2.2
Sweden 2.1
Norway 1.8
Denmark 1.5
Germany 1.4
Switzerland 1.3
Spain 1.3
Austria 1.0
Belgium 1.0
France 0.4
Italy -0.2
Finland -0.2

[K_teela]

Hi Muzza, some good information for comparisons sake :) it's true we were doing well during that time period. Oil was also at an all-time high, of which we were largely invested in. I don't think I've ever argued against us doing well economically as far as GDP growth...most of the current argument stems from the complaints over Liberals running a deficit during poor economic times, when Harper ran deficits just as well...and GDP was never really brought up as that's an entirely different issue (well it was probably brought up, but I never argued against that point as we were doing OK on that front)

Even though we were doing quite well economically at this point as far as growth...we were still running quite large deficits in each of these years. Now that oil has tanked and the global economy went through a bit of a bump (things seem to be recovering now) people are bashing our current deficit and blaming the Liberals...when running deficits is nothing new to us as a country.

I'm looking forward to seeing the 2015 data myself, to see if it's as doom and gloom as people are saying it is...or if we we really were hit hard from this.

Edit: Nevermind, it's there in your link 2.4% for 2015, and I stand corrected on my guess that we would fall short this year due to oil falling.

[Muzza]

Yes, hecould have done better, and I did not like the deficits, but they were forced on us by the Liberals and NDP who threatened to bring down the government unless Harper ran deficits. Personally I think he should have called their bluff.

The numbers clearly show that Harper ran a fairly steady ship in terms of the economy. Could he have done better? Of course, but after 40 years of following politics, the one thing I have learned is, if you want to screw something up, get the government to manage it.

I voted Liberal in the last election, because I feel that a party should be in power for 10 years at the most. I figured it was time to give Justin a chance, but so far I am not impressed. However, I will wait for his first budget before making up my mind.

[K_teela]

Yeah...I honestly don't believe in majority governments, things have always typically worked out better when multiple parties are forced to work together. A party with majority has a tendency to create policies/changes purely based on their parties ideologies for political reasons, rather than what may be for the best...in my opinion minority governments emulate a more middle-ground based decision making which generally works better for both sides.

I also feel like the cycle of swapping between two different ideologies wrecks causes struggles as well...as each time there is a change in power...the new party will increase spending in some areas/cut spending in others in attempt to try and make up for and 'correct' what they feel the previous party did wrong...and the party is rarely in power long enough to see their changes come to fruition before power changes and it happens all over again.

[Ka-El]

Are the people writing the tirades about Past PM Harper aware that Harper is no longer the Prime Minister ??

Most of us yes - and we're all very grateful for that. Are you and your friends who like to continually go on and on about the NDP aware they have not been in power provincially for more than ten years, or federally in like ... ever?

The word hypocrisy comes to mind.

[dieseluphammerdown]

The same thing could be said about people rambling on about Pierre, and consistently referencing Justin Trudeau to his father. I'm sure they're also aware that he is no longer PM.

.

Let me ask you this, Do you think Justine would be PM if not for his last name?
He road the coattails of that name to become pm , so the comparisons are fare.

[SmokeOnTheWater]

Let me ask you this, Do you think Justine would be PM if not for his last name?
He road the coattails of that name to become pm , so the comparisons are fare.

Since according to you Pierre Elliot Trudeau was the worst PM Canada has ever seen why would anyone vote for PM Justin Trudeau then ?

[dieseluphammerdown]

Since according to you Pierre Elliot Trudeau was the worst PM Canada has ever seen why would anyone vote for PM Justin Trudeau then ?

Good question, we'll see how many admit to having voted for him in four years when this inevitable train wreck is over.