The end of the Conservatives?

[Jo]

Good grief settle down, people. Donald G, when people ask if you are going to do a joust I tell them you've declined, because that is exactly what you did. You declined. It is hardly something I can keep secret.

Now everybody, back in topic.

[The Green Barbarian]

speaking of volunteers ;o)

100% agree. FF - take up the challenge!!

[I Think]

Any one else notice that the raging righties on Castanet, will bump a non issue like the ethics commissioner approving using union donations, but will completely ignore an issue like how sleazy harper"s friends are?

[Logitack]

[maryjane48]

For the last time Steven ...

Keep dancing and for god sake, like the NDP and the 2.7 million dollars, stay completely away from the truth.

how about the 260 mill harper used for partisan purposes ?

[nepal]

.

[Donald G]

Yes. The end of the Conservatives (election signs) is drawing near.

They will have to retrieve them before heading back to Ottawa to continue fulfilling their role in governing Canada.

[GrooveTunes]

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/11/15/do-conservatives-take-voters-for-fools-hepburn.html

[Donald G]

The election is over and the majority of people have chosen to given the Liberals a Majority Government.

For the sake of Canada and Canadians I wish them well.

The fact that the New Prime Minister has already stated that security clearing 25,000 Syrian refugees "will take longer than estimated during the campaign", after the Muslim terrorist attacks on France, suggest he is willing to learn and accept reality.

[maple leaf]

How Trudeau plans to undo Harper’s legacy, brick by brick
By Susan Delacourt | Nov 18, 2015 8:59 pm | 3 comments | Tweet about this on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare on RedditPrint this page
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
More from Susan Delacourt available here.
Some Conservatives are marking the one-month anniversary of the election this week with an early dose of nostalgia for the former prime minister.
A photo of Stephen Harper, emblazoned with the caption “Miss Me Yet?”, has popped up on the blogs and Facebook posts of some core Conservatives. A new website, strongandfree.org, has declared that Justin Trudeau “is already letting Canada down” and is vowing to “bring conservatism back to Ottawa.”
Everyone needs a dream — and nobody likes a killjoy — so it is with some regret that I’m pointing out that bringing conservatism back to Ottawa is precisely the opposite of what’s going on in Canada’s capital right now. Nor is anyone figuring it’ll be on the agenda for the next four years of a Liberal majority government.
As a matter of fact, the ministerial “mandate letters” released late last week are notable for the many ways in which Trudeau’s team intends to dismantle much of what Harper and his government did during their decade in office.
I did a rough count of the nearly 300 to-do items listed under bullets in each of the mandate letters, to see how many of the tasks facing the new Trudeau government revolve around undoing the Conservative record.
I think it’s safe to say that more than 50 of the items revolve around rolling back, repealing or amending Conservative policies, in big and small ways. Some of the retreats from conservatism have been announced already — the reinstatement of the mandatory long-form census, for example, and halting the shutdown of veterans service offices.
And this count doesn’t include any of the larger reversals in the “tone” set by the Harper era, such as allowing scientists and diplomats to speak publicly about their work and instructing ministers to co-operate with the media.
Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould appears to have the largest list of Conservative measures to unravel; she’s already announced the move to abandon a court challenge of niqabs at citizenship ceremonies and has been tasked with a wide-ranging review of the past decade’s changes to the criminal justice system. She has also been instructed to restore the old Court Challenges Program and help other ministers repeal bits of the controversial C-51 security law and C-42, the so-called “Common Sense Firearms Act,” which critics said watered down gun control laws in Canada.
open quote 761b1bThose Conservatives already missing Harper will have tax rates and trade deals to feed their nostalgia, even as the Liberals roll back a lot of the rest of his legacy.
Nearly every minister has some Conservative handiwork to undo, according to the mandate letters. Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly will be reversing funding cuts to the CBC. Democratic Reform Minister Maryam Monsef will be taking a hatchet to many provisions in the Fair Elections Act. Finance Minister Bill Morneau will be scrapping income-splitting for families and other “unfairly targeted tax breaks.”
When Citizenship and Immigration Minister John McCallum is done with the task of getting 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by year’s end, he also has to repeal provisions in the Citizenship Act that give the government the right to strip citizenship from dual nationals, and also eliminate a $1,000 fee imposed on those who hire foreign caregivers.
Government essentially comes down to three things: doing, undoing and reacting. What we’ve seen so far from the Trudeau government, especially in light of the Paris shootings last week, is a lot of reacting, some of it obviously on the fly. We’ve also seen a flurry of undoing, in the tone-change announcements and other measures mentioned in the mandate letters.
So when will the Liberals get around to the “doing” part?
According to the mandate letters, the new Liberal government has proportionally more plans to do than undo — over three-quarters of the items on the ministerial to-do lists are new programs or initiatives. Taken together, the mandate letters are ambitious in scope. But all governments, to be fair, are optimistic and ambitious when power is still shiny and new.
What’s not in the letters, obviously, are the Conservative measures that will stay intact, even with Liberals in office.
This has long been a favourite question of mine to pose to opposition politicians: “Is there anything the Conservatives have done in office that can’t be undone when a new government takes over?” When I asked Trudeau that question a few years ago, he insisted that nothing the Conservatives did was etched in stone, and much of it could be reversed. Clearly, some of that is underway right now.
We’ll have to do another tally in a year or so to see what parts of the Harper legacy remains intact. The trade deals, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, may well be embraced by the Liberals, and certainly no one is talking of raising the GST back to the 7 per cent rate it was at before Harper came to office.
So those Conservatives already missing Harper will have tax rates and trade deals to feed their nostalgia, even as the Liberals roll back a lot of the rest of his legacy.
As for Harper, one has to wonder if he misses these Conservatives as much as they miss him. On Remembrance Day, he was apparently wandering around a Chapters store in Calgary. A local author, Shelley Arnusch, was in the store to promote her new kids’ book, Too Many Teddies, when she was approached by the former prime minister.
“He mistook me for store staff and asked if I could help him find the ‘business and economics section,’” Arnusch wrote on Twitter. “I am not making this up.”
Given how Liberals are already rewriting the book on how government is done in Ottawa, and erasing many parts of his legacy, I guess it makes sense for Harper to get caught up on his reading.
Susan Delacourt is one of Canada’s best-known political journalists. Over her long career she has worked at some of the top newsrooms in the country, from the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail to the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post. She is a frequent political panelist on CBC Radio and CTV. Author of four books, her latest — Shopping For Votes — was a finalist for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Canadian non-fiction in 2014. She teaches classes in journalism and political communication at Carleton University.
The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.
http://ipolitics.ca/2015/11/18/how-trud ... -by-brick/

[Donald G]

For people to understand what changes PM Trudeau will bring about over the next 4 years one has only to look at the changes his father made over the last 4 years of his PMship.

The 25,000 refugees by the end of the year without adequate security clearances is a carbon copy of what his father did with refugees for political gain.

The changes in the Criminal system that J Trudeau will end up making is another carbon copy of what his left wing extremist father did.

Liberal political theory over Canadian reality all over again at the cost of Canadian Security.

[JLives]

For people to understand what changes PM Trudeau will bring about over the next 4 years one has only to look at the changes his father made over the last 4 years of his PMship.

The 25,000 refugees by the end of the year without adequate security clearances is a carbon copy of what his father did with refugees for political gain.

The changes in the Criminal system that J Trudeau will end up making is another carbon copy of what his left wing extremist father did.

Liberal political theory over Canadian reality all over again at the cost of Canadian Security.

You realize those are two different people right?

[Donald G]

To jlives ...

I lived through the PE Trudeau years before he was kicked out and the Liberals decimated at the polls.

Both were/are liberal theorists with little apparent knowledge of the real world in certain areas especially the ramifications of changes to the Criminal laws and criminal court system. Also the reality that the modern world now necessitates thorough security checks for immigrants and refugees.

PET did the same with refugees but that was long before terrorism adopted a world wide field of play and hiding terrorists and extremists and their sympathizers among refugees was not a fact of life.

[JLives]

To jlives ...

I lived through the PE Trudeau years before he was kicked out and the Liberals decimated at the polls.

Both were/are liberal theorists with little apparent knowledge of the real world in certain areas especially the ramifications of changes to the Criminal laws and criminal court system. Also the reality that in the modern world now necessitates security checks for immigrants and refugees. PET did the same with refugees but that was long before terrorism adopted a world wide field of play and hiding terrorists and extremists and their sympathizers among refugees was not a fact of life.

Pierre Trudeau is dead. Our Prime Minister is Justin Trudeau. It's ridiculous to equate them. Are you the same person as your parents?

I am among many Canadians who support Justin Trudeau's view on refugees. Maybe what you mean to say is that you disagree with his view, not that he is some ignorant, hippie who is a clone of his father. Not that there is anything wrong with his father either.

[The Green Barbarian]

Not that there is anything wrong with his father either.

The people of Alberta would seriously disagree with you.