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Former Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff has raised a storm in Canada with an interview he gave in Britain in which he said Quebec will “eventually” separate. Even now, he said, Quebec is master in its own house.
“Now effectively …. we’re almost two separate countries.”
Later Ignatieff said he was a strong federalist and that he had been taken out of context. It is hard to see how.
Will Quebec separate?
What do you think?
The Harper Conservatives want to cut taxes on corporations from 28 percent to 25 per cent. The reason they give is that businesses would be able to plow more money into their businesses and so create more jobs.
But studies show that the rate of investment in machinery and equipment has declined in lockstep with falling corporate tax rates over the past decade. What’s more businesses have added $83 billion to their cash reserves since the onset of the recession in 2008. They are now sitting on these billions while Harper wants to cut their tax rate so that they will have more billions to sit on.
Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals oppose this corporate taax cut. They want to use the extra money they would save in education and social services.
The issue boils down to this: Should governments invest scarce resources in making life more affordable for families by enhancing social programs or in giving corporations additional tax cuts so that the corporations will have more money to sit on that they apparently don’t need.
Should corporate tax rates be cut?
What do you think?
For those Canadian voters who want to defeat Harper (and their numbers are legion) there is another way to go. Here is the situation:
The election on May 2 brings back yet another minority conservative government – say 145 seats 10 short of a majority. The House assembles and Harper is presently defeated on a non-confidence vote. Harper goes to the Governor-General and ask for a dissolution and a new election. The Governor-General refuses on the grounds the country has just had a general election and before we have another one, someone else should be given a chance to govern.
So the Governor-General summons the leader of the opposition, Michael Ignatieff who has the second largest number of seats. Ignatieff informs the G-G that he has formed a coalition government with Jack Layon and the NDP and the coalition will have the support of the Bloc on all critical votes in the Commons.
With those assurances the GG invites the three opposition parties to form a government. Harper is defeated in the House and the new government under Michael Ignatieff takes over. Harper is out. Good riddance. Somebody says such a coalition won’t work. Well, just such a coalition has worked in Britain for almost a year. So why not in Canada?
So you see what a coalition accomplishes. The hated Harper is gone – for good. The governing party is back in the saddle.
Would a coalition work?
What do you think?
As I see it those Canadians who want to get rid of Harper (and they are legion) have only one choice: vote Liberal.
It will do them no good to vote Bloc which only runs candidates in Quebec; it will do them no good to vote NDP which will get only about 16 per cent of the total vote. Only the Liberal party and Michael Ignatieff has the muscle to overtake Harper and get rid of him. Michael Ignatieff is one of the world’s leading public intellectuals. He has written for the New Yorker, hosted programs for the BBC and has held teaching positions at Cambridge, the University of London and Harvard.
There is no question Ignatieff has the intellectual and moral heft to do Canadians proud as prime minister. With him in Sussex Drive, we would would out from under the secret, controlling vindictive kind of government run by Harper that has brought such shame to the country.
There are really only about 50 seats that are at play in this election. Ignatieff must capture enough of them for the Liberals to form the next government.
It will all depend on the kind of campaign the Liberals run.
Does Ignatieff have a chance of becoming the next prime minister?
If the cards fall right, he certainly does.
What do you think?
Is there an upset in the making?
Early this afternoon the Harper government will be defeated on a vote in the House of Commons. Then, probably tomorrow morning, Harper will visit the Governor-General. By Sunday morning the leaders’ planes will be in the air heading for the hustings.
In a poll published this morning it would seem that it’s Harper’s election to lose. The Conservatives are now supported by 43 per cent of the voters. They have a 19 point lead over the Liberals who are on 24 per cent. The NDP is at 16 per cent and the Bloc has 10 per cent.
If these figures were to hold up during the six-week campaign, Harper would win the election with a comfortable majority. At dissolution of Parliament, the Tories had 143 seats. They need to win just 12 more to reach the 155-seat mark and get a majority government. Harper has his eyes on 13 more seats – in the suburban area around Toronto and the periphery around Vancouver.
At this point, I confess I don’t know a single person who is planning to vote for Harper. And this despite his very good record on the economy. We are the best-off nation in the G20.
The problem is nobody I know trusts Harper with a majority. They figure he would then bring out his secret agenda (abortion, same-sex marriage, etc) and carpet bomb Canada back into the stone age.
In addition, most people don’t like Harper. They think he is a narcissistic control-freak.
Do you trust Harper?
Should Harper get a majority?
What do you think?
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