[afransen]

299, what you tell those people is: be happy that you have to pay more tax! The effective tax on income in this country is never higher than about 55%, so if you pay another dollar in income tax it means you have a dollar you didn't otherwise have (because you grossed $2).

Some people also have the odd misconception that if they earn that last dollar to push them into the next tax bracket that they have to pay that rate on the entire amount they've earned.

Harper's background as an economist is what makes it inexcusable that he pushed through the GST cuts. If he were a dumb populist, you could potentially forgive the poor policy judgement, but he definitely knows better. He chose to cut the GST for shrewd political reasons, and that alone, to the detriment of Canada.



Beez,

I'm not necessarily opposed to a flat tax with a high cut-off (something a reasonable bit above the poverty line and adjusted for dependants). I don't think that the rate be flat is all that vital; it's mostly a psychological thing...

 

[Ahab]

Harper's background as an economist is what makes it inexcusable that he pushed through the GST cuts. If he were a dumb populist, you could potentially forgive the poor policy judgement, but he definitely knows better.

Unfortunately, Harper's finance minister is the populist. Why Flaherty was given the position is beyond me.

 

[adma]

Why not? He's had finance-ministerial experience, provincially speaking. (And one might even argue that the Tories might have done better with him as leader rather than Eves. Not that that's *good* or anything, but...)

 

[Ahab]

Why not?

It was his policies that led to the provincial deficit, which led to the Liberal health premium. . .

 

[Hydrogen]

How long?

A really long time.

 

[JasonParis]

Trudeau crossed the floor?

 

[Hydrogen]

Well, he's "crossed to the other side" so to speak, but didn't cross the floor in parliament. Maybe that's the source of confusion.

 

[afransen]

It was his policies that led to the provincial deficit, which led to the Liberal health premium. . .

To be fair, wasn't Mr. Eves finance minister for most of that Conservative regime?

 

[unimaginative2]

The Silk Stocking Socialist, went from post Auschwitz taunting of Jewish residents in Montreal, as a SoCred.. to Liberals.



toronjohn

What on earth are you talking about? And SoCred? You really have no clue.

 

[299 bloor call control.]

troll alert.

 

[Ahab]

To be fair, wasn't Mr. Eves finance minister for most of that Conservative regime?

That's a fair point. However, Flaherty didn't seem to do anything when the ship started sinking. As I recall, the Conservatives were campaigning for further tax cuts.

 

[JasonParis]

troll alert.

Alerted

 

[JasonParis]

P.E.T. has nothing to do with Toronto-Centre Rosedale and baiting this thread with assertions that he was anti-Semitic is easily heading into "troll" territory.

 

[adma]

If your directing that at me.. I don't take to kindly to name calling..
Do you???

Read the references... you might learn something.


toronjohn

Read some grammar books...you might learn something. Like, the distinction between "your" and "you're".

=======================

That aside, while toronjohn's guilty of trying to make an amateurish mush-mouthed "issue" out of it and looking like a trolling fringe nutcase in the process, he isn't incorrect about "the references". Trouble is, this was already the talk of the town and the political-press discussion of the moment when the book came out, ages ago. To those of us who're well-read, newspaper-and-media-wise, the tale of Trudeau-the-youthful-anti-Semite is old, familiar news already. We've already learned that "something".

And, so what. All in all, it has to be understood in the context of the period and in the context of Trudeau's overearnest teen/twentysomething political juvenilia; which also means, we have to mentally transfer ourselves back to before the shock of 1945. Viewed in such terms, Trudeau's having a bee in the bonnet about Jews then is almost as natural and logical as having a bee in the bonnet about the National Post today--doesn't mean what was agreeable *then* is agreeable *now*; but then again, then isn't now. And besides, he "learned"--that's what matters.

The book Toronjohn's referring to is credible and legitimate--trouble is, the way he's referring to it makes it seem otherwise. Ironically, his messengering here has more in common with those Bobby Fischerish nutjobs who insist we "might learn something" from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

And the phrase "SoCred was a compliment extend to the deceased... he was far more left than that" makes no sense. No sense at all.

And to get back on topic, any past fashionable anti-Semitism on PET's part is no barrier at all to the Jewish-by-marriage-and-it-turns-out-by-blood-too Bob Rae running for the Grits. You might as well say that Rae has no business running in the Gay Village because he used to be NDP Premier and Tommy Douglas was a homophobe...

 

[Hydrogen]

My earlier point was that Trudeau did not cross the floor in parliament - as in he did not cross the floor as a member of parliament.


As for anti-semitism in Quebec, for years my father kept a rental application for a Montreal property that stated that no Jews should apply. It was, unfortunately, not uncommon during that period of time. All the more ironic as the Quebec assembly was the first to allow Jews as elected members.


If an individual, as a youth, held what are today accepted to be prejudiced points of view during a time when those views were shared by many, but that individual then changed his mind, should that person forever be held as adhering to their past thoughts?

On the basis of Trudeau's record while in office, I think he deserves to be forgiven for his youthful ignorance.