Wed 3 May 2006
Exam are over. I passed. No more comments on the topic.
I have moved cities again and am now back in Windsor working for Nemak. Same place, same job (same house even). Seems like it’s going to be an average work term.
Recently the only news seems to be a new announcement for someone entering the Liberal leadership. There are so many now that I am not really sure who I want to support at this time. Martha Hall-Findlay came to Waterloo to speak to us and I was unimpressed. Of course I am considering Scott Brison (who shares several views with me), but I’m concerned that he may not have enough French down at this point. Maybe he’s not ready to be PM just yet. Maurizio Bevilacqua looks promissing, though I need to read more into him. Gerard Kennedy has been cited as being a friend to students, but he might be too left wing fiscally for me. While Michael Ignatieff may be highly intellectual and skilled, I fear he may be to Neoliberal for my liking. (He has that whole torture thing going on, and was for the War). I think it’s a good thing that there are so many candidates. Sparks some policy debate and doesn’t force me into a specific vein of thought just yet, as a small group would. Dion is also up there in my books. There are several more candidates, and I guess I’ll just have to look into them before making a decision.
Yesterday the new Conservative government announced it’s first budget. I’m more confident than ever in my decision not to vote Conservative. Their tax policies are way off base. From the moment they announced it, I’ve been against the 1% reduction in the GST (Next year, 2%). My prefered method of tax cuts is through income tax. There’s something wrong when I, a full time student, am paying a great deal of income tax (Or any at all!). Their child care plan is outrageous too. By giving individuals $1200 (of my money!) to spend as they want, you aren’t improving childcare. I don’t mind supporting childcare, but I expect my contributions to be efficient. I think the most efficient way is to set up day care places. For the people who truely need it, this is the best choice. I support assistance to people who need it, but I expect them to put effort back. And if they are working, then funding their childcare is a worthwhile cause. If they are able to work and aren’t, then they are just abusing the system, and I won’t support deadbeats.
That said, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Finally I can deduct my $100s of books, which will help a little (to compensate for the INCREASE in income tax for me). They didn’t pull back the Liberal income tax cuts completely, which is better than what I thought they would do, but they did roll them back a 1/2%, which could have been left the same if they didn’t have their stupid GST rollback. If they end up with a deficit, there will be hell to pay. Our VP Education (at Waterloo), Jeff Henry, has already issued a press release condemming the budget for ignoring Education issues. They have a lot of things they need to fix if they want Liberal support. For now the Conservatives are in bed with the Bloc. Not unexpected.
Finally, here is some budget highlights.
Currently Listening to: Hockey Monkey – The Zambonis
Random Wikipedia Article: Quine
I find the childcare issue a really frustrating one to talk about. On the one hand, I see the “beer & popcorn” argument as legitimate, but on the other, I loath the notion of state-sponsored day care for all.
I don’t think any of the liberal leadership candidates are truly left wing anymore. Even the NDP has lost most of it’s leftie core. Just a comment on Gerard Kennedy – when doing his food bank thing he worked hard to bring in corporations and has always had a practical problem-solving approach. I posted a link on my blog to a webcast he did with educators in sept 2005 if you want to know what his ideas were then.
I also like Ken Dryden, for policy alone and he seems more of a real person and less a career driven politician.
As for electibility, many are talking about appearance, charisma, education, bagage, etc and all I can say is you can never tell what makes a candidate work. Jean Chretien was neither pretty nor a wonderful public speaker and yet he was elected more than once. Stephen Harper bores me to death whenever he talks and I find him supremely creepy in every respect. Until recently most people considered Harper too “right wing” to be elected and look where we are now. It really boils down to communicating ideas that connect with the voting public.
Good luck making your choice.
I’ve never cared for any government spending plan that essentially gives cash to people. It’s less effecient.
What burns me about the new budget announcements is that they seem to be trying to widen the economic gap rather than close it.
Wow. I’m fully agreeing with you on that forum. Just reading through a couple threads is more then disgusting the information that’s being passed around. Those kids are going to be coming into the school with absolutely no correct information at this rate… W
ere there any volunteers even asked to help this out? I know tons of people with better information then is being given out here and more then enough time to keep the forums moderated properly.
At this rate it looks like frosh week is going to be making sure all the frosh actually understand the truth and not about just having a good time as it should be.