Harper's Family Tax Plan Only Goes Into Effect After You're Dead

Harper announced a family tax plan today, but he said that he will first have to pay for the F-35s, the prison expansion and his corporate tax cuts. Then he'll worry about your family. But the good news is, he plans to put more of your children in jail, so you won't have to worry about feeding them. Do you think that's what he meant by savings for families?

... the Family Tax Cut plan announced by Mr. Harper Monday in Saanich, B.C. wouldn’t come into effect until the federal budget is balanced, which could be years from now. Like pension splitting before it, splitting earned or other income for tax purposes would benefit only some families and be no help at all to singles, including single parents. To get the full benefit, even qualifying families would have to have a large income disparity between the higher and lower wage earners. Even then, a maximum of $50,000 of household income would be splittable for tax purposes.

Can't wait until tomorrow when he announces a childcare plan that goes into affect when they're old enough to take care of their aging parents.

We Can't Think About a Harper Majority. We Have to Focus on a Harper Unemployed

Heather Mallick asks: What if Harper's dream of a majority comes true? It should read what if our nightmare of a majority comes true. But it won't. We won't let it happen.

A Harper majority government would be dishonest. That's an easy one, they're Dodgy Inc. now, with their in-and-out campaign financing, lying to Parliament, allegations of illegally blocking freedom of information, killing the long-form census to cater to invented online outrage, wildly underestimating the cost of those Lockheed Martin jets, padding the Senate they previously vowed to reform, accepting fat MP pensions they once decried . . . I could go on but lack the space and sometimes the will to live, frankly.

A recent poll shows that Canadians know the Harper government tells whoppers. For the Harper regime, lying is a core value, to the point where there's a bouncy aggressive incredulity when they're questioned about it in the House of Commons. They regard opposition MPs as dogs lunging at a G20 wire fence when they've already been trained with electroshocks to never do that again.

Murray Dobbin in the Tyee is also Contemplating the Unthinkable Harper Majority. Five years of minority has frustrated their ambitions:

They couldn't slash Medicare or gut the Canada Health Act. They couldn't cut transfers to the provinces, or further weaken EI. They left the public services unions with their rights intact. They had to leave education alone (more or less). And they didn't risk slashing the civil service they hate so much. Even the CBC has been spared (though they raised millions from their loyalists attacking it in fundraising letters).

The frustration level, especially for Harper, must have been almost unbearable. Remember, this is a man who got so frustrated being in Opposition as right-hand man to Preston Manning that he bolted from politics altogether. The place he chose to cleanse himself after all those years having to play the democrat was the National Citizens Coalition, by a big margin the most right-wing organization on the national scene. He said he was glad to be out of politics so he could say what he really thought.

So we can't even use the "M" word anymore than we can use the "C" word. And in fact, we can't even contemplate another mandate. I have to be able to sleep nights.

Stephen Harper Advertising for People to Leave Right-Wing Comments at On-Line News Items. Can you Smell That?

The Harper campaign is advertising on Craig's List for someone to leave comments at the end on news items. Can you smell the desperation?

I leave comments lots of times for free. You have to submit a sample so I think I have something.

"C'mon you leftie rag, Liberal shills ... how bout reporten sumpin tru fer a change. That Iffy gonna haf him a colition with dem traters the Blok an dem dar soshilists just as sur as i'm gonna drank me won mor twofer"

Do you think I'll get the job? I wonder what it pays?

Come on everyone. Send a sample and see how soon they shut it down.

With Harper Still Stuck on the "C" Word, Michael Ignatieff is on Fire

Stephen Harper is still stuck on the "C" word, but Ignatieff is not taking the bait. As one woman wrote to the CBC, if I read 'coaltion' one more time, I'm going to poke my eyes out. So if his strategy is just to annoy people, I say keep going.

Michael Ignatieff has already moved on, taking the focus off the "C" word and putting it on the economy.

Ignatieff goes on the attack over economics

Tory focus on 'jets and jails' threatening to bankrupt Canada, Ignatieff says

And Harper's election gravy is the promise of a plan that won't start for five years. In five years we'll be saying "Stephen who".

G20 was a ‘$1-billion Harper photo-op’ that accomplished nothing: Ignatieff

If you can stomach one more "C" word, here goes:

Harper's Lawsuit Against the Canadian Taxpayer Has Cost Us $1.3 Million

Despite the fact that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who agreed that fabricating receipts to get taxpayer money you weren't entitled to, was legal, Stephen Harper sued us anyway.

And we just got the bill. $1.3 million. I think we should add that to his tab.

I Love the New Ignatieff 'Eyebrows" For the Press. Where Can I Get a Pair?

The Ignatieff team was handing out fake 'Ignatieff Eyebrows' to the media. I don't know if John Ivison was trying to strike an Iggy pose, but he looked more like Khrushchev.

Contrast that to Harper already limiting media access.

Michael Ignatieff is also going after Harper's poor fiscal record, spending us into deficit long before the recession even started. That's what he needs to do. Let Harper continue his personal attacks and coalition bogeyman campaign. Frankly, he's starting to sound like a comic book character and it's grating on people's nerves. Shazam.

The Globe also reminds voters: Let’s not make Ignatieff a personal issue

Personal attacks on Mr. Ignatieff have been the preferred tactic of his political opponents from the moment he entered political life after a distinguished career as a human-rights theorist, writer and academic. These attacks have benefited from an unfortunate national prejudice that views success abroad with suspicion or, in its extreme form, contempt. He is indeed an extraordinary Canadian.

He was listed as one of the world’s 100 leading public intellectuals by Foreign Policy for his thinking on the “tension between security and human rights, the fight against modern terrorism and the philosophy of freedom.” (That quote is taken from the citation of one of his 11 honorary degrees.) His books have received many awards, including the Governor-General’s Award for Literature and the George Orwell Prize, and one was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

The American philosopher Francis Fukuyama called Mr. Ignatieff’s Lionel Gelber Prize-winning book, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, “a marvellous work that shows the diversity, complexity, agonies and horrors of nationalism with greater depth and insight than most, if not all, academic treatises.” 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.

Time to bring back the smart.

Conservatives Have Another Corporate Lobbyist Running for Them

When Stephen Harper named Gordon O'Connor as his first defence minister, people were outraged. O'Connor was a corporate lobbyist for Hill & Knowlton, responsible for securing military contracts. And he didn't disappoint. But then that whole lying, Afghan Detainee Abuse thing, got in the way.

Now the Conservatives have secured the nomination of Raymond Sturgeon, another military contract lobbyist, responsible in part for the horrible F-35 contract.

So much for accountability.

I noticed on his website, that he will be speaking at the Rod and Gun club, no doubt heralding the 21 million provided in the budget for gun owners.

I don't think he'll stand a chance against Carol Hughes, but then the Conservatives have a lot of money, and sadly often money talks. We must silence it.

The Liberal candidate for this riding, François Cloutier, is also a strong contender, who may be able to tap into history. This was once the riding of Lester Pearson.