Buckdog

Monsieur Harper, I Fart In Your General Direction!!!

You mean to say that Harpo is travelling on the taxpayers' dime?
Remember how he whined about that during his opposition days? Now it doesn't seem to matter; he is PM after all.
That's cheap to reannounce something for seemingly the nth time in order to attend party events and dun the taxpayer with the air fare. Is it true that not many can ride with him on the plane because the throne room is so large?

Bush does the same thing. It'd be interesting to know the real cost of Air Force One when it's not being used for an official purpose.
s

Attacking the government of Saskatchewan is not attacking Saskatchewan.

Let's keep in mind that Lorne Calvert is complaining about Harper breaking a "promise" that no one aside from himself and Ralph Goodale (quelle suprise!) can recall him actually making.

On top of all that, Calvert's "standing up for Saskatchewan" rhetoric he's been spewing on the issue sounds a lot like empty electioneering. And, what's this? There's a provincial election around the corner? Surely, this must be a coincidence!

Patrick - what a typical lying tory you are, spreading misinformation!!!

You said, "Let's keep in mind that Lorne Calvert is complaining about Harper breaking a "promise" that no one aside from himself and Ralph Goodale (quelle suprise!) can recall him actually making."

I took this right out of the Official Conservative Election platform.

See, we are on to you guys who want to defend Harper and his fucking lies!!!!!

It also says "We will ensure that no province is adversely affected from changes to the equalization formula."

Now, as you seemingly know nothing about equalization, apparently a little education is in order.

Equalization is meted out according to the total revenues recieved by each government. Provinces with the lowest revenues are entitled to equalization -- provinces with higher revenues are not.

Removing Saskatchewan's non-renewable resource revenue entirely from the calcuations not only would have adversely affected provinces like New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and Manitoba -- making fewer funds available for them -- unless the federal government decides to run a deficit, all to benefit a province that benefits from that revenue in the first place. Now, whether or not you want that is beyond me. The vast majority of Canadians don't.

The reason why Lorne Calvert -- who has his own broken promises -- claims this promise is broken is because he only cares about the first part of that promise, not the second part. The fact is that Saskatchewan has recieved more money in terms of both primary equalization, as well as secondary project spending. That is a fact.

Lorne Calvert -- a man who so liberally breaks his own promises -- only seems to care about promises he feels were made to him. He would rather that at least three other provinces, with a total population exceeding Saskatchewan's, suffer so that he can have a few more dollars to waste while taxing his province's economy into the toilet.


Furthermore, your hysterical accusations of disinformation are really nothing short of hilarious. But keep trying, Bucko.

You must be a Tory because those weasel words fall so easily from your mouth!

I hope the people of Saskatchewan successfully sue the ass off our lying Conservative Prime Minister and his 12 lying Saskatchewan Members of Parliament.

Here is why:

Excerpt from Stephen Harper’s Letter to Premier Calvert, June 10, 2004

“The Conservative Party of Canada will alter the equalization program to remove all non-renewable resources from the formula, as well as move the program to a ten-province standard.”

Conservative Party Platform 2004 ('Demanding Better')

“A Conservative government will also revisit the equalization formula. We will move towards a ten-province standard that excludes non-renewable resource revenues from the equalization formula, and do so in a manner that ensures no provinces receiving equalization will receive less money during the transition to the new formula than the current formula provides.”

Conservative Party Platform 2006 ('Standing Up For Canada')

“Work to achieve with the provinces permanent changes to the equalization formula which would ensure that non-renewable natural resource revenue is removed from the equalization formula to encourage economic growth. We will ensure that no province is adversely affected from changes to the equalization formula.”

Question by Stephen Harper to Prime Minister Paul Martin in the House of Commons, November 16, 2005

“The prime minister is also failing Saskatchewan on equalization. The government promised to reform the equalization program in 2004 for Saskatchewan. The government now says it will not get to that until at least 2006, costing Saskatchewan over 750-million dollars in lost revenue. When will the prime minister overrule his finance minister and make the changes necessary, so that Saskatchewan does not lose this money?”

In the recent Federal Budget, Harper 'said' that he was removing non-renewable resources from the equalization formula. He then set a cap on the amount Saskatchewan could qualify for!! At no point, in ANY of Stephen Harper's statements, did the concept of a 'cap' get mentioned.

Where I come from, we call this, 'lying through your teeth!'

Harper Lied - but that is what right wingers do all of the time!!!

"unless the federal government decides to run a deficit"

Patrick, considering that the feds are running up a huge surplus, and considering that despite that big surplus they spent a whole bunch o extra billions on the military I doubt that excluding natural resource revenue from the formula would have made funds unavailable for other provinces. There is lots of money in the federal governmnet's pockets and I can't quite figure out what the Harper government is doing with it all.

Probably pissing it away on "cost cutting contracts" that pay their friends and associates $57 000 a month, no doubt.

Personally I think the equalization needs and overhaul, but I am leery of removing natural resource revenue from it, because it gives provinces less incentive to develop secondary and tertiary processing of our resources. Perhaps if that revenue was excluded from the equasion the difference in equalization payments could be 'earmarked' towards development of resource processing, manufacturing, higher education and other buffers to help soften the end of a resource boom.

I don't think that letting provinces have hundreds of millions of dollars extra just because "resources will run out" or whatever makes sense at all.

That said, I think Harper is a dink for breaking his promise. It shows either a lack of foresight or downright hypocracy. Neither are desirable traits in a Prime Minister.