Harper's 5 years as PM: Mansbridge interview

[Peter O'Donnell]

I would agree that it's glass half full, which means half empty ... and so on a good day Harper looks good, on a bad day he looks bad.

Problem is, what the world community needs desperately right now is a conservative leader with the sort of stand-up-and-fight mentality of Vaclav Havel, but he was representing too small a player, it needs to be Harper or more ideally Cameron, or best case scenario Sarah Palin.

Somebody has to start swinging hard at the globalist lurching frankenstein monster, whether you view it from the Hubert Mitchell perspective or just see it as the mass-unconcsious synergy of millions of leftist-progressive dreams of socialist utopia randomly coalescing around opportunities such as climate change and gay rights, the conclusions are the same, we face the hell on earth of becoming Chinese colonies and wage slaves ever more squeezed and then placated by a new flood of cheap trinkets to make our situations tolerable.

We have to get off the globalist treadmill and overthrow political correctness, otherwise our societies will rot from within and something strong and energetic, whether Islam or Chinese communism, will take over the structure. In fact, I agree with those who say, we need to investigate very carefully the links between Chinese cash under the table and our political elites. Who is in the pay of the Beijing government even today? There have been suggestions that this includes cabinet ministers at various levels of government. With the steady flow of resources out to China at very favourable exchange rates vis-a-vis the flood of return trade, it can be argued that we are already more or less the crown jewel of the Chinese empire, with financing partly supplied by the co-operative friends in the Gulf states.

Liberals are only concerned about their entitlements. They neither notice these things, nor care about them. Among them, there is a great nostalgia for the hippie times when Chairman Mao was the icon of revolutionary change. The idea of becoming Chinese slaves probably appeals to most Canadian pot-smoking progressives. Harper says he's a conservative but increasingly, he thinks like a liberal -- "how do I get things really cushy for my faction, my tribe?" It may work well short-term in high-vote-yield areas but in the long term there is no strategic thinking about our place in the world, what if the Chinese decide to squeeze us harder for our resources?

Harper doesn't think in terms of personal freedom or cultural integrity, he's really more of a textbook economist and probably an asset in that limited sense, but if we lose our souls what good is the second car in the driveway? His attitude to abortion tells a lot, it would cost him nothing politically to say that he had personal misgivings about abortion but he makes it sound like he isn't going to let that "fringe issue of evangelicals" end his stay at 24 Sussex Drive -- I wonder what he says on Sundays about all that.

[thepartyparty]

Connie... i'm not even a member of the Conservative party, if that's what you're implying.


I look out for my best interests. The economy is booming here in the face of a recession. The country is stable and the provinces are being given more and more freedom to chart their own courses. The military is respectable again. Harper has done well by me. I do not want this to change.

Please explain to me... a citizen of the booming province of Saskatchewan... of how things would be better for me under a Iggy/Layton coalition.

[Connie Fournier]

Connie... i'm not even a member of the Conservative party, if that's what you're implying.


I look out for my best interests. The economy is booming here in the face of a recession. The country is stable and the provinces are being given more and more freedom to chart their own courses. The military is respectable again. Harper has done well by me. I do not want this to change.

Please explain to me... a citizen of the booming province of Saskatchewan... of how things would be better for me under a Iggy/Layton coalition.

I won't trade my freedom of speech and privacy rights for anything Harper has to offer. I don't even care if he makes the trains run on time.

[T.G.]

I don't even care if he makes the trains run on time.

Good one LOL That's where a lot of Haperites are at. The abortion killing machines and ovens might be running full blast, but hey, the GDP might be up a speck or two and look at all the cheap crap we've got from China! Life is good.

[Fabulous Fred]

I don't even care if he makes the trains run on time.

Good one LOL That's where a lot of Haperites are at. The abortion killing machines and ovens might be running full blast, but hey, the GDP might be up a speck or two and look at all the cheap crap we've got from China! Life is good.

....and then one day the inevitable happens, it's time to pay the piper.

Our current mania is a lot like "enjoying a good cigarette" used to be. They were packaged, advertised and sold as an essential part of your lifestyle, they helped define who or what you were, they were the reward after a job well done or a meal that was enjoyed amongst many other things.

We knew inhaling all of that smoke wasn't really a good idea but it felt so good and then we were hooked nothing else mattered. It was legal, socially acceptable and cool. How much more can you ask than that?

Then one day the pains began, the medical tests are done and you get the news that you have terminal lung cancer. "Get your affairs in order" is the doctors advice. Suddenly reality comes thundering in and the momentary gratification wasn't worth it because the enjoyment is all in the past and future is short, painful and without hope.

We are addicted to living beyond our means, to throwing around billions as if it were inconsequential as another poster in a different thread tried to assert that 3 billion of our tax dollars were.

If we quit now, and there is ZERO chance of that happening, we will endure a great deal of pain but we may yet survive, if we don't the final bill will be terminal and Canada will not survive unfractured or without a great deal of civil unrest and bloodshed.

It is likely already too late for the USA and they could well take us down the rat hole with them regardless of our best efforts to stave off national extinction.

We live in interesting times.

[thepartyparty]

I won't trade my freedom of speech and privacy rights for anything Harper has to offer. I don't even care if he makes the trains run on time.

That's not what I asked... I asked how would an Iggy/Layton coalition would make my life better. That's the choice coming in the next election.

Right now... I am very proud of my country and life is good for me.

Or, if that scenario doesn't work, explain to me how an Iggy/Layton coalition would improve freedom of speech or internet access in Canada.

[Peter O'Donnell]

So all that proves is that they know how to push your buttons ... "highway of heroes," Don Cherry weeping about Afghanistan, gold medals out the kazoo last winter.

All very well and good, but do you think the people of Caledonia are proud of their country? How do you think I feel about my citizenship after thirty years of blacklisting and watching Environment Canada hoodwink the people and the media into believing their fables about climate change? I think of this country as a vast collection of chumps asking if they can get another beating because the last one felt so good.

Sure the stores are full of cheap crap from China, and guess who gets rich from that.

I am concerned about this country rather than proud of it, concerned about the tidal wave of socialist indoctrination, concerned about how easily we gave in on same sex marriage and what that implies about our future, concerned about the holocaust of abortion, and concerned about how stupid the progressive side of our political spectrum have become, and how timid the conservative side are, turning away each time another real conservative is hauled before the courts for trying to defend either the traditional culture or the obvious truth.

This is not a time for the likes of Stephen Harper to be leading the political right in Canada, it just marks time until the Liberals get back in to do further damage. We need to be reversing damage done, not just trying to hide from the onslaught.

Anyway, the man never campaigned on this basis before becoming PM, it's clear that he's more interested in personal power than conservative principles.

[MikeNB]

I was through Saskatoon a couple weeks ago for the first time in years. It was indeed hard to ignore the multitude of construction cranes downtown. Good show!

The projection is for Saskatoon to grow from its current size of 220,000 to 300,000 by the end of the decade. I would imagine that growth for Regina will be similar.



Things are booming here. As I said before, much of it has to do with finally having a favourable political climate. We are reaping the benefits of not having socialists and liberals running the show, both provinically and federally.


Harper hopefully stays Prime Minister for a long, long time to come.

LOL that's just a bit more than the population of NB. We'll be a ghosttown!

[Fabulous Fred]

I won't trade my freedom of speech and privacy rights for anything Harper has to offer. I don't even care if he makes the trains run on time.

That's not what I asked... I asked how would an Iggy/Layton coalition would make my life better. That's the choice coming in the next election.

Right now... I am very proud of my country and life is good for me.

Or, if that scenario doesn't work, explain to me how an Iggy/Layton coalition would improve freedom of speech or internet access in Canada.

The election would kill the police state legislation that will pass without one taking place.

That's how.

Iggy will implode, the CPC with a new leader and Minister of Justice will bring them down with the Bloc's help.

[MikeNB]

I was through Saskatoon a couple weeks ago for the first time in years. It was indeed hard to ignore the multitude of construction cranes downtown. Good show!

The projection is for Saskatoon to grow from its current size of 220,000 to 300,000 by the end of the decade. I would imagine that growth for Regina will be similar.



Things are booming here. As I said before, much of it has to do with finally having a favourable political climate. We are reaping the benefits of not having socialists and liberals running the show, both provinically and federally.


Harper hopefully stays Prime Minister for a long, long time to come.

LOL that's just a bit more than the population of NB. We'll be a ghosttown!

Forget the above, misread in 2 ways, way off...

[doggedlyright]

Connie... i'm not even a member of the Conservative party, if that's what you're implying.


I look out for my best interests. The economy is booming here in the face of a recession. The country is stable and the provinces are being given more and more freedom to chart their own courses. The military is respectable again. Harper has done well by me. I do not want this to change.

Please explain to me... a citizen of the booming province of Saskatchewan... of how things would be better for me under a Iggy/Layton coalition.

Saskatchewan's good economic times has nothing to do with Harper and the Federal Progressive Party.

Saskatchewan's elecorate finally got tired of the left wing government and put in a government that was a little more right of the NDP. The first thing they did was lower the taxes on royalities for your natural resources. At the same time, the Alberta Progressive Party under Stelmach increased their royality taxes. Hence the E&P companies and drillers moved to the lower taxed province.

I will repeat no one is sugesting that Layton and/or Iggy become PM. We are simply saying that Harper has proven to be even less fiscally conservative then Brian Mulroney and even more progressive than the old PCPC.

Many conservatives abondoned the PCPC for the exact same actions that Harper is taking today or has taken in the last few years.

[thepartyparty]

So all that proves is that they know how to push your buttons

Why? Because life is good for me in this country? Because there is no place I'd rather live than here?

I think of this country as a vast collection of chumps asking if they can get another beating because the last one felt so good.

I find that life is too short to spend it hating the people around you.

guess who gets rich from that.

NDP socialists usually talk like that. Always getting angry because someone is getting "rich" doing something and they don't get a cut of it. It's so unfair.

This is not a time for the likes of Stephen Harper to be leading

I disagree. He is a very good manager of the things that make life better for me. And, for that, he I hope he stays in power for a long time.

[thepartyparty]

Saskatchewan's good economic times has nothing to do with Harper

I disagree.


- Taxes are lower (both the GST and Corporate rates). This has allowed investment in new business to flourish.

- The Liberal carbon tax was never implemented. This would have choked economic activity in the province (agriculture, mining and oil all rely on energy). There is no threat of a new Liberal National Energy Program attacking Western industries.

-Harper killed the BHP Bilton takeover of Potash Corp... protecting a strategic resources from being monopolized and hurting our competitive position

- the stimulus fund is being put to use to address the infrastructure problems that were neglected for decades under the NDP and need to be addressed for the growth we are experiencing.

- Having a stable country, with a stable financial system, is driving investment into the province.


These are all good things that are helping to fuel the boom here.

[Peter O'Donnell]

I don't hate the people around me, I hardly know them. I despise the Liberal culture of Canada and looked for something better from Stephen Harper. I guess I believed him when he lied to us.

Life's too short for that too.

[T.G.]

Sure the stores are full of cheap crap from China, and guess who gets rich from that.

China?

This is not a time for the likes of Stephen Harper to be leading the political right in Canada, it just marks time until the Liberals get back in to do further damage. We need to be reversing damage done, not just trying to hide from the onslaught.

Totally agree. People are under a delusion if they think Harper is anything more than an intermission before someone like Justin Turdeau (God help us) takes over.