Stephen Harper and Thomas Mulcair Face Off | At Issue

Boy you must be real happy these days

Jason S. Well stated ... the only thing JT has going for him is his celebrity status , what country needs is leadership .. Harper has turned democracy into fascism in Canada .. Definitely time to Turf A Tory

We can't have ndp leader you guys need to look for the long run

+Jason S. : Mulcair has no plan against Islam, and is an economic socialist. If that doesn't scare you, it should, on both counts. Being better than Trudeau is hardly an accomplishment. See my playlists "No to Mulcair" and "No to Trudeau."

We can't have a return to cons rule..ABC .. vote to repeal C 51

tamething1 I suppose I'm not scared easily, unlike Harper supporters such as yourself.

adam987689 Peace loving to you must mean putting your head in the sand & ignoring the evil that exists in this world. The "middle east" is here. 150,000 muslims were surveyed in Ontario. A large proportion thought the downing of the twin towers was justified. The "Gang of 18" were caught before they attacked Canadian Institutions. They were taught by an extremist Imam brought into a so called moderate mosque. The Liberals tried to financially undercut the military to minimal size. We are currently solvent. This would not be the case under any other party. Their previous party platform budgets expressively implied HUGE deficits. You wanna talk policies junior or just play partisan bullskit!

im not gonna play the game of shallow simple statements bashing each other's preferred candidate. if you'd like to give some reasons im open to that

***** fuck guns unless your hunting.

interesting. Im from Ontario and live in the city so i have no background with guns. the problem is, and its clearer in the states, is that there is a clear link between guns and violence and crime and obviously deaths in the cities where nobody really needs them for hunting or sport. and so its understandable to have the desire to cut down on guns in that sense. but there are many people in Canada who do use guns responsibly for hunting or sport that don't wanna see their rights taken away because of idiots in the cities who get their hands on shot guns. both sides, the anti-gun group and the pro-gun group, at least here in Canada, are coming from two different worlds and they forget that there is a middle ground. what i think the best solution is, is to have a thorough process by which people who want a gun for hunting and sport can do so and not seem suspicious because they have the right intentions and people who come from the city who have the wrong intentions or come from anywhere and don't meet safe standards, will stick out and be flagged. i truly think the NDP will approach this issue this way. it won't be black and white because it can't be. another thing, people don't need an M16 to hunt deer and duck with and by the same token a shotgun or rifle doesn't belong in an apartment in Toronto. so people who want to cut down gun use have to understand where reasonable gun owners are coming from in protecting their rights. and reasonable gun owners have to understand why people want less unnecessary guns on the streets and around kids rather than out in the woods. last thing cause im rambling. No party will ever line up with any of even their most dedicated voters views. I hope you look more into the NDPs platform for the country besides what might be assumed they'll do based on the liberals past agenda on a single topic.

agreed because many of them already have them because of shitty loopholes in the gun registry. if someone wants a gun for sport or hunting and have nothing to hide then it just makes sense for them to be okay with going through a background check. the goal is to prevent MORE criminals from buying new guns.
im assuming that you're then for regulating drugs by what you said. and if so then i agree with you. you make something like weed illegal then the drug cartels have a monopoly on selling it and then you birth rival gangs and crime. we didn't learn from history with prohibition of alcohol and created the mafia and Al Capone got stinking rich. now we have a legal regulated system and you just don't hear of violence over booze unless you're on booze. not to say that drinking isn't bad because it's factually worse than any other drug, but the system we have in place makes it so that responsible users don't have to go into back allies to buy a bottle of beer and risk getting shot or mugged.
there are so many examples where we de-regulated something, the economy, drugs, whatever and it all went to shit because people get greedy and start to take it too far just like the great depression. we put strong regulations in place to prevent that.
take out gun owner and put in wall street banker, the banker bets on risky shit because of loopholes in the system. the gun owner uses their gun for the wrong reasons or is able to buy a gun with the wrong intentions in mind BECAUSE of loopholes in the system.
its all protection for the sake of protection, not to strip rights. you have the right to own a gun with the right intentions and therefore you have nothing to hide from in the face of regulation and proper background checks.

agreed. humans naturally want to alter their perception with drugs and so they will do so by whatever means are available whether it be smoking pot, drinking booze or huffing spray paint. it would just be much safer to regulate the known drugs or at least weed so that people are less involved in crime for using moderately. a little over 80% of all drug users are moderate users which means everyday people like you and me use them safely. i dunno i could go on about drug reform.
so yes if a person like Dylan roof is intent on killing 9 people with a gun, he will find a gun whether its registered or not. but for pro gun owners to fight to de-regulate the system makes them look like they want it to be easier for people to get their hands on them. if a criminal can jump through a loophole in the system to legally buy a gun to then kill people they will.
I think most people would also think that's crazy that you could be sent to jail because of a clerical error. nobody would argue that that's an efficient system. like i said too, i don't have much background with gun legislation in Canada so i can't speak to much of it on that front. thing is, that is how government works. just like a drivers licence or anything for that matter that's run through a section of government if you get pulled over two days after your birthday and simply forget that it's the year to renew your licence then you can get ticketed on top of whatever traffic ticket you get. there isn't much empathy but there can't be with anything that's bureaucratic.
and that's true, the guns that are out there now that aren't registered will forever be out there cycling through illegal gun transportation. but to then turn around and use that as an argument to not regulate any new gun owners is ridiculous. all people want is the best prevention possible which unfortunately stops past unregistered guns.
another argument that doesn't stand is the " self protection" one. there are now studies showing that if you simply own a gun you're more likely to commit homicide and only 2% of the time where a gun owner is attacked can they actually manage to use it for self defense

aforeffort747 you do realize he has done that right ?

Barry Lusk Provincial governments are not the same. Actually, NDP provincial governments have the best over all records when it comes to balanced budgets.
A Miserable Ten Years with Harper
A decade of Conservative rule in a predominantly left-of-centre society does not for a happy democracy make. Adding to the sourness of the decade’s politics has been the Harper Conservatives’ attack on parliamentary democracy. If Jeffrey Simpson could call Jean Chrétien’s Liberal regime a “friendly dictatorship”, then Harper’s rule might be characterized as a period of lean and mean corporate management.Single party majority governments are always prone to stifling parliamentary deliberation. Fortunately, such governments are rare in the parliamentary world as most parliamentary democracies use some form of proportional representation, making it virtually impossible for any party to win a majority of seats in the elected chamber. But even compared with the few countries in which single party majority government is possible and with previous regimes of this kind in Canada, the Harper majority government, supported by less than 40% of the popular vote, has been excessively controlling and dismissive of the deliberative side of parliamentary democracy.No other government in Canadian history, or in other Westminster countries, has used omnibus legislation, set time limits on debate or controlled committees as much as Harper’s majority government. The Prime Minister’s Office, staffed by unelected party loyalists and much larger than its counterpart in other parliamentary countries, has become the most powerful institution of government. Governing for this regime is primarily a matter of selling the Harper brand like a consumer product, using mass media tools of persuasion.Parliamentary deliberation has been further stifled by the Harper government’s abandonment of evidence-based policy-making in favour of political control. For example, the government refused to provide parliament with information that would enable it to assess the costs and benefits of its get-tough-on-crime measures. Despite public outcry, it also proceeded to eliminate the mandatory long-form census that provided demographic data essential for intelligent policy-making in both the public and private sector. It has cut back on environmental assessments of new resouce projects, and it has muzzled government scientists by tightly controlling public access to their research.With parliamentary deliberation all but eliminated, the main checks on the Harper government’s power have been the Supreme Court and the provinces. The government’s string of losses in the Supreme Court of Canada is particularly interesting because the decisions have been rendered by a bench on which justices chosen by Harper have come to form a majority. And this in a constitutional democracy with the fewest checks and balances in the process of selecting the judges of the country’s highest courts. The reversals suffered in these cases have most often dealt with the Harperites’ tough law-and-order agenda that has been based more on populist posturing than evidence-based policy.Where the Supreme Court’s decisions have really cut into government power is in cases involving Aboriginal peoples. Decisions requiring that before initiating projects on lands subject to land claims governments must consult with the First Nation concerned involve procedural requirements and soft power. But the Court’s decision in 2014, recognizing the Tsihlqot’n people’s title to their land and holding that federal and provincial governments require the native title-holders’ consent for any resource project on their lands, deals with hard power, and significantly strengthens the legal resources of First Nations whose territories lie along proposed pipeline routes.In managing the federation, Prime Minister Harper has jettisoned meetings with First Ministers. This classic instrument of “co-operative federalism” is much too collegial and discursive for his top-down corporate style. Sometimes, in fields like worker training where the interests and responsibilities of the two levels of government are inextricably intertwined, this produces a very fumbling approach to policy-making. Lack of provincial co-operation has even proved an obstacle to completing what might be the Harper era’s most significant economic accomplishment, a free-trade agreement with the European Union.In the international arena, the behaviour and perception of Canada’s government has changed more sharply than any changes in domestic policy. In the Harper era, Canada has shed the Pearsonian image of an earnest, progressive middle power and become a hard-nosed ally of the United States and Israel. It was the first signatory country to walk away from the Kyoto Accord on climate change and it has refused to participate in other United Nations conventions on environmental conservation. An indication of Canada’s fallen international stature was Portugal’s selection over Canada for a seat on the United Nations Security Council. The Harper government’s serious under-funding of Canada’s armed forces has reduced the respect Canada can expect even from its closest allies.So here we are, after a decade of Harper Conservatism, a grouchy people, increasingly alienated from our democratic foundations, subjected to populist, unintelligent policy-making, and increasingly unappreciated in the world. Not a chance of me voting for Harper, NDP all the way.

Socialism, regardless of budgets balance or not is not good for Canada. Numerous provinces can attest to that.

Barry Lusk Well, Conservatives and Liberals have proven over and over again(without a doubt) that they are not good for Provinces or Canada... LOL

***** 50% in two months? You are out to lunch. Albertans will be paying off the interest of the Conservative Provincial debt for the next 20 years...lol Go back to school.

The Edmonton Sun is the equivalent` to The Sun news...lol Edmonton Sun is run by a bunch of butt hurt Conservatives.

Communism! Communism! Rah rah rah! [Cue the Soviet Anthem. Raise the taxes. Fatten up the govt. bureaucracy. Put out the Welcome mat for the Jihadis.]

This did not age well at all

He’s better than the currentbone