Civil Revolution in Canada, eh?

[Troll King]

tk, are you a conservative? or were you a progressive conservative at one point?

Why do people think I'm a Conservative? Spider asked me the same thing the other day. I've only ever voted either Liberal or NDP. I know the NDP doesn't have a chance in my riding (they only got 8.3% in the last election, and that was up from somewhere like 2.3%) especially when the incumbent is a cabinet minister, John McCallum. My riding doesn't even have an NDP riding association right now, much less a candidate. I tried calling the party's Ottawa office and even they don't know what's going on. McCallum has come across as a bit rude in person, and I don't like that he isn't even a resident in our riding. The Conservative candidate is the poster boy for what his party needs: he's an India-born Chinese man who also has Swedish citizenship. You'd think he'd be the perfect candidate to represent a multicultural riding like mine, and an even better candidate to change the Conservative's reputation for a "white" party with racist undertones. Until he made a comment a few years ago that called immigrants "garbage". If the NDP in my riding gets its act together, they might actually get my vote, even if they don't have a chance.

[froedrick]

I thought that you had posted during the last election leaning towards conservative. Was just on my mind and was wondering, didn't assume anything.

[Epinephrine]

Universal Healthcare is a really touchy subject, and it really makes me sad I can't logically be for it.

We had a big discussion about the future of universal healthcare in Canada today at lunch... me and a bunch of friends. I think the consensus was that there would be some sort of private health care in the next 10 years in Canada.

The fact is, there's a lot of problems with healthcare right now, problems that public money isn't going to solve unless people would accept even higher taxes.

[Nickname]

you'd be shocked how many people would accept higher taxes for good workign health care.

[Epinephrine]

People should vote NDP then instead of voting Liberal/Conservative and getting more tax cuts.

[froedrick]

Half of Newofundlands budget is in healthcare, it just needs better management, not more money.

[Eric is God]

Except that increasing taxes won't necessarily lead to better health care or education because throwing more money into a system that has major inefficiencies will just be a further waste. I've worked at a health care facility as a financial analyst and I know how bad the system is. I'm for two-tiered health care because it's simply a more efficient way to go IF it's done properly. People who have the money to pay for certain specialized services are already heading down to the states for treatment, so why not allow private companies to offer these services in Canada? I'm also for legalized prostitution and possibly for legalized marajuana simply because both could have huge benefits in terms of increased tax revenues and decreased costs for policing. However, Im skeptical that our government could successfully implement any of these things.

Cutting part of my response to a previous thread:

I plan to vote Liberal in the upcoming federal election. I'm an economist and therefore the overall wellbeing of our economy is of major interest to me. I've always believed that the Conservative party has the best track record of managing the economy and that's why I tend to gravitate towards them. However, I consider myself a moral person and I have a social conscious. This new Conservative party scares the hell out of me when it comes to their religious and social views so I won't be voting for them.

I wasn't the least bit surprised about the Liberal corruption because governments are always corrupt, just to different degrees. And if I'm disappointed in the Liberal government it's because they were stupid enough to caught. The NDP are way too left-wing and would ruin the economy, the Conservatives are way too right-wing and would ruin our social values. So I'm left choosing the corrupt, "evil I know" with the Liberals. It bugs me when people accuse you of being extremely right-wing when you believe in the possible value of ideas like the partial privitization of the health care system.

What scares me is people like my dentist who will be voting Conservative based solely on the fact that it will save him a few extra thousand in taxes every year (the guy already makes over $200,000). The country's problems are not black and white so the solutions can't be black and white either. I miss the old Progressive Conservative party, but they died and were swallowed by the religious right