Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

You be the Finance Minister

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:31pm - 17 Comments

Jim Flaherty embraces the Internet.

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  • archangel

    Had a look, but haven’t tried it yet. What are the odds a lot of people will use the opportunity to insult the Finance Minister?

  • Ti-Guy

    What are the odds a lot of people will use the opportunity to insult the Finance Minister?

    Oh, I doubt that’ll happen…he said, innocently.

  • archangel

    Ti-Guy,

    I see you’re impressed as I was. How tall must a person be to have a web page on teh internets?

  • Chris B

    How long until someone can ATIP the aggregate results?

  • http://www.wwwdotcom.com Wes

    Dang, I’m out of my league (of what-the-heck-does-that-mean) here.
    I’m going to avoid this.

    But what are the chances people are going to mess with it?

  • archangel

    Chris B,

    “How long until someone can ATIP the aggregate results?”

    Never. Top Secret. Eyes Only. They’ll have to “rendition” you if you find out.

  • Anon

    Is 1 high or is 6 high on their scale.
    Something tells me that wasn’t left out by accident.

  • Jenn

    Being the eternal optomist, I gave thoughtful, sincere answers and filled out every section.

    Guess what I got?

    “Data Error Detected
    2008-12-11 10:40:35 PM
    We apologize…

    A data error was detected when submitting your information. In order to help us server you better, please report the problem you encountered.

    Be sure to include the subject of the problem as “Data error detected”, along with the date and time the problem was encountered. . . ”

    So come on, is this the standard response? Everybody gets this?

  • Jack Mitchell

    Where is madeyoulook? He’s going to just adore this.

  • Ti-Guy

    No, it worked fine with me. I got a gracious thank you for participating.

    Maybe all the profanity I used in my submission munged the system?

  • T. Thwim

    On the bright side, it seems at least Mr. Flaherty has learned that being consultative is a good thing.

    On the flip side, it shows the complete dearth of ideas or competence held by Mr. Flaherty in directing the economy. Mob mentality is considered an insult for a reason, after all. I think it has to do with the median IQ being 100, meaning about half the people are below average intelligence.

  • hosertohoosier

    “On the flip side, it shows the complete dearth of ideas or competence held by Mr. Flaherty in directing the economy. Mob mentality is considered an insult for a reason, after all. I think it has to do with the median IQ being 100, meaning about half the people are below average intelligence.”

    So, if the Liberal party had a comments section on their webpage (and I’m sure they did) would that mean they are out of ideas and an insult to reason? Moreover, are people of below average intelligence necessarily a poor source of information, if you are setting PRIORITIES, as opposed to coming up with new ideas? Shouldn’t the priorities of the unintelligent matter as much as the intelligent.

    I think ultimately that is where the smug arrogant types miss what politics is mostly about. Politics is mostly about the division of various pies to the benefit of some and not others. Most people find it annoying when the chattering classes present one particular distribution of benefits as the self-evidently good one. At the end of the day, people have different preferences for economic growth versus say quality of life and so on. Politics is about preferences. Consultation tools like this are primarily about people’s preferences, and not their policy ideas (I should note, it is unlikely this stuff will get taken seriously anyway).

    Anyhow, Mr. Thwim, some of those <100 IQ folks you think so little of, may actually do okay since they don’t have to strain every single thought into the vice of a partisan lens… not that I am pointing any fingers.

  • Jean Proulx

    This is idiotic because ALL these things have to be done and they are are all complimentary. Nevertheless, for fun, here are my responses…

    ————–

    1. Support traditional and emerging industrial sectors
    2. Build strong sustainable labour markets and training incentives
    3. Improve Access to Credit
    4. Expedite Infrastructure Spending
    5. Invest in Housing
    6. Other: Please explain your idea here:

    Instead of doing something serious about the economy propose to bankrupt all political parties except for the Conservatives. You are an idiot Mr. Flaherty.

    7. Beyond the question of short-term stimulus, what steps should the government take to ensure that the Canadian economy remains internationally competitive and continues to attract investment and creates jobs?

    Remove the Conservative government from power.

  • Steve Wart

    I told them that the best stimulus is to avoid doing any of those things, although I think I said that education might be a worthy thing to spend money on (I must have been influenced by all the liberal ideas of improving society I’ve been picking up from Macleans).

    I did it without insulting anyone, but Jean’s approach is quite interesting. Calling people idiots might just get them to come around to your way of thinking, even if it hasn’t really worked on this site. Maybe we just need more posts like that here to get everyone properly informed.

    Remind me to tell you about kill files sometime. I think there must be a wordpress plugin for that.

  • Jean Proulx

    Steve Wart – I treated Mr. Flaherty’s consultation exercise with all the seriousness that I expect him to to treat it with.

  • archangel

    hosertohoosier,

    T. Thwim may have been referring ONLY to Conservatives, in which case he may have a point. I stressed the only to ensure your lens doesn’t obscure the message.

  • madeyoulook

    Indeed, Jack, the choices there are ridiculous. Here’s your stimulus, dear government: get out of the bloody way! Let businesses and their shareholders enjoy the profit reward for supplying what is in demand. Let businesses and their shareholders suffer the loss penalty for failing to do so. Stop messing with that formula. Stop overtaxing the successful in order to mitigate the aforementioned “loss penalty” — you’re only encouraging more businesses to fail to supply what is in demand.

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