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

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 5:01pm - 31 Comments

Rick Mercer’s rant this week.

Tags: deficit, economy, Michael Ignatieff, rant, recession, Rick Mercer, Rick Mercer Report, Stephen Harper

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/TwoYen TwoYen

IF .xxx..aren't up to the task? Yeah, for sure, MI, Jack, Liz are up to the task, NOT.

By the way are you referring to Lucien Bouchard? Isn't he several BQ leaders ago?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Harbles Harbles

Guilty of unfactchecked google when I blanked out on Gilles.
I'm still not voting Conservative.
lolz

anon

John McCallum???
Bill D, Cat

Flip side .
wml

Yoo hoo…Mr. Martin where are you? Your Country needs you!!! Calling Mr. Paul Martin …calling Mr. MARTIN ….YOOO HOO!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Harbles Harbles

Of course you have seen this. Also even WK has kind words for fmr PM PM.
Hmmm?

William

You are right—my mistake—the CBC only receives around one and a half billion yearly.

http://intensedebate.com/people/sea_n_mountains sea_n_mountains

now i you could just cleaning up that other mistake re the deficit being caused by the stimulus….

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

We were heading directly for deficit before the recession ever came along. Harper's just been able to hide the worst of his mismanagement under the "Nobody expected the [strike]Spanish Inquisition[/strike]recession," line.

That said, I don't believe Harper is really yet to blame. The damage Harper has done won't be really felt until the rest of the world starts to recover from the recession and Canada limps along, hobbled by a structural deficit from poorly thought out tax cuts, and unable to compete as he puts research money down the hole of carbon sequestration instead of into technologies that perhaps don't benefit his oil company buddies so much but help Canada go green a lot faster.

Ted

As we know this week, we actually were in a deficit before the recession hit, back when Harper was telling us we would have a $100 million surplus in 2009.

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

We were heading directly for deficit before the recession ever came along. Harper's just been able to hide the worst of his mismanagement under the "Nobody expected the ~~Spanish Inquisition~~recession," line.

That said, I don't believe Harper is really yet to blame. The damage Harper has done won't be really felt until the rest of the world starts to recover from the recession and Canada limps along, hobbled by a structural deficit from poorly thought out tax cuts, and unable to compete as he puts research money down the hole of carbon sequestration instead of into technologies that perhaps don't benefit his oil company buddies so much but help Canada go green a lot faster.
tobyornottoby

Opposition parties didn't force the GST cut which accounts for $28 billion of the deficit. Oppositon parties didn't force the coporate tax reductions, the increased capital spending on military items, or the enhacned role in Afghanistan, either. Let's face it, the majority of the deficit isn't at all related to the increased infrastrucuture spending the government is currently taking credit for and if you're looking for something to cut, cut the dishonesty.

Ted

Not only that, and not only did Harper break all prior spending records twice in three budgets before the recession, but he expanded the public service to larger than it has ever been. So he was truly expanding the size of government, increasing its permanent operational costs, all while gutting our ability to pay for it.

Foreigner

Do you actually believe the CBC gets 8 to 9 billion a year? Where did you get that information? From Jim Flaherty?
http://intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

3 opposition parties have forced him to take on a large defecit

Poor Stephen, led astray by the treachery of others

Do you think it's easy to make priorities?

William

The public will only blame PM Harper for the deficit if it can be shown that the Libs would have had a reduced deficit. But the Libs threatened to overthrow the gov`t with a 3 party coalition if the minority CPC did not go into deficit to pay for stimulus spending—-and agree to a quarterly reporting of the spending.

Do you see the problem Iggy has ?

http://intensedebate.com/people/SisyphusThis SisyphusThis

I'll listen to Mercer when the US listens to Michael Moore.

I'm putting it in my will.
Herb

The CBC should be worth 8-9 billion a year to us. It is only in "The Mercer Report" and "22 Minutes" that truth emerges in politics.

Who else speaks truth to power?

http://intensedebate.com/people/TwoYen TwoYen

At least Mercer is non-paartisan, unlike a certain blog at Maclean's.

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/TwoYen TwoYen

At least Mercer is non-partisan, unlike a certain blog at Maclean's.

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/danby danby

Can you really dispute what he is saying?
Steve M

Didn't Jim Flaherty just win some award for best Finance Minister from a European economic body?

But I'm sure those people don't know as much about economics as Rick Mercer.

And European awards ain't what they used to be.

http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

That's kind of like winning a barnyard beauty contest.
http://intensedebate.com/people/tdotlib tdotlib

The same magazine said that Lehman Brothers was the best run investment bank. We all know how that one turned out.

http://intensedebate.com/people/tdotlib tdotlib

Sorry Steve – I've lost it in the ether. It's an anecdotal remark – not quoting. Didn't realize we were raising our level of debate when one won't even create an account ;) ahem!