Sunday, December 11, 2005

Random Thoughts & Musings #4

Another week of election fun here in Canada, and then there was the other news. Here, at this wonderful blog, we look at both.

1. Letting parents decide on which childcare their child should be in? Theres a novel idea! Stephen Harper unveiled, on Monday, a strategy where every child would be entitled to a thousand some odd dollars per year in tax incentives towards child care costs. The Liberals countered with promising to governmentally subsidize spaces. This debate sounds familiar, wait....I know, the Liberals promised a national day care plan in the last election! Seems this is just like the party that promised in 1993 to drop the GST...wait it was the Liberals again! Jack and the NDP promise a national daycare program as well, but how much will it cost?

2. Anybody know how much any single one of the NDP promises will cost the Canadian taxpayer if it is ever implemented? Anybody? Jack Layton, do you know? Thought not.

3. Last week Aurora had its first annual tree lighting ceremony out front of the local town hall. Looks like the event was fun for the families! Don't worry! The Mayor of Aurora assures us that the lights used are "LEDs." Want to see more? Click here.

4. Apparently the Governor General has set the Canadian federal election on January 23rd. January 23rd, believe it or not, is statistically the coldest and one of the snowiest days of the year across Canada. To give you an idea of what voters will be experiencing within the 12 hours on January 23rd the polls will be open:


Toronto will have only 9.5 hours of daylight on Jan. 23. "That's an issue. Some people will be voting in the dark," [Environment Canada's Senior Climatologist David] Phillips said.


Phillips is exactly right. The voters will be voting in the dark in many ways both because of the time of year (lack of sunlight) and in terms of not paying attention to what the politicians are saying!

The Liberals and Conservatives love to bash each other. The Liberals love to try and viliffy Steven Harper and the Conservatives (which amazingly worked last election) while not putting forth anything of real substance (or merely re-promising what they did years before...anybody seen the revitalization of Toronto's waterfront or a national childcare program yet?). The Conservatives, while I admire that they started rolling out a costed election program right after the election call, have started to snipe back at the Liberals. But perhaps that is because they are fighting back against the Liberals continued attacks on Steven Harper. On a footnote, how many times has Paul Martin said "Stephen Harper" on television and in the press? If Paul Martin keeps this up, I will know what the conservatives stand for, but what do the Liberals stand for? Besides not implementing the GST cut, not reducing gun crime with the implementation of the gun registry, pushing Quebec towards separation because of the Adscam, etc. So the Liberals don't do what the promise and do what they didn't promise. I got it now! No child care program will be in our future if a Liberal government is elected!

I was watching on CTV Newsnet today representatives from the Conservative, NDP and Liberal parties take part in a discussion. The Conservative and Liberal representatives talked over each other for most of the interview while the NDP representative sat quietly. Nothing of substance came out of the interview really because the Liberals bashed the Conservatives while the Conservatives bashed the Liberals. I really don't get why the media continue to have these all party representation debate style interviews anymore, it is just the same old tired bafflegab from the Liberals and the Conservatives. Anybody else tired of it yet?

5. I enjoyed a great children's musical production at church today. Well done Mark Ruhnke and the kids! Very well done and rehearsed.

6. This weekly feature will take some time off as I will be working almost straight right through to Christmas Eve!

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