Good Show

Great talk with Ezra, he is a good guest I think. He is articulate and opinionated. Both you and Al are good hosts, you ask good questions and let the guest talk. I did not know your show previously but I intend to listen regularly from now on.

At the end, when you do general chat, you talk about why the Conservatives have not engineered their own defeat in order to go to the polls. Mike was correct in stating that you need oppo to vote against you to be defeated but I also think Harper and the Conservatives want to be in power for as long as possible so Canadians can get comfortable with them. I don't believe we have had a proper Conservative government since Dief times and people need to be 'exposed' to Conservative thought again. The Libs and their claims that Cons have 'hidden agendas and just wait till they get in power' was very effective the past 2 elections. People need to see that Cons aren't going to close all the orphanages and kick all the pensioners out of their retirement homes.

I think the Conservative plan is slowly working - I am good friends with two hardcore dippers and I have noticed they talk differently about Harper now. There is no way they will support him but they are less suspicious of him, which is what the Cons want.

jwl:

Calling oneself conservatve and behaving like it are two different things. From ctv.ca this afternoon:

"Meanwhile, program expenses were up $10.8 billion, or 7.2 per cent, for the period"

I think it really hurts having only one person in entire cabinet with significant business experience - the poached Liberal Emerson - as this crew really can;t seem to manage our finances effectively.

tory_watcher I agree with your statement 'Calling oneself conservative and behaving like it are two different things' but I believe this Conservative government is really, truly Conservative or at least those at the top are. I don't like the fact of increasing spending either but I don't believe it means the Cons are not conservative. They have no mandate to slash and burn spending and they are also trying to get people to not be afraid of them. While I would love to see the Feds stop paying for CBC, reducing welfare costs and privatizing more health care I can't see the Cons doing it for a while yet because they are trying to charm all Canadians. For me, this week's clash between Flaherty and Duncan was all about Cons trying to inject conservative thought into the debate that takes place daily in MSM.

I too believe our MP's should have more business experience or any work experience not connected with public sector would be nice. I am astounded by how many of our MP's have not had a job in the private sector since their part time work in high school or somesuch. If I was in charge of writing rules to qualify as an MP, my number one rule would be at least 5 years of work experience outside public sector so they can learn what its like in the real world.

I enjoyed listening to the Ezra interview. Well done!

When you're talking to Emery this week could you ask him why he's pretending to be a libertarian? I agree that folks should be able to do what they want as long as it doesn't adversely affect others. That's the libertarian mantra no? Under the current system, drug use has a very real impact on others in the form of taxes taken/spent on the user's health care, welfare (druggies don't generally hold steady jobs due to drug screening etc.) and other social programs. If Emery gets his wish and drugs are legalized, those costs to the taxpayers will do nothing but increase. Allowing one group to do as they wish at the expense of others isn't libertarian, it's socialist. If Emery were truly libertarian, he'd be pushing for private health care and the elimination of state funded welfare/social programs. He'd first ensure that the freedoms he seeks won't impact innocent taxpayers. But he doesn't. And he won't. And that makes him a fraud...