It seems that the Conservatives are in the news lately, some good, some not so good.  
Stephen Harper is extending EI payment to parents of seriously ill and dying children. Good for him. http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/07/pol-stephen-harper-british-columbia.html  
Peter Kent indicates that we have reached the half-way point of green house gas emissions for 2020. He takes into account of what emissions would have been if nothing were done and then postulates what the emissions will be for all the hard work we have done so far. It is about 2% below 2005 levels. BTW, he gives credit to conscious consumers and the provinces for achieving this. So to sum up he is taking credit for something someone else did which is still below their own targets. They said they would reduce emissions by 17% below 2005 levels and they call 2% the half way point. I hope the finance minister take me paying 2% of the 17% tax that I owe as being half-way paid off.  
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/story/2012/08/08/pol-emissions-report-kent.html  
Lisa Raitt also made the news. Her appointment of Guy Dufort as the arbitrator for the Canada Post dispute is rejected because, believe it or not, he represented Canada Post in a previous pay equity dispute. But it's OK since he is a long time friend of the Conservative party.  
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/08/canada-post-union-dispute_n_1755847.html  
http://thechronicleherald.ca/canada/125130-new-postal-arbitrator-ordered

I hope Harper will not live down to my expectations of him.  
China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) wants Nexen and is willing to pay the price, one I am not sure Canadians are willing to.  
If the deal goes thru China will own Nexen plus a seven per cent stake in the huge Syncrude consortium as well as another nine per cent of Syncrude already held by CNOOC's state-owned sister company, Sinopec.  
“Industry analysts say one of the most likely takeover targets is Canadian Oil Sands, a partnership that holds about 37 per cent of Syncrude, after Nexen. That deal plus China’s existing holdings would effectively give the Chinese government majority control of Syncrude, a consortium nurtured with billions of Canadian tax dollars and which currently produces the equivalent of 15 per cent of this country's total oil consumption.”  
<:A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-weston-cnooc-nexen-oil-china-canada-takeovers.html">:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-weston-cnooc-nexen-oil-china-canada-takeovers.html<:/A>:  
Meanwhile the NDP are wanting greater transparency and of course the Cons are giving their standard reply  
<:A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-cnooc-nexen.html">:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-cnooc-nexen.html<:/A>:  
Harper,if you don’t care about Canadians as a whole …think of your children’s future  
 
 
Edited by Zara, 2012-08-30 19:43:34

that's a bit of a stretch to think the Conservative's are putting thought in anything but their pocket books. I'm not saying the other parties are innocent but for a group called "Conservative" they sure aren't worried about conserving the environment, Canadian jobs, or much else. Just saw on the National that the big banks in Canada made a record breaking profit of $7.6 billion in just the last quarter. At least they are conserving bureaucracy.

Zara said "I hope Harper will not live down to my expectations of him.   China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) wants Nexen and is willing to pay the price, one I am not sure Canadians are willing to.   If the deal goes thru China will own Nexen plus a seven per cent stake in the huge Syncrude consortium as well as another nine per cent of Syncrude already held by CNOOC's state-owned sister company, Sinopec.   “Industry analysts say one of the most likely takeover targets is Canadian Oil Sands, a partnership that holds about 37 per cent of Syncrude, after Nexen. That deal plus China’s existing holdings would effectively give the Chinese government majority control of Syncrude, a consortium nurtured with billions of Canadian tax dollars and which currently produces the equivalent of 15 per cent of this country's total oil consumption.”   <:A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-weston-cnooc-nexen-oil-china-canada-takeovers.html">:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-weston-cnooc-nexen-oil-china-canada-takeovers.html<:/A>:   Meanwhile the NDP are wanting greater transparency and of course the Cons are giving their standard reply   <:A target="_blank" HREF="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-cnooc-nexen.html">:http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/08/30/pol-cnooc-nexen.html<:/A>:   Harper,if you don’t care about Canadians as a whole …think of your children’s future       Edited by Zara, 2012-08-30 19:43:34"

I know the NDP live in some sort of phantom parallel utopian universe where a country of 30 million does not need outside investment, but that is not reality.  
 
If we cancel this deal, who else is going to try to invest in Canada?  
 
Do you hold investments? Own any outside Canada?  
 
With RIM somewhere near its deathbed, are we going to forbid a foreign company from taking it over?  
 
With these deals, you ensure the jobs stay, the company pays taxes etc.  
 
What happens next time a Canadian firm tries to buy a foreign company?  
 
The NDP only ever seems to want greater transparency when they aren't the party in power.  
 
 
 
 
Edited by BH, 2012-08-30 20:30:30

a country should not mean owning it, having a stranglehold on a country to the point where it no longer controls it's own destiny.

Zara said "a country should not mean owning it, having a stranglehold on a country to the point where it no longer controls it's own destiny. "

Any actual solutions or specifics you care to delve into, or are we just going to get into a battle of cliches?  
 

he will sell canada out to the highest bidder

Oil Company or CNOOC — is a direct representative of the Chinese government. Securing oil for that government, and by extension the Chinese people, is its only priority.”  
“And like the impossibility of eating just one peanut, this elephant is hungry. If this deal is approved, the elephant is likely to want to gobble another four or five peanuts of similar size. All of a sudden, it would be a lot harder to ignore the elephant standing in the middle of Canada's oil patch.”  
Back in 2010, Tony Clement and Stephen Harper refused a bid by a foreign bid to buy Potash Corp in Sask. at that time we were told our government was going to develop a strategy by clarifying foreign investment rules. Nothing has been done on that…. to date.  
More quotes below  
“While we wait for clarification, Canada has no strategy, and this offer from China comes at a very strategic time. That makes us vulnerable because we have no comprehensive foreign investment policy and we also have no national energy policy. That puts us in the hands of the oil companies who are quite happy without any strategy or policy telling them what to do. We haven’t built a new refinery in this country in almost thirty years. If these pipes get approved, which Ottawa wants badly, Canada won’t have to build refineries for a long time — if ever.”  
“Canadians, meanwhile, will cement our reputation as hewers of wood and drawers of water. If that keeps up, it’s hard to see how Canada will become an "energy superpower" as Ottawa has promised.”  
“Other countries have been much more protective of their resources, and have been leery of China and its reputation on issues like human rights, the environment, its closed economy, and its lack of respect for intellectual property.”  
“In 2005 when CNOOC tried to take over Unocal Corp in the U.S. for $18.5 billion, there was a firestorm from Washington that shut the deal down. There was another firestorm this year when Chinese telecom company, Huawei, tried to build a broadband network in Australia. Australia nixed that deal because it feared China could use the network to spy on them.”  
So the Canadian government had a cooperative study regarding ‘our’ Canadian economy with of course who else…. China!  
“It was released quietly last week by the Department of Foreign Affairs with a mouthful of a name — the "Canada – China Economic Complementaries Study."  
The quotations above are excerpts from this news item  
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/08/20/f-scott-peterson-cnooc-nexen.html  
I think this something to be concerned about.  

That same free market that has brought us everyday low prices has also seen great swaths of manufacturing jobs shipped overseas - where daily wages might pay for a cup at Starbucks. And where silly things like safety regulations (both worker and product) are virtually non-existent.  
 
But, it's capitalism! It's the conservative way! Stop trying to block progress! So what if some water gets a bit of oil in it, right? The market will sort all the problems out on its own!*  
 
*Unless consumers aren't given a viable alternative to take their money to. Then they can choke on it.  
 

stating one of the reasons so many goods are manufactured in Third World Countries and China was because of the high wages paid to unionized labour here in Canada, I don't agree, given the greed factor the capitalist would still ship overseas and pay labour starvation wages.Just take a look at non union labour right now if we didn't have a guaranteed minimum wage, do you honestly think private enterprise would pay a living wage. Even with a minimum wage most workers in the service industry must rely on tips to supplement their wages, many due to the greed of the businesses involved.  
 
Edited by Zara, 2012-09-04 17:59:19

There is a strong warning in this article and we as Canadians need to pay attention to.  
 
http://allangregg.com/?p=80  
 
"I have spent my entire professional life as a researcher, dedicated to understanding the relationship between cause and effect. And I have to tell you, I’ve begun to see some troubling trends. It seems as though our government’s use of evidence and facts as the bases of policy is declining, and in their place, dogma, whim and political expediency are on the rise. And even more troubling …. Canadians seem to be buying it."

Excellent read, thanks for posting.

Is this is from a longtime PC staffer. Along with similar arguments from other long time conservatives like Andrew Coyne we are being shown Harper is a zealot who's ideology is more dangerous to Canada than any PM before.  
 
 
If only Con supporters would wake up and demand morefrom thier government. However it has sadly beome about Holding absolute power and not about good governance and policy.

Unfortunately, there are individuals who will tow the party line, regardless of the evidence that is laid in front of them.  
 
This isn't the Conservative Govt of yesteryear, this Reform bunch are truly frightening in their ideology.  
The Reform movement hijacked the Conservative movement and counted on slipping through on the name, hoodwinking people who are not quite smart enough to look at the issues rather than the party.  
 

thank skidooboy for this excellent post. I believe this behaviour has been referred to previously in 'the Conservative Agenda'post on ebrandon but not with such depth.

None of eBrandons Harper cheerleaders comented on ththe Alan Gregg article.... i guess they would rather let the whole thing drop.  
 
 
Cmon Haperites try and defend your Dictator against this one  
 
PPS thanks for the props!  

skidooboy said "None of eBrandons Harper cheerleaders comented on ththe Alan Gregg article.... i guess they would rather let the whole thing drop.       Cmon Haperites try and defend your Dictator against this one     PPS thanks for the props!   "

They just can't defend that. The pro-cons blinders have been passed out, donned and super-glued to their heads. Sorry - make that "blinder" - singular... they only need to have one on the left side.

an "absolute victory for the rule of law." Canada's public safety minister is applauding an Ontario Superior Court's rejection of a bid to preserve long gun-registry data.  
You have to rebel at this guy, he’s so uptight and standing  
 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/09/21/pol-cp-toews-gun-registry-ontario.html