We could introduce them to the joys of crab rangoon.
this was the major problem with the NDP. Mulcair was a centrist face for a left-wing party. promising to balance the budget while simultaneously promising $20B+ in additional social spending made his promise to balance the budget a straight out lie. he was either lying to the centrist vote he was trying to attain with his balanced budget stance or lie to his left wing vote by not fulfilling any campaign promises, certainly not the major campaign promises. my concern, and i bet the concern of 80% of the population who did not vote for the NDP was that his choice would end up favouring his left wing base which makes up the vast majority of his caucus and would result in a country in ruin.
one centrist promise amidst a slew of lefty policies does not mean the NDP came to the centre. the Libs are still very much centre. they are pro-trade, pro-corporations and pro-business (i.e. low corporate taxes), they support labour much less than the NDP (and this can be seen through third-party affiliations), they want to lower the taxes for the middle 90%, their support for the poor is generally much lower than that of the NDP (their redistribution policies involve higher taxes on rich, lower on the middle, higher CPP contributions/payments for workers, higher EI payments for workers vs. the NDP who likes to focus on OAS/GIS/Welfare programs which are mostly for those not employed and/or destitute). National Daycare is a leftist policy even if it benefits the rich the most as it involves growing government and supporting labour substantially (i.e. 250,000 new unionized ECEs). the NDP hates big business and does everything it can to support labour. this is what defines the left. this the not the liberals. just because the liberals don’t staunchly hate labour, doesn’t mean they’re leftists. just because the liberals don’t staunchly hate corporations, doesn’t mean they’re righties. the liberal plans, the current administration’s and past administration’s, generally benefit the middle 80% at the expense of the bottom and top 10%. if supporting the bottom 10% makes you socialist like the NDP, and supporting the top 10% makes you capitalist like the Conservatives, then supporting the middle 80% makes you centrist or something very much like centrist.
at least the average BMI of the North American populace would likely decline.
but seriously, the U.S. could cut defense spending by 50% and it would have a very small effect on their dominance of geopolitical affairs. in fact, it is likely that Russia and China would cut back as well. does employing another 400,000 troops really affect dominance or is it the 1000 nukes aimed at Asia that creates most of the dominance? either way, us Canadians appreciate your willingness to spend ridiculous amounts of money to instigate wars in the desert and utlize 1% of your military force fighting far inferior forces.
^ I’m actually a huge fan of dramatically cutting the US defense budget and drastically scaling back US military operations around the world.
Er…it is not a good idea to scale back expenditure in light of US foreign policy, because those cuts would be reversed, very expensively a few years later. Military expenditures follow policy goals…
You assume I have the same policy goals as recent administrations.
current policy goals in recent administrations is to play real-life video games wherein you bomb suspected “insurgents” from 3000 miles away in countries with which you are not yet at war. that and perpetual occupation in countries with no hope of ever forming a sustainable government. sound policy.
^ Not my policy.
If you lived outside the country for more than 5 years, you are ineligible to vote.