The Official Election Thread

[Rob MacLennan]

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You aren't making any sense. Should they favour an industry that isnt making money worldwide? What industry should they have favoured the last 8 years? Please enlighten us.
The Canadian dollar being low is also a great thing for our manufacturing base so why is that a negative when you mentioned manufacturing earlier.
the dollar being low impacts Canadians in a good way except for travel which puts dollars out of the country anyway.
trade agreements with China dont make any difference when factory workers get 25 cents an hour.
When I meet with every industry like I said from small to large I see what the economy is doing so please read the CBC article I posted. You are just squawking because you don't like Harper, conservatives, rich people, oil or whatever it is you think you should be against at the moment.

When you favour one industry, to the exclusion of all others, you are setting yourself up for a fall. Ever hear the expression "all your eggs in one basket"?

The Canadian dollar being low would be great for manufacturing, if it hadn't been decimated by what came before. That was a case of putting all of our eggs in the automotive manufacture basket. Diversification is survival.

Trade agreements with China make a difference precisely because their workers make $0.25/hr. It's a negative difference.

And no, I don't like Harper. I don't like proven liars, who throw out the electoral prudence of more than half of the electorate. I don't reward liars with my vote.

 

[sonnythebull]

When you favour one industry, to the exclusion of all others, you are setting yourself up for a fall. Ever hear the expression "all your eggs in one basket"?

The Canadian dollar being low would be great for manufacturing, if it hadn't been decimated by what came before. That was a case of putting all of our eggs in the automotive manufacture basket. Diversification is survival.

Trade agreements with China make a difference precisely because their workers make $0.25/hr. It's a negative difference.

And no, I don't like Harper. I don't like proven liars, who throw out the electoral prudence of more than half of the electorate. I don't reward liars with my vote.

show me where he excluded all other industries, there's lots of manufacturing in Ontario still yes it changed but we don't make horse buggy whips anymore either.
canada has zero control over how China operates you want cheap stuff , you buy it from China.

 

[Baggsy]

The country isn't doing fine. Our economy has been hurt badly by the Conservatives emphasis on The West and the oil patch, to the exclusion of things like manufacturing in Ontario. Also, while it's nice to see taxes like the GST drop, they reduced their predictable income while anticipating funds from oil revenues that have dried up. This, while actually increasing spending. Then, in order to make it look like they balanced the budget, they raided funds that had been set aside for specific purposes. That would be like you borrowing against your RRSP to pay off your credit card debt, then declaring that you had balanced your finances.

Much of that can be laid at the feet of our Provincial Government. I'm actually surprised that there is so much Federal investment here, with all of the waste that's going on.

Face it, we've become a have-not Province under the current administration. Let's run out and spend, spend, spend without getting anything in return, because that's how we should boost our growth. :d

 

[Roadghost]

Thomas "Mad Dog" Mulclair plans to outlaw firearms. No matter what he says, no matter what he promises, he is plotting to remove the freedom that law abiding, good Canadians have to get a license and buy a gun either to hunt, to do recreational shooting at the range, or to just have one in case you need it. I cannot vote for anyone who wants to outlaw firearms or make it more onerous for decent people to own a rifle.

If you think Harper is a dictator, just wait until Angry Tom gets the reins. Don't say I didn't warn you.

 

[jc100]

the country is doing fine but you think someone's a dick so vote him out. Very Canadian .

Look at innovation indices. We don't figure on any and Harper is ruining research. Maybe he's good for some business but for what makes a country great...he's doing absolutely nothing.

 

[sonnythebull]

Look at innovation indices. We don't figure on any and Harper is ruining research. Maybe he's good for some business but for what makes a country great...he's doing absolutely nothing.

According to this we are 12th overall and top 5 when it comes to tech.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-innovative-countries/

 

[LPakkala]

Thomas "Mad Dog" Mulclair plans to outlaw firearms. No matter what he says, no matter what he promises, he is plotting to remove the freedom that law abiding, good Canadians have to get a license and buy a gun either to hunt, to do recreational shooting at the range, or to just have one in case you need it. I cannot vote for anyone who wants to outlaw firearms or make it more onerous for decent people to own a rifle.

If you think Harper is a dictator, just wait until Angry Tom gets the reins. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I'm not disagreeing, as I have no proof otherwise... but is this just a feeling? or has he actually said this anywhere? Is his official position written anywhere? Recorded anywhere? I am genuinely trying to collect as much information about this as possible, but none of this is usable to me without some sort of supporting information.

 

[Red_Liner740]

He's said it. He wants to bring back the registry and promised to leave duct hunters alone. ****ing idiot.

 

[Motorcycle Mike]

I'm not disagreeing, as I have no proof otherwise... but is this just a feeling? or has he actually said this anywhere? Is his official position written anywhere? Recorded anywhere? I am genuinely trying to collect as much information about this as possible, but none of this is usable to me without some sort of supporting information.

If you google "Mulclair on guns", you'll see that Mulclair has said many things such as Would Reinstate Registry and then Would Not Reinstate Registry. He has also said that he would Give the Police the Tools to Track all Guns.

As far as banning guns... he did state back in 2014 that the Mini 14 should be banned: https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/12/2/thomas-mulcair-7/

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice has just asked us if there is anything he could do to avoid putting women at greater risk.
Actually, there is something that the government could do to avoid putting women or girls at risk. It could withdraw Bill C-42 that is before the House, because it would make exactly the type of assault weapon used by Marc Lepine easier to transport and easier to have in Canada. The Ruger in question should be banned instead of being easier to get and transport in Canada.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we had another mass shooting while the NDP had a majority something would be banned... maybe particular semi-automatics, maybe all semi-automatics. I wouldn't hold my breath much in regards to handguns either.

As bad as that would be, I doubt the NDP would ever be able to ban all guns here (although what we'd be left with is shotguns and bolt actions). There are simply too many gun owners across the country and too much of an hunting industry here (not GTA obviously, but the rest of Canada).

 

[jc100]

According to this we are 12th overall and top 5 when it comes to tech.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-innovative-countries/

During Harpers tenure we have muzzled scientists, directed funding towards commercialization rather than discovery and dumbed down science generally. That's not a recipe for success. Almost every commentary on innovation mentions Canada slipping over time. Look at those in the top 5....lots of "socialist" countries ploughing money into education. Like I say, I don't doubt that Harper is good for certain business sectors, that's his traditional support base, but as for making Canada a respected heavyweight....nope.

 

[sonnythebull]

During Harpers tenure we have muzzled scientists, directed funding towards commercialization rather than discovery and dumbed down science generally. That's not a recipe for success. Almost every commentary on innovation mentions Canada slipping over time. Look at those in the top 5....lots of "socialist" countries ploughing money into education. Like I say, I don't doubt that Harper is good for certain business sectors, that's his traditional support base, but as for making Canada a respected heavyweight....nope.

And when exactly were we a respected heavyweight? It sounds like the same crap people say that " Toronto is a world class city" no...sometimes you are doing the best with what you have.most of the best minds leave here and go to the U.S. .always been that way always will be. . Regardless canada and Canadians are doing well .
here are some Canadian scientists doing well and receiving awards. Were they muzzled???? It's not as you say it is,

http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=en&n=9B434E5F-1

 

[Delboy]

Look at innovation indices. We don't figure on any and Harper is ruining research. Maybe he's good for some business but for what makes a country great...he's doing absolutely nothing.

I'm not a Tory but I have to completely disagree with this. We have a partner in Quebec and they just closed their Series B round of funding from BDC for $15MM. My friend is running running the Genesis Group Incubator fund that was set up by the Tories with investments in over 50 startups so from this perspective he's done a great job.

Government money is flowing for innovation in Newfoundland, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and BC, just not Ontario.

Kanata, Markham, Mississauga and Waterloo that were once hot bed of innovation are sterile as there is no funding. Our provincial government saw to that with MARs.

Mars will give you $500k and a salary of $50k a year to do a start-up. That's useless, no entrepreneur in their right mind would settle for that. If you want to do a startup, move to the Rock. You will get Series A funding of up to $10MM tomorrow.

I've founded 6 tech companies and sold 5 for profit so I know a little about this.

 

[jc100]

I'm not a Tory but I have to completely disagree with this. We have a partner in Quebec and they just closed their Series B round of funding from BDC for $15MM. My friend is running running the Genesis Group Incubator fund that was set up by the Tories with investments in over 50 startups so from this perspective he's done a great job.

Government money is flowing for innovation in Newfoundland, Quebec, Manitoba, Alberta and BC, just not Ontario.

Kanata, Markham, Mississauga and Waterloo that were once hot bed of innovation are sterile as there is no funding. Our provincial government saw to that with MARs.

Mars will give you $500k and a salary of $50k a year to do a start-up. That's useless, no entrepreneur in their right mind would settle for that. If you want to do a startup, move to the Rock. You will get Series A funding of up to $10MM tomorrow.

I've founded 6 tech companies and sold 5 for profit so I know a little about this.

I've worked in research (biotech, pharmaceuticals) my whole life in several countries and been involved with several startups and this country just isn't up there. There's plenty of startups here and they are mostly one hit wonders IF they succeed which they generally don't beyond a few years. Selling them is one thing, and we're really good at selling them ...sustaining and growing them is another. What I've seen for research funding with Harper has been driven by the need to commercialize which isn't a bad thing as long as you have basic feeder research for new discoveries, which has been neglected. The lack of innovation is evident with a lot of "me too" technology rather than something brand new. If you don't invest in education you don't have the talent pool, if you don't have the talent pool you don't have ideas and you'll become stagnant and that's what I see.

 

[Delboy]

I've worked in research (biotech, pharmaceuticals) my whole life in several countries and been involved with several startups and this country just isn't up there. There's plenty of startups here and they are mostly one hit wonders IF they succeed which they generally don't beyond a few years. Selling them is one thing, and we're really good at selling them ...sustaining and growing them is another. What I've seen for research funding with Harper has been driven by the need to commercialize which isn't a bad thing as long as you have basic feeder research for new discoveries, which has been neglected. The lack of innovation is evident with a lot of "me too" technology rather than something brand new. If you don't invest in education you don't have the talent pool, if you don't have the talent pool you don't have ideas and you'll become stagnant and that's what I see.

Well. I've been in the video business in one form or another for over 20 years and IMO Canada still leads the world, and have been doing so for the past 20 years.

90% of VXF work for the Studios, Post and Programmers is done on Eyeon. If you watched a move it the past 10 years the VXF was probably rendered on their product. there is nothing that comes close and they are based on Queen St in the Beaches.

Canada still produces the best encoding and transcoding products for a "Quality Output". Sure you can get stuff that more dense coming out of China and Russia but the quality is rubbish. A good example of this is a company called Digital Rapids in Markham. They effectively invented the video streaming category back in 2001 and did the first ever deployment at scale of OTT Adaptive Bitrate Video in 2008 for the NBC and CCTV Olympics. I have 7 of their encoders I bought back in 2010 and, to date, have not found anything better to replacement them with.

Canada also invented the OTT and TVE video advertising vertical during Harpers Tenure. SeaWell Networks, mDialog and ClickOn - all based in Toronto - invented the segment. Blackarrow, although a US company, uses Canadian technology under the covers to do all their splicing. SeaWell basically own all the US operators with the exception of Comcast who tried to build their own and failed. The only other company in the space with any sales is a small group out of the UK.

In terms of Broadcast, the market is basically owned by Harris (re-branded as Imagine recently) and all those product were designed, developed and built in Don Mills. I believe they have 30,000 clients worldwide

Evertz in Burlington is the leader in Satellite kit.

None of these are "Me Too" products. This is market leading

Even the first Startup I did is still around. We built out the worlds first interactive program guide, initially deployed in the GTA on Rogers old Jerrold 2000 and 2200 Set Top boxes. We were Acquired by Tribune Media Services, and then Gracenote but its still going and the patents are all currently owned by Rovi.

And we are still innovating. I do some work for BDC. I don't get paid for it but they ask for an opinion on potential investments they are considering in the video space. As an example, I just looked at a product from a bunch of graduates from Waterloo for a GPU based HEVC encoder. To date its not really been possible to encode or transcode in the cloud as slicing up the video and distributing it across virtualized machines creates a huge amount of encoding artefacts. They have actually solved the problem and will get/have got $5MM from BDC. Guess where they are setting up the company - Winterpeg.

I'm talking to BDC myself as I have a couple of ideas and have at least one more startup in me, but would probably do it in St. Johns - They are open for business, unlike Ontario.

There is no shortage of innovation or investment in Canada, regardless of the black hole that MARs dug in Ontario.

Now, I cant really speak for the Pharmaceutical industry but it seems to me that the centre for such research in North America is New Jersey as my niece is interning there, and from what I can see its primarily privately funded

Not a fan of Harper at all but it pains me to say this is one thing he did get right.

 

[jc100]

And when exactly were we a respected heavyweight? It sounds like the same crap people say that " Toronto is a world class city" no...sometimes you are doing the best with what you have.most of the best minds leave here and go to the U.S. .always been that way always will be. . Regardless canada and Canadians are doing well .
here are some Canadian scientists doing well and receiving awards. Were they muzzled???? It's not as you say it is,

http://www.science.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=en&n=9B434E5F-1

forgot to address that last link....

Theres so so many prizes and medals available in academia that they get shared around pretty regularly...so aside from Nobels no one really pays any attention to them.

 

[jc100]

Well. I've been in the video business in one form or another for over 20 years and IMO Canada still leads the world, and have been doing so for the past 20 years.

90% of VXF work for the Studios, Post and Programmers is done on Eyeon. If you watched a move it the past 10 years the VXF was probably rendered on their product. there is nothing that comes close and they are based on Queen St in the Beaches.

Canada still produces the best encoding and transcoding products for a "Quality Output". Sure you can get stuff that more dense coming out of China and Russia but the quality is rubbish. A good example of this is a company called Digital Rapids in Markham. They effectively invented the video streaming category back in 2001 and did the first ever deployment at scale of OTT Adaptive Bitrate Video in 2008 for the NBC and CCTV Olympics. I have 7 of their encoders I bought back in 2010 and, to date, have not found anything better to replacement them with.

Canada also invented the OTT and TVE video advertising vertical during Harpers Tenure. SeaWell Networks, mDialog and ClickOn - all based in Toronto - invented the segment. Blackarrow, although a US company, uses Canadian technology under the covers to do all their splicing. SeaWell basically own all the US operators with the exception of Comcast who tried to build their own and failed. The only other company in the space with any sales is a small group out of the UK.

In terms of Broadcast, the market is basically owned by Harris (re-branded as Imagine recently) and all those product were designed, developed and built in Don Mills. I believe they have 30,000 clients worldwide

Evertz in Burlington is the leader in Satellite kit.

None of these are "Me Too" products. This is market leading

Even the first Startup I did is still around. We built out the worlds first interactive program guide, initially deployed in the GTA on Rogers old Jerrold 2000 and 2200 Set Top boxes. We were Acquired by Tribune Media Services, and then Gracenote but its still going and the patents are all currently owned by Rovi.

And we are still innovating. I do some work for BDC. I don't get paid for it but they ask for an opinion on potential investments they are considering in the video space. As an example, I just looked at a product from a bunch of graduates from Waterloo for a GPU based HEVC encoder. To date its not really been possible to encode or transcode in the cloud as slicing up the video and distributing it across virtualized machines creates a huge amount of encoding artefacts. They have actually solved the problem and will get/have got $5MM from BDC. Guess where they are setting up the company - Winterpeg.

I'm talking to BDC myself as I have a couple of ideas and have at least one more startup in me, but would probably do it in St. Johns - They are open for business, unlike Ontario.

There is no shortage of innovation or investment in Canada, regardless of the black hole that MARs dug in Ontario.

Now, I cant really speak for the Pharmaceutical industry but it seems to me that the centre for such research in North America is New Jersey as my niece is interning there, and from what I can see its primarily privately funded

Not a fan of Harper at all but it pains me to say this is one thing he did get right.

Is this not a byproduct of Canada being a centre for filming due to low costs? Also can you compare that industry to the pharmaceutical industry where billion dollar profits can be realized after development costs of 3/4 billion? Not denigrating the industry at all but perhaps it would be considered "niche".

and I agree with you about MArs.

 

[LPakkala]

If you google "Mulclair on guns", you'll see that Mulclair has said many things such as Would Reinstate Registry and then Would Not Reinstate Registry. He has also said that he would Give the Police the Tools to Track all Guns.

As far as banning guns... he did state back in 2014 that the Mini 14 should be banned: https://openparliament.ca/debates/2014/12/2/thomas-mulcair-7/


There is no doubt in my mind that if we had another mass shooting while the NDP had a majority something would be banned... maybe particular semi-automatics, maybe all semi-automatics. I wouldn't hold my breath much in regards to handguns either.

As bad as that would be, I doubt the NDP would ever be able to ban all guns here (although what we'd be left with is shotguns and bolt actions). There are simply too many gun owners across the country and too much of an hunting industry here (not GTA obviously, but the rest of Canada).

Thanks for the links, I have come across both statements previously and what I have gleaned is his stance seems to stem from his politics first and not really based on any facts. Which is not surprising really. It would be nice if the party leaders could give their position in a clear manner, but... politicians. I'm as likely to nail jello to the wall as find a politician to commit.

 

[LPakkala]

Quick update: I found essentially what I was looking for by using CBC's Vote compass thingy (http://www.votecompass.com/). Most importantly it cites the parties' positions based on what they have said previously. Grain of salt: no reporting is completely unbiased, but it was good enough for what I was looking for.

 

[Rob MacLennan]

Quick update: I found essentially what I was looking for by using CBC's Vote compass thingy (http://www.votecompass.com/). Most importantly it cites the parties' positions based on what they have said previously. Grain of salt: no reporting is completely unbiased, but it was good enough for what I was looking for.

Just went through that this morning. It puts me slightly left of centre, when I self identify as slightly right of centre. It also puts me somewhat closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives, though not by a lot.

 

[eljay]

I was surprised. It put me right on the PCs.
Problem is, I am in line with what PC "say" not what they "do".
I've been around long enough to not believe anything they say. They lost me last election or maybe earlier. I'm not happy about taxes. I'm not happy about the bailouts during the financial crisis. I'm not happy about the rising police stat. I'm not happy that after 5 years of a majority, we're still saddled with a behemoth bureaucracy of parasites sucking us dry at every turn.
A frickin majority! They could have made this country a fiscal conservatives wet dream with a snap of the finger and they failed.

Just went through that this morning. It puts me slightly left of centre, when I self identify as slightly right of centre. It also puts me somewhat closer to the Liberals than the Conservatives, though not by a lot.

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