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The Troy plan amounts to $8 billion over four years - post says. Dion's plan is about that per year, $7 billion on infrastructure alone. I lost interest in anything the guy has to say. Still, Dion is on hold on the polls currently.

The tax free savings account will allow each Canadian to save $5,000 per year every year.

A couple can save $10,000 in year one and $100,000 over 10 years etc. Plus you never lose the room. If you pull out $50K, you can return it at any time and still get the tax free savings.

"The tax free savings account will allow each Canadian to save $5,000 per year every year."

My goodness. All those canadians making under $20,000. a year must be estatic.

The following is harpers real platform, cause celebre, his raison d'etre..

"On Oct. 15, 1995, Reform party leader Preston Manning and unity critic Stephen Harper presented Reform's "New Confederation" proposal, a package of 20 measures to modernize and decentralize Canada.

"We propose measures which will assert the autonomy of all provinces and the power of the people well into the future," Harper said.

Each of the 20 changes could be accomplished without comprehensive federal-provincial negotiations of the sort that led to the failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords. Reform's proposals simply required a federal government willing to act. "Canadians want change, not more constitutional wrangling," Harper said.

Earlier, speaking to a meeting of the National Citizens Coalition on May 24, 1994, Harper said: "Whether Canada ends up with one national government, or two governments or 10 governments, the Canadian people will require less government no matter what the constitutional status or arrangements of any future country may be."

In 1997, Harper and his confidant Tom Flanagan, writing in their Next City magazine, suggested that coalition-building was the only practical way for the right to seize national power. They said an alliance with the Bloc Québécois "would not be out of place. The Bloc are nationalist for much the same reason Albertans are populists – they care about their local identity ... and they see the federal government as a threat to their way of life."

In 2001, Harper proposed "a firewall around Alberta."

In October 2004, Harper made his "Belgian waffle" speech in Quebec City, suggesting that Canada should become a North American version of Belgium, which has autonomous regions. He was sympathetic to this "national autonomy" concept because "Québécois never wanted to be an overwhelmed province in a centralized Canada." Subsequent to Harper's speech, the Belgians had an election that left them so divided they were unable to form a government for more than eight months.

As keynote speaker at the Conservative policy convention in Montreal in March 2005, Harper said: "I also know very well the pride and solidarity of Quebecers. I know they will never let the autonomy and the dignity of Quebec be undermined. But they also want to be partners in the future of Canada. And they will be – once again – with the new Conservative Party of Canada."

Harper made that comment after referring to the Bloc eight times. Each time he set out what the Bloc had proposed for a sovereign Quebec but had not achieved.

"The policy of the Bloc is the strategy of the empty chair," Harper stressed. Then he delivered the punch line: "We, the Conservatives, are the only real vehicle of change here in Quebec and throughout Canada. The Bloc will never make a single positive change. In Quebec, as everywhere in Canada, the only vehicle of change is the Conservative Party of Canada."

With little mainstream news comment, Harper – the day after his keynote speech – slipped a new section into the Conservative policy paper passed in Montreal. It is a shocker! For the first time in Canadian history, a national political party embraced a provincial rights agenda. The section – Part D – binds the party "to ensure that the use of the federal spending power in provincial jurisdictions is limited, authorizes the provinces to use the opting out formula with full compensation if they want to opt out of a new or modified federal program, in areas of shared or exclusive jurisdiction. Consider reforming Canadian federalism, taking into account: (a) the need to consolidate Quebec's position within the Canadian federation; (b) the need to alleviate the alienation felt by the citizens of the West."

In his closing speech at the convention on March 19, Harper said: "I would like to say to Quebecers, our party is going to respect the autonomy of their government, the pride they have in their society and also their needs within Canada, our huge country. The Bloc Québécois for 15 years have not done everything that Quebecers deserve. And I think now Quebecers can express their solidarity within the Conservative Party of Canada."

Almost 50 years earlier, campaigning on a "One Canada" platform in March 1957, John Diefenbaker told a Montreal audience that the Progressive Conservative party "will bring about a united Canada. Our first aim is `One Canada' in which there will be equalization of opportunity for all parts of Canada. We will maintain the Constitution and provincial rights thereunder, which we consider as a sacred trust which shall be maintained in fact as in law."

He cited the words of Sir George-Étienne Cartier: "First of all, let us be Canadians."

Given a choice, without double-talk, Canadians will support a One Canada vision rather than Harper's suggestion that we make Canada the Belgium of North America, with up to 10 autonomous nations.

Does Harper not realize that prior to Confederation, the colonies of British North America were autonomous and that Lord Durham in his famous report reaffirmed their colonial status while Britain retained control over foreign affairs and the military?

It is strange that Harper's mission today is to make all our provinces autonomous with Ottawa mainly looking after foreign affairs and defence as Britain did in colonial days."

What this really boils down to is a flagrant pandering to Alberta, with Quebec thrown in for good measure - the rest of Canada, in harpers eyes, can hop on the wagon of dismantling, or go to hell.

1995? That's even before the NDP was "new"

I listened to economists on the radio this morning and all but one cut the crap out of it.. he is screwed..

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