Thursday, February 21, 2008

Debate: After the Third Commercial Break

Darn you Paul Brandt, and your cute cowboy hat wearing ways! I just heard a longing "sigh" from next to me...

Trynacity is asking for confirmation of Ed's environmental/economy numbers... He's not giving any. Ed, listen to the questions - they're not all topics that were covered in your debate prep session... Mason talking about wind, California emission standards, says the PC's are holding up real change on the environment... Taft makes a decent point, in a decent way. Hinman is no friend of environmentalists, that's for sure. He's talking about economics, and nothing but. Taft just talked to the panel like they're 6 year-olds. Oooo... Mason scores with a "Gotchya" against Taft on hard caps, and his voting record. Ed is doing well to let Taft and Mason kill each other. Nice aside from Ed: "you had your chance - this isn't the legislative assembly" (a sore point of mine). Ed making the point that you can't put things up in the air for 5 years waiting to set targets.

Naidoo asks about infrastructure - $6 Billion infrastructure deficit. Hinman makes a decent point about buying your groceries from 7-Eleven. Don't know if it's relevant, but it's funny. Ed's not talking about making up the deficit, he's talking about the new building. Mason makes an EXCELLENT point about doubling up your mortgage payment while letting your roof and foundation crumble. Taft says we need a long term plan, but doesn't say what his is - so, half-points.

Hinman again standing up for the oilpatch - somehow, him putting the royalties back where they were is going to get us more money for infrastructure. Ed, you're just KILLING me - I'm begging you, roll out a new announcement. Surprise me... tell me the entire platform isn't just a repeat of the pre-election announcements? Still no suggestion from Taft, other than "get rid of the PC's". Mason brings up P3's, but links it to "friends and donors" rather than to debt. Good line from Ed "Brian, you're good at predicting the past". Hinman seems not to have noticed the recent oilpatch announcements, he seems to think the patch is shutting down completely.

Nation, I'm outta here. Tune into Ken Chapman and daveberta for continuing coverage!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Mason scores with a "Gotchya" against Taft on hard caps, and his voting record."

Except Mason is wrong. The Liberals voted against an NDP amendment to a government bill not on the grounds that they opposed hard caps, but because they thought the bill was beyond repair and needed to be defeated. See the [url=http://www.assembly.ab.ca/ISYS/LADDAR_files/docs/hansards/han/legislature_26/session_3/20070410_1300_01_han.pdf]Hansard[/url]. I'm not sure I agree with the Liberals on that one, but Mason is being at least a little dishonest.

Brian Dell said...

"somehow, him putting the royalties back where they were is going to get us more money for infrastructure"

See Jack Mintz' analysis which I provided at http://members.shaw.ca/lldell/corptaxes.htm

Brian Dell said...

Having now gone back and read several posts, I'd say you've got a pretty good blog going here!