{"id":2676,"date":"2010-06-11T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T21:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2676"},"modified":"2010-06-11T17:30:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T21:30:00","slug":"friday-link-grab-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/?p=2676","title":{"rendered":"Friday Link Grab Bag"},"content":{"rendered":"

1) Hop on the big red bus – it’s time for a summer road trip<\/strong><\/a>! Hopefully the bus rolls across the Prairies because…<\/p>\n

2) …the National Post also believes the Liberals should look West<\/strong><\/a>. I’m always worried when I agree with the Post<\/a> but, then again, the paper might start looking downright socialist when compared to…<\/p>\n

3) …Kory Teneycke’s FOX News Canada<\/strong><\/a>! I’m actually curious how this turns out and I’m encouraged by their first hire, David Akin<\/a>. Let’s put it this way, I don’t think we’re going to see Akin crying at the chalkboard as he re-arranges the letters in IGNATIEFF to unearth the Hitler-esque nature behind Iggy’s corporate tax freeze.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Liberals may not survive long enough for FOX Canada to destroy them, since…<\/p>\n

4) …La Presse <\/a>talks about the Tories running on a pledge to scrap voter subsidies<\/strong> in the next election, which they say would kill the Liberal Party.<\/p>\n

I tend to disagree. Here’s what I wrote in March<\/a> on this:<\/p>\n

But, just to toss a nutty idea out there – what if the Liberals agreed to a 5 year phase-out of the public vote subsidy? They’re closing the fundraising gap on the Tories, and losing the subsidy would hurt the NDP, Bloc, and Greens more than the Liberals. Here’s the percentage of revenue each party generates from the subsidy:<\/p>\n

CPC 37%
Lib 43%
NDP 55%
Green 62%
Bloc 82%<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The, Bloc, Greens, and NDP would be hurt far worse by this move than the Liberals. Moreover, if the Liberals and Tories agreed to Jeff Jedras’ suggestion<\/a> of raising the limit back to $5,000, the Grits, who rely more on big donations than the Tories, could close the fundraising gap between them even further.<\/p>\n

Sounds like a great platform idea for…<\/p>\n

5) …the new Liberal-Conservatives<\/strong>! I’m pleased to see Tom Walkom<\/a> has joined in on my crusade to merge the two parties together<\/a>. Well, maybe not a merge<\/em>, but at the very least they could be…<\/p>\n

6) …dance partners<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1) Hop on the big red bus – it’s time for a summer road trip! Hopefully the bus rolls across the Prairies because… 2) …the National Post also believes the Liberals should look West. I’m always worried when I agree with the Post but, then again, the paper might start looking downright socialist when compared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calgarygrit.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}