Yikes! I actually grimaced when I read that, and then pictured all of use having to live in a compost pile, wearing biodegradable burlap sacks and eatting hay. That suggesting actually made Harper look good.
Did you mean Olivia Chow? I’m proud to say I was in her “riding” during the last election and actually worked to make sure she flopped. What a twit.
name calling… what a brilliant campaign strategy. too bad ianno’s going down anyway. it was close here a year ago, this time it won’t be.
Sorry, I guess I forgot to add “IMHO.” Until you mentioned her, I had totally forgot about all of those many media clips of her grinning like an idiot and nodding on que, just off to Layton’s right side, has he proudly displays his Asian looking wife–IMHO of course.
Do you think she’ll run again?
And IMHO, using “IMHO” doesn’t make that comment seem any less racist.
I’m moving this mess to Great Debates.
No, no, Czar, he’s exactly right. Ms. Chow’s running for office has nothing to do with her long political career or her extensive commitments to causes of social justice. It’s all because her husband wants to get chinky with it.
I mean really. A woman political candidate?! In the NDP?! And a visible minority, no less? It must be because of who she’s fucking.
(Tomorrow’s news headline: MONTREAL SUFFERS :rolleyes: SHORTAGE)
Sorry But Ms Chow lost many points with me with here wanting her cake and eating too attitude. If she wants to run, great, but she should have resigned her municiple seat. She instead went on hiatus to run and ofcourse helder her municiple post in reserve just in case. That is unfair to those who voted for her to do the job she ran for.
As for who I’ll vote for… tough call.
I can’t vote for the Bloc (not running outside of Quebec) and even if could I wouldn’t as they are a regional party and have no national interest whatsoever
Conservatives have the same problem. Since the Alliance swallowed what was left of the old PC party they have basically been another regional party in the guise of a National party. The strongest voices seem to be the ones who want a socially consservative agenda and that isn’t Conservatism to me… Government is suppposed to stay out of the personal affairs of others and protect their personal freedoms. I’m not hearing that coming from this party.
That and their leader is uninspiring and weak.
Liberals have pissed me off so much that I couldn’t possibly vote for them.
Martin is Mr Dithers, nothing he has tried has shaken that image.
NDP: I can’t go for a party that would likely start undoing the balanced budget and debt reduction. We need a sound financial house or else social programs will not be possible to sustain. The NDP should have shifter closer to the centre to make themselves a viable alternative to the Liberals.
Jack Layton seems a little too amaturish and small time to be Prime Minister.
Green: Hmmmm pass if I find the NDP unapealing these guys aren’t going to be any better being further left.
Time to break out some dice and hope for the best.
Right now another Minority governemnt is what we need. True nothing gets done but I’d rather tie the sail down for another year or so and let these guys prove themselves rather than give any of these Yahoos a chance to screw things up when none of them deserve to run this nation.
My apologies if it was offensive, not my intentions. Firstly, the comment was a reference to Family Guy so it should have been in CS. Secondly, Layton very clearly toted her around, as most politicians do with their wives. The distinction was that she tried to run in her own riding.
This thread really was more suited for IMHO. That said, the whole Layton/Chow situation was a big joke. As kingpengvin pointed out, Chow was a city counciler who told a lot of her constituents that she wouldn’t abandon her post (glad we help her keep her promise). She also covered our neighbourhood in non-English signs (non-French too!). It really irked a lot of us, that she would put 5 languages on a campaign sign, and then leave out English or French. It was brutally obvious that she was brought along to get the minority vote. And she just looked so stupid standing there in the back of every press shot nodding her head like a puppet. If she wanted into federal politics she should have f*cked somebody better than pornstar-Layton.
I disagree that they are further left. Their economic platform leans heavily towards market solutions.
For the benefit of us ignorant Yanks, could somebody explain the color-coding system in Canadian politics? Which party is “blue”? Which is “red”? Which is “tangerine”? (I assume “green” means Green.)
(In the U.S., “blue” means Democrat and “red” means Republican, but that goes back only to the 2000 election, when CNN used those colors on its state-by-state map of electoral votes.)
Conservative = blue
Liberal = red
NDP = orange
Bloc = light blue
Green = green (natch)
The Reform/Alliance parties were generally colour coded green.
“Notwithstanding clause”? And what exactly do you mean by “second-class citizen”? Are you gay, or an Indian?
What does the word “progressive” mean in contemporary Canadian politics? (In American politics, it usually means anything to the left of the “neoliberal” Democratic Leadership Council.")
Minor nitpick: Reform was a dark conservative green; the Alliance was red, white, and blue. The Greens tend to be a funky kind of apple green, although that green is also showing up on NDP websites lately, and the Greens’ website leans more towards a brownish olivey-green these days.
Orange remains the iconic colour of the NDP. I so remember helping make the election signs when I was a kid… fluorescent orange and black. 
Presumably tangerine is just a variant.
We used to have a party called the Progressive Conservative party, that was economically conservative, but was some what socially progressive. As an oversimplification, they would be against taxes, but for gay marriage. That party disintigrated and was then taken over by the further-right Reform party, then they changed their name a couple of times to the point that I’m not sure what they are called now.
The result, unfortunately, was what many have dubbed the RE-gressive Concervative party, and are redicuously similar to the currrent Bush administration, most specifically in their anti-gay, pro-life, pro-war, pro-church, anti-tax stance.
My point in the statement you had quoted was that their social agenda was just too far right for most Canadians to stomach. This left Canada with a bit of a void when it came time to vote. Many of us want a more economically concervative government, but my personal belief is that Canadians have a live-and-let-live attitude regarding social policy.
There is now no alternative to the current governing Liberal Party (slightly left of centre). The only party to the right of the spectrum is the above mentioned Conservative party, but as I said, they have moved too far right to get enough mainstream support. The other alternative is the NDP that is unfortunately way too far left in their economic approach to be considered viable.
So for actual change to occur when to we go to the polls next month, either the Conservative party will have to swallow crow and accept that Canada is now a gay-utopia where everyone smokes pot and has abortions. Or the NDP will have to study first year economics, perferably from somewhere other than their ivory tower.
Because Quebec put up such a fight over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (basically because they didn’t want English signs), it passed with the “notwithstanding clause”. So, now, a province can pass a law saying, basically “Notwithstanding the charter, we pass this law that disregards your human rights under the charter” If they do, the law needs to be reapproved every 5 years. Klein has threatened to push through an anti gay marriage law (because the court has found that banning gay marriage violates the charter). Hamish is gay. Hence, second-class citizen.
The notwithstanding clause was an outgrowth of Canada’s legal history of common law. The constitution and a person’s rights were continually evolving and growing, with the courts ruling on the legality of a law, not its constitutional basis. The provinces insisted it be included when the constitution was repatriated in 1982.
Rights listed in section 2 and 7-15 can be made subject to section 33 for a period no more than 5 years, and the law must specifically lay out which portion the notwithstanding clause is applicable to. Legislatures are able to renew the term of the law by re-invoking the clause and re-introducing the legislation… It should be noted, that voting rights, parliamentary terms, mobility and language rights are not subject to the notwithstanding clause.
In fact the best thing to happen to the Charter was Quebec’s use of the not withstanding clause to restrict English signs in response to a Supreme Court ruling. The resulting outrage and debate have ever since, in my opinion, tainted the clause making its use politically dangerous and counterproductive.
Where rights 2 and 7-15 are
.
Well, in all fairness, I think quite a few social progressives and moderates remain in the Conservative party. I understand Hamish’s fear that a Conservative government would try to limit some of his rights, but I don’t think that they could or would actually do this. They want to please their social conservative base, but they don’t want to scare Canadians too much either. The Conservative leadership speaks from both sides of its mouth, but that’s just how politics work.
Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable for people who do believe in gays’ rights to refuse to vote for a party that even talks about curtailing these rights, even if we all know they won’t actually do it. This will have the effect of letting Conservatives know for sure that in Canada, we believe that everyone should have the same human rights, and even saying otherwise for political expediency is unacceptable.
To answer to OP, last year I voted NDP, even though I knew they didn’t have any chance to win in my riding. However, unlike detop, I don’t think this is because the NDP is seen mostly as an anglophone party; I think it’s because people here just don’t think about it. For the last few elections, federal politics in Québec have been described in terms of Liberals vs. Bloc. The NDP doesn’t fit anywhere in this, and its policies are not entirely different from the Bloc’s, and that’s why they don’t succeed. This year, the Conservatives are bringing some new ideas, but in this case detop is most certainly right, they are seen as a Western redneck anti-francophone party and will have to work hard to get votes from other people than convinced fiscal conservatives and anglophones.
In any case, I’m voting Bloc this year; it seems like their candidate will have a very real chance of beating the Liberals in my riding. Who would have thought.
Before someone asks (and they have), sexual orientation has been a prohibited ground of discrimination under s.15 of the charter since it was ruled in Egan v. Canada to be “analogous to the enumerated grounds” (which as you can see are an open-ended list).
The same has been done with marital status and status as an Aboriginal living off-reserve.
The current same-sex marriage rulings have had the effect of declaring that the heterosexual definition of marriage contravenes the Charter. Therefore, should the government of Alberta wish to contravene this, they would have to (as a minimum) invoke the notwithstanding clause. (Since the definition of marriage is an area of federal responsibility, they may not even be able to do this.)
Indeed, Alberta cannot decide to forbid same-sex marriages, even using the notwithstanding clause. Only the federal government may use the clause to get out of its constitutional obligations in areas of federal responsibility.
On the other hand, it appears that the celebration of marriages is under provincial jurisdiction. That’s why there have been lawsuits to “legalize” same-sex marriages in many provinces and territories: those marriages are technically already legal everywhere in Canada (this is why I’m using quotes), but the provinces won’t accept to celebrate them unless they are forced by the courts. Anyway, that’s my understanding of the situation, correct me if I’m wrong. So I wonder if the government of Alberta couldn’t use the notwithstanding clause to make the celebration of same-sex marriages illegal in Alberta? I think it would make them look very regressive, but could they technically do it?
severus, the Conservatives have already tried to limit gays’ right to marriage. In mid-February 2005, they tried to amend the Liberal’s marriage legislation (Bill S-38). The Conservative’s amendment was to prohibit gay marriage by way of defining marriage as being only between a man and a woman. Their amendment was voted on by the House of Commons, and it failed.
Based on the legislation banning gay marriage that the Conservatives tried to pass two months ago, I fully expect that should they come to power in the next few months, they would again attemp to pass such hateful legislation.