I’m sorry - as one of the people who wrote to Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton urging them to bring down the government, I can tell you that my democracy does not include the tactics of the conservative party. I believe the conservatives should not be re-elected based on their record in office. I’m deeply disappointed that these issues have not resulted in the Liberal majority numbers I believe we desperately need. However, there are still two weeks to go in the campaign, and there is still the possibility of Stephen Harper using a baby as a human shield.
So yes, I’ll take #1, hold the sarcasm, and I’ll PM my address for you to send my $20. when your scenario doesn’t come to pass. Meanwhile, I’ll go back to stressing the positive things about the Liberal platform and the negative things about the Conservatives’ record and their platform.
By the way, can you honestly say you admire the Conservatives’ tactics? That they deserve to be re-elected after the lies and the contempt?
Nobody “deserves” to be elected to office. It’s a privilege, not an entitlement. Hell, it’s not even that - it’s a job you’re hired to.
I don’t particularly agree with the notion that the Conservatives should not be elected, irrespective of anything else, because of the contempt of Parliament ruling; every government Canada has that lasts longer than a caretaker government pulls slimy shit. It is a factor in making we want to vote for another party. It’s not the only factor I consider, though. Similarly, I would not say the Liberals don’t deserve to be elected solely because they have an incoherent defense policy, or that the NDP doesn’t deserve it because some of their fiscal ideas are silly or that the Green Party doesn’t deserve it because Elizabeth May is a backstabber. I am not a one issue voter; I think you have to take the entire package of evidence.
I’m going to vote towards the result that I think is best for Canada - including platform, personality, the local MP, likely long term strategic results, stuff that isn’t in the platform, and so on. I am not voting for who “deserves” it.
The local candidate for whom I shall vote deserves that vote because she or he is the strongest candidate representing the party whose platform I agree with and whose record I support. If you would prefer ‘merits’, ‘has earned’, ‘should get’ - I don’t care, but that’s purely a matter of semantics. I would also say that a good worker ‘deserves’ a raise while a bad one ‘deserves’ to be fired. Someone applying for a job either deserves the job or doesn’t.
I could never vote for a candidate for the BQ - even if I agreed with everything else that person and that party stood for, I could never do it because I disagree so strongly with the separatist cause. Likewise the issue of integrity and RealPolitik. If indeed
then it is our God-damned fault for letting them get away with that slimy shit. I don’t let people working for me lie to me, whether it’s my contractor, the dog walker or my Prime Minister. You work for me, I expect honesty. You show me contempt, I show you the door.
It doesn’t help them that there are no issues where I agree with the Conservative platform. As I said earlier, I don’t like the ends and I don’t like the means.
Part of your claim was that Martin would most likely get away with it without a non-confidence vote, and that was demonstrated to be false. And given that he wasn’t going to get away without a non-confidence vote he would have to have been insane to not call an election. There was going to be an election. His choice was between a campaign where he’d broken his high profile promise and one where he hadn’t.
Wait just a minute. Voting non-confidence and asking to form government is not the same as a coalition. A coalition requires some sort of agreement between the erstwhile opposition parties. That is what Ignatieff has denied, that denial is what you have called a lie, and for it to be a lie there would have to be some sort of formal agreement between the Libs, NDP, and Bloc. I’ll take you up on the bet if the condition is a coalition, but not if it’s just a Liberal minority with no coalition. If all you’re saying is that the Liberals will attempt to defeat the government and then try to stay alive as a minority, that I’ll believe may be a possibility. But that wouldn’t be a coalition, and I can’t fathom why you’d think that would be breaking the pledge not to form a coalition. Have we just been through 4 years of Conservative coalition governments?
Actually, I think the most likely outcome if the Tories win the ~150 seats they’re currently projected to is Ignatieff being turfed before he gets a chance to engineer a defeat of the government, and another 2 years of the Liberals scrounging around for a leader and ducking issues because they don’t want to trigger another election.
My prediction is there’ll be a coalition. I think the likeliest way it will be created is that once the election is over and a Conservative minority government is created, the government will be promptly defeated, and an agreement will be put in place at that point (or, in fact, an existing agreement will be unveiled as if it were a new agreement.)
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Actually, I think the most likely outcome if the Tories win the ~150 seats they’re currently projected to is Ignatieff being turfed before he gets a chance to engineer a defeat of the government…
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I concede, though, that this is also possible - unlikely, I think, but possible, a scenario I probably didn’t put enough stock into. Irrespective of what Ignatieff has already agreed to with the NDP and Bloc - and I am pretty sure the agreement already exists in principle - the opportunity to stage a party coup and install a new leader might be too tempting for some to pass up.
What I think would probably hold the Liberals back from this is new-leader fatigue. Surely they don’t want to go through that this quickly. And to be honest, I’m not sure who the new leader would be. Party coups usually take place when there is an obvious usurper lying in wait - Mulroney, Martin, Ignatieff himself.
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His choice was between a campaign where he’d broken his high profile promise and one where he hadn’t.
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You keep implying Martin called the 2006 election of his own accord. He did not; the election was not his choice at all. **The condition necessary for my prediction at that time to be judged true OR false never happened and so you cannot say I was right or wrong. ** Frankly, it’s old news and I think we should drop it. You’re trying to make this thread about me, and to be honest I don’t like it, I don’t think your criticisms are on target, I don’t think it’s on topic, and it’s derailing the thread. Please stop.
Easily. Think of the places in Europe where the greatest ethnic hatreds were to be found. Some of them were in places ethnically mixed (such as the balkans); others, in places relatively ethnically “pure”, such as Germany.
So, you are unwilling to allow others to self-identify? Why not?
BTW my mother in law immigrated from Ukraine in the 1950s.
What “insult”? The whole point of being a “nation” in an ethno-nationalistic sense is that. Look at what you said: “my people”.
It isn’t an “insult”, it’s a description.
Of course, if you find having the conversation “insulting”, there is really no more to be said.
Look at what you are saying. You are positing two different ethno-linguistic groups “competing for the integration of immigrants” (your terms, not mine). Obviously, in your society these are the choices.
They are not the choices everywhere. They are not the choices I see around me.
You are attempting to squeeze the whole country into the paradigm you see in your province - so that everyone outside Qubec is simply the “anglophone community” writ large.
But it is not so.
As I said above, the oppositional dichotomy you think exists (anglophone “Canadian” culture vs. francophone) isn’t the important aspect of self-identity to most non-Quebec Canadians.
We, too, have changed (and we are proud of it). Your view of us seems stuck in the past.
I’m not saying anything of the sort. I find it impressive and unfortunate that you feel the need to “insert a sneer” where none was ment.
Clearly, you are not going to be open-minded on the topic, if everything is an insult and a sneer.
Sigh. I think nothing of the sort.
The notion is not that French is doomed, but that policies attempting to treat the disease of “two quarreling founding peoples” by making everyone bilingual are outdated, because we live in a multipolar world.
Though I suppose that is just more insulting sneers to you. Well, I tried.
I wonder if folks could take the English/French debate elsewhere, and save this thread for the current election? Of course, discussion of language issues is welcome,** as it pertains to the current election.**
On topic, I note that the Liberals have started to bring “Harper fear” to the table. Do folks think this is an effective strategy, or will it backfire, as it did to Paul Martin?
What about the increased poll numbers for the NDP, particularly in Quebec? Will this translate into seats, or merely an increased popular vote count in ridings that they lose?
I’m not sure it was “Harper fear” that hurt Paul Martin so much as the specific way it was presented - in particular, the infamous Soldiers in the Streets ad, which subjected Martin’s own party to parody and ridicule.
Negative advertising works if you don’t go too far. If caught in a ridiculous lie, as with Soldiers In The Streets, you run the risk of accidentally inoculating your target against your criticism; the public, knowing they’ve been lied to, will doubt everything you say, even the things based in truth.
So I think the Liberals are wise to pull these ads out given the polling numbers. They have lost the election, obviously, barring Harper being caught with a dead hooker in his trunk, so righht now what the Liberals need to do is solidify their grip on the seats they CAN win in an effort to deny the Tories a majority. They have to win ridings like Kingston and the Islands, and if this helps, great.
Angus Ried and Nanos think the NDP will win six seats. That’s not bad when their previous high was one.
Interestingly the Liberal gain in seats comes despite an effectively flat popular vote total, but it gained in the right places.
I think we could have an entire thread on why the NDP lags behind the Liberal Party in popular support. I really can’t explain it except sheer inertia. I think it’d be wonderful if the NDP were to sap Liberal support, become the Official Opposition, and send the Liberals into the fourth place spot they need to get their heads back on straight, but for whatever reason millions of Canadians won’t vote NDP.
Something people also never talk about is how unbelievably stacked for the Bloc Quebec’s voting statistics are. With LESS popular support in Quebec than the Conservatives have nationally, they stand to win an easy majority of Quebec’s seats.
I realize you asked that question of RickJay, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in and say that I find it extremely informative, factual and impartial. A bit depressing from my standpoint, but that’s my partisanship speaking…
It’s a very serious site that is trying to replicate the amazing American version, fivethirtyeight. These are the best projections and the best projection analysis you’ll find anywhere.
Yeah, but - the most interesting thing about the English/French debate is the mis-perception of each other’s culture. I find it interesting every time Hypnogogic Jerk says something about the rest of Canada because I can’t tell if he or she is totally out to lunch or reflecting my culture in a way I could never see.
Plus, I really don’t know where the boundary is between pertaining to the current election and going over old ground in the Québec debate.
It’s a website by and for Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) - scientists, researchers, engineers, auditors, health, IT and other professionals working in government departments and agencies.
Given that the Conservative government has a pretty poor record of working with professional groups in the public service, (climate change, Chalk River, muzzling scientific comments) …
What’s the problem here? You’re offended by their name? They should be more even-handed, and report good news about government policies that they disagree with? What?
I note that one of their news articles is
"Tories won’t ‘slash and burn’ public service, Baird says "
Do you have a problem with them reporting what Baird has said?
I find it to be a huge conflict of interest having my workplace union establish a web site, send me an email at my work email address that points me to said web site, and said web site is very one sided and blatantly essentially trying to tell me who to vote for.
I’m not sure how this part works. Did the union create this website using government resources? Did the union membership create the site while at work? If so, this is not a good idea, and they should be disciplined.
Or did you read the email from your union using government resources (eg. on a work computer and on work time)? If so, then you should not do this again. Try to keep union business out of your work hours. Thank you.
ETA: I agree the union should not send this to your work email.
