Post election talk here....

[logau]

My view - based on reading Hughie Segal's Book Reflections of a Happy Warrior in the Conservative Crusade is - sooner or later the Libs will want to try for a majority - hence another election is a given - but when? Papers today said not for a while so parties can rebuild their funds. I would expect lots of barbecue action over the summer.

But economy could hit bumps - USA spending in the gulf is may be driving up price of credit and thus interest rates which may prevent Paul Martin from delivering the payola to his stooges on the left. So the less cash the less cooperation and the more chance of a snap vote.

Who ever is not in the government now would seem to have a vested interest in trying to put together the clearest picture of what happened at SponsorGATE and try and link it to thieves in the ruling party. Make them look bad and just keep pointing at the thieves. Show the proof - tell the voter to judge. Voter not stupid but voter did not have the proof to convict this time around.

Internal - knee cappers. If anyone mouths off - its heads will roll time. They must be absolutely brutal.

External - JOB JOB JOBS - they have to have a plan for expansion of the economy in the face of the decline of manufacturing. Sooner or later the Auto industry of which half is USA driven (and we are not USA lovers are we Paul Martin?)
will implode and take   the Ontario economy and the Ontari-ari-OWE good times parade down the tubes with it. Its already happened in the rust belt from Buffalo to Rochester.

When that happens you will have Medical coverage - a GP doing MIR rooms in every tin pot town. Need a consultation - on the plane to TO - paid by the government and your taxes from your snow plow job, and your kids job and your wife's job at Tim Horton's. And when they patch you up you can come back to Tin Pot township. And the jobs will be down south of the Rio Grande if you get my drift.

And DND you ask? Well what of it? Its going on sleep mode for a year or two to save deployment $ and build up the eqpt inventory. Just my guess of the elevator talk at NDHQ. I could be wrong but I don't see the uniformed branched of PWGSC planning any expansion.

Did you enjoy your tax free tours boys and girls?

Some tongue and cheek here but on the whole - what else can we do? If the deployment force = the regulars and we can't expand the reserves or call them out then its a limited sum game. So take a break and enjoy your TOUR in Pet.

Me? I ain't been on a "tour" as it`s known these days - except for my 6 months patrolling the Czech border with 4 Bde in 73 - I am the guy who caused  10 million Godless Commie Russians to blink - freaked out the KGB, and made the cracks appear in the Warsaw Pact - which caused the Berlin Wall to fall in 89.

You dig?   -   :rocket:

 

[rdschultz]

Its great to know the winner of the election believes he won on a subject that most Canadians have absolutely no clue about (and Paul Martin knows they don't know, thats how he used it so effectively).

 

[Scratch_043]

Preliminary Results

Party                            Seats          %      Popular vote        % 


Bloc Québécois                54          17.5      1,672,184          12.4 
Canadian Action                0            0.0          8,930              0.1 
Christian Heritage Party    0            0.0          40,283            0.3 
Communist                        0            0.0          4,568              0.0 
Conservative                    99          32.1        3,994,682        29.6 
Green Party                      0            0.0          580,816          4.3 
Independent                      0            0.0          47,596            0.4 
Liberal                            135        43.8    4,951,107          36.7 
Libertarian                        0            0.0        1,964                0.0 
Marijuana Party                0            0.0        33,590              0.3 
Marxist-Leninist              0            0.0        9,065                0.1 
N.D.P.                            19            6.2      2,116,536            15.7 
No Affiliation                  1            0.3        17,465              0.1 
PC Party                          0            0.0        10,773                0.1 
Total number of valid votes:      13,489,559   

 

[Infanteer]

For the sake of the argument, I did a little math to see how our government would look like under Proportional Representation Systems:

Under a strict PR system, where 308 seats are divided up proportionally, this is how it would of looked:

Liberals: 113 Seats
Conservatives: 91 Seats
NDP: 49 Seats
Bloq: 38 Seats
Greens: 13 Seats

This totals 304 seats.   It is beyond me on how to divide up the other 4 seats which have their percentage made up by the other 9 groups, none with a significant amount of votes to get a seat.   Obviously, with the current system, the big loser in this election is the NDP, who is missing out on 30 seats in the first-past-the-post system and the Greens, who would be entitled to official party status.   The Conservatives and the Bloq lose a bit, while the Libs lose big time under strict PR.

Now, lets imagine a mixed-proportional system, where the 308 representative ridings are "topped up" with 100 extra seats selected proportionally to offset the discrepancies of FPTP.

Liberals: 172 Seats
Conservatives: 129 Seats
Bloq: 66 Seats
NDP: 35 Seats
Greens: 4 Seats
Independent (Cadman): 1

This naturally changes the number of seats in Commons to 408, with 204 being required for a majority government.   This system, while not benefiting the NDP as much as strict PR, gives them the ability to form a majority coalition with the Liberals.   As well, it offsets the Bloq's influence slightly.   Again, there is 1 seat in this system unaccounted for, as the 9 other voting groups took the proportion for the seat, but none had significant votes to earn it for themselves.

Anyways, a little case study for you electoral policy enthusiasts.   As stated many times on other threads, I am hesitant to support either system as neither does well in effectively breaking down party power and encouraging more democratic debate; it merely adds more party hacks to the system.

 

[McG]

The next "big" event that will give us a picture of what to expect is coming.

PM's cabinet to meet Tuesday ahead of shuffle

CTV.ca News Staff

A half-dozen cabinet ministers who lost their seats in the federal election will bid good-bye to their colleagues Tuesday, as Prime Minister Paul Martin holds his first cabinet meeting since the June 28 vote.

Such high-profile cabinet members as Defence Minister David Pratt, Heritage Minister Helene Scherrer and Agriculture Minister Bob Speller retain their cabinet posts for the moment, but will soon be departing Parliament, having been voted out by their constituents.

Martin is expected to shuffle his ministers around in mid-July. Even those who will continue at the cabinet table won't necessarily hold the same portfolios then.

It's expected that Martin will shift some of the ministers to new duties to make room for newcomers, including Ujjal Dosanjh, the former British Columbia premier who was lured from the NDP to the Liberals, and Ken Dryden, the former Montreal Canadiens goaltender who won a seat in Toronto last week.

Insiders have said that David Emerson is interested in the Industry portfolio, but the job requirements might be beyond the capabilities of a rookie MP. Others have speculated that Natural Resources might be a better fit for the former Canfor forestry executive.

As well, Jean Lapierre, Martin's hand-picked Quebec lieutenant, is likely to win a place in the prime minister's inner circle.

The loss of several cabinet ministers may spell a return from the backbenches for several former Chretien ministers exiled by Martin -- most notably former intergovernmental affairs minister Stephane Dion.

Dion's supporters would like to see him in a more prominent role than the anti-separatist one he held under Chretien, such as the Treasury Board post.

Insiders say Tuesday's meeting will likely clean up some routine government business and may include a brief electoral post-mortem. Aside from that, the agenda features "nothing exceptional," one senior strategist told Canadian Press.

One the cabinet is shuffled, Martin will then have to turn his attention to plotting a strategy for his precarious minority government. One of the first tasks will be deciding how to handle a meeting of the premiers for a discussion of health care reforms.

Martin has yet to decide on a date. He also promised during the election campaign that the meeting would be open to the public, with TV cameras rolling -- a sharp departure from recent conferences of first ministers.

With the stakes high during such an encounter, it will take some time to plan the event, say insiders.

 

[Alex]

I'm thinking that if there is another election anytime soon, a Conservative party led by a central Canadian (or god forbid, a French Canadian) would be Paul Martin's worst nightmare.

 

[Infanteer]

(or god forbid, a French Canadian)

Please clarify that remark.

 

[Alex]

(or god forbid, a French Canadian)

Please clarify that remark.

Sorry- I was not intending any disrespect. During these elections, I think Martin capitalized on Harper being leader by calling his party the "conservative alliance" party and trying to scare central and eastern Canadians into voting Liberal. Also, the conservatives never really had a chance in Quebec, and if they wanted a majority, they would need Quebec. So what I was trying to say, slightly sarcastically, is that a French Canadian as leader would do wonders for the Conservative party- they can't be thought of as "Reform mark3" anymore, and their problems in Quebec might be solved.. Obviously I did not go into enough detail. Sorry.

 

[McG]

Not all French Canadians have lived in Quebec.

 

[Marauder]

Just my take here, put away the crosses and nails....

While I like Harper and think he would make a decent PM, I think the CPC dropped the ball when they voted him in as leader of the party. I think Belinda would have been a better choice to have helming the party for this election (which they surely must have anticipated would have happened short fuse with the Liebrals trying to stiff them in prep time). Why you ask? Well, mainly because having her as leader would have defused alot of the crap Martin and co flung at the CPC only to gleefully watch it stick like guntape. She's pro-choice IIRC and Martin's desperation attack ads as the campaign wound down and White's jackassery came to light would have been blunted if Martin tried to suggest that she (remember that the loony left thinks of women as having protected minority status) would cank the sacred Charter. Plus she's from Ontario, which again would have blunted weasel boy's insinuations that the Big Bad West was out to kill Medicare and all the other Lib/Social Credit handouts that mean so much to the Atlantic and the welfare state nursury in Ontario. Now obviously other factors were in play (little prep time to cobble two parties into one new united front, the lack of response to the attack ads in the dying days, the inability of the loony right to keep their stupid goddamn traps clamped for the duration of the election, and Martin succedding in his fearmongering), but in the end, weasel boy succeded in painting Harper as the scary dude from out west who wanted to ban abortion and burn gays on the stake on the Parliment lawn while moving every doctor and nurse out west and letting everything east of Winnipeg die in the streets. Harper showed he's got ice water in his veins when it comes to dealing with the weasel and the ferret (Tell us another one, Jack!), and I admire that to no end. But I still think having Belinda at the helm while Harper and Reynolds did the war gaming in the back rooms would have landed the CPC (and Canada) in a far better position than it is in now.

 

[Kirkhill]

I won't take issue with Alec and Marauder on the saleability of Belinda or a French-Canadian conservative candidate "to be named at some time in the future".  I think that they are probably right that either of those candidates could possibly have sold better in the east than Harper.

However, in so doing the Conservatives would have risked losing the support of the largest, most committed chunk of its supporters (the activists if you like - gawd how I hate that word) that are crucial to any party.  They supplied the baseline numbers of MPs that put the party on the road to a significant stake in the house, undisputedly they are now the official opposition (remember when Reform and the Bloc sawed off over one MP and the Bloc were the official "dis-loyal" opposition?).  The activists also supplied most of the personnel necessary to run the campaign, personnel that Harper could trust.  Trust doesn't necessarily mean like or agree with it means "able to predict their actions". 

It probably was predictable that somebody was going to get the party into trouble and if not Randy White and Cheryl Gallant then possibly Myron Stimson or Rob Andrews. That was probably expected in the calculus - just very hard to counter and no effective counter found.

On the other hand Harper probably could not have found it easy on the short term to come to "trust" - read predict - party members that in the weeks and months previously had been slamming him as they supported Joe Clark/David Orchard/Belinda Stronach/Tony Clements.

He now has a period of relative calm in which he can get the feel for the other sides of the party, find out where they are flexible and then try to lead the two sides together while maintaining most of the core support.  Because "sure as shooting" he is never going to please everybody and every decision he makes willl be predicated on the calculation "does this gain me more votes than it loses".

I take heart that there are a number of areas of common ground that not just Conservatives hold but many other Canadians hold.  And I trust that those more radically minded "activists" will have come to see the value of moderation and that moderation and compromise while adherence to principle is the art of politics.

 

[Yard Ape]

More election fall-out

Big-name Liberal rookies catapulted into cabinet

Canadian Press

Ottawa â ” The federal cabinet is set for an injection of big-name recognition as a hall of fame goaltender, a former provincial premier and a top business executive will all be sworn in Tuesday.

Government sources say hockey legend Ken Dryden, ex-B.C. premier Ujjal Dosanjh and B.C. forestry executive David Emerson will lead a crop of rookies that includes onetime Conservative leadership candidate Scott Brison.

As for key changes, Pierre Pettigrew was rumoured to be switching from Health to Foreign Affairs while Bill Graham was expected to leave that department and become defence minister.

None of them spoke publicly after receiving the phone call Monday from Prime Minister Paul Martin. They were warned by Martin aides they could be fired for talking to the media.

Two main pillars of the Liberal government â ” Finance Minister Ralph Goodale and Public Safety Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan â ” were expected to remain in place.

â Å“The cabinet will combine proven veterans with some of the very talented newcomers that were elected in June,â ? said Martin spokesman Scott Reid.

â Å“There will be old faces and new. Above all it will be focused on merit.â ?

But Mr. Martin will apparently dump some of the most experienced members of cabinet â ” including Denis Coderre and David Anderson â ” to make room for the newcomers.

Mr. Dosanjh was expected to become health minister and replace Mr. Anderson in one of the cabinet spots from B.C., while Mr. Coderre was apparently on the way out to make room for a controversial new minister in Montreal.

Twenty years since his last ministerial posting, Jean Lapierre was rumoured to be returning to cabinet as transport minister and Quebec lieutenant.

Mr. Lapierre bolted from the Liberal party when Jean Chrétien became leader in 1990. He helped create the sovereigntist Bloc Quebecois and then left politics for more than a decade to become a household name in Quebec as a talk-show host.

Many Liberals have grumbled privately about his quick ascension to cabinet after fleeing the party 14 years ago.

Some of those same Liberals who have waited years for a chance to sit in cabinet were already complaining privately about the appointment of an ex-Tory to head a major department.

Mr. Brison was slated to take over the much-maligned Public Works Department â ” home of the sponsorship scandal â ” with Stephen Owen vacating the post but gaining another portfolio.

Mr. Brison only became a Liberal in December.

Mr. Dosanjh was rumoured to be taking over Health, while Mr. Emerson was set to be handed the prestigious industry file.

At least one big name from the Chrétien era was set to return to the cabinet table.

Stephane Dion, who was the key Liberal foot soldier in the fight against Quebec separatism, will apparently be returning as minister of Indian Affairs.

Liberal sources said cabinet rumours about Mr. Dryden had him taking over the social development file, while Liza Frulla moved over to Canadian Heritage.

With the Liberals needing to negotiate with other parties in pushing legislation through the new minority Parliament, the all-important House leader's job has apparently been handed to outgoing Transport Minister Tony Valeri.

Andy Mitchell was expected to move over from Indian Affairs to Agriculture, while Lucienne Robillard was expected to leave the Industry slot to become Intergovernmental Affairs minister.

Reg Alcock was slated to remain Treasury Board president, sources said.