The 2008 Canadian Election- Merged Thread

[Edward Campbell]

I think that the Good Grey Globe’s Lawrence Martin is one of the primary anti-Conservative* voices in Ottawa. He is also well connected and, especially amongst Liberals, plugged in at the highest levels and he is an astute observer of Canadian politics (but not of foreign and defence policy or military matters).

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is Martin’s view on how Dion might win:

This campaign will come down to one geeky guy

September 4, 2008 at 1:07 AM EDT

For election 2008, no great powers of augury are needed.

The contest - Bully Boy v. Mr. Bean, as one pundit put it - will be missing the vitality that flows from a confrontation over a dominant issue. There isn't one.

The campaign will be a battle of low-watt personalities, leaders who have criss-crossed the country for a couple of years stirring up apathy. It will come down to one geeky guy.

We all know what Stephen Harper will do. With his Olympian self-assurance, he'll run a cold-eyed campaign. It will be targeted and efficient. Few smiles. Even fewer stumbles.

We all know what Jack Layton will do. His brain is as tightly wound as his Schwarzenegger physique. Like the Prime Minister, this is his third campaign. He knows where to drive the orange bus.

These folk - and Gilles Duceppe, as well - are known quantities. That leaves Mr. Bean. The election will pivot, decidedly so, on his performance. If Stéphane Dion appreciably exceeds his remarkably low expectations, he can win. If, as most expect, he trips over his own tongue and toes, it will be John Turner revisited. Conservative majority.

Under the ugly-case Liberal scenario, Mr. Bean stumbles out of the gate, is ridiculed by the media and starts whining and pleading and beating the English language to death with a 400-pound hammer. He loses ground in Quebec, his green scheme sinks in British Columbia, he slumps in Ontario. Discontent rises from his own flock and mutiny noises are heard. By campaign's end, he's withered up like an old piece of lettuce.

The second scenario sees Mr. Dion take dead aim at the Harper government. "Are you thrilled," he asks Canadians, "with how well we are doing in the war, on the economy, on the environment? Are you uplifted by the Prime Minister's governing style, his Republican philosophy, his non-existent vision?" The Quebecker scores here. He is able to sell his green plan as a tax break, not a tax grab. He comes across as a sincere, guileless and likeable Canadian trying to do good. He ekes out a two-seat minority.

But in any battle between a shrewd strategist and a lofty academic, you have to like the strategist, especially when he has a superior campaign organization, a big mean machine, and doesn't have a new tax as his major campaign plank.

So anyone with half a cranium bets on Team Blue. The only hesitation in so doing is that Mr. Dion has shown himself to be a serial defiler of the odds. He has shredded them no less than four times. The first was when he took down the allegedly overpowering Lucien Bouchard in the unity debate. The second was when he was turfed from the Liberal cabinet after Paul Martin took office but scraped his way back in. The third was when he pulled a global agreement out of the hat as chair of an international environment conference in Montreal. And the fourth was when he came out of a lunar module to win the Liberal leadership race.

Somehow, the pale professor has been able to use his naive and nerdy unimpressiveness to his advantage. His leadership ratings are so appalling today, they'd make Joe Clark shudder. Many thought his Green Shift stand would up his numbers. Instead, they tanked some more.

But, ironically, these low ratings are where his biggest hope lies.

Pollsters idiotically have kept putting out best-leader type ratings when the playing field on such a question is lopsided in any prime minister's favour. The media run the same repeat story week after week. When Mr. Harper was in opposition, the pollsters did a disservice to him by doing these polls. Now they do it to Mr. Bean.

But do these soundings turn out to be meaningful? Joe Clark, leagues behind Pierre Trudeau on the leadership charts, bested the Liberal giant in the 1979 campaign. Jean Chrétien, behind Kim Campbell in such ratings in 1993, slaughtered her in that election. Mr. Harper, behind Mr. Martin as most favoured leader in 2006, won that contest.

In the past 21/2 years, Mr. Harper has faced an opposition rated by everyone as irrefutably feckless. Yet, in that time, while the Liberals have remained inert, the PM has hardly been able to edge forward in the standings. That's where the so-called big leadership numbers have got him.

Someone said this race might be a tortoise-and-hare type of thing, with not enough time for the tortoise. But what happens if it's a threadbare hare and a footless turtle? Maybe we ought to watch out for Jack Layton and Lizzie May.

I’m not exactly certain how much of this is real, thoughtful analysis and how much is just wishful thinking based on a hope that someone, anyone, can rid us of the hated (in Martin's mind, anyway) Bushite Stephen Harper.

I suspect Martin is right: there is no issue. That’s too bad; there should be one: the economy. But: it is dangerous ground:

• The Conservatives are still tarred with King’s canard that “Tory times are tough times” - Dion used the line in a speech quoted this morning on CBC radio; and

• The Liberals propose to raise taxes in tough times – not the most appealing prospect for many Canadians.

That being said, the economy matters: more than Afghanistan, more than the environment because if our economy falters (and it will grow less than the much beaten and battered US economy next year) then we can and will do nothing about environmental issues, and even more than democratic reform – we cannot fix what we cannot afford.

It will be too bad if Martin is right.


--------------------
* I repeat, yet again, my assertion that most journalists and most media outlets are not biased for any particular party or candidate (the Toronto Star, with its required adherence to the Atkinson Principles being the exception that proves the rule). But some? many? most? of them are biased against both the Conservative Party and, especially, Stephen Harper - both being seen as handmaids of the Great Satan: George W Bush and his Republican led USA. If I had to guess I would say that most of the media people I have met – a pretty small sample I hasten to point out – probably support the NDP. They (journalists) appear to me to be quite innumerate and economically illiterate – the NDP appeals to that particular segment of society.

 

[GAP]

ER...you are right...there isn't an issue....no 5 points to accomplish, no burning need, with the exception of the fact that peeking out of the woodwork is the idea that something has to be done about the "unelected senate". That said, nothing constructive can be done about that until he appoints enough senators to vote themselves out of existence (I think that is sometime around 2013....).

on the other hand, I think Lawrence Martin is getting to like Stephan....you think?

 

[Reccesoldier]

ER...you are right...there isn't an issue....no 5 points to accomplish, no burning need, with the exception of the fact that peeking out of the woodwork is the idea that something has to be done about the "unelected senate". That said, nothing constructive can be done about that until he appoints enough senators to vote themselves out of existence (I think that is sometime around 2013....).

on the other hand, I think Lawrence Martin is getting to like Stephan....you think?

You don't honestly believe that PM Harper would go to the polls without some plan of what he wants to accomplish in the next term do you? 

In my opinion this is the calm before the storm.  Remember this is the guy (Harper) that everyone accuses of playing Chess while the rest fool around on the Checkers board.  While Dion is staking his ground and digging in, while Layton is beating his economically blind zealots into a frenzy and Gilles Duceppe is wondering where all his support has gone, the PM is planning the feints and flanking manoeuvres that will relegate the others to interested spectator status.

 

[Nfld Sapper]

PM expected to launch election campaign Sunday
Last Updated: Thursday, September 4, 2008 | 1:14 PM ET
CBC News
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion adjourned his party's caucus retreat early on Thursday, amid reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper will pull the plug on his minority Conservative government on Sunday.

Harper is expected to visit Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday and ask her to dissolve Parliament, the Canadian Press reported Thursday.

Canadians would then go to the polls on Oct. 14.

Liberal MPs have been sent back to their ridings to prepare for the long anticipated election call.

The Liberal caucus was in Winnipeg and was to have wrapped up on Thursday. But Dion cancelled his closing speech.

The prime minister was with his cabinet Thursday for a pre-election meeting in Meech Lake, Que.

With files from the Canadian Press

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the CBC’s website, is good news for Conservatives is, and it is a Great BIG IF, the numbers hold up for the next six weeks or so:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/09/04/poll-results.html

Canadians set to vote Conservative: poll

Last Updated: Thursday, September 4, 2008 | 5:02 PM ET
CBC News

Canadians would vote for the Conservatives in a federal election and believe Stephen Harper and Jack Layton would make better prime ministers than Stéphane Dion, according to a new poll sponsored by CBC News.

The survey, conducted by Environics between Friday and Tuesday, found that 38 per cent of Canadians would vote for the Conservative party if an election were held immediately.

By comparison, 28 per cent would vote for the Liberal party, 19 for the NDP, eight for the Bloc Québécois and seven for the Green party.

Even when undecided voters were asked to reveal whom they were inclined to vote for, the Conservatives still kept the lead: Conservatives (33 per cent), Liberals (24), NDP (16), Bloc (7), Green (6).

If the federal election were held today, which of the following parties would you vote for?
                       Total %
Conservative Party    38
Liberal Party             28
New Democratic Party 19
Bloc Québécois           8
Green Party                7

This latest poll shows that support for the Conservatives has grown since the beginning of the summer.

A similar survey done in late June and early July showed the Conservatives with 35 per cent support of decided voters, while the Liberals had 30, the NDP had 17, the Greens had 10 and the Bloc had 8.

The survey comes as an election looms in Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to visit Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean at 9 a.m. ET on Sunday and ask her to dissolve his minority Conservative government, the Canadian Press reported Thursday.

Canadians would then go to the polls on Oct. 14.

A total of 2,505 people from across the country were surveyed for the poll. It is considered accurate to within plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Conservatives lead in Ontario, Prairies, B.C.

When looking at the regions, the Conservatives have a firm lead in Ontario — 43 per cent of Ontarians would vote Conservative compared to 34 per cent Liberal.

In your opinion, which of the following party leaders would make the best prime minister of Canada?
Leader                     %
Stephen Harper         39
Jack Layton              15
Stéphane Dion          13
Gilles Duceppe            4
Elizabeth May             3
None of the above      14
Don't know/No answer 12

The Conservatives also have firm support in the Prairies (53 Conservative, 22 Liberal) and in British Columbia (35 Conservative, 28 NDP, 26 Liberal).

But in Quebec, the Conservatives are a distant second to the Bloc, which has 34 per cent of the vote, compared to 23 Conservative and 22 Liberal.

In Atlantic Canada, the Liberals have the lead (39 per cent Liberal, 33 Conservative).

While Canadians are leaning their support toward the Conservatives, they also have confidence in Conservative Leader Harper.

A total of 39 per cent said Harper would make the best prime minister, while 15 per cent chose the NDP’s Layton.

Only 13 per cent chose Liberal Dion, while 14 per cent said none of the leaders of the major parties would make a good prime minister.

Conservatives for economy, Liberals for environment

When Canadians were asked which political parties could best handle a variety of heated issues in Canada, the choice was most often the Conservatives.

Those responding to the poll said they believe the Conservatives are best able to deal with the economy, provide honest government, deal with crime and justice, represent the interests of people’s home provinces in Ottawa and deal with Afghanistan.

By comparison they thought the Liberals could best deal with environmental issues like global warming and environmental pollution. The Liberals are also best suited to handle national unity issues, respondents said.

The Liberals and Conservatives were tied when it came to health, chosen equally as the best party to handle the issue.

When considering the issues, the Liberals or the Conservatives were usually considered the first and second most capable parties.

However, the NDP came in second when it came to choosing the party most capable of providing an honest government — 27 per cent of respondents chose the Conservatives as most capable, 19 per cent chose the NDP and 14 per cent chose the Liberals.

The NDP, along with the Greens, were also considered strong when it came to the environment — Liberals got 21 per cent of the vote, with the NDP, Greens and Conservatives tied with 20 per cent.

More results from the Environics poll will be made available Sunday on CBCNews.ca and on CBC-TV and CBC Radio.

This means that the Conservatives must help Canadians to focus on leadership as a key issue and on Harper vs. Dion as a leader.

The Conservatives need to keep all (or equivalent to all) the seats they have now AND gain 27 more at the expense of the Liberals (in Québec, Ontario and BC) and the BQ (in Québec). It’s easier said than done.

Dion has the great advantage of very, very low expectations coupled with Canadians broad, general distaste for Stephen Harper; Canadians may think he’s the best leader but they wish he wasn’t.



Edit: typos

 

[Edward Campbell]

While the CBC/Environics poll (just above) says that the Conservatives and Liberals are virtually tied in Québec (at 22 or 23%) – each more than 10 points behind the Bloc (34%), a new Globe and Mail/Léger Marketing poll says that the Bloc and Conservatives are tied, at 30% each while the Liberals are back at 23%. The two polls are fairly consistent in results for the BQ and the Liberals but they show a large (7 point) variation for the Conservatives.

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail is the story:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080904.welection_poll05/BNStory/National/home

Conservatives, Bloc in virtual tie in Quebec, poll finds

RHÉAL SÉGUIN

From Friday's Globe and Mail
September 4, 2008 at 8:26 PM EDT

QUEBEC CITY — The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois are deadlocked in a virtual tie in Quebec, with polling numbers suggesting that Stephen Harper is poised to make major inroads in the province as he prepares to call an election this weekend.

The poll conducted by Léger Marketing for The Globe and Mail and the Montreal daily Le Devoir finds that the majority of Quebeckers are satisfied with the Conservative government, but still perceive the Bloc as being best suited to defend Quebec's interests in Ottawa.

The survey also finds Quebec voters have serious doubts about Stéphane Dion's leadership credentials. According to the poll, voters have less confidence in the Liberal Leader than they do in Mr. Harper on issues such as the economy, public finances, inter-provincial relations and fighting the war in Afghanistan. However, Mr. Dion is viewed as a stronger leader on the environment and in promoting Canadian and Quebec culture.

According to the poll, conducted between Aug. 29 and Sept. 3, 30 per cent of Quebeckers would vote for the Conservatives, another 30 per cent would vote Bloc Québécois, 23 per cent for the Liberals, 11 per cent for the NDP and 5 per cent for the Green Party.

“The question Quebeckers will be asking is do they want a majority Conservative government. If the answer is no they will vote Bloc, and if the answer is yes they will vote Conservative,” said pollster Jean-Marc Léger, the president of Léger Marketing. “This is at the heart of the campaign in Quebec. Quebeckers believe Stephen Harper will form the next government. They just aren't sure yet whether it should be a majority or a minority government.”

In the 2006 election, the Bloc received slightly more than 42 per cent of the vote, compared to the Tories' 25 per cent and the Liberals' nearly 20 per cent. The Bloc won 51 of the province's 75 ridings that year, the Liberals 13 and, in a major breakthrough, the Tories won 10 seats, mostly in the Quebec City region.

Once again, the Harper Conservatives are striking at the heart of the Bloc's traditional support in the province's predominantly francophone areas. In the Quebec City region, the poll shows, the Conservatives have 50 per cent in popular support, well ahead of the Bloc Québécois at 20 per cent and the Liberals at 11 per cent.

In other predominantly francophone regions, the survey finds the Bloc holding on to the slimmest of leads with 35 per cent of popular support, followed closely by the Conservatives at 34 per cent, with the Liberals trailing at 20 per cent.

“The race is wide open, and outside of Montreal it is a two-way race between the Bloc and the Conservatives where the Liberals are being squeezed out of the picture,” Mr. Léger said.

The Montreal region still remains fertile ground for Mr. Dion's Liberals, with 29 per cent of support, especially among the metropolitan area's anglophone and ethnic communities. Support for the Bloc was at 28 per cent in voter-rich Montreal, while the Harper Conservatives, who have yet to win a seat on the Island of Montreal, were at 22 per cent.

The survey, which included responses from 1,001 Quebec voters, showed that health, the economy and the environment were the main issues for a vast majority of voters.

A poll of this size is considered accurate within 3.4 per cent 19 times out 20.

If, and again it is a Great BIG IF, these polls are both accurate, in themselves, and part of a trend that will last for the next five weeks then there is hope for a stable Conservative majority government - something I believe will be good for Canada, especially if it is followed by another Conservative majority in the fall 2012 election.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And IF the Good Grey Globe's most recent reader survey (not a scientific poll) is to be believed Dion has got very little room to grow.

In the early going (about 15% of 'normal' response levels) nearly 85% of respondents say they have already decided how they will vote.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen, is the contrary (Liberal) POV:

Susan Riley
Liberals shift down

Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Friday, September 05, 2008

If Stéphane Dion loses this election -- and it is well within his capabilities -- it will be personally disappointing for him, but a serious setback for the country.

Dion -- sincere, centrist, and, despite the Tory caricature, resolute -- would not be widely lamented, particularly by Liberals. But if he does go down, he will take his much-ridiculed, only partly understood "green shift" with him. That will be a catastrophic missed opportunity.

For all its intricacies, the green shift amounts to a straight-forward revolution in the way we are taxed, in what we, as a country, reward and what we discourage. It may be the boldest, most transformative policy advanced by a major Canadian party since free trade and, for all the glib sniping from the likes of John Baird, it has an internal logic -- at least on paper. (The blue-blood C.D. Howe Institute likes the idea, as do other future-oriented corporate leaders.)

It incrementally -- very incrementally -- increases taxes on the sources of greenhouse gas emissions, including heating oil and gasoline, and compensates taxpayers with lower income and other taxes. It goes further: it cushions the most vulnerable -- seniors, poor families, and, thanks to this week's refinements, farmers, truckers and fishing outfits -- who might be disproportionately hurt by rising fuel costs.

It is not a tax grab, it is a tax shift. It is not a return to the "wild" spending of past Liberal regimes (all that money wasted on impoverished children, artists, unreliable minorities!), but a brave, if cautious, first step towards a sustainable economy. It is not an attack on Alberta, or an update of the National Energy Program -- although it shares as audacious an ambition. (Recall that the 1980 NEP was aimed at achieving energy independence, a now-fashionable rallying cry in both Democrat and Republican circles, although the Trudeau-era energy plan was badly-timed, designed and marketed.)

Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims the green shift is badly-timed, too -- that it will worsen a looming recession, push gas prices higher, ruin our competitive advantage. What he doesn't say is that fossil fuel prices are going up anyway, with nearly all the gushing profits going directly to oil companies. As for the timing, it is never convenient to take on entrenched interests, even, apparently, in the interests of global survival. (The most chilling news this week was reports of two more ice shelves breaking away in the high Arctic.)

To be pitting the environment against the economy, still, as the prime minister does -- instead of re-investing today's oil wealth in a greener future -- betrays a timid, unimaginative world view that is not, frankly, very leaderly.

But it is Liberals who should be making this case. After a splashy and successful launch last spring, Dion met with editorial boards and gave speeches this summer defending his green shift. We know how that worked. He hasn't even convinced his own caucus. You can give a man talking points, but he has to be able to talk. Yet, notwithstanding Dion's muddled style, the Liberal party is blessed with many experienced, articulate speakers. Why haven't Michael Ignatieff, Bob Rae, Scott Brison and Martha Hall Findlay applied their superior talents to explaining and selling this idea? Liberals should be excited and proud of their far-sighted policy; they seem nervous and grim.

So much so that, instead of making the green theme central to his campaign, Dion is now being urged to attack Harper. The prime minister is a rich, irresistible target: his totalitarian impulses, his tarnished claim to higher ethical standards, his meandering economic policies, and, of course, his delay and denial on the climate crisis.

But, more than targeting Tories, Dion should be wooing New Democrats, Greens and young, environmentally-aware voters: exactly the constituency that could embrace the green shift, that recognizes Dion as a different kind of Liberal, less cautious than Jean Chrétien, less cowardly than Paul Martin. As to whether his Liberal minority government would follow through on its promise: probably, although the plan could be tweaked to answer opposition complaints. Even with modifications, however, a direction will have been set -- towards a tax system that penalizes pollution and encourages energy innovation.

If Dion fails, if his green shift becomes a political joke -- forever derided as self-defeating and embarrassingly naïve -- it will be some time before a future prime minister (Jean Charest, perhaps?) takes up the challenge. By then, the Americans will be fighting the Chinese for world domination in alternative energy and the Arctic could be slush. Too late, we will see the cost of doing nothing was greater than the small sacrifices, the fleeting disruptions, embedded in Dion's fragile gamble.

Susan Riley writes on national politics.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008​

I think Riley is wrong, from top to bottom, but I think the case she makes for the Liberals, while weak and disorganized, just like Stéphane Dion, is about the best that can be made.

 

[Blackadder1916]

Canada's not in the market for heroes
http://www.thestar.com/World/Columnist/article/491062

Richard Gwyn Toronto Star Sep 05, 2008 04:30 AM

Any day now, a perfect political storm (North American version) will burst out in the form of simultaneous elections in the U.S. and Canada.

About this simultaneity, the considered judgment of political commentators on this side of the border is just about unanimous.

This is that the American election will be exciting, dramatic, passionate, charismatic, meaningful and very probably historic, while ours will be bland, trivial and boring.

Mostly, this is correct. The U.S. will have the first-ever African-American presidential candidate. Moreover, Barack Obama is unmistakably the first national leader who belongs to the 21st century – cool, high-tech, a multi-layered personality – rather than to the 20th century.

To heighten the drama, Obama's opponent, John McCain, a genuine war hero who radiates moral integrity, is about as good a candidate (except intellectually) as 20th-century America was capable of producing.

We, by contrast, have to choose between two guys who are unquestionably bright but incapable of connecting emotionally with voters – Stephen Harper because he seems not to like people (an unusual defect in a politician) and Stéphane Dion because he seems not to know how to talk to people.

The implication all our commentators leave is that until our election is done, in mid-October, and so almost to the U.S. date, we'll have to go around with our heads down in embarrassment over the cross-border comparison.

Not so. Or at least not necessarily so.

The prevailing view that our election will be unexciting and unmeaningful skips over one cardinal fact. This is why it should be that our politics are so unexciting and unmeaningful.

The answer is that we have no problems.

We, of course, do have problems. All societies and countries have problems. There's always some issue demanding to be resolved, some national defect needing to be addressed.

But we Canadians simply do not have at this time any fundamental national problems, any existential life-or-death ones.

Quebec separatism, for example, is in remission, probably for a couple of decades. Our multiculturalism policy is encountering some strains and stresses, but nothing like those in France or Holland, say, and indeed in most European countries.

Economically, our progress has slowed. But less so than the economies of almost everyone else. Financially, there are only a handful of industrial democracies, such as Norway, in better shape than us.

Yes, our productivity performance is poor, but we've lucked into an almost unlimited demand for our commodities, such as oil.

The task of our political leaders is to tweak things along, rather than try to transform them.

This is what the next U.S. president is going to have to do. He will inherit an economy that is on the edge of a runaway financial crisis. He will inherit a society divided by the "cultural wars" that began in the 1960s and that are about to be revived by the candidacy of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

That new president will inherit an unwinnable war in Iraq and one in Afghanistan that also looks increasingly unwinnable. (Afghanistan is our war also, and evermore costly in terms of our blood, but we do have an exit date.)

The times simply don't demand a Canadian leader of heroic stature. The current job requirement is rather for a competent manager.

It could be said that this is always so. In fact, we've had a credible number of leaders who were larger than life: John A. Macdonald, Wilfrid Laurier, John Diefenbaker (if lopsidedly so) and Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Most of the time, we've got along with competent managers. Look around, though, and look southward, as well, and it's impossible not to conclude that our way works exceptionally well – for us.

The best summary of all of this was said by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. In one of his plays, Brecht has a character utter the well-known aphorism, "Unhappy the land that has no heroes." He then has another character respond, "But happy the land that has no need of heroes."

What all those commentators are really complaining about is that it's so much easier to write about heroes – the failed ones especially – than about competent managers. With that, I agree with them.

Richard Gwyn's column appears Friday. gwynr@sympatico.ca

 

[Rodahn]

Link here

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gnGWQ-pi421in_2VE1ff9ffwJjEA

Tories slammed for $8.8-billion pre-election spending splurge
1 hour ago

OTTAWA — The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the Harper government's pre-election spending is out of this world.

The group says the Conservatives have doled out a whopping $8.8 billion since June - including a $2,000 grant to commemorate a UFO sighting.

Federation director John Williamson says there have been almost 300 pre-election commitments, adding up to about $94 million a day, or almost $4 million every hour.

Williamson says the spending binge is exactly the kind of pre-election splurge Prime Minister Stephen Harper criticized the Liberals for in the run-up to the 2006 federal election.

Among the big-ticket Tory commitments: $1.1 billion for a so-called "road map for linguistic duality;" $350,000 for an ice cream company in Prince Edward Island; and $297,000 for a ski club in Newfoundland.

Canada's faltering economy seems likely to be a dominant issue in a federal election campaign that's to begin Sunday, and Williamson says Ottawa should be showing the same spending restraint as Canadian families.

From my understanding based upon what I have heard from economists, the government should spend more money in a recession, to stimulate the economy. Having said that, it may or may not just be pre-election hype.

 

[Edward Campbell]

See this latest report of a DND poll on Canadians' attitudes towards the military.

It is bad news for the country, save for the intellectually challenged minority that votes BQ and NDP.

It is especially bad news for the Conservatives because it says that a major part of PM Harper's 're-branding' of Canada is failing, here at home.

It ought to be bad news for thinking Liberals, too - although the left leaning Trudeauists like Dion will not see that - because it was Paul Martin who changed the direction of Canadian foreign and defence policy with is Role of Pride and Influence in the World paper.

Trudeau was wrong - even Chrétien saw that. Canada needs influence in the world if we are going to protect and promote our vital interests there. And we need to be ‘in the world’ unless we want to become a simple appendage of the USA. Influence in the world is not hard to earn but there is a price and part of that price is a strong, active military that shoulders a fair share of the global security burden.

The fact that Canadians neither care for that role nor understand the reasons for it must not deter the Conservatives. Canadians are often wrong; governments may have to pander to them but when Canadians are dangerously wrong – as they are with this clinging to the Trudeauite BS about peacekeeping (a myth that Lester Pearson never believed because he had an IQ with three digits in it) – then it is the duty of the government to ignore their ‘wishes,’ lie to them and then act in the best interests of the country despite the ‘will if the ignorant masses.’

The Tories need to take this poll, perforate it every four inches, roll it up and put it in the other 'reading room.'

 

[Old Sweat]

After reading the story again, and without having seen the detailed poll results, I have a nagging feeling that the report may not reflect exactly what the data contain. It seems, and I am going from Mr Brewster's story only, that people could select multiple roles for the CF from the menu(es). Also a small majority support early intervention in international crises, and most respondents support our troops.

I wonder how much of the story is from the poll, which may be embargoed, and how much is personal opinion. Did the commentators see the poll, or did the reporter tell them what it contained? As for the low level of support among the 18-24 group, these people have little to no recollection of the cold war, the wars in the Balkans we were supposedly preventing and, for the bottom of the age group, even the events of 9/11/01. As they also are the most idealistic, I am not surprised at all.

Having said all that, I suspect the attitude of the Canadian public in the period 1933-1937 was not much different. It may have become more resigned in 1938-1938 as it was realized war was inevitable. Perhaps in this poll we are seeing a combination of resignation and the grasping at straws for an alternative to war that still allows a (delusional) amount of national honour from doing our international bit.

 

[Kirkhill]

Old Sweat, I must have been "channeling" you.  Link:My thoughts exactly.

 

[The Bread Guy]

I guess someone can take the question mark out of the subject of this thread now.....

From the Prime Minister's Office

Public event for Prime Minister Stephen Harper for Sunday, September 7th is:

Ottawa

8:05 a.m. – Prime Minister Stephen Harper will leave 24 Sussex en route to Rideau Hall to meet with Governor General Michaëlle Jean to ask her to dissolve the 39th Parliament for an election call October 14th, 2008.

24 Sussex
Ottawa, Ontario

* Open to Media *

Let the games begin!

 

[Edward Campbell]

After reading the story again, and without having seen the detailed poll results, I have a nagging feeling that the report may not reflect exactly what the data contain. It seems, and I am going from Mr Brewster's story only, that people could select multiple roles for the CF from the menu(es). Also a small majority support early intervention in international crises, and most respondents support our troops.

I wonder how much of the story is from the poll, which may be embargoed, and how much is personal opinion. Did the commentators see the poll, or did the reporter tell them what it contained? As for the low level of support among the 18-24 group, these people have little to no recollection of the cold war, the wars in the Balkans we were supposedly preventing and, for the bottom of the age group, even the events of 9/11/01. As they also are the most idealistic, I am not surprised at all.

Having said all that, I suspect the attitude of the Canadian public in the period 1933-1937 was not much different. It may have become more resigned in 1938-1938 as it was realized war was inevitable. Perhaps in this poll we are seeing a combination of resignation and the grasping at straws for an alternative to war that still allows a (delusional) amount of national honour from doing our international bit.

I’m not so sure about 1938/39.

Many years ago I discussed the matter of concentration camps etc with a relative. “Oh dear,” she said (approximately), “of course we knew. Kristallnacht was all over the papers, * you know. We could read, we could listen to the radio – we understood what Hitler was going to do. We couldn’t imagine it, but we understood it well enough.”

Despite understanding the threat, even if being unable to imagine the full horror of it, Canadians remained reluctant to rearm and then to fight – our rates of enlistment being lower that those in Britain (which also maintained a large, productive defence industrial sector) and of Australia and New Zealand  (which also maintained large, productive agricultural sectors).

I think the very real horrors of the First World War left us reluctant to face the Second, so soon.

I also think that we talked ourselves in to an unearned peace dividend in 1969/70 and then convinced ourselves, dishonestly, that peacekeeping was a cheap, easy and acceptable alternative to doing our fair share.

But, starting at the end of the Send World War, we also adopted the unpleasant (and unearned) position, especially vis à vis the USA, that Dean Acheson described as "the stern daughter of the voice of God." Moralizing felt better than acting and we took a liking to it; we did and still do a lot of it, too much of it, and it is still unearned and unpleasant.


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* Something that that was confirmed in 2000 when the Globe and Mail ran a series of front pages from throughout its history (or just the 20th century?) – one was a report on Kristallnacht, it had a big, bold headline and photos, all ‘above the fold’ as they say, very prominent. 'We' knew but we chose to ignore reality in favour of wishin' and hopin'.

 

[RangerRay]

Is Susan Riley gunning for a Senate seat from Dion?

 

[JBG]

The fact that Canadians neither care for that role nor understand the reasons for it must not deter the Conservatives. Canadians are often wrong; governments may have to pander to them but when Canadians are dangerously wrong – as they are with this clinging to the Trudeauite BS about peacekeeping (a myth that Lester Pearson never believed because he had an IQ with three digits in it) – then it is the duty of the government to ignore their ‘wishes,’ lie to them and then act in the best interests of the country despite the ‘will if the ignorant masses.’

The Tories need to take this poll, perforate it every four inches, roll it up and put it in the other 'reading room.'

I agree, governments need to lead, not hold a wet finger to the air to find out which way "public opinion" blows for each step.

 

[Kirkhill]

JBG, I am afraid it must be something in the water today....First Edward and now you prompt a challenge.

Obama wishes to lead (and his acolytes wish to be led).  Dion's party relishes leaders and is perturbed that, as much as he may wish it himself, Dion is no leader.

McCain wishes to serve (which is to say wishes to follow the will of the public).  And Harper, in so far as we can be sure of anythng of his wishes, seems to want to manage - and most on this site would agree that management, while it may be many things, is not leadership.

So - do we/you really want your government to lead?

Personally I don't mind following if the mob is going where I want to go but I am less than thrilled if I am swept to a destination undesirable or unclear at a pace uncomfortable.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just for fun, here is a link to the Globe and Mail’s Poll of Polls.

The Good Grey Globe say that:

The Poll of Polls aggregates major election polls released over the past seven days. Sample size is taken into account. For polling firms that have released more than one poll over the past seven days, only the most recent one is used.

The current (as at 0730 Hrs, 6 Sep 06) the ‘national’ results are:

Conservatives:  36%
Liberals:          30%
NDP:                17%
BQ:                  8%
Green:              8%

It is worth noting that (‘currently,’ again) the Liberals lead (39% vs 34%) in Ontario and (42% vs 24%) in Atlantic Canada. In Atlantic Canada the NDP outpoll the Conservatives at 27% vs 24%. In Québec the three major parties are close to what is probably a statistical tie (19 times out of 20): BQ = 31%, Conservatives = 27% and Liberals = 24%.

Enjoy! But remember that the parties, themselves, have much more accurate, carefully targeted 'rolling' poll data and also remember that even a fairly large 'national' sample (say, 2,000 or even 3,000 respondents) is 'small' at the provincial and too small (from which to extrapolate) at the regional level.

 

[Old Sweat]

I just don't trust this poll of polls. The various companies ask different questions, may use different methodolgies and distribute their collected data differently. Did they include the two firms that accurately measure data in Quebec with a sample of about 1,000 compared to the national firms that have a sample in that province of about 250, with most on the Island of Montreal?

Apples plus oranges plus peaches plus pears equals fruit flies.