The 2008 Canadian Election- Merged Thread

[Edward Campbell]

If he handles it right, it will be a one day burp....the French debate will overtake the issue, Bernier's girlfriend is doing an interview on Thursday (a LOT of Quebecers are waiting for that one), people are concerned what will happen in the US, and this plagiarism fiasco  has a due date of 2003.....

I agree, and, as a Conservative partisan, I hope you're right.

It is, already, off the 'top' of both the Globe and Mail and CBC web sites.

Time will tell.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I wonder how long before the Tory ads start reminding Ontario about Rae-days and Ignatieff's support for both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  if nothing else it may re-ignite infighting in the Liberals and bleed more votes to the NDP...

 

[GAP]

Williams vendetta has hurt the CPC in getting the provincial PC's to help with their campaign, but I think there will be some backlash as people (as least those I know from the maritimes) resent having anyone, especially government tell them how to vote.

 

[armyvern]

Well, I voted today.

Two weeks ... two more loooonnnggg weeks - and it is done.

Yay!!

 

[HItorMiss]

Conservative Minority...  :-\

I am sure of it...I think the real question is who will be the opposition

 

[Rodahn]

Conservative Minority...  :-\

I am sure of it...I think the real question is who will be the opposition

In these times I think that a minority government of whichever ilk would be in Canada's best interest. Actually if memory serves, a minority government is probably, the best type to have due to the checks and balances inherently inbred in such type of a government, and they do accomplish a good deal for the benefit of the country due said checks and balances.

 

[JBG]

Fixed, thanks.

You are welcome. I know little about Canada and thought I may have missed something.

 

[ModlrMike]

In these times I think that a minority government of whichever ilk would be in Canada's best interest. Actually if memory serves, a minority government is probably, the best type to have due to the checks and balances inherently inbred in such type of a government, and they do accomplish a good deal for the benefit of the country due said checks and balances.

Under normal circumstances, I would agree with this assessment, however as the current minority situation has shown, there is a requirement for the opposition to participate rather than just opposing everything the government proposes. I am dismayed at the potential for a repeat of the current strictly adversarial situation in a new minority parliament. I would much rather see an opposition that took an active part in guiding the government rather than opposing for the sake of opposition.

 

[GAP]

Interesting chart from the Globe & Mail

 

[GAP]

May may have stepped into it again, at least in the blogosphere

Green Party to me : “Shame on you”
Published September 30, 2008 Politics
Article Link

Woe is me.  The Green Party has shamed me.

Here is the situation.  If you read this site or any blogs actually, you might know that I came across pictures of Elizabeth May at an anti-Israel protest.  It was in front of the Israeli consulate and the crowd and speakers were insulting Israel and Jewish groups like the JNF.  You can watch the video, look at the pics.  There’s not a lot of ambiguity when you’re chanting the Hezbollah battle hymn in front of the Israeli consulate.

That battle hymn?

Give me my weapon oh mother, and load the machine gun!

Oh mother pray for me in your night so that I can become a tough Mujahid standing against Israel!

God-willing I will be granted martyrdom in this battlefield so that my path and blood will remain a light!

Standing in front of the Israeli consulate while men chant THAT and wave a flag with a machine gun (!) on it - this is not something Ms. May thinks deserves a cross word or two.  Go figure.

So right, the situation.

I post these pictures, it bounces around the internet, and Warren Kinsella reacts.  He demands that Elizabeth May make a strong statement condemning Hezbollah.  She doesn’t.  She condemns their missiles - but the group and the racists standing 10 feet in front of her, not at all.

So I try to meet her.  That doesn’t work out (my fault entirely) and I decide instead to poll the Green Party to get their views.  Those views range from ‘Zionists = Hezbollah’ to ‘Hezbollah are terrorists’ - though none think it is their duty to fight racism here at home.

This gets the attention of the Green Party media office and the Jewish Tribune - the B’nai Brith’s newspaper.  They contact me to ask a few questions and during that interview, they tell me that the Green Party rep called this blog a “right wing white supremacist” site - and by extension, they called me a “white supremacist”.
More on link

 

[a_majoor]

At least some journalists get it. The rest still scratch their heads and wonder why the blogosphere has grown in power and importance as a news media:

http://www.macleans.ca/columnists/article.jsp?content=20080917_10717_10717&id=8

How journalists get in the way of the election

Politicians learn from their mistakes, sometimes. The media keep repeating theirs.

ANDREW COYNE | September 17, 2008 |

Every election is different. Each has its own rhythm, its peculiar melody, its unpredictable barks and squeaks. But in one respect every election is the same: the press coverage. It's always an embarrassment, and always in exactly the same way. Politicians learn from their mistakes, sometimes. We just go on repeating ours.

We can't help ourselves, it seems. After every election we retire, defeated, to our newsroom post-mortems, and each time we vow: never again. Never again will we sit up and beg for our "Gainsburgers," the little meaningless morsels of news the parties dole out each day to keep us complicit in their charades. Never again will we chase after every fleeting poll, salivate over every minor "gaffe." Never again the gotcha question, the silly photo op, the constant search for "defining moments" and "turning points," the investing of trivial campaign mishaps with symbolic import — as if the great river of events were just naturally teeming with metaphors for us to fish. Why, next time we might not even go on those ridiculous leaders' tours.

And then we go out and do it all over again.

I don't know whether it's learned behaviour, or whether it's instinctive, responding to some deeply recessed part of the journalistic brain. I only know that we — the media: naturally I exempt Maclean's entirely from this critique — are hurting democracy. We aren't just missing an opportunity to help the public make sense of things at a critical time. We're making things worse. We're actually getting in the way.

Consider what has already happened in this campaign — and we're not yet two weeks in. We spent an entire day discussing puffin poop. We discussed, at scarcely less length, Dion's hearing problem, if Harper is a fruit or a vegetable, and whether Elizabeth May once called Canadians "stupid." We've published a poll a day — sometimes two or three — and analyzed each one of them in all seriousness as if it held any significance whatever, beyond the fact that we commissioned it. ("Poll suggests Harper could be headed for majority," the Canadian Press reported last Friday. Whoops! "Majority may elude Conservatives," Reuters reported, the following Monday.)

Put like that, it sounds harmless enough — a lot of fluff, maybe, but all in good fun. But it's when we get serious that we do the most damage: not because we aren't trying, but because we are. These aren't lapses. They're deliberate choices. They betray an attitude, a lens through which we view the news we are supposed to be covering, and our own role in it.

The question most readers, I submit, or certainly most voters would like answered in the course of any campaign is: Who are these people, and what are they going to do to us? Tell us about the candidates who are running for office, their values and character. And tell us what they would do with the power they seek from us, their policies and platforms. If you need to add a little colour to make it entertaining, fine, but don't let that obscure the main point.

What, instead, do we tell them? We tell them who's ahead, over and over and over. And, of course, who's behind. And when we get one or another of the candidates on TV, we ask them why they're behind — over and over and over, apparently in the hope that if we keep at it long enough, we might make them cry. We speculate on whether the ones who are ahead can stay ahead, or whether they have peaked too soon. And whatever space we have left we devote to the strategists.

Read the coverage in any major daily on any given day. Watch the television. It's not about the election — it's about the campaign: who's ahead, the minutiae of the day's staged events and, above all, the strategy and tactics behind it all. Among other ills, this requires us to give over acres of space and time to the deep thoughts of one or another of the many thousands of smirking strategists with which this country is apparently endowed. Understand that these are paid manipulators, people who spend their entire working lives thinking up ways to twist the truth to their clients' advantage. ("Spin," we call it, which is itself an example of it.) This is probably unavoidable, possibly even necessary, but it is certainly nothing to be encouraged, let alone admired. (They are tedious enough on their own. They are lethal in panels of three.)

But here's the thing: in his secret heart of hearts, that's who the journalist wishes he was — one of the players, the guys in the room, and not one of those legions of drudges who must forever stand and wait outside the door. We write about the horse race, the polls and the strategy, not because it matters to our readers, but because it matters to the pros, the people we cover, the people we idolize. We parrot their language, even as we absorb their values: the latest campaign ad is analyzed from any number of angles — Will it work? Is it on-message? — except the most obvious: is it true?

And when we tire of that, we write about ourselves. Consider this lede from a CP story early in the campaign: "The Conservatives are pulling back from an election strategy to set the daily news agenda with crack-of-dawn news conferences each day of the campaign." So far, so meta. But why the retreat? Well, at the first such meeting, we are told, "reporters all but ignored the now-familiar attacks [on Dion] and instead questioned the two candidates on high gas prices, tax policy and purported attempts to muzzle Tory candidates."

Reporting about reporting. Campaigns about campaigns. We are all in mortal peril of disappearing up our own backsides.

 

[Rifleman62]

WRT journalists, and I use that term very lightly, what I have always wondered was what are their qualifications to write their opinions as to what was happening. Have they had the education to do a e.g. estimate  (or a quick estimate for an sound bite/print article {attack})? What life {combat} experiences have they had? To me they are mostly telling fishing {war} stories that get bigger by the second. The are repeaters, as the article states, hanging around for the story (the proverbial Ernest Hemingway bar) instead of digging for it. That's why the hate Harper, cause he won't hand it to them on a silver platter. They sprout THEIR opinion and/or the agenda of the media outlet that employs them. But do we question the repeaters qualifications to express their opinions? If the repeaters were so brilliant, why are they not the Comd of the BG in Afghanistan, the Minister of Health, or even the PM. They hide behind journalist ethics which are as clearly defined as term, Canadian "values". These repeaters are mainly nobodies, who can repeat what they are told, and type on a piece of paper. They do not take the info, analyze, research, confirm/disprove then go back to the source and say BS, that's not true. There are tons of examples out there including shoving back at the Lieliberals what really is a surplus, how the Lieliberals slayed the deficit, Liz May's assertion that Harper has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs. No they just sit there and repeat what they are told. No challenges to the  misinformation. Just repeat it. And, they PROVE this daily. Not all, but nearly all.

Rifleman62 has no intention ever, at this stage of my life, to run for public office, not even municipal dog catcher.

PS If the Bloc has the numbers to become Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, I pray Harper will have the internal fortitude to tell the Bloc to shove it where the sun does not shine, and have the next most popular party become opposition. The Liberals didn't, because they didn't have the guts. Does Harper, or do we have to continue to bow to Quebec.

 

[a_majoor]

Our friend Steven Staples brings up a good point; where do the candidates stand on these issues? As Edward notes, there has been a notable silence about this. (Please note, I give Kudos to Steven for bringing up the issue, I do not agree with his point of view about the issue)

Where do your candidates stand on human rights and the war?
Ask your local candidates automatically.


Dear Ceasefire.ca supporter,

Where are the issues of peace and human rights in this election? They are hard to find.

That’s why I have three pieces of important news to share with you:


Today we have launched a new campaign called Canada Votes 2008. Our goal is to put peace and human rights issues before local candidates in your riding. But this will only work if you are willing to go to Ceasefire.ca and send an email to your local candidates (all pre-programmed for you). Please send your letter to your local candidates right now.

Last week we released a poll that struck to the heart of Stephen Harper’s military build-up. It found that a majority of Canadians are opposed to Harper’s massive, half-trillion-dollar military spending plan over the next twenty years.

You might be interested in my contribution to a new book edited by Teresa Healy called The Harper Record (CCPA, 2008). You can download and read my chapter called “Harper, the military and wedge politics.”

Also, we are improving our website where I keep you informed with my up-to-the-minute Ceasefire.ca blog. It accepts your comments, so I hope to hear from you.


In peace,

Steven Staples
President of the Rideau Institute and
Founder of Ceasefire.ca

 

[George Wallace]

Our friend Steven Staples brings up a good point; where do the candidates stand on these issues? As Edward notes, there has been a notable silence about this. (Please note, I give Kudos to Steven for bringing up the issue, I do not agree with his point of view about the issue)

Are you sure?  It looks more like a plug for his book and website than anything else.

I doubt the world would survive if we were to make the West into the world that Steven Staples dreams about.  It would be much better if he were to go off to the Third World and convert them, bringing them more in line with the West, than the weakening of the West and neutering of the West's defences.  His work here is done for now, time for him to move offshore and convert the really "Bad Guys" out there.

 

[The Bread Guy]

WTF?  Is this going to have any real impact?  Links to Fed Ct files at bottom of story.  Shared with the usual caveats...

Canadian Government Sued Over Oct. 14 Election Date
Joe Schneider, Bloomberg wire service, 1 Oct 08
Article link

Canada's Conservative government was sued by an independent watchdog group for breaking a year-old law fixing the date of federal elections, now scheduled for Oct. 14.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper accused the previous Liberal government of calling elections only when its poll numbers were high. Last year, Harper enacted a law fixing the date of federal elections to the third Monday in October. On Sept. 7, he said a federal election would be held the second Tuesday of this month. A political deadlock in the legislature, where his party is 27 seats short of a majority and needs support from rivals to pass laws, made the election necessary, he said.

``Fixed election dates will improve the fairness of Canada's electoral system,'' Conservative House Leader Rob Nicholson said when he introduced the law. The Conservatives defeated the Liberal Party in 2006.

Democracy Watch, which said it's a non-profit, non-partisan group that advocates government accountability, filed suit today in federal court in Ottawa. A hearing is scheduled for tomorrow on the group's request that a federal judge rule the Sept. 7 dissolution of parliament illegal.

According to most recent opinion polls, the Conservatives are close to winning a majority of the seats in the Oct. 14 vote.

Non-Confidence

``Democracy Watch is filing this case not only to challenge the calling of the current election, but also to win a ruling that will prohibit future prime ministers from calling elections'' without having been forced to by a vote of non- confidence in the legislature, the group said in a statement.

Harper's spokeswoman Deirdra McCracken argued the Oct. 14 date was legal, and that there is a stipulation in the 2007 law that allows dissolution of parliament in cases where rival parties threaten to bring down the government.

Democracy Watch argued that the early election call violates Canada's constitution, which it said includes the right to fair elections, according to Canada's Supreme Court.

``The clear intent of the fixed election date measures was to make elections fair for all political parties,'' Duff Conacher, the group's coordinator, said in a statement.

The case is Between Duff Conacher and the Prime Minister of Canada, Federal Court of Canada (Ottawa). File No. T-1500-08.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Schneider in Toronto at jschneider5@bloomberg.net.



What's happened to date on the file, from the Federal Court of Canada

 

[a_majoor]

I entirely agree with you about the outcome of a Steven Staples (NDP/Green/Communist/Marxist-Leninist) "West"; the point I am getting at is how come the politicians are not talking about this?

Kim Campbell was derided for saying "an election is not the time to discuss issues" and she was probably right in one way (try distilling foreign policy into a 30 second sound bite. Now do it in 8 seconds....). The problem is there never seems to be a time when anyone wants to discuss the issues. The MSM is the worst bunch of offenders; they could ask real questions and do real research to hold the political class' feet to the fire, but they have morphed into "Progressive" cheerleaders and the main conduit for predigested news releases.

The fact that a person like Steven Staples is trying to spark/influence/sway the debate is somewhat alarming; in a mature democracy there should be groups representing other points of view, and political parties and politicians willing to address these issues and debate the various ideas. Canadian people seem stuck on one point of view, which makes conducting foreign policy difficult; look how hard it was to keep a consensus on Canada's participation in the Afghanistan mission, and how easily it seems to have been shaken off in this election cycle. A robust discussion (at any time) on why we are there, what we hope to achieve and what the victory conditions are would have been much more illuminating, and perhaps a better policy would have emerged as well.

 

[GAP]

The French Debate

Harper held his own, but it must have been a bitch having 4 other people coming at you from all sides..

Best description I have heard so far, is Quebecers now have a choice....Mr Harper or.......those others over there....

 

[a_majoor]

An analysis on what went wrong for the Liberal Party (note, the author is thinking of long term structural issues, not Stephan Dion)

http://westernstandard.blogs.com/shotgun/2008/10/i-for-one-will.html

True Patriots

I for one will be sad to see the Liberal Party go.  Oh I know... those of you who remember my more partisan days will recollect my old and now defunct Brock: On The Attack blog, where I never showed a smidgeon of mercy for the Grits.

It's a Canadian political cliché now, but it's a cliché that couldn't be more true: the Liberals, during their eleven year reign under Jean Chrétien, started thinking of themselves as a natural extension of Canada, the nation, itself; a codependent relationship.

Even now, in the minds of Liberal Party partisans, Canada is the birthright of the Liberal Party.  After all, they made Canada what it is today.  At least that's what they tell themselves.

That's what they told and convinced many Canadians: Canada as a nation, for all intents and purposes, came into existence as a country in the 1970's.  History prior to the Trudueamania is boilerplate.  Sure it's important as far as posterity goes, but nowhere as important as the nation they shaped in their own image.

They redefined Canada as a country of multiculturalism, peacekeeping and compassion.  With the arsenal of Trudeau's charisma, we were re-educated with the understanding that these three pillars represent what it means to be Canadian.  This also had the fortunate side-effect of making the Liberal Party, the political institution that effectively represented these three pillars and anybody who critiqued the holiness of peacekeeping or multiculturalism was either un-Canadian or racist. In fact, this would become the primary political tact the Liberals would use against conservative forces in Canada, starting with Chrétien all the way up to today.

While holding the Canadian flag close to their chests, they sought to characterize conservatives as being "more American" or seeking to rob Canada of its Canadianism and replace it with Americanism.  For a while, it worked.

All the while, as Liberals assailed American-style politics and pigeonholed conservatives in that light, it may be the greatest irony in all this that American-style politics were exactly the game the Liberal Party was playing.

To me, the greatest American-style political attack ads ever thrust on Canada–setting the stage for the very dirty politics that Liberal's openly associated with conservatives–were unleashed by Paul Martin's Liberal Party in the 2004 and 2006 elections.

The ads had a clear, underlying message: Stephen Harper wanted to destroy Canada, wanted to intimidate the hapless Canadian masses with military in the streets, and turn Canada into a fascist right-wing state.  And once again, for a while, it worked.

Like American Republicans, the Liberal Party leaned on patriotism as the backbone of gaining voter support; if you look up at the Canadian flag, and a tear comes to your eye... you know who you have to vote for.  At the same time the Liberal Party was complaining about the "divisiveness" that Stephen Harper's new Conservative Party was promulgating in Canadian politics.  But divisiveness was at the root of Liberal Party political thought; if you are a proud Canadian then you're a Liberal voter, if you're an American sellout you're a Conservative voter, and if you're a left-wing nutjob you're an NDP supporter.  This was how Liberals chose to frame the political landscape.  This was the house of cards the Liberal Party built for themselves.

They say that you should never put all your eggs in one basket, yet that is exactly what the Liberal Party did.  They banked on Canadian patriotism, and viewed themselves as the heir to the mantle of that patriotism.  It never occurred to the Liberal Party the risk this would have long term. It never occurred to them, that Canadians might risk the thought that maybe, just maybe, the NDP and Conservatives were just as Canadian as them, that they yearned for Canadian greatness and took pride in styling themselves a citizen of the Great White North.

The sponsorship scandal would be the wind that would come to blow down the house of cards. It made Canadians feel like they had been taken advantage of.  It made Canadians realize for the first time that Canadian patriotism and the Liberal Party were not tied at the hip.  In fact, it made Canadians think for the first time, how unpatriotic it would be to allow an institution like the Liberal Party to continue to govern with impunity.

Yet the Liberals would only come to view their extradition from the halls of power as a temporary excursion.

Feeling wounded by the defeat of the Martin government, the Liberals still smiled to themselves as they knew in their hearts that Canadians still understood that being Canadian meant voting Liberal.  They knew that next time around, Canadians would come to their senses and come home to their natural choice.

The arrogance of this mentality allowed the Liberal Party to embrace one of the most radical policy planks in recent history: the Green Shift.  In words of many Liberal Party partisans this election, it was really only the "Liberal brand" that was needed to win anyways, because they knew that Canadian patriotism would return home.  Except it didn't.

Canadian patriotism found it's home.  It found it's home high above the pettiness of party politics.  It found it's home in people's hearts. It found it's home in the achievement that is Canada.  The patriot heart is the heart that spoke up and proudly said to the world: these are my thoughts, this is my voice, and this is my vote.

Posted by Mike Brock on October 1, 2008 | Permalink

 

[a_majoor]

And a real laugh riot:

http://marginalizedactiondinosaur.net/?p=5413

 

[retiredgrunt45]

History dictates that majority governments have a bad habit of derailing after a very short period of time. After 13 years of a liberal majority government, we got what? (0) I'm all for a minority. I'm not about to make the same mistake twice.

I agree that we need a steady hand at the tiller in these uncertain times, but we also need the parties to work together to weather the storm and a minority government is our best bet. With a majority your placing all your eggs in one basket and hoping none will get broken on the way to the market and we all know how many eggs didn't make it the last time around.

I threw away my rose coloured glasses a long time ago.