Campaign 2008: Canadian Version

[Lord of The Curry 0]

The Tories radio ads saying that Dion wants power by 'taking it through the back door' got a good chuckle out of me.

[cbacon 0]

The Prime Minister is the member who commands the most support in the House of Commons. That's Stephane Dion now. I applaud the opposition parties and hope this coalition works.

 

DID YOU KNOW: The government of Sweden is a coalition of centrist and right-wing parties that is led by the Moderate Party with 97 seats - even though the Social Democratic Party has the most seats in the riksdag (130 seats). Undemocratic, or normal coalition government?

[LaParkaMarka 0]

Israel is ruled by a coalition too. So is Italy. Switzerland. Austria. Germany. Norway. There are probably many more.

[ZGangsta 0]

DID YOU KNOW: The government of Sweden is a coalition of centrist and right-wing parties that is led by the Moderate Party with 97 seats - even though the Social Democratic Party has the most seats in the riksdag (130 seats). Undemocratic, or normal coalition government?

High treason that should be punishable by jailing. That's what plenty of conservatives here in Canada are saying right now.

Of course it's perfectly democratic, and part of the system of government that we have.

[... 0]

I still have the funny feeling this is an elaborate way for Stephen Harper to step down as leader and take a few of the opposition with him. Something about the whole thing just screams "nobody could be that stupid."

 

Albertans have a yearning for fascism in all but name. The sooner we come to grips with that the better.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

I still have the funny feeling this is an elaborate way for Stephen Harper to step down as leader and take a few of the opposition with him.

It's more like "take his party down with him." Harper would come so close to meeting the goalposts in Quebec and then falling too short because he didn't have the patience to do something like cut culture budgets after an election instead of before. Now he can't control himself and he's undoing years of careful work.

 

His rhetoric of "SEPARATIST SEPARATIST if you vote for the Bloc you are a SEPARATIST" had made sure that the Conservatives won't win a seat in Quebec for a very long time. Those 10 MPs they have there might as well pack their bags and leave them by the door until they're asked to go.

 

He needs to go have a coffee break with Sarah Palin and they can whine together about how their opponents are all nation traitors.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

I still have the funny feeling this is an elaborate way for Stephen Harper to step down as leader and take a few of the opposition with him.

It's more like "take his party down with him." Harper would come so close to meeting the goalposts in Quebec and then falling too short because he didn't have the patience to do something like cut culture budgets after an election instead of before. Now he can't control himself and he's undoing years of careful work.

 

His rhetoric of "SEPARATIST SEPARATIST if you vote for the Bloc you are a SEPARATIST" had made sure that the Conservatives won't win a seat in Quebec for a very long time. Those 10 MPs they have there might as well pack their bags and leave them by the door until they're asked to go.

 

He needs to go have a coffee break with Sarah Palin and they can whine together about how their opponents are all nation traitors.

 

I am hoping that in the near future we get to see a video on the news of a Quebec flag being burned in Alberta somewhere, just to really drive the last nails into the CPC's coffin in Quebec.

[CanadianChris 0]

So did anyone watch the big statements by Harper and Dion? Dion's statement was a farce; the tape was delivered to the major news organizations way late and didn't get aired in the half-hour window the networks had allotted, and the video quality was just slightly batter than a typical bin Laden announcement.

 

Oh, and Dion had a big book called Hot Air on the bookshelf behind him.

[Red Baron 0]

You know, I would have no problem if Harper took Canada into a dictatorship and refuse to sell oil/water to the rest of the world except for China.

 

 

Somewhere out there, Peter Lougheed wants to bitch slap Harper right now.

[... 0]

It's easy and fun to rag on the Creepy Sweater-Vest, but this blogger raises a very good point.

 

Somewhere out there, Peter Lougheed wants to bitch slap Harper right now.

 

Hell, I bet Preston Manning and Deborah Grey not kneeing him in the groin is a constant struggle.

[Red Baron 0]

I just hope that if they do go into another election again and Harper still gets a minortiy, Peter MacKay needs to leave the party. He's the only person I actually like in the party.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

the video quality was just slightly batter than a typical bin Laden announcement.

 

Oh, and Dion had a big book called Hot Air on the bookshelf behind him.

So the picture quality was terrible but you could read the book titles in the background?

 

Dion may have said nothing, but you can't actually say Harper did any good with his scorched earth whipping on anyone who has ever voted for the Bloc. He could have, you know, done the POPULAR thing and hammered on Dion, instead of resorting to Canada's answer to McCarthyism.

 

In spite of NDP running ads that made Harper look like a Nazi, Conservatives placed themselves as a #2 in places not called Montreal around the province. That was what Harper had long building toward, and he just needed to expand it over successive elections, and in the past 48 hours he's imploded the whole damn thing.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Michaele Jean has suspended parliment until the new year so Harp is still leader for now.

[Red Baron 0]

Michaele Jean has suspended parliment until the new year so Harp is still leader for now.

 

Smart move.

[CanadianChris 0]

Coward.

[ZGangsta 0]

The hilarity of the recent past is that Harper has NO chance of getting a majority government in another election since the Conservative party will never make inroads in Quebec now with him at the helm.

[dubq 0]

What exactly are you suggesting be changed? It's not like we're going to suddenly stop being a parliamentary democracy.

 

I thought I was being pretty specific.. this ability to combine your parties to form one big alliance to take over and claim you have the majority. The coalition is made up of 3 parties that have 54.4% of the vote. That's 26.2% for the Liberals, 18.2% for the NDP and 10% for the Bloc.

[CanadianChris 0]

What exactly are you suggesting be changed? It's not like we're going to suddenly stop being a parliamentary democracy.

 

I thought I was being pretty specific.. this ability to combine your parties to form one big alliance to take over and claim you have the majority.

Well, that's what I was getting at. If this were to happen, we're no longer a parliamentary democracy. A party or group of parties has to prove they are able to govern before the monarch (or monarch's representative, in this case) will install them as the government. In the case of a majority, that's not a problem, but in a minority situation, the current situation can easily happen (see the Sweden example above). Everyone just presupposes that whoever gets the most seats will automatically form the government, when in fact that has never been the case.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Even if I had voted Liberal I would still disapprove of this idea. Why the hell would I want my vote counting toward the Bloc or the NDP getting any say in the leadership of this country?

Because you don't vote the Liberal party, you vote for an MP, and any MP regardless of party will have some "say in the leadership of this country" just by being able to speak and vote yes/no.

 

Likewise, nobody who lives outside of Calgary West voted for Stephen Harper, either.

 

I also have to wonder out loud, on a bit of a tangent, if we'd even be in the situation of a minority government (doesn't matter who) if we'd had more than the extra pathetic voter turn out of 59%.

Depends on how the ridings are set up. I don't know how they're set up in Canada, but you have systems like California's legislature until just now where the ridings are cut up so carefully along socio-economic strata that no matter how many people vote the same person will win.

[cbacon 0]

I think the election-style campaign we're about to see is pretty fucking stupid. If the coalition can remain focused and just last six weeks they'll take power in January. But it's going to be a bumpy ride.

 

If the Governor General dissolves parliament after having been advised that an alternative government-in-waiting has the support of the House, whether it's three months after an election or three years afterwards, I think that's highly improper. Jean is already going to be burned in effigy for what she's done and rightly so. Don't think she wants to be crucified as well

 

But get ready for every redneck retard in the country to act like they're accomplishing something by complaining real loud about the end of democracy and separatists and blah blah blah

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Goddamn this is some entertaining shit. On Wednesday every headline was "Harper Is Done", then Jean prorogues Parliment and now the headlines are "Harper Avoids the Axe" and "Will the Coallition Survive?".

 

Answer: Methinks not. Support for the Tories is at an all-time high with over 60% of Canadians polled being behind them and 75% polled saying that they'd rather hold a new election then support the Bloc/Liberal/NDP alliance. Polls also show that were an election to take place the result would be a Conservative majority.

[CanadianChris 0]

Answer: Methinks not. Support for the Tories is at an all-time high with over 60% of Canadians polled being behind them and 75% polled saying that they'd rather hold a new election then support the Bloc/Liberal/NDP alliance. Polls also show that were an election to take place the result would be a Conservative majority.

I have faith that Harper would blow a third straight election campaign, though.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

I dunno. It's certainly possible but, as weird as it is to say it, if he survives this he'll come out more popular then before whereas the NDP, Bloc but mostly the Liberals are going to looks like jackasses.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Answer: Methinks not. Support for the Tories is at an all-time high with over 60% of Canadians polled being behind them

What?!?

 

CBC: 45%

CTV: 44%

Global: 46%

[Lord of The Curry 0]

National Post front page today says 60%.

[Red Baron 0]

National Post front page today says 60%.

 

Now thats a reliable source

[... 0]

I've been considering writing to my MP (Prentice, he who is trying to smother DIGITAL PIRATE THIEF SCUM) and asking him to get rid of Harper and tell Tom Flanagan (the U of C prof who is the Canadian equivalent of Paul Wolfowitz) to fuck off. Basically, all the high-ranking Tories MPs have declared that there is universal support for Stephen Harper in caucas. If you go to a restaurant and the food arrives overcooked, the service is fast but rude, and you're not getting value for your dollar, and you keep going back there it doesn't make you a loyal customer; it makes you a dumb consumer. All this endless appealing to the base of the party makes him seem really insecure and needy.

[Red Baron 0]

Fuck Rob Nicholson though. What a smug bastard that hates to be anywhere. Every event that he's been to in the Niagara Region he takes the photo opportunity and leaves.

[CanadianChris 0]

Michael Ignatieff will be the Liberal leader by the end of the year. Bob Rae has bowed out of the race.

[Red Baron 0]

He wont get the Quebece vote, but he'll get a lot of votes back in from Ontario. Still he wont bring the Liberals to have government but this just thwarts a dagger into Stephen Harper's plan to have a majority government.