Canadian politics

Politics and religion
101

I suspect Charles may be right and the next election will probably see another minority government (our fourth in a row, woo).

In that scenario, with the numbers roughly the same as now, what would happen to the various party leaders?

Even after failing three times to secure a majority, I don’t see Harper being challenged for the leadership and he’d quash any efforts to unseat him quickly. Layton will probably be safe because of the powers granted to him through his mystical porn 'stache but also because the NDP will likely do about the same as usual. I don’t see a precipitous drop in their support. Duceppe will remain popular and untouched. The biggest potential change is on the Liberal side, since they’ve struggled to find a leader to both hold the party together and win over the voters since Chretien stepped down.

I think the Liberals will pick up seats in the next election and that might be enough to stave off calls for Ignatieff’s head, but a lot of party insiders will bristle at the thought of yet another election lost to a party that can’t even mount a majority win. If Ignatieff cuts and runs or gets booted, I’m not sure who would run for the Liberal leadership. Bob Rae might (again) and it’s possible the taint of his years as Ontario’s NDP premier may have faded enough to make him viable but that’s a big if. And who else is there? Some might even try to convince Chretien to return “temporarily” if the poll numbers support it.

102

Since when do pockets represent a majority?

103

Must you taunt me with my impossible dreams?

104

You’re characterizing small town Alberta as a fetid swamp of ignorant, hillbilly "mah gunz!’ ideals and that’s just not the case.

These pockets easily outnumber the amount of people who fit the conservative “mah gunz!” stereotype.

105

How about we dig up Pierre Trudeau and reanimate his corpse?

106

And this point that might be the sanest option! That or talking Rick Mercer into taking the job. Hell, I want him as the GG so he can go smack people around and remind them the rules of the job. This way he still gets to do all his fun cultural stuff, too.

107

Fuck it, if you’ll have me I’ll gladly run for the Liberal leadership.

I have no qualifications, but that shouldn’t hurt.

108

I vote for CSL!

109

The same CSL who partially attributes the conservative nature of Alberta to the fact that many Albertans have an American-born great grandfather? I might vote Harper.

110

I vote for THAT GUY!

111

Okay, I’m changing my vote to Kodos.

112

It looks like the federal Liberal Party finally grew a spine and are fighting back against Harper’s government.

The Opposition party released two English-language ads and one French-language ad on the internet Sunday and will be running them in newspapers and on television and radio Monday.

One of the ads says Harper’s announcement on Dec. 30 that the Governor General had agreed to suspend Parliament was “his holiday gift to himself.”

The ad says the prime minister went ahead with prorogation to avoid answering questions about climate change, unemployment and reports alleging the abuse of Afghan detainees.

Another ad features a Tory-blue sign that features Harper’s signature and says, Parliament Hill: Closed out of self-interest.

The ad alleges the prime minister tried to “sneak a fast one by you” while you “weren’t paying attention.”

“What’s Stephen Harper trying to hide? What’s his real agenda?”

113

Ugh. While this whole thing is a mess and I hate that this happened, I still despise attack ads. They don’t make anything better.

114

You can thank Harper for starting the American style attack ads. Not a single “Please” or “Thank you” in those ads. How un-Canadian!

115

Attack ads pre-date Harper. Do you not remember Kim Campbell’s infamous ad attacking Chretien in the 1993 election?

I didn’t follow politics before then, but I’m sure attack ads in Canadian politics have existed since Confederation.

116

I love that the Liberals are returning to the strategy of embarrassing and nonsensical attack ads - they look as utterly retarded as these ads did in 2006:

117

They’re basically the Green Party/Ralph Nader party in Canada - the only thing that stops the Liberals from winning every election handily.

118

Sure there were attack ads during elections in the past but Harper kept up the attack ads in between elections (which is every one to two years despite his law of fixed election dates).

119

Attack ads can certainly work, but they often seem to to backfire because they generally heavily rely upon exaggerations, hyperbole and demogoguery. Taking quotes out of context, or making a mountain out of off the cuff moments or taking extremist views of policies.

Nobody with a functional brain believed that the Conservatives were going to have the military “occupy our cities” as the Liberals argued, or that the Conservatives were attacking abortion rights or health care (if anything, every Canadian political party positions itself as the champion of healthcare).

Similarly, the Liberals aren’t going to get any mileage out of attacking the Conservatives for proroguing Parliament when their own party used to routinely do the same thing under Chretian. The Canadian system is routinely manipulated by the party in power (by not having fixed election dates so that elections are held when it’s the most politically advantageous for the governing party, etc.).

If any traction comes of these proroguing ads, it’ll solely be because the Liberals have been able to take advantage of the fact that the average person is so ignorant of Canadian history and its political system that they can be tricked into thinking some malfeasance has occurred (half the people polled in that poll that Charles linked to didn’t even know, or weren’t sure, that proroguing had occurred – probably more had never even heard of the term “prorogue” until it was defined for them).

I mean, that poll asked a ridiculously biased question (actually a statement): “The elected house of Parliament is the proper place to conduct the business of the nation, and suspending Parliament is antidemocratic” - and still 40% of the population didn’t agree with that layup. How the hell does the second clause even relate to the first? The statement takes an initial premise that nobody could possibly disagree with and then tacks on an unrelated but seemingly equally obvious statement as if they were connected, and implies that any “suspension” of parliament is antidemocratic -the average Canadian probably has no idea when Parliament is in session, let alone whether or not those periods are for fixed durations, at irrevocably fixed dates, or the reasons for which those dates can be changed - but nobody wants to be thought of as anti-democratic. Yet 40% still said no, or maybe they saw through such a facile poll.

An analogous poll: “Agree or disagree: Stealing money from the public purse and giving it as political bribes isn’t the proper use of your money, and the use of such funds by the Liberals during the Sponsorship scandal was anti-democratic”

I wonder what the results would be to a truly unbiased poll: "The Liberal Party suspended Parliament four times during its most recent Government. The Conservative Party has suspended Parliament twice during its most recent Government. Do you believe either party is anti-democratic, and if so, which one?

120

The Liberals prorogued Parliament four times from 1993 to 2003. Harper’s Conservative government prorogued Parliament three times from 2006 to 2009.

I have no love for any of the political parties. I didn’t like Chretien when he had a majority government because he would force his backbenchers to vote his way or else.

I’m more upset about the opposition party being ineffective in keeping the minority government in line. The one time they had the balls to form a coalition government (which is perfectly legal despite the propaganda) Harper disbanded Parliament. As much as I don’t like Harper or Chretien they are/were effective politicians (but not necessarily good leaders).