Well ladies and gents, it's pretty much official. Election time

[Very_Boring_Name]

NDP announced they will oppose the budget.

[TheCanadianLiberal]

1. Yep and...

Mr. Harper will get either a majority this time of a very large minority.

I don't want to vote for any of them personally, I don't think any of them are fit.

[Bragi]

2. I honestly don't think so...

I think Harper may, at best for him, come back with a minority, but if so, he will be defeated in the House, and we'll get a Lib-NDP government of some sort.

I'm fine with that outcome. Job #1 here is getting rid of Harper, so I would encourage people to vote for whichever non-conservative candidate is strongest in their riding.

I'm in an NDP riding, so I will vote NDP, but if I was in a Lib riding, or one where they come 2nd, I would definitely vote for the Liberal.

In ridings where the NDP and Libs are slugging it out, I only hope that vote-splitting won't result in conservative victories. For me, I would vote for whichever non-con candidate won last time.

[CHIMO]

3. And

For information on the 2008 data: http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/results.html

Don't know about the site, but it came up in a google search.

[laundry_queen]

4. Thanks for that!

I'm in a new riding this time and it seems like it's same as my old one. More Con votes than all the others put together. :thumbsdown:

[icnorth]

15. Agreed. n/t

[glinda]

6. I am in the US. I don't understand how he can "come back" if he has been shown a vote of no

confidence with the particular charges or reason attached.
If I may say so, CA. must get it together to vote "together" as much as possible this time for a progressive majority of some sort or at least as close as possible. Am concerned as that is how Harper got in the first time isn't it? CA. must save itself from what America has become.

[Ken Burch]

5. I really, really REALLY hope the NDP and the Bloc do well

Clearly, the Liberals have already pissed their chances away with their refusal to be open to a coalition(given that a coalition was the only chance they were ever going to have to end up in power after this election).

Harper needs to go, and the Liberals need to be punished for partnering with him over and over, and for having a leader who endorsed torture and the Iraq War as an academic.

[Metric System]

7. I for one am tired of this kind of circular firing squad on the left.

[Ken Burch]

8. If you don't want THAT, tell the Liberal Party to STOP demanding

that all of "the Left" vote "strategically" for them, while getting nothing in return. A lot of left-wing people DID vote Liberal in 1993, and got miserable austerity budgets that were indistinguishable from what the Tories would have brought in in exchange for their troubles.

The Liberals, if they want people to their left to vote for them, have an obligation to actually offer policies THOSE voters would like.

[Very_Boring_Name]

9. I'm willing to cut them some slack

1993 was a horrible time economically, many tough decisions had to be made. Also, nobody is suggesting that "all of the left" vote strategically for the Liberals. In ridings where it comes down to NDP vs Conservative, I'm all for Liberal members voting NDP/bloc. But the vast majority of the time it seems like it's the NDP siphoning votes off the Liberals in ridings where the conservatives end up taking it by 2 or 3 percent.

[Ken Burch]

11. Would you agree that, in exchange for that

the Liberals should be REQUIRED to introduce, in their first year in office, legislation to switch from the anti-democratic "first-past-the-post" system to some form of proportional representation?

And also that the Liberals agree not to introduce any further austerity measures?

If you want tactical voting, tactical voters should have the right to expect SOMETHING in exchange for their votes. It would be worthless to defeat the Tories if they were replaced by a Liberal majority that once again did as Chretien did in '93. That isn't change at all.

[icnorth]

16. If you want to see change just give

Harper the majority he wants and in five years we'll have a Country no one will recognize. I don't give a damn if we're forced to end up with another minority Tory government as long as this closet fascist isn't given dictatorial control. I hope voters can scrape up enough interest to turn off American Idol long enough to discover what Mini Me has on his agenda. If they do it should scare the s&!t out of them. :mad:

[Ken Burch]

17. I agree with you on all that.

Harper has to be stopped.

But stopping him requires equal cooperation from all opposition parties...and that would mean expecting the Liberals to make as many concessions to the NDP and the Bloc as the NDP and the Bloc are expected to make to the Liberals(it's going to be hard, though, to get the Bloc to work THAT closely with the Liberals, given that, in essence, those two parties are on opposite sides of the national unity question).

You'd have to get, for example, an agreement from the Liberals not to try to defeat any NDP or Bloc incumbents(with reciprocal agreements from those parties regarding Liberal incumbents.

And you might even need a common program of some sort(with the Liberals giving up, once and for all, on the Nineties neoliberal "free trade" model and on austerity economics).

Not sure that's achievable.

[iverglas]

13. I think you need to back up that assertion

it seems like it's the NDP siphoning votes off the Liberals in ridings where the conservatives end up taking it by 2 or 3 percent.

with some facts. And also fact showing the reverse is not (equally) true.

Otherwise, it just looks like a Liberal Party talking point.

[susanr516]

10. I'm a totally ignorant Texan

I know next to nothing about elections in Canada. Could someone in this forum explain how this works and which are the major parties there? I'll be away from the computer for most of the afternoon, but I'm truly interested.

[Ken Burch]

12. Here's a brief rundown

Conservative Party:the current(minority)government. created by a merger of the old slightly right-of-center Progressive Conservative Party and the wackjob hard right Reform Party. They love war and tax cuts and hate gays. Leader: Stephen Harper(the current prime minister). A lot of former Progressive Conservatives have nothing to do with this party-in fact, in a recent election, Joe Clark, a former Progressive Conservative prime minister, actually campaigned against them and endorsed the Liberal Party.

Liberal Party: once slightly center-left, now slightly center-right(more or less in the space once occupied by the old Progressive Conservatives. The official Opposition(the second-largest party)but on a long-term path of decline that probably won't be reversed in this election. leader: Michael Ignatieff, a long-time expatriate and former Harvard professor.

Bloc Quebecois: the federal(Canadian Parliament)wing of the separatist-sovereigntist movement in Quebec. Wants, ultimately, either an independent Quebec or a radically revised relationship between Quebec and the rest of The Artist Currently Known As Canada. Has both social democratic and right-wing elements among its supporters. It's leader, Gilles Duceppe, was once a member of the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada(the Maoist wing of Canadian Communism)and his dad helped found the New Democratic Party.

New Democratic Party: the most left-of-center of Canada's federalist parties. third place in the popular vote but fourth place in seats due to the concentrated support of the Bloc in once province(for obvious reasons). Descended from the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, a socialist-populist party built by, among others, Tommy Douglas(also known as "Kiefer Sutherland's grandfather"). When the Liberals were in a minority in the early 1970's and needed NDP parliamentary support to stay if power, the NDP got them to institute Canada's single-payer healthcare system. Current leader: Jack Layton, son of a former federal Progressive Conservative cabinet minister.

There's also a Green Party, but they have no seats and probably won't win won this time(the only riding, or constituency, where they even have a chance is Saanich-Gulf Islands, the southern-most riding in British Columbia if i'm not mistaken, where there leader, Elizabeth May, is the candidate.

[susanr516]

18. Thanks for the explanation

I'm assuming that a riding is like a congressional district in the US?

[iverglas]

14. watch the politicalcompass space

I imagine they'll be updating their Canada section soon.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008



for comparative purposes:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2008

[susanr516]

19. Thanks, the graphics make it easier to understand nt