Stephen Harper, Canadian Prime Minister?

[tuvor]

Dear God, no.

Canada's minority Liberal government is heading for defeat at the hands of the Conservatives after more than 11 years in power, according to a new poll released on Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050411/wl_canada_nm/canada_politics_col_31

[Logiola]

1. it makes me very sad..

[Wat_Tyler]

2. Well, it looks as though it is the most likely outcome for now.

Still - this is a very fluid situation.
Look at it this way - unless he beats the astronomical odds and gets a majority, he won't be able to get away with much - if he does try and push the neo-con line, he'll be crushed.

[applegrove]

3. We have to get Harper to denounce Bush & the WH tactics. If he

refuses to answer that question.. he will not get votes. And he will refuse to answer that question.

From the first day of that election... he will be dogged.

Canadians have had a few more years to watch Bush. I say Martin will get a majority.

[AX10]

20. How do we put Harper in the corner?

Also, how confident are you of a Liberal Majority?

[Lautremont]

4. Bite your tongue!

We shall see if Martin can distance himself from the sponsorship thing well enough.

Here's what I don't understand:

It's been obvious for years that something like this would come up with the Liberals. You can't be that all-powerful for that long without some backstage shenanigans. The NDP, to whom this should have been obvious, has had years to prepare themselves for it, and to set themselves up as the next party in power. But they haven't as far as I can tell. People are more creeped out by Harper every day, but who are they going to vote for if sufficiently disenchanted with the Liberals? The White Boogeyman.

I sigh for the future.

[ninty]

5. Poll

POlls don't really mean anything. I mean, half the country votes, so you can throw out half of the opinions from the poll right there. And the timing of the poll is outrageous. People are angry right now. Take the poll again in a few months. They'll be a huge difference. Since were not having an election at this very moment, the poll doesn't really mean much.

If an election were to take place today, I'd probably say a Liberal minority would be most likley.

[Spazito]

6. They had the same headlines before the previous election

and were wrong and will be wrong again. Canadians turned down the Cons after the Sponsorship scandal broke and are not going to turn to them now. 85% of Canadians, in the same poll used in these articles, have said they do not want an election now -65% until after the Gomery Commission has completed it work and 21 % don't think there should be another election at all based on the scandal. Woe to the party or parties that force one on us, the backlash will not be on the Liberals.

[Mother Jones]

7. I am SO worried about this!

How could any Canadian in their right mind, who voted either liberal or NDP, even CONSIDER voting conservative?!

I can see how some would be pissed off about the scandal, hey, we all are, but to automatically switch from liberal to conservative? WTF are they thinking?

Not to mention Martin hasn't even been found guilty of anything.

If you voted Liberal or NDP, doesn't that mean you oppose what the conservatives stand for? Why would someone throw out those values just like that?

If ANYTHING, why aren't the polls showing NDP gains? Harpey is hardly a viable alternative! Were my expectations of Jack too high?

[sonicx]

8. Here's the latest Ipsos poll. Liberals are down, but Cons are stuck at 30

Greens - 7, NPD - 19, Bloc - 12.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1113252718119_108661918/?hub=TopStories

The only poll so far that doesn't have the Cons at 30 is the Ekos poll.

[iverglas]

10. that's the question

If ANYTHING, why aren't the polls showing NDP gains? Harpey is hardly a viable alternative!

What does it tell us about Liberal voters -- that they would switch their votes to the Harper Conservatives?

What it tells me, unfortunately, is that they're stupid and feckless.

And it doesn't say much that's good about that vaunted "middle of the road" Canadian -- tolerant, diversity-valuing, socially-responsible (and on average Liberal-voting) and all that as we like to think s/he is.

I do think there's a fair bit of just plain stupidity at work though. Let's all cut off our noses to spite our faces; there's no other way of characterizing an individual's switch from a Liberal to a Conservative vote, where s/he doesn't actually buy into the Harper agenda.

The BC-ification of the nation, perhaps? Throw the bastards out ...

[Mother Jones]

13. You and I have had our differences on this contentious issue before...

but I think you're right on the money this time.

My husband heard something on cbc radio where a 'fairweather liberal' was saying she would vote for the conservatives if there is an election. After much digging, the pollster finally ascertained this voter was switching out of spite, NOT because she believed in Harpey's platform.
In the end, he had to explain to her that she would only be hurting herself (and Canada) by doing this.

I know you're an NDP supporter, so I'd like to know what you think about the statement someone made regarding distrusting the NDP thanks to Bob Rae. I wasn't of age to know what exactly transpired during that time.

Lastly, and to all, do you think Iraq will be an issue? Poland is pulling out, Italy is planning their retreat, Britain is up in the air until their election is over. Do you think this will be the one issue to prove Harpey isn't the man for us?

Or do you all think the healthcare privitization is the Big One?

[iverglas]

17. bits and pieces

I know you're an NDP supporter, so I'd like to know what you think about the statement someone made regarding distrusting the NDP thanks to Bob Rae.

We can almost pretend we're as much fun as BC here. ;)

I disliked Bob Rae intensely, as a person. Hey, didya know that he now sits on the board of Magna? You know ... Stronach ... Belinda ... union-busting ...

http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/politics/article.jsp?content=20050418_103683_103683

Magna's board currently includes former Ontario Tory premier Mike Harris, and Ed Lumley, who served as minister of industry in Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government of the early 1980s. Another former Liberal cabinet minister, Doug Young, and Liberal Dennis Mills, who served as parliamentary secretary to the minister of industry, are directors of another of Stronach's companies, MI Developments. Last year, Brian Tobin, the flamboyant former federal fisheries minister and ex-premier of Newfoundland, had a brief stint as chief executive officer of MI. Tobin resigned after six months from Stronach's corporate empire -- taking with him a package of some $2.3 million -- around the time that long-serving board member and former Tory Ontario premier Bill Davis also stepped down.

It's not just Canadian politicians who have found their way into the Stronach family business. Franz Vranitzky was chancellor of Austria from 1986 to 1997, when he joined Magna's board. This year, Stronach named former U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci to an executive position with Magna Entertainment. Magna also has a global advisory board, which features such luminaries as former prime minister Brian Mulroney and Mexico's past president Ernesto Zedillo.

All sorts of truisms do come to mind.

Politics makes strange bedfellows. ... You're known by the company you keep. ... If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. ...

One could say some of the same things about parties and their leaders. I belong to, and have been a candidate for, the NDP. Do I have fleas too?

I prefer to think that Rae benefits as much from his association with moi as I lose from my association with him. ;) A party is a collection of individuals, and factions. Any party. If the party lets a bad individual or faction get the upper hand, yes, that's not good. But it's not permanent, either.

And I'll still take Bob Rae / the right wing of the NDP over, oh, Mike Harris, any day. And Dalton McGuinty too.

Apart from my personal dislike of Rae, the fact that the outgoing Liberal government lied shamelessly and grossly about the province's fiscal situation means that Rae had little choice but to do some things that nobody would like, and that even he might not have liked doing -- and it's brazen in the extreme to blame him for the fact that *something* unpleasant had to be done. Things he actually did were probably not the wisest things, in political terms. But in government terms? What he did caused his supporters to have conniptions; but a lot of what he did should have warmed the cockles of the rightest-wing hearts. Imposing cost-cutting measures on the public sector unions? What more could a Harris Tory have asked for?

It's the utter hypocracy of right-wing criticism of Rae that makes it weightless.


Lastly, and to all, do you think Iraq will be an issue? Poland is pulling out, Italy is planning their retreat, Britain is up in the air until their election is over. Do you think this will be the one issue to prove Harpey isn't the man for us?

I'm beginning to feel like the oracle. ;) My humble and not specially informed opinion is that it's a bit of a non-issue. Harper wouldn't likely make it an issue (just like I don't think he'd make same-sex marriage an issue, and just like he didn't make the firearms registry an issue last time around), because there are no votes to be gained by it, and no votes to be lost by it if he shuts up about it and people don't bother going to the memory bank about it.


Or do you all think the healthcare privitization is the Big One?

Ah -- you aren't asking just me ;) I missed it up there the first time around.

I don't think there is a Big One, that's the thing. The Big One would have to be what the election gets called over, and that would be ... the sponsorship scandal? It would presumably have to be; whoever brings down the government is going to have to offer some rationale/justification for it, and that's the only one on the horizon really. Would any party be able to shift the focus to something else, by sheer dint of effort? I kinda doubt it. And we'd be stuck with 6 weeks of noise that could just as easily have been made in the House or the media, and with no possibility of a better outcome this time around.

After much digging, the pollster finally ascertained this voter was switching out of spite, NOT because she believed in Harpey's platform.
In the end, he had to explain to her that she would only be hurting herself (and Canada) by doing this.

I mean, bloody duh, eh? Maybe we need to start calling the radio stations and requesting repeated playings of You Can't Always Get What You Want. But if you try sometime, you can get something a whole lot worse than what you've got.

[ghostsofgiants]

16. Actually the last poll I saw on TV showed that the NDP made more of a gain

Than any other party. It just wasn't enough of a gain to help them form government, sadly.

[LeftistGorilla]

9. Harper...

will fall flat on his face like he did the last time....

[Spazito]

11. I actually took part in a VERY comprehensive poll via the

telephone about 2 weeks ago and it was very informative in understanding more about how it is done and why one must take polls with a fairly large dose of salt.

The poll covered just about everything: election, federal and provincial as well as the party leaders; the environment; health care; the Israeli/Palestinian issue; Stats Canada and the Census; same sex marriage; and many other issues I have already forgotten. The poll took 1 1/2 hours to complete.

What I learned was there are many questions that offer you a multiple choice for your answer. If none of the choices are what you would choose then you pick one that is closest to what you would like. When that happens, the poll on that specific question may not actually reflect how Canadians really feel and be skewed a little or a lot.

How the question is composed along with the multiple choices for answers can be very leading and, again, skew the poll question toward the answer they are looking for.

All and all, it was fascinating and re-inforced my contention that a well done poll can actually give a relatively accurate snapshot for the time and a poll taken to 'confirm' a certain contention is not worth the work done on it in terms of it relevance to reality.

[northamericancitizen]

12. I don't believe that we will have an election this spring...

If we do, we may end up with a minority conservative government.

Due to the Sponsorship scandal, a stronger majority of Québec voters will go for the BLOC, mainly for 3 reasons:
.fed up with the Liberals
.hate the idea of a conservative party lead by Harper
.view Leighton too much as a political novice to be in charge.

Which will put back on the table the obvious difference between Québec and the ROC (Rest of Canada).

Québec ministers, (French-Canadians), would disappear from the official power in place, a situation that would be very uncomfortable for the government in place.

No party can get the needed majority if it excludes the Québequers vote.

IMHO, the elections should be called only after the Gommery commission had produce a report.

If an election is called before that, this inquiry will have to stop for a while and I believe that No Canadian citizen should accept or provoke events that would stop the inquiry about the Sponsorship scandal.

lise

[ConcernedCanuk]

14. "ROC (Rest of Canada). " - thank gawd for google !!

.
.
.

I had never seen the acronym ROC for the Rest of Canada b4, :freak:

and I never KNEW there was a political party with that name,

so I believed that ROC was meant to refer to the REST OF THE COUNTRY - :dunce:

The context confused me, so enter google on the acronym,

and

in the results of uses for ROC as an acronym,

the "Rest of Canada" came up on the third page,

BUT it had (political party) beside it - -

:think:

more googling got me this:


Rest of Canada Party

The Rest of Canada Party was a Canadian political party that intended to run candidates in all provinces outside of Ontario and Quebec, which the party believed were unfairly running the country. The party planned to form a coalition government with the Bloc Québécois if ever elected.

Founded by Ace Cetinski, a Chartered Accountant from Sherwood Park, Alberta, the party's website indicated its intent to advertise for candidates for federal by-elections to be held in September 2000, but there is no evidence that candidates were found.

/snip/

The party's website is now dormant.

Cetinski has posted an article entitled, "Western Independence Now", on the Alberta Republicans website.(www.albertarepublicans.org)

MORE

So,

Now I'm confused,

the ROC never got off the ground?

and are now an issue? :shrug:

[Canuckistanian]

15. Oh, stop it!

The only way that extremist will get in is if the Liberal party has a complete melt-down and.......(oh shit)

[ConcernedCanuk]

18. Thot this might be a timely kick . .

.
.
.

And I'll be looking for somewhere to dig a tunnel and hide if Harper, or anyone like Harper ever gets into office as the PM. I think I'd rather have GWB up here - we could kick him out in an instant -

Harper, as bad as he is - has definitely more grey matter than Geedubya - and would take longer to get rid of . .

But he'd sure never last 6 years, probly not even 2 methinks

Just my Canuk opinion

:smoke:

[Spazito]

19. Self delete, didn't look at date re very old OP, lol