Another #@%$ing election!!! Really Canada?!?

[Chuk]

Love the rant to kick this off.

I won't vote Harper again. Not after the census fiasco. No way.

But I'm center, right-leaning. And I don't see anything I like from the Fiberals. And I'll never vote NDP. So where does that leave me? I will probably just vote for a good local rep of any party.

Really Dobber? The census "fiasco" is the moral line in the sand that you choose to judge this election by?

I guess the brotherhood of statisticians has a much deeper emotional pull that I ever thought possible.

If people do not want to fill out the long census and people that do fill it out incorrectly or untruthfully, why do we need it? I really never looked into the argument that much so all i saw/read was from the regular news.

Now I am intrigued.

[butch]

has anyone followed Justin Trudeau's political career so far ?

I'm not one to follow politics but in the back of my mind I've wondered if Trudeau is the fella that gets the liberals back in power .

obviously due to his bloodlines .....

[donions]

Just saw a Pro-Harper Ad last night and the key point of this ad...."Stephen Harper is tough on Human Smuggling." Really?
Thats the card you're playing Steve, Human Smuggling?

I've voted conservative since I was 18, mostly cause my Dad insists, and cause there really is no other option, but if his key selling point is his tough stance on Human Smuggling, I might look elsewhere.

[Dutch]

On a sidenote, can someone explain to me why there are only 3, if you include the NDP, parties in Canada that are even a factor...

Where I am from, there are about 10 parties where usually 3 or 4 find a way to work together and govern the country.

Just seems weird to me that it's either A or B (cause C or NDP won't win enough votes to do it alone anytime soon)....

Is there someone that can answer this for me?

[Big Ev]

On a sidenote, can someone explain to me why there are only 3, if you include the NDP, parties in Canada that are even a factor...

Where I am from, there are about 10 parties where usually 3 or 4 find a way to work together and govern the country.

Just seems weird to me that it's either A or B (cause C or NDP won't win enough votes to do it alone anytime soon)....

Is there someone that can answer this for me?

There are more than 3, but the 4 main ones are just way more popular than all the others. Well, the Green Party is pretty weak but they are in there. There are other parties like the marijuana party but they get like 0.02 percent of the vote. I don't see the point of there being more parties if nobody is gonna vote for them.

[lockedge]

Just saw a Pro-Harper Ad last night and the key point of this ad...."Stephen Harper is tough on Human Smuggling." Really?
Thats the card you're playing Steve, Human Smuggling?

I've voted conservative since I was 18, mostly cause my Dad insists, and cause there really is no other option, but if his key selling point is his tough stance on Human Smuggling, I might look elsewhere.

Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by forcing refugees to pay smugglers in order to get out of Canadian jails

Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by being wishy washy over Canadian Prostitution laws.

Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by asking the Philippines to intercept refugee boats, in exchange for letting more Filipino women into Canada to be nannies for rich, white upper-middle class families who come to the country on a $5000 bond and make practically nothing.

Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling. Except, kinda not.

[Chuk]

Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by forcing refugees to pay smugglers in order to get out of Canadian jails
Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by being wishy washy over Canadian Prostitution laws.
Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling by asking the Philippines to intercept refugee boats, in exchange for letting more Filipino women into Canada to be nannies for rich, white upper-middle class families who come to the country on a $5000 bond and make practically nothing.
Steven Harper: Tough on Human Smuggling. Except, kinda not.

Lockedge, other than not liking Harper or being a strong advocate of Human Smuggling, I am not sure what to make of this post.
Smuggling-->Jails-->prostitution-->Filipino nannies-->kinda not.

This was a policy add not an attack add and he is getting trashed on it. Hence it is easier to run attack ads. This election will be very strange, as the attack adds have become commonplace. I am not a fan of them and I believe they are a result of a broken system.

The adds will target very specific demographics, primarily the ones that actually get off their asses and vote. Human smuggling, jails, military jets, health care, energy, national security and the economy will be the "hot button" issues. All conservative mandates from the budget and all very polarizing. Although, we will see that the premise of most issues will be about trust and character.
Harper was and will continue to be cast as a right wing religious, war mongering zealot with a hidden agenda, because it feeds the public left. The necessity to attack him on issues, where he is weak will actually take a back seat to old demonizing arguments.
Ignatieff is the "visiting professor" who is cast as a elitist returning to tell you how to live your lives. Hard to think a Harvard education is portrayed as a negative, but it somehow is. Funny enough the best attack add is "a vote for the Liberals is a vote for Ignatieff", you have to admit that is brilliant. Plus his ally Bob Rae will be the first one to stick a dagger in his back as soon as Harvard comes a calling.
Layton will always be cast as an also ran but probably the consensus "most well liked" politician because he looks like a friendly gut and the cancer treatments will by him a lot of public sympathy. the reality is that he has never really had enough power to officially screw anything up and it will remain that way.
Finally, Duceppe is a snake, which his supporters love. A true politician with no aspirations of anything other than his own agenda. That at least I can respect, even though I would be first in line at the gallows if we ever hung him for treason.
Elizabeth May - I will wait until she gets a ticket to the dance. Right now she has as much pull with the networks as I do.

This will be a great campaign. With the CBC "you are a Liberal and you did not know it" vote compass, SUN TV starting the first "RIGHT" media outlet, a vastly pissed off electorate, global economic crisis, multiple wars and revolutions in the mid-east......... we may be the only country in the world that did not want an election!!!!

Hold onto your hats, It's going to be a bumpy ride.

[Chuk]

has anyone followed Justin Trudeau's political career so far ?

I'm not one to follow politics but in the back of my mind I've wondered if Trudeau is the fella that gets the liberals back in power .

obviously due to his bloodlines .....

I have not followed his career closely as he has been extremely sheltered by his handlers. The common theory is that he is being groomed to lead the Liberals back to their former glory and must be held out of the spotlight so not to taint the aspirations of any other Liberal leader before him.

I think that he has been handled all wrong. Being the son of PET is a double edged sword as he will never live up to his fathers legacy, whether you loved PET or hated him, Justin will always seem inferior.

The Liberal masterminds should have let Justin be his own man, make mistakes while he was young, be seen as a "celebrity" of sorts people want to hear from/about.

Now the only time we hear about him is when he does something stupid, see the BARBARIC comments regarding honour killings and genital mutilation, or when a story about the Trudeau's comes about on the CBC. H3e will always be seen as Pierre's son and never Justin because he was told it would be better for him. In the eyes of the "old Liberal guard" that might be right but not in the eyes of the average Canadian.

[sovietcanuckistan]

OOooo a politics thread.... Just a few comments.

Attack ads are hardly unique to the Conservatives. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have been doing this for decades, it's the way politics works in Canada, like it or not.

I'll agree with the points that the banking laws largely kept Canada out of too much recession-based hot water, but we should also give the Cons some credit for managing the economy through a recession with relatively little short run effects. Harper initially proposed very little in the way of stimulus until it was a major issue for the other parties and he caved. We'll have a deficit until 2015 but the nation's coffers could be a whole lot worse off.

The GST cut saved individuals money... even if the price of oil went up making gas more expensive, to say that the GST didn't reduce the burden on consumers just doesn't follow.

Corporate tax cuts, while perhaps not reducing the deficit in the short-run, leave Canada as a more competitive target for foreign multinationals to invest in. The theory is that higher GDP growth over the long-run cancels out and surpasses the funds the government would have received from higher taxes. One could argue against the theory but nonetheless....

Canada lost the potential seat it had on the Security Council, from my understanding, largely due to our record in recent years on climate change. The developing nations are the ones who will be most effected and voted accordingly against someone they see as a climate black mark.

+It's the UN. Who cares if we achieve a temporary position on a largely useless body with no coercive mechanism.

I'm from Ottawa and have voted Green for the last several elections because some proportional representation would be nice. But I won't be particularly upset if Harper gets a majority, he hasn't bungled much in my opinion and I don't see him as the nefarious evil-doer as many seem to.

And on why we have four federal political parties, well whole books have been written on that subject. Call it due to our federation being one which covers a broad geography, and the power of the Liberals to be a "big-tent" party for so many years.

BAM politics.

[lockedge]

Lockedge, other than not liking Harper or being a strong advocate of Human Smuggling, I am not sure what to make of this post.
Smuggling-->Jails-->prostitution-->Filipino nannies-->kinda not.

This was a policy add not an attack add and he is getting trashed on it. Hence it is easier to run attack ads. This election will be very strange, as the attack adds have become commonplace. I am not a fan of them and I believe they are a result of a broken system.

The adds will target very specific demographics, primarily the ones that actually get off their asses and vote. Human smuggling, jails, military jets, health care, energy, national security and the economy will be the "hot button" issues. All conservative mandates from the budget and all very polarizing. Although, we will see that the premise of most issues will be about trust and character.
Harper was and will continue to be cast as a right wing religious, war mongering zealot with a hidden agenda, because it feeds the public left. The necessity to attack him on issues, where he is weak will actually take a back seat to old demonizing arguments.
Ignatieff is the "visiting professor" who is cast as a elitist returning to tell you how to live your lives. Hard to think a Harvard education is portrayed as a negative, but it somehow is. Funny enough the best attack add is "a vote for the Liberals is a vote for Ignatieff", you have to admit that is brilliant. Plus his ally Bob Rae will be the first one to stick a dagger in his back as soon as Harvard comes a calling.
Layton will always be cast as an also ran but probably the consensus "most well liked" politician because he looks like a friendly gut and the cancer treatments will by him a lot of public sympathy. the reality is that he has never really had enough power to officially screw anything up and it will remain that way.
Finally, Duceppe is a snake, which his supporters love. A true politician with no aspirations of anything other than his own agenda. That at least I can respect, even though I would be first in line at the gallows if we ever hung him for treason.
Elizabeth May - I will wait until she gets a ticket to the dance. Right now she has as much pull with the networks as I do.

This will be a great campaign. With the CBC "you are a Liberal and you did not know it" vote compass, SUN TV starting the first "RIGHT" media outlet, a vastly pissed off electorate, global economic crisis, multiple wars and revolutions in the mid-east......... we may be the only country in the world that did not want an election!!!!

Hold onto your hats, It's going to be a bumpy ride.

Chuk, I just thought it was funny he claims to be so hard on human smuggling when the proof points to a different result, that's all. He's certainly made SOME progress, but to claim he's tough on human smuggling? Not so much.

Harper HAS some SOME good in his term. If he was hard on human trafficking then I would applaud him for doing as much, and would back these ads. I don't think I'm trashing him so much as just poking fun at him for making such a huge thing out of a policy of his that's not really gone anywhere.

My points on the human smuggling were basically that
-Harper combats smuggling by having refugees (that were smuggled into Canada) pay their smugglers so they don't go into hiding shortly afterward. Yet, by paying the smugglers, they wind up supporting smuggling(at least in the short term).
-Harper defended the current prostitution laws. While removing the laws COULD potentially lead to trafficking being slightly easier, the safety and security benefits of legalizing it would help drastically more than it would hurt, most studies say.
-Filipino women are given a special task force to handle their immigration, so that they can bear the burden of less-than-minimum wage pay, working as nannies providing daycare. This might not be SO bad if they weren't under a $5000 bond that they have to pay off, if they didn't constantly have their immigration papers held as ransom/for blackmail purposes on a regular basis, etc., and if they didn't often have to live on-site as a prerequisite. Some see it as a necessary evil, I see it as legal human trafficking and exploitation under the current system. I'll admit this one argument is a little subjective, but it's still a major problem with our immigration system that needs fixing due to the high amount of exploitation happening.

As for attack ads, I wish they were outlawed. I like when politicians run on policy, not on "this guy is a douchebag, so put your votes somewhere else".They've ruined a heck of a lot of campaigns down in the states, and I don't like the fact that as years go on they're more commonplace up here.I mean, sometimes a politician's failures need to be brought up in some form, but don't blare it from all forms of media 24/7. Make a page about it on your website or something, so the voters can check out what you plan on doing, why, and get a snapshot of what's happened in the past term(s). Just cold hard facts though, I'm not big on character assassination.

[Dutch]

Anybody watching the debate?

Harper is an idiot

[Dutch]

what Harper says in terms of immigration is ALL LIES

I know first hand how it is, and what Harper claims to be here in place for immigrants, is simply not true

How can this fool be in power to run this country...

for the love of god get him out of here.. What a liar he is

[Big Ev]

All politicians lie. Ignatieff lied about not voting in other countries' elections.

What's the point of the dabtes really, Harper's gonna win in a landslide.

[smack]

All politicians lie. Ignatieff lied about not voting in other countries' elections.

What's the point of the dabtes really, Harper's gonna win in a landslide.

Totally agree. All 3 are liars (which seems to be a must for a political candidate in every country right now). And I don't really care who wins as long as Layton does poorly. Layton makes me sick. I feel bad for all his health issues but this guy's a joke who shouldn't even be a politician and does more harm than good.

And yeah, Harper's going to win with a bigger margin than last time which is why I don't understand why they're doing another election.

[Chuk]

what Harper says in terms of immigration is ALL LIES

I know first hand how it is, and what Harper claims to be here in place for immigrants, is simply not true

How can this fool be in power to run this country...

for the love of god get him out of here.. What a liar he is

Damn, I missed the debates. Playoff hockey pools were a priority.
I will read on them tomorrow.

Immigration is a huge issue in Canada. My understanding is that Canada has let in record numbers of immigrants under Harper. There are more services fro immigrants in this country than there are for residents in some cases. The problem are generally with the bureaucracy that has to deliver the services. We are in the same boat as with Health care. Lately, the major issues came on the topic of Human smuggling, which is way beyond my comprehension.

As far as the lying goes, even though some say lying is a prerequisite for politics, I actually hold Harper top a higher standard. I always think it is up to the Prime Minister to set the standard. Someone has to.

At least if Harper gets a majority he will have 4 years to sink or swim, then the voters will either feel lied to or vindicated.