I am but a lowly American, with only a limited understanding of Canadian politics.
Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?
I’m sure many Americans would be grateful for the education!
Sigmund et al, I am but a low born Albertan and as soon as you find out how they keep getting elected please let me know too.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
I think the answer is that the majority of Canadians are quite comfortable with the notion of theft. Most Canadians will cluck disapprovingly over the whole AdScam mess, and then will turn around and go back to downloading ‘free’ music off the ‘Net using a bootleg version of Windows.
I could just cry.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
It’s all about fear, fear of the unknown and the Libs are experts at exploiting fear. Why else do they haul out “They’ll make us just like the Americans” argument every election?
If Canadians were truly “world citizens” as they proudly proclaim, they would know first hand that America is in many ways a vast improvement over their feeble nation. But most have never been there and allow their perception of that great nation to be shaped by 1. Liberal election platforms 2. lame and washed up assholes like Rick Mercer (and CBC) 3. any know-nothing frog from Quebeeeeeek (scuze moi–must be le fromage) or any NDP brainwashed commie ass kisser.
You fear only what you don’t know. So how can liberals claim to be so open-minded on one hand and on the other…
This country is domed to stay on the margin of greatness (both figuratively and literally) for the rest of its pathetic existence
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
The main reason as I see it is that the media is fully in the Liberals pocket. If a journalist wishes to become a government staffer, contracter, or even the Govenor General of Canada they must serve a suitable apprenticeship praising the Liberals unerringly until they too get the call to serve and can move to Ottawa where the streets are paved with gold and earn money hand over fist.
Number of Conservatives in the:
CBC (State owned TV/Radio) 0
Globe and Mail 0
Toronto Star 0
Its an uphill battle for Conservatives, for sure.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
I can think of ten quickies.
1. Because they pay off the regions of the country than can deliver enought seats to get them in.
2. Because Canadians are generally dozy and dull witted .. although they swear they are smarter than Americans.
3. There is no credible alternative.
4. We are a four party state so there is always a spoiler or two.
5. Did I mention Canadians have been so brain washed by the left wing media, far left educational system and are so used to living in a socialist environment that they have become stupid.
6. We are a tad lazy and insecure and government exploits that.
7. We are so envious of Americans that hating them and working to not be like them (even though we are) had become an avocation.
8. The country made the huge mistake of becoming bilingual, mulitcultural, and metric.
9. We are a community of very different regions and the feds play us off against one another. Divid and conquer.
10. Did I mention we are just stupid?
All well and good, folks, but a bit of homework only muddles the question- and raises more.
“This country is domed [sic] to stay on the margin of greatness (both figuratively and literally) for the rest of its pathetic existence.”
There is more oil in Alberta than there is in Saudi Arabia- and a willing customer next door,
James Bay will be able to put out enough power to feed the entire US east of the Mississippi. No one has any idea how much Natural gas there is- save only to say deposits are huge.
Canada has 2/3 of the world’s freshwater, a virtually inexhaustable supply, due to rain and groundwater replenishment.
There is limited foreign debt.
NAFTA has by virtually all accounts (save the major whack jobs), served Canada better than the US or Mexico.
Orders for Canadian durable goods are YEARS out.
Seems to me good government would make all that work for you. Instead, you put up with all this crap!
Are you guys bound and determined to piss all that away?
The main reasons for the Liberals’ winning against all reasonable expectations are:
-They control so much in Canada and exert such powerful influence as to generally get what the Prime Minister wants– so many folks in so many places are loyal, financially benefiting Liberals who’ll bend over backwards if they believe the “PM wants this, PM wants that”. It’s an impressive, gargantuan patronage organization they’ve built for themselves.
-The mainstream media, which indubitably goes out of its way most of the time to support the Liberals in its reporting and spinning while doing the opposite to their conservative opponents, currently the Conservative Party. http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com
The conservatives defeat themselves by not moderating somewhat on their social agenda–gay marriage etc. They allways come up with some nutball who says something stupid at the most inappropriate time and wind up shooting themselves in the foot—soooo canadians go to the polls—hold their nose—and vote. Thats it!
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred:
Boy, did you come to the wrong place to get a complete answer. It’s like going to LGF to find out about the Democrats. Much of what you’ll hear here is people insulting their great country (ie: the average Canadian is too stupid and lazy to listen to us, the media is to blame, we are a diverse and vibrant country and that is wrong, etc)
Do some research and get some balance. Conservative MPs have been quick to condemn the lack of action by the Liberals on a number of issues, but have offered very little in the way of policy alternatives of their own.
And finally as pointed out before, the country is not as entralled about travel claims issues, white collar political fraud of relative small amounts etc and doesn’t seize on them as issues of danming integrity but as business as usual.
Maybe the Conservatives just scare the shit out of people. Their last chance they were blown away in a massive defeat. Since then they formed an alliance with the Reform Party which got nowhere but did make for a lot of jokes.
To DavidE: The CBC is putting me on this year as a political commentator on _The Hour_ with George Stromboulopoulus. Mine will be a conservative voice, even if I am only heard occasionally.
Dr Kyla
Hey Steve–remember the acronym the new conservative party came up with—CRAP–no one took the time to look at that before they rolled out the new name and then they had to scramble to change again leaving everyone with the impression of somewhat incompetant.
Why the Liberals keep getting re-elected.
I believe it has to do with Government handouts. One way or another the balance between those who recieve a government check vs. those that pay is very even maybe even slightly tilted in favour of those who recieve.
It is essentially the same problem France has and Germany. Their are so many Social benefits here targeted at mostly special interest groups.
Daycare would be a good example. Medical for sure.
The baby boomers are retiring and they want to make sure their medical stays as is. Pensions.
I can’t say for sure but the government if not the #1 employer of Union employees they certainly are a
close second.
The belief that someone else is responsible for your problems or financial lot in life and that a Socialist left wing government will get those bad profit making people and companies and make them pay.
That last one has been played up here for years. Profit is almost a swear word here.
Think about your children go to school the teachers are paid by the government, well those are future voters, so kids coming out of school for the last 15 years are not embued with a capitalist work ethic but a socialist entitlement ethic. Hey job security if your a teacher.
Also a fairly large immigration quota. Immigrants tend to vote for the government in power when they got their papers to live here.
Steve, you may be right- but if I were from Mars and saw these successive scandals, it wouldn’t matter who the opposition was- they couldn’t do worse than the Liberal government!
It seems to me the only thing an opposition party would have to offer is a guarantee there would be no more of the same.
sigmund, carl and alfred…
To win you have to be more than a negative. I want hope.
I think people vote for security. These scandals are boring and claiming your travel vouchers are honest isn’t going to excite anyone. If these are our most pressing national issues, then Orson Welles was wrong and we should have invented the cuckoo clock.
Maybe people want a party that will fix the wait lists, secure sovereignty in the arctic, and move them nationally.
Steve, you’ve got crap passing as goverment. That’s the bottom line.
Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Gore, Martin, Chretien. ALL LIARS! ALL Crooked!
Sigmund,carl and alfred;
The liberanos keep getting elected because the conservatives somehow always manage to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”
Horny Toad
God help Canada because the voters sure as hell won’t!
I just read a piece from the National Post (via Nealenews) and it seems that most of the people interviewed on the street have a “Who gives a shit” attitude. The liberano$ have been in power so long that people are painting all politicians with the same brush as crooks, thiefs and lower than used car salesmen, so why change government as it will be just more of the same. Besides, PM was “exonerated” don’t ya know? The CBC said so.
This is as sad a commentary on the moral fiber of a once strong country. The socialistic left and liberal agenda have turned the country of my birth into a pitiful third world country, soon to be owned by China.
BTW, Monday night on Fox I happened to see a headline banner about Canada increasing immigration to 300,000 next year… a pre-Gomery diversionary tactic???
Toad/Fred, Repeat until stupid, You can stop now.
“Steve, you’ve got crap passing as goverment. That’s the bottom line.”
You don’t say! 😮
That’s it?
I’m looking for something nationally transcendent and you give me “bottom line crap”?
B.S.
Who are you to give the quick all knowing quips?
I think Harper should just say “enough of this f**ked up shit. That guys a crook” and then shut her down. He’s got the numbers to not need the NDP right?
The Final judgement of the Dithers spin team and their theatrical Gomery episode to avoid prosecution in the earnscliffe scam, wil ( as Harper said) be in the hands of the voters. Martin’s pathetic transparent spin on this tells us he feels safe with the voters and holds their collective intellect in contempt.
Frankly, I do have one spark of optimism left in me.
At some point in time every society reaches a critical mass.
We’ve been lucky everytime so far.
Each time a buyoff, not a compromise, has occurred.
There will be a time that buying off won’t be possible, either because the antagonist won’t be bought, or the folks that have been in control for too long don’t have the wherewithal or don’t have access to it. If they try to BS the antagonist at that time its not going to wash.
Its just a matter of how disposed to suffering before they right themselves.
People are suffering quietly till that time comes.
Blunt logic can be uncomfortable at times, jarring, in fact.
Tolerance is a virtue in people.
Tolerance of crime is itself a crime.
Canadians,to some degree, are criminals.
The logic is sound. Yet you feel uncomfortable.
That’s because, like most of us, you too have
done less than you should.
A note or Email to Ottawa demanding that Whistle Blower bill C-11 be beefed up and passed, would get you and I both,off the hook.
We could honestly say we did something.
One copy to Monte Solberg or John Williams and one to Ralph Goodal. 73s TG
No kidding.
Now is the last chance to start the revolution. Do yourself and everyone you love a favour and hang a Liberano today!!!
Pick up on Paul Wells…
Your exclusive sneak preview of today’s Question Period
http://weblogs.macleans.ca/paulwells/archives/week_2005_10_30-2005_11_05.asp#001819
I am but a lowly American, with only a limited understanding of Canadian politics.
Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?
I’m sure many Americans would be grateful for the education!
Sigmund et al, I am but a low born Albertan and as soon as you find out how they keep getting elected please let me know too.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
I think the answer is that the majority of Canadians are quite comfortable with the notion of theft. Most Canadians will cluck disapprovingly over the whole AdScam mess, and then will turn around and go back to downloading ‘free’ music off the ‘Net using a bootleg version of Windows.
I could just cry.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
It’s all about fear, fear of the unknown and the Libs are experts at exploiting fear. Why else do they haul out “They’ll make us just like the Americans” argument every election?
If Canadians were truly “world citizens” as they proudly proclaim, they would know first hand that America is in many ways a vast improvement over their feeble nation. But most have never been there and allow their perception of that great nation to be shaped by 1. Liberal election platforms 2. lame and washed up assholes like Rick Mercer (and CBC) 3. any know-nothing frog from Quebeeeeeek (scuze moi–must be le fromage) or any NDP brainwashed commie ass kisser.
You fear only what you don’t know. So how can liberals claim to be so open-minded on one hand and on the other…
This country is domed to stay on the margin of greatness (both figuratively and literally) for the rest of its pathetic existence
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
The main reason as I see it is that the media is fully in the Liberals pocket. If a journalist wishes to become a government staffer, contracter, or even the Govenor General of Canada they must serve a suitable apprenticeship praising the Liberals unerringly until they too get the call to serve and can move to Ottawa where the streets are paved with gold and earn money hand over fist.
Number of Conservatives in the:
CBC (State owned TV/Radio) 0
Globe and Mail 0
Toronto Star 0
Its an uphill battle for Conservatives, for sure.
“Can someone explain to me how the Liberal party keeps getting re-elected? Are the Conservatives so toxic?”
I can think of ten quickies.
1. Because they pay off the regions of the country than can deliver enought seats to get them in.
2. Because Canadians are generally dozy and dull witted .. although they swear they are smarter than Americans.
3. There is no credible alternative.
4. We are a four party state so there is always a spoiler or two.
5. Did I mention Canadians have been so brain washed by the left wing media, far left educational system and are so used to living in a socialist environment that they have become stupid.
6. We are a tad lazy and insecure and government exploits that.
7. We are so envious of Americans that hating them and working to not be like them (even though we are) had become an avocation.
8. The country made the huge mistake of becoming bilingual, mulitcultural, and metric.
9. We are a community of very different regions and the feds play us off against one another. Divid and conquer.
10. Did I mention we are just stupid?
All well and good, folks, but a bit of homework only muddles the question- and raises more.
“This country is domed [sic] to stay on the margin of greatness (both figuratively and literally) for the rest of its pathetic existence.”
There is more oil in Alberta than there is in Saudi Arabia- and a willing customer next door,
James Bay will be able to put out enough power to feed the entire US east of the Mississippi. No one has any idea how much Natural gas there is- save only to say deposits are huge.
Canada has 2/3 of the world’s freshwater, a virtually inexhaustable supply, due to rain and groundwater replenishment.
There is limited foreign debt.
NAFTA has by virtually all accounts (save the major whack jobs), served Canada better than the US or Mexico.
Orders for Canadian durable goods are YEARS out.
Seems to me good government would make all that work for you. Instead, you put up with all this crap!
Are you guys bound and determined to piss all that away?
The main reasons for the Liberals’ winning against all reasonable expectations are:
-They control so much in Canada and exert such powerful influence as to generally get what the Prime Minister wants– so many folks in so many places are loyal, financially benefiting Liberals who’ll bend over backwards if they believe the “PM wants this, PM wants that”. It’s an impressive, gargantuan patronage organization they’ve built for themselves.
-The mainstream media, which indubitably goes out of its way most of the time to support the Liberals in its reporting and spinning while doing the opposite to their conservative opponents, currently the Conservative Party.
http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com
The conservatives defeat themselves by not moderating somewhat on their social agenda–gay marriage etc. They allways come up with some nutball who says something stupid at the most inappropriate time and wind up shooting themselves in the foot—soooo canadians go to the polls—hold their nose—and vote. Thats it!
Sigmund, Carl and Alfred:
Boy, did you come to the wrong place to get a complete answer. It’s like going to LGF to find out about the Democrats. Much of what you’ll hear here is people insulting their great country (ie: the average Canadian is too stupid and lazy to listen to us, the media is to blame, we are a diverse and vibrant country and that is wrong, etc)
Do some research and get some balance. Conservative MPs have been quick to condemn the lack of action by the Liberals on a number of issues, but have offered very little in the way of policy alternatives of their own.
And finally as pointed out before, the country is not as entralled about travel claims issues, white collar political fraud of relative small amounts etc and doesn’t seize on them as issues of danming integrity but as business as usual.
Maybe the Conservatives just scare the shit out of people. Their last chance they were blown away in a massive defeat. Since then they formed an alliance with the Reform Party which got nowhere but did make for a lot of jokes.
To DavidE: The CBC is putting me on this year as a political commentator on _The Hour_ with George Stromboulopoulus. Mine will be a conservative voice, even if I am only heard occasionally.
Dr Kyla
Hey Steve–remember the acronym the new conservative party came up with—CRAP–no one took the time to look at that before they rolled out the new name and then they had to scramble to change again leaving everyone with the impression of somewhat incompetant.
Why the Liberals keep getting re-elected.
I believe it has to do with Government handouts. One way or another the balance between those who recieve a government check vs. those that pay is very even maybe even slightly tilted in favour of those who recieve.
It is essentially the same problem France has and Germany. Their are so many Social benefits here targeted at mostly special interest groups.
Daycare would be a good example. Medical for sure.
The baby boomers are retiring and they want to make sure their medical stays as is. Pensions.
I can’t say for sure but the government if not the #1 employer of Union employees they certainly are a
close second.
The belief that someone else is responsible for your problems or financial lot in life and that a Socialist left wing government will get those bad profit making people and companies and make them pay.
That last one has been played up here for years. Profit is almost a swear word here.
Think about your children go to school the teachers are paid by the government, well those are future voters, so kids coming out of school for the last 15 years are not embued with a capitalist work ethic but a socialist entitlement ethic. Hey job security if your a teacher.
Also a fairly large immigration quota. Immigrants tend to vote for the government in power when they got their papers to live here.
Steve, you may be right- but if I were from Mars and saw these successive scandals, it wouldn’t matter who the opposition was- they couldn’t do worse than the Liberal government!
It seems to me the only thing an opposition party would have to offer is a guarantee there would be no more of the same.
sigmund, carl and alfred…
To win you have to be more than a negative. I want hope.
I think people vote for security. These scandals are boring and claiming your travel vouchers are honest isn’t going to excite anyone. If these are our most pressing national issues, then Orson Welles was wrong and we should have invented the cuckoo clock.
Maybe people want a party that will fix the wait lists, secure sovereignty in the arctic, and move them nationally.
Steve, you’ve got crap passing as goverment. That’s the bottom line.
Clinton, Bush, Cheney, Gore, Martin, Chretien. ALL LIARS! ALL Crooked!
Sigmund,carl and alfred;
The liberanos keep getting elected because the conservatives somehow always manage to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”
Horny Toad
God help Canada because the voters sure as hell won’t!
I just read a piece from the National Post (via Nealenews) and it seems that most of the people interviewed on the street have a “Who gives a shit” attitude. The liberano$ have been in power so long that people are painting all politicians with the same brush as crooks, thiefs and lower than used car salesmen, so why change government as it will be just more of the same. Besides, PM was “exonerated” don’t ya know? The CBC said so.
This is as sad a commentary on the moral fiber of a once strong country. The socialistic left and liberal agenda have turned the country of my birth into a pitiful third world country, soon to be owned by China.
BTW, Monday night on Fox I happened to see a headline banner about Canada increasing immigration to 300,000 next year… a pre-Gomery diversionary tactic???
Toad/Fred, Repeat until stupid, You can stop now.
“Steve, you’ve got crap passing as goverment. That’s the bottom line.”
You don’t say! 😮
That’s it?
I’m looking for something nationally transcendent and you give me “bottom line crap”?
B.S.
Who are you to give the quick all knowing quips?
I think Harper should just say “enough of this f**ked up shit. That guys a crook” and then shut her down. He’s got the numbers to not need the NDP right?
The Final judgement of the Dithers spin team and their theatrical Gomery episode to avoid prosecution in the earnscliffe scam, wil ( as Harper said) be in the hands of the voters. Martin’s pathetic transparent spin on this tells us he feels safe with the voters and holds their collective intellect in contempt.
Frankly, I do have one spark of optimism left in me.
At some point in time every society reaches a critical mass.
We’ve been lucky everytime so far.
Each time a buyoff, not a compromise, has occurred.
There will be a time that buying off won’t be possible, either because the antagonist won’t be bought, or the folks that have been in control for too long don’t have the wherewithal or don’t have access to it. If they try to BS the antagonist at that time its not going to wash.
Its just a matter of how disposed to suffering before they right themselves.
People are suffering quietly till that time comes.
Blunt logic can be uncomfortable at times, jarring, in fact.
Tolerance is a virtue in people.
Tolerance of crime is itself a crime.
Canadians,to some degree, are criminals.
The logic is sound. Yet you feel uncomfortable.
That’s because, like most of us, you too have
done less than you should.
A note or Email to Ottawa demanding that Whistle Blower bill C-11 be beefed up and passed, would get you and I both,off the hook.
We could honestly say we did something.
One copy to Monte Solberg or John Williams and one to Ralph Goodal. 73s TG