An excerpt from Publius’ excellent assessment:
…Both Lord Iggy and Jack! attacked Stephen Harper for not doing enough to promote family reunification. Jack! was at his sentimental worst – all socialists are sentimentalists, anyone with an ounce objectivity would not be a socialist – on the topic, recalling how wonderful it was to have Olivia Chow’s mother living with them. First of all let me express my admiration for Mr Layton. For a man to speak so well of his mother-in-law suggests either extraordinary stoicism or exceptional mendacity. You may take your pick. The keenness on family reunification is less admirable.
Encouraging the mass immigration of people who have never paid a cent into our welfare state, especially the elderly, is a recipe for financial disaster. Unless there are appropriate financial controls on family reunification, such as a requirement that such immigrants purchase or have provided by their sponsor privately financed health care, such a policy is writing a blank cheque on the backs of Canadian workers. We can scarcely afford to pay for the health care of our own elderly, who have spent a lifetime paying into the system, we cannot afford to pay for the health care of the whole Third World as well. This rather obvious – and very politically incorrect – aspect of the immigration debate was not raised.
Canadian voters, however, are not interested in policy. It’s complicated and boring…
And, shock! horror!, the Dutiful Dawg ain’t arf bad neither (don’t shoot me!):
…
Stephen Harper, though, came a close second. He was unflappable. In fact he looked slightly tranked, but he is a man of powerful self-discipline. The softening effect of the glasses certainly played to his advantage as well: those cold blue eyes of his are not an asset. While he might have seemed condescending to many as he delivered his talking-points to the other party leaders, others would see a man of considerable gravitas, his calm making a striking contrast with the overly-histrionic performances of Duceppe and Ignatieff.
Indeed, what struck me most about Ignatieff was his delivery. It’s not that he lacked coherence—he didn’t. He knew his stuff, and how to string it together. But he was just trying too hard. His handlers obviously told him to show emotion, and for a man who usually doesn’t show very much of that, it seemed to be a bit of a chore. The contrast between his loud faux-passionate voice and Harper’s calm, level tones was excruciating to hear…
I wish we had a John Stossel to explain the foolishness of importing the health care problems of thousands of elderly into our public health care system.
Just watched ‘Owliver’ on CTV and he suggested Ignatieff didn’t do what he needed to do in the debates. Iggy needed a knock out punch but PMSH was on his game and donned the teflon as he skillfully parried the triumvirate assault.
No doubt there is more wailing in the Liberal warroom today. French language debate tonight but the Liberals are a ‘tainted quantity’ in Quebec so I don’t see, barring PMSH meltdown in tears, that the Iggy will be making much headway tonight.
Jack Layton was in good form, landing a zinger for the night, but was a little ‘pitchy’ in his final statement.
Duceppe was naturally “Quebec-centric” so this will be a throw away to many voters in ROC.
As far as a ‘gut feel’ assessment people will go with the cool, calm, collected that PMSH managed to project throughout the entire two hour debate.
He stayed carefully focussed on his game, without getting drawn in to personality politics.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
I was watching the debate when Jack decided to use his dear old poor mother-I-law as prop to win the ethnic vote. This did pander to my wife, who is from China. Which lead me to explain why should, I pay higher taxes to support elder parents of immigrants.
Full discloser we are sponsoring my 50-year-old mother-I-law to come and live with us. Only at some point, we do have to draw a line in the sand. It would be a foolish and unfair to all other Canadian’s to A. expect them to pay for my mother-in-law and B. sponsor my wife’s grandparents who are in their 80’s to come live here.
Why is our Country the only Country afraid to draw some sort of line? If you’re going to immigrate to Mexico you have to learn their history and language. In addition, I know from personal experience that when you go to Hong Kong. Make sure your not there to give birth to a child, other wise its 10 years in Jail and/or $25,000 Dollar fine.
http://www.katewerk.com/sign/generator.php?line1=Working+for+&line2=Canadian%27s&line3=30+percent&line4=of+the+&line5=Time&formsent=true&generate.x=89&generate.y=19
http://www.katewerk.com/sign/generator.php?line1=Working+for+&line2=Canadians&line3=30+percent&line4=of+the+&line5=Time&formsent=true&generate.x=84&generate.y=17 fixed.
The Liberals are about to Blow-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-oh,oh,Ohw
The bottom line is that Harper is an alpha male and Ignatieff is a beta male. You put them in a contest and there’s no question who will win. The contrast of Harper’s competence and cool confidence to Iggy’s nervousness, anxiety and frustration was striking. I particularly enjoyed how Harper refused to even look at him as though he was beneath him. That must have absolutely infuriated Ignatieff and it showed as he became almost hysterical at times trying desperately to damage Harper.
Putting Jack’s theatrics aside (he really didn’t debate), I think Iffy made his points well enough. In my view, Iffy did a very good job of differentiating himself and the Liberals from the Conservatives. Where I would disagree with Liberal strategists is that the Liberals are on the wrong side of all of those issues they highlighted yesterday night. For me, the most striking difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is on Crime. I don’t think Iffy is scoring too many points with voters by calling plays from the NDP playbook. I’d even wager a guess that many Dippers might actually see eye-to-eye with the ROC on this point. Iffy also looked to the NDP playbook on other issues such as tax increases. Like I said, points to Iffy for defining the Liberals different from the Conservatives, I just don’t think they’ll get the results they’d hoped for.
I’ve said through-out that Iffy’s strategy is to woo NDP voters to the Liberals. The thumping he received from Jack will likely take care of that. I think the Liberals are toast and they will suffer a net loss in seats.
Also, I expect that Gilles Duceppe will have similar success with Iffy this evening. Honestly speaking, after yesterday were I a Quebecer, I’d keep my vote with the Bloc rather than switch to the Liberals.
I sort of wonder why they didn’t invite a conservative, but then this is Canada.
Honestly, the CPC base are going to be badly let down if they think a majority will suddenly “let Harper be Harper.” I’ll make this prediction — within a year of any such majority, there will be a massive split in the party and a groundswell for a leadership change if not a return to two parties.
Many will simply not put up with a Conservative party that is promoting a green economy, climate action (what the hell is that anyway) and pandering to ethnic voting blocs. But I do perceive that about two-thirds of those who are behind Harper today secretly believe that he will abandon these positions when a majority gives him the freedom to do so. Yet I perceive he will continue to govern from the centre and that meanwhile he will allow further intrusion into freedom of speech, through the proposed Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act.
As for leftists who are being hard on Iggy and nice to Harper, that’s because they want Iggy gone and Bob Rae or Justin Trudeau in his place.
As I suppose do most conservatives, because then we will have more ammunition at our disposal.
With Harper, the very best you can say is glass half full. I think people who have laid down their lives at his altar will soon come to regret it, but we shall see — the only thing he’ll be getting from me is my head in a basket.
What really bothers me about the NDP platform is the cap on credit card interest. Did they forget what put the world into a recession? People who had mortgages up the ying yang and didn’t have to put any money down. That’s what’s going to happen if the credit card interest is that low. Everybody is going to max out their credit cards and personal debt is going to go through the roof.
Can Vίtruvius give us a hint at current projected seat count by party?
What’s more, PrairieKid, the credit card companies will try to sustain their margins by jacking up the rates for retailers, forcing them to raise prices to meet the higher costs and increasing prices for all of us. Effectively what this does is spread the burden of defaulters to all of us.
Why should I pay for someone else’s overdrawn credit?
Peter, at this time, if you don’t govern from the centre you’re unelectable.
Considering the muted reaction by the press today, I think it’s safe to say that Harper killed last night, and even the media can’t deny it. The verdict is as close to unanimous as you’re going to get. The fact that Jack beat Iggy is just salt in the wound for Iggy. Iggy needed to come out of it looking strong, and he definitely did not. This was his chance, and he blew it. Harper coasts to a majority after this.
The mere fact that we take anything a lieberal has to say with any validity, be it Iggula Martin Cretin Turdough etc, is incredulous. Iggula, for all the Owliver Mansbridge etc, MSM pumping of his great intellect, lofty education, ivy league multi-book writing abilities, tall fore-headedness, is a bigger failure than the rich Quebec familys puppet “Martin”. Iggy was dipped fryed and flipped from 2 angles last night, egghead, NO, meathead, yes. Thanks for sending your overage rookie for tryouts to the big league there MSM, but you can send him back to the Harvard farm team where the other US no nothing came from.
There were some real issues presented last night that are being ignored…or are we just sleeping while socialism overcomes us?
Iggy and Jack promote cradle to grave government intervention. Why are Canadians not re-acting to those suggestions? The libertarian in me shivers when they talk about universal day care, education, after school programs, and elderly care. What is this Family Pact nonsense?
We already have an institution in place …it’s called The Family, and it has been under attack by socialists and Liberals for decades.
Harper promises tax breaks and income splitting (something that would have made life easier for me when I was a SAHM for 17 years).Families do not need the government intervening at every challenge in life.
So college and university are expensive. Get over it, get a job, and give up the expensive toys and trips. If you want it education to be cheaper get after the academics that are sitting on their tenures.Interesting that lefty universities are dissing Harper. Gets the focus off them.
Sure Harper was cool and calm,and Jack had a zinger.But there was more to this debate.
But Canadians need to tell the government to back off, and learn to solve their own problems.
Health care a big issue? Why? Because we have become dependent on the government to take care of us.
We need a Conservative majority, but we have to stop this creeping socialism, wake up the Canadian mentality.
Rant off ….for now.
Nobody in their right mind gives a flying fig what a deranged Marxist like Dr. Dumbass thinks, Mark.
MSM is piling on U-know Who?
MSM uses Iggy which personalizes the gaffe. Tsktsk…..
…-
“Iggy’s flood condolences hit wrong target”
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Iggys-flood-condolences-hit-wrong-target-119799989.html
I spoke to the security guard in our building on the this matter, he is from Africa and was a teacher there. At one point we brought his parents over to Calgary and they hated it. The climate kept them house bound, they had no friends, nobody to interact with and eventually went back home. Generally it can be said that a third world family can be huge and unless you bring them all over, the parents still have a family where they live.
It is a bad idea in most cases without even considering the cost.
I laughed when Jack Layton looked straight into the camera while delivering his final “pitch” — looked like he was doing an infomercial, lol.
Peter O’Donnell, I have the same fears. It seems like when they go to Ottawa, many of the Conservatives get Ottawashed.
I am watching the preamble to the French debate on CPAC and I could swear it is being broadcast from the Liberal War Room and all the questions phoned in were from Liberals.
Um, how about Steve Paikin’s role as “moderator”?
I’m not impressed with him at all. In fact, he was weasel-y, because his job was to stop pile-ups, wasn”t it?, step in when the Three Thugs got “unparliamentary” (wasn’t Iggy’s calling PM Harper a “liar” unparliamentary?), and enforce time limits.
He didn’t seem to have done any of these things as the hyenas went in for the kill.
Fortunately, there seemed to be some kind of force field around PM Harper which allowed him to more than hold his own.
It angered me to see a very decent man, a very effective leader, bullied, treated with contempt, and put down by a group of con-artists who will undemocratically steal this election if the Canadian electorate give PM Harper and the CPC another minority government. In countries where coalition governments are the order of the day, at least the winning party is part of the coalition.
I saw the sly look Layton gave Duceppe tonight at the beginning of the French debate, when he was shaking his hand. It seemed to say, “Don’t worry if I’m a little hard on you, old scout; it’s just good theatre (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).”
Steve Paikin was just a dupe in the proceedings. His performance was nothing to be proud about.
..”O’Donnell @ 5:43pm ….
Honestly, the CPC base are going to be badly let down if they think a majority will suddenly “let Harper be Harper.” I’ll make this prediction — within a year of any such majority, there will be a massive split in the party and a groundswell for a leadership change if not a return to two parties…..”
Don’t you just wish O’D. It has been painfully clear from all of the bleating and whining emanating from those few ‘principled types’over there on your preferred forum just what your agenda truly is. Apparently your leader over there is working diligently on electing a Liberal minority in a rather malicious manner and has been since S. Harper became head of the CPC.
You will note that few, if any, share all of the truly bitter and vindictive denunciations of S. Harper only and one suspects since it is only S. Harper and no other CPC member of parliament who has been the sole target for the largely untrue and vitriolic attacks as posted by your head honcho. Why is that I wonder?
Also, noting your bitterness with your ‘adopted’ country and the perceived ill treatment received by you mayhap you should take your own advice. And, move on. More particularly with an S. Harper majority looming?
..
the shot that stuck out for me was Harper saying taxes will never go down with an NDP government. I’d like to hear Ignatief explain his problem with jails when he wants to put more people in jail for not filling out the long form cencus…perhaps letting more human smugglers out?
“the Dutiful Dawg ain’t arf bad neither”
ORLY? He claims that Adam Radwanski is a “Harper cheerleader”, which would be an intelligent analysis, except that Adam, son of Liberal trougher George Radwanski, is a Liberal who not long ago ran for a spot on the Young Liberal executive, and who lives in the most Liberal city in Canada, and writes for the most Liberal paper in Canada, and just wrote an article praising Ignatieff’s debate performance.
That aside, John Baglow is the most noxious Marxist imaginable who repeatedly portrays SDA commenters and bloggers as racists and morons; surely you could have found someone else’s analysis to present.
Neither the Iggiot or Taliban Jack understand unintended consequences.
Or they, do and don’t give a sweet goddamn if they could just get elected.
Gilled Deciet understands them full well, and just wants to slurp as much as he can from the ROC.
Well, well, well.
Although I wholeheartedly agree with Publius’s assessment of Jacko-Wacko AKA Taliban Jack, I can’t help but remember that my parents, who are coming to Canada as permanent residents soon, have only set foot on Canadian soil once a year ago for a month, yet they have to pay taxes already.
No idea how Canada will reconcile with Russia double amount of income tax due. Just mentioning.
Insult me any way you wish, the fact of the matter is, I am a Canadian conservative and Stephen Harper is not. Deal with that.
I tuned into the debate in Quebec tonight.
A complete set up and pile-on right from the start as far as I am concerned. It is terrible. One of the questiosn asked began with-(paraphrased)…”Many of our values seem to be from the Republicans in the U.S. concerning guns, the environment…blah…blah”… over to you Mr. Harper.
It was difficult to hear any more than that over my yelling at the TV! Had to shut it off.
Peter, politics is about power, and power means having a big enough tent to attract enough voters to give it to you. A big tent means compromise. There is no politics anywhere without compromise, except under absolute dictators, and they usually come to a sticky end.
Too narrowly defined a set of values means you will be on the political margins.
Always.
And thus irrelevant.
Deal with it.
Rich I am still listening to that thing in French. The two moderating are a disgrace – The Prime Minister is holding his own in that freaky weasel voice of the translator. It is really funny to watch the Troika sliding in their own vomit. Decent people will be revolted.
Peter, you make a clear statement so I will too – Canadians have a choice; a good decent Prime Minister asking for our support or the Troika with Dupippi holding the Troika reins. We will be filling the coffers of Quebec and going down in the ROC. For myself and my family, we are supporting the good man, PMSH.
I’m with Peter O: Harper is bound and determined to govern, and he’ll do whatever he must to remain in power including steering the ship to port.
I’m happy with this election because no matter what happens, I’ll get what I want. If it’s a Con minority, Harper is gone. If it’s a majority, we all get to see if Harper will govern like a conservative; or simply continue in the Paul Martin mode that he’s been in. If we get a Conservative majority, I won’t expect huge leaps and bounds to the right; but a slow steady move to smaller government and decentralization.
I suspect though that Mr. Harper’s pronouncements from days gone by in opposition are all under the bus. He’s a Big Gov. Tory now and finds it easier to buy a vote, than to convince with the power of superior ideas (because he’s not skilled enough to lead from the front).
Iggy’s more scary looking in the French debate. I didn’t trust him in the English debate. You watch him with his “Count Iggy” eyebrows, just scares the $hit out of me. The guy is going to have a “Dion Meltdown” after this!
Taliban Jack , not happy with himself and his wife on the public purse , and a son on the public purse in Trona , wants to extend it up into former generations .
how do they say it in Parliment JacK???? shame, shame , shame.
a lesson for Iggy too, he may have missed some of the shame sessions.
Poor Dawg has a deadly case of Haper derangement syndrome. The “cold blue eyes” comment confirms his need for treatment.
Bluetech pretty well expressed my thoughts.
Peter, if I may say you are being unrealistic. At present our choices are limited to choosing the least statist of the three. The NDP and Liberals are maximum statist of which I want no part. One cannot deny that PM Harper and his minority government have been successful in dealing with the economy during these difficult times, better than the other G8 countries, and this in spite of a united opposition (Liberal, NDP and Bloc) demanding yet more government programs and more government spending. Last of all I seriously doubt that Canadian voters are ready at this point in time to embrace a truly conservative government. Too many have an entrenched entitlement mentality thanks to far too many years of Liberal socialism. They cannot yet accept that we can no longer afford all these “entitlements”.
As an outsider I have enjoyed reading Canadian elections material.
Just a few thought from South of the Border.
–
You may be Canadian if:
* Your local Dairy Queen (ice cream shop) is closed from September through May
* Someone in a Home Depot offers you assistance… and they don’t work there.
* You’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time.
* You’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed the wrong number.
* “Vacation” means going anywhere south of Muncie for the weekend.
* You measure distance in hours.
* You know several people who have hit a deer more than once.
* You have switched from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again.
* You can drive 90 km/hr through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching.
* You install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked.
* You carry jumpers in your car and your wife knows how to use them.
* You design your kid’s Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.
* The speed limit on the highway is 80 km and you’re going 90 and everybody is passing you.
* Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.
* You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.
* You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.
* A coalition offers free rides to the polls,
Socialists eat and sleep there.
* The Prime Minster (not President) doesn’t really want re-election,
but he begs for your vote.
Just wondering why Harper gets the “8th grade French immersion Billy” translator?
Alain: Using your logic, it is impossible for conservative principles to ever win over voters, no matter how skillfully they are presented. What this means is that socialist principles, because they offer a free lunch, will win and win and win until economies can’t afford them any longer and fiscal failure forces conservative principles to the for.
The whole notion of changing the direction of the nation one tiny step at the time is ludicrous, because the moment an election is lost to a left wing regime, all those tiny little steps will be rolled back and all that pissing around will be for nothing.
I of course believe that a skilled communicator, something that Mr. Harper is not, could in this time of international crisis seize the day and convince voters to move to a more prudent small government system. Mr. Harper may yet go down as the greatest spoiler the right ever had, simply because he squandered the chance to convince Canadians with superior ideas and instead simply moved to the left in order to co-opt the ground that was held by Paul Martin.
Sooner or later a Liberal will win an election, and if significant structural changes haven’t been made by the cons, then this whole spell of Harper government will have been a colossal failure and waste of time.
The debate proved one thing to me … Mr. Harper may be a very brilliant strategist; but he’s got the oral skills, people skills, and personality of a wet dish rag; and that is going to spell disaster for the conservative movement in Canada … if it hasn’t already.
Fearless Leader says:
“As an outsider I have enjoyed reading Canadian elections material.
Just a few thought from South of the Border.”
You’re not really Mike “the Count” Iggy are you?
Cjunk, that is incorrect. I said they are not yet ready to do so, which is very different. Of course this is only my opinion based on personal observation, but I see no evidence of a large number of voters being willing to accept a truly conservative government at this point in time.
The closest we got to such a platform was with the Reform Party and they only managed to succeed in the west, therefore no hope of winning even a minority government.
“I of course believe that a skilled communicator, something that Mr. Harper is not, could in this time of international crisis seize the day…”
Hardly. Have you noticed how little international affairs have played in Canada’s federal election? Canadians and the media are oblivious to the fact that we’re in two wars, let alone on the brink of a euro-zone banking crisis. Skilled communicators lead people in a direction they already want to go. A majority of Canadians do not at this time want to go in a conservative direction, and any attempts to force it prematurely are doomed to failure.
Just how do you expect to make “structural changes” in a succession of minority parliaments? Managing to govern effectively and coherently has become virtually impossible with most of Quebec sitting permanently in opposition.
You’ve got the cart in front of the horse. First you have to make people comfortable with a different way of doing things before you can actually implement change.
What your recipe will do is turn any conservative administration into a one term wonder and banish them from office for a generation. Do you really want to bring on another Trudeau decade and a half?
We’ve been over this ground many times before, Cjunk. You were wrong then and still wrong now, most particularly about how much change Canadians will accept over short period of time. Impatience ruins everything in politics.
We could have an even bigger tent if we included the disaffected conservatives, and I believe that there are many more of those than you’re estimating.
At some critical point, though, pragmatism and compromise just lead to identity change, and you’re left holding a big old bag of nothing, like the remaining Mulroney loyalists of 1993.
I’m not saying any of this out of malice. I worked for party merger and I spoke in favour of a pragmatic approach in 2004, however, I was not thinking of copying the Liberal template and just maintaining the word Conservative as a sort of relic of the former ideology of the party.
I am also very skeptical about this supposed distinction between Harper the exemplary and all the rest the awful scoundrels. There were in days past some ideological differences. Those are now very much blurred and I don’t trust that even the illusion of conservative content is genuine any more. But as to personal integrity, I have drawn somewhat different conclusions based on the evidence available. Each one of you needs to read carefully the provisions for internet regulation in the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act — perhaps Mr Harper should read them also, perhaps he is unaware of what is planned there, in which case with his power and authority he could change these plans and preserve internet freedom.
The position adopted here in general seems to be this — we trust Stephen Harper no matter what, even when he says things that are totally at variance with what we otherwise say we believe. Good luck with that. It’s called cognitive dissonance. When it breaks, it really breaks hard.
I have blue eyes, and I’m cold too.
Got the shivers from listening to Taliban Jack
and Saint Iggy-natius.
Dawg…arf…woof.
Mark
Ottawa
After taking in a bit of tonight’s (Canadian) French language debate, moi, ‘Le Chat de Snaggle’, dares to delve back to the hazy recollections of those long-ago high school french lessons and offers this opinion:
So, here goes….
Tabernac, Monsieur Duceppe, tu est un chapeau du ane gross (big asshat)! Alors, phuckez-vous, tu orifice de posterieur!
Wow! Who woulda thunk? It’s all coming back now. And here I thought that French class was a total waste of time! I mean, other than that hot fox of a teacher… aaaah…tres bien.
On the NDP intrest cap on credit cards, easy access to credit will be a lot harder. If I am one of the big guys if you pay your bills on time they will make their money on sales. If you are a student getting a 10,000 limit on minimal payments is too high a risk.
Credit may not go to those that need it most.Boderline credit and a leaky roof.
Well Peter, Cjunk, Alain and cgh, I will be voting for Harper because I still believe he wants to slowly steer the ship back from the leftist abyss.
However, I have this fear, because of what happened in the 1980s, of being Mulroneyed again.
It seems to me that the various governments, both Liberal and Progressive conservative, we have had since the early 1960s have moved the country to the left either in fast or slow speed.
After contemplating a day, I conclude that the reason Iggy is so nervy on TV is that he knows how shallow his ammo box is. He’s a smart guy, he knows the difference between an actual scandal and the kind of made up propaganda BS he’s running on. Bottom line, he’s got -nothing- and its freaking him out.
Taliban Jack on the other hand is used to having nothing. He’s always got nothing, and has adjusted to bald-faced lying in public.
Harper, as always, simply repeats “water is wet, sky is blue, wishing will not get you a pony.” He’s the only adult at the table.
What we need is some more adults.
I understand your concerns, Ken. There are however some critical differences between 1984 and today. When Mulroney created his coalition in the early 1980s, he built the Quebec wing with a large number of people who were both staunch separatists and considerably left of centre. This was no small part of the reason for the drift in the late 1980s, as the government was forced into one expediency after another to keep going. The Bouchard defection highlights the limitations of this.
This situation does not prevail today. Built out of the Reform and PC rump, there is no least trace of left wing Quebec separatism clogging up space around the Tory cabinet table today. The current party is far more unified than the ramshackle group that collapsed in 1993. And with it, far better coherence on policy. Remember the policy boondoggles over defense in the late 1980s? The Mulroney administration turned out to be no different in actual policy than Trudeau who preceded him and Chretien who followed. Couldn’t happen today.
The CPC today is a very different and more unified group than the PC of old.
Yes, I agree that the country has generally moved left since the early 1960s. So has everywhere else in the world, and Canada was no more immune to broad social trends across the industrial nations than any other.
Look at what has changed. Ten years ago, every single OECD nation was some version of a Red-Green coalition except the United States. Today, all of these nations are governed from the centre-right except the US. These things happen slowly over time, but the socialist tide is slowly going out. Quite simply, we ran out of money for them to fritter away. From this perspective, it’s not any one particular election that matters. That only matters to those whose careers are directly involved. What matters is the long term trend.
Peter O’D
I hear your sentiments and fear you are correct. However as others have noted is that Canada needs to be governed from the center. The trick Mr. Harper needs to pull of is move the center to the right. I fear he won’t be able to accomplish this as he can’t or won’t engage the publish with or without the media.
I think the average Joe Canuck is actually further to the right than the media will have them believe. The media constantly telling them what “real” Canadian opinions should be.
So if Steven Harper has to govern from the center, your choices are to vote for the party furthest to the right, Join said party and move them to the right yourself, or sit on your hands at election time and bitch about the loss of liberties and income to the Ottawa leaches. Your choice.
By the way, for Cjunk and all the Harper-haters on our side: you can’t defeat 40 years of socialist indoctrination in an afternoon. Half the province of Ontario thinks free health care in free, and a human right.
That’s because half the population lives in the 416/905 area code, less than an hour from Toronto. They all get the same TV, same papers, same radio, see the same movies, work at the same jobs, etc. They have been fed one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in history for pretty much their whole lives, from all media AND in school. It -worked-, they believe it.
More people live in 416/905 than live in Alberta. That’s what Harper and the CPC have to deal with, and so far they’ve done well.
The CPC are slowly breaking down the Liberals. They’ve damaged the Liberal party so badly that the Libs have now had three (3) complete horse’s @$$e$ as party leader. Martin they got stuck with, but Dionky and Count Iggula they elected themselves. Next up will probably be Boob Rae, even Ontario won’t support that guy.
The CPC has been slowly chipping away at the Liberal Machine in the bureaucracy. That’s a bigger threat to them than the Libs in the House, because a bit of creative foot dragging can sabotage any policy or program. Foot dragging is the least of what we’ve been seeing out of these government departments, not a week goes by that Kate doesn’t post another “study” by government “scientists” that attacks CPC policies or people.
So maybe Harper isn’t a Strong Man in the Pierre Trudeau mold. Thank GOD for that, you ask me. We don’t need Strong Leadership (TM), what we need is less government. That can only be achieved one piece at a time, unless you want to see actual blood in the streets from unionists rioting. What happened in Wisconsin is what awaits Canada if the CPC wins a majority. But Greece and its firebombing of banks and stores is what awaits if they bull ahead and just cut these a-holes off.
Anybody think the Taliban Jacks of the world are going to quietly give up when their gold-plated retirement gets cut? Or CUPE? CUPW? Not a frickin’ chance man.
Slow and steady wins the race. Senate reform, kill the gun registry, tax cuts, nice and easy, one at a time. Starting with a GST cut and a fuel excise tax cut. Never too soon for that.