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…
Hope you guys are right or it is back to the labour camps.
“free health care IS free”, not “in free”, darn fat fingers…
Iggy ranting at Harper about parliamentary democracy is pure hypocrisy. In a democracy the party leader does not whip the vote.
Dawg’s description of Harper kinda turned me on a little there.
I didn’t watch the debate. I didn’t even remember it was on. I have a life.
Phantom, the next Liberal leader likely won’t be Rae. Remember, the Liberals alternate between anglophone and francophone. This is where it gets interesting, because the Liberal Quebec caucus was seriously hollowed out when Denis Coderre was chased out and took most of the Liberal political machine with him. Expect to see a strong push behind Justin Trudeau even though he likely won’t win it during the next one. It will however push the party further to the left.
The Liberals are now living with the Martin leadership legacy. His struggle for the leadership was so polarizing that it chased out of the party everyone who was centre or right of centre, and the way things are going they won’t be back. You’re right that they’ve had three losers in a row as leaders, but that’s not going to change any time soon. There’s just not enough room for three parties on the left. And so they will slowly strangle each other.
“Slow and steady wins the race.”
Slow and steady in the wrong direction doesn’t win anything.
Does anyone have an idea of what difference it would make if every Canadian’s vote was weighted the same? My whole family’s vote is canceled out my one person in PEI.
I’ve watched the French debate in French (Yes I can) and I’ll give you my review of it because believe me, if the medias were kinda fair to Harper on the English debate, they chose to quickly overlook and not mention much about the French debate this morning. Here’s why IMO:
If Layton got the zinger on Tuesday night with his “Iffy not in Parliament most of the time”, Harper got last night’s punch:
When Duceppe was arguing with Iggy about Quebec not being in the constitution back and forth and Layton then threw in his opinion; with all 3 now screeching at the same time, Harper was given the rebuke to all 3 and did not miss a heartbeat: “You see what you are facing, the same old arguments that Quebecers don’t care about…Right now they care about the economy and jobs…We will be in another election in no time if we don’t get a majority…” (The gist of my recollection, not exact words)
This was mentioned as a good move by Harper only once by the French MSM (A French reporter for the National Post) immediately after the debate, because IMO, the “narrative” for today’s report were not yet determined by the MSM social engineers at that point.
This morning, in the English TV MSM, not a word was mention about it.
They’re take: “No one really won…They all had good moments” I would say good enough analysis but what they don’t account for is for the undecided voter.
This reinforces the fact that you have to see things live and unedited to know all the facts. Had Harper gaffed big time, you would of have much more detailed accounts instead of the almost brush off.
TV News suck so bad in Canada it’s unbelievable…Worst than the US and there’s is truly atrocious too. Come on SUN News!
Reader’s Digest:
Both the Bloc and the Liberals will lose support to the Conservatives and NDP in Quebec after last night and dare I say, the Bloc might be in for a rude awakening come May 3rd…Many Quebecers might tell you they currently support the Bloc out of misplaced pride for their “Regional Nation” party but secretly vote for someone else.
Duceppe has apparently been very grumpy and impatient ever since the start of the election leaving the French MSM puzzled as to why, because according to the poll, he has a somewhat comfortable lead…
I think the old Marxist scholar (Yes he studied it in University) Duceppe which has the advantage of getting the true pulse of his people knows something might be afoot.
I too watched in French and I agree that Harper did well. Unfortunately Ignatieff was better than he was on Tuesday. Just in terms of language Gille Ducepe obviously speaks better french than all of them, Jack Layton was second, and Iggy and Harper both were about the same although Harper did stumble a couple of times.
Another moment for me was when the unemployed lady asked her question about what each party would do for her region’s employment problems. Iggy’s answer was his EI program for elder care and some vague promise to provide jobs in her region. For me that was a WTF moment. There is NO WAY a Bloc voter was converted on that answer or the other one where the guy asked about what each party would do for the middle class. Both were huge flubs for Iggy in my view.
Steve, there are 308 members in the House. If divided up equally among the voters there would be 107,000 total population in each riding.
So here are the breakdowns by province of what each province should have purely by population, with the current actual number in brackets:
Nfld 4 (7)
NS 9 (11)
NB 7 (10)
PEI 1 (4)
Que 75 (75)
Ont 120 (106)
MN 9 (14)
SK 9 (14)
AL 34 (28)
BC 41 (36)
North 1 (3)
Broken out by population, Ontario is the most poorly represented in Canada, followed by BC and Alberta, while the Maritime provinces, Manitoba and Saskatchewan are overrepresented. Within the provinces there would be a large transfer of seats from rural to urban areas, as cities are heavily underrepresented. Mississauga South, for example has a population of more than 250,000 with well over 100,000 voters.
Thanks CGH. I’m thinking this should be realigned if we are interested in representative government.
That may be, Steve, but a ton of posters here would disagree. A ton of rural, conservative-voting ridings would disappear.
In all honesty, the current system represents a compromise between representation by population and regional representation for smaller provinces to ensure they are not entirely drowned out by the larger ones.
The fact remains however that the most disfranchised people in the country are those who live in Toronto and Vancouver.
I will update my point of view as of Thursday evening as there is no relevant thread open, to state that the Guergis affair as described tonight on the national news is very damaging to Harper and the party. I am also disturbed by what I’m hearing about the Afghanistan documents.
It may come to a situation here where a group of CPC candidates (including incumbents) may have to declare their intention to form an independent caucus and seek re-election on that basis.
Stephen Harper needs to resign immediately. His ethical standards are nowhere near high enough to serve as Prime Minister of Canada. End of story.