Keeping Canada together, one post at a time!
The Parti lib�ral du Canada “campaign blog”;
A reader writes – “The CPC blog on the other hand is available in both English and French. The Tory blog may not be funny, but at least it’s bland in both languages. Come to think of it, if I were working in PMO’s communication shop, I wouldn’t want to speak French either, after all how many ways are there to say “nous sommes d�sol�s?”
“The PM Responds: “Aristotle. No question. Because the philosopher I studied most was St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom [the French philosopher] Jacques Maritain was a 20th century disciple. And you can trace a line back through them to the brilliance of Aristotle.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas responds:
“a multitude of contingent things do not make a necessary thing any more than a multitude of idiots make one intelligent man.”
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/GODIS.HTM
St. Thomas Aquinas answers,
“A distinction must be made among sinners; some are secret; some are notorious, either from evidence of the fact, as public usurers, or public robbers or from being denounced as evil men by some ecclesiastical or civil tribunal. Therefore, Holy Communion ought not to be given to open sinners when they ask for it,”
Summa Theologiae, III:q 80:art 6
NEW POLL!!!!
http://www.ctv.ca//servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051213/elxn_poll_051213/20051213?s_name=election2006&no_ads=
Prairies, Quebec screaming for change: poll
CTV.ca News Staff
The story of this election is the differing desire of some regions to throw the government out, says a pollster.
“We’ve got really different political cultures, and it’s really manifesting itself,” Tim Woolstencroft of The Strategic Counsel told CTV.ca on Tuesday.
His firm conducted the tracking poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail.
Respondents were asked the following: “Some people have been saying it’s time for a change and that a new government should be voted in. Other people have said that now would be the wrong time to make a change and we should return the Liberals to power. Which one of these two views best represents your own?”
Here are the national numbers from polling conducted between Dec. 10 and 12 (change from Nov. 28 pre-election poll in brackets):
* Change now: 58 per cent (+4)
* Now’s not the time: 33 per cent (-6)
* DK/NA/NR: 9 per cent (+2)
Woolstencroft pronounced himself surprised by some of the regional differences (change from the Nov. 28 pre-election poll in brackets), in per cent:
* Quebec: 64-30 in favour of change (+5)
* Rest of Canada: 56-34 in favour of change (+4)
* Ontario: 51-38 in favour of change (+2)
* Prairies: 70-20 in favour of change (+4)
* B.C.: 55-37 in favour of change (+4)
Governments are considered to be in trouble when at least 60 per cent of the electorate decides it’s time for a change.
Over the past week, Liberal fortunes have appeared to decline slightly while Tory fortunes have risen. There is now a two-point gap separating the Liberals and Conservatives nationally.
Here are the national numbers (change from the Dec. 6-8 poll are in brackets):
* Liberals: 33 per cent (-3)
* Conservatives: 31 per cent (+3)
* NDP: 17 per cent (+1)
* Bloc Quebecois: 13 per cent (-1)
* Green Party: 6 per cent (unchanged)
While the numbers appear to show a narrowing gap, Woolstencroft said his firm wasn’t prepared to make much of it.
“Over the two weeks of this campaign, the Liberals have been roughly been holding a five to six-point lead,” he said. “Out of one three-night tracking, we’ve got them down to two (percentage points), so we’re holding our powder.”
One reason for that is because there isn’t single national election, he said. There are actually five regional ones going on.
The Liberals’ woes continue in Quebec (the change from Dec.4-6, their high-water mark of 32 per cent, is in brackets):
* Bloc Quebecois: 54 per cent (+1)
* Liberals: 24 per cent (-8)
* Conservatives: 10 per cent (+6)
* NDP: 7 per cent (+1)
* Greens: 5 per cent (unchanged)
“The Conservatives have more than doubled their support,” Woolstencroft said.
In the rest of Canada, the Conservatives lead the Liberals 38 per cent to 36 per cent for the first time, although that is within the margin of error for the poll.
Ontario shows the following (the change from the Dec. 6-8 poll is in brackets):
* Liberals: 44 per cent (-1)
* Conservatives: 32 per cent (unchanged)
* NDP: 18 per cent (+2)
* Greens: 6 per cent (-1)
The Conservatives captured 24 of 106 Ontario seats in 2004 with about 32 per cent of the vote. Woolstencroft said that party needs to be in the 35 to 36 per cent range to really make a dent in Canada’s most seat-rich province.
The prairies remain a Conservative bastion, with the party’s support just under 60 per cent.
However, “they have too many votes going wasted there,” Woolstencroft said.
B.C. continues to look like a three-way fight as the three main parties are all essentially tied.
Woolstencroft said Atlantic Canada continues to provide solid support to the Liberals.
But overall, the national numbers aren’t capturing how different the country really is, “which is not a good message,” he said.
Technical information
The Strategic Counsel prepared this tracking poll for CTV and The Globe and Mail.
Results are based on nightly tracking among a proportionate national sample of Canadians 18 years of age or older.
Findings have been rolled up and analyzed over a three-day period. Interviews were conducted between Dec. 10-12.
Here is the sample size and the margins of error for each region (plus or minus, in percentage points):
* Canada – 1,500 (2.5)
* Quebec – 371 (5.1)
* Rest of Canada, 1,129 (2.9)
* Ontario – 569 (4.1)
* British Columbia – 199 (7.0)
* Prairies 246 (6.3)
To obtain a written copy of the poll, contact The Strategic Counsel, 21 St. Clair Ave. E., Ste. 2100, Toronto, ON, M4T 1L9.
Ex-Liberal MP ‘ashamed’ he was on Martin’s team
Canadian Press
OTTAWA � Maverick MP and one-time cabinet minister David Kilgour says he’s ashamed to have ever been part of Paul Martin’s Liberal team.
“I’m appalled by the way the Liberal campaign (is going) and the way Martin and (top aide Scott) Reid and so many of them are conducting themselves,” Kilgour said in an interview Tuesday.
“Actually, I’m ashamed to have a been a part of them.”
http://www.ctv.ca//servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051213/elxn_kilgour_051213/20051213?s_name=election2006&no_ads=
The horror the horror!
Stephen Clarkson, a professor political economy, argues the White House has set its sights on regime change for the first time in North America since John Kennedy’s battle with former PM John Diefenbaker in 1963.
Look, I don’t think George Bush gives a damn about Paul Martin. He has looked contemptuos when PM has been lecturing in other forums. George knows a phony when he sees one. But his many, many supporters do care and that is where the anger emanates.
The Canadians that think Martin’s manic pomposity is clever and admirable are dumb. I do too and Emerson should know better. The Canadian Softwood Lumber Industry faces a formidable enemy in the US Association that has power and influence. The members love Chretien’s and Martin’s bad-mouthing because it works so well in their favour. Paul Martin cares very, very deeply about the Softwood Lumber issue but much, much more about votes so he sells out the industry in the blink of an eye for what he thinks builds his image. Anti-Americanism is simply dumb, dumb, dumb and should be below our standards if we are the world-leading nation we claim to be. In practical terms, US bashing has and will affect us adversley in the future. A lot of DC officials across political stripes are offended (p/o’d)because of the Canadian baggage the US carries.
As for Canadian citizens, when the days comes that Martin lays cash on the line to buy emissions credits under the Kyoto cult (sorry, Kyoto Protocol) there should be an insurrection.
Peter
As Rex Murphy wrote on 2003-03-29: “Americans are mad at us, not because we’re not with them, but because of the way in which we have chosen to tell them we’re not with them. If we expect the Americans to treat with some delicacy those matters that are most important to us, then they surely have the right to an equal expectation in how we deal with them. […]
“This mingy undercurrent of smug anti-Americanism is one of the most demeaning strands in our national life. Indulging it at a time of great seriousness savages the dignity of both nations. We should strive always, Samuel Johnson once said, to keep our friendships in repair.”
Back on topic:
�Prefiero espa�ol! Es idioma m�s importante que franc�s.
http://platostepchild.typepad.com/platos_stepchild/2005/12/andrew_coyne_is.html
Andrew Coyne is back!
Sometimes the left can be very helpful:
Socialist Worker 443, February 16, 2005 � http://www.socialist.ca
Liberals held back by massive public opposition to war
Martin flirts with sending troops to Iraq
By Doug Nesbitt
On February 5, the Toronto Star reported that Paul Martin was open to a recent American proposal of sending forty Canadian soldiers to Baghdad as part of a 300-strong NATO unit to train Iraqi soldiers.
A day earlier, at the swearing-in of Canada�s new chief of defence, Martin said, “the defence of Canada is limited not only to North America but it must be extended around the world.”
The Star then reported on February 8 that Martin was ready to offer “long-term help to train Iraqi soldiers.”
Martin, though, seems to think this means staying out the war. In the House of Commons he said, “We refused to send Canadian troops to Iraq two years ago. That decision stands. Canadian troops will not be going to Iraq.”
Martin says Canada would only help in this manner if NATO makes a request and if the training takes place in a nearby country, notably Jordan which borders Iraq.
However, twenty Canadian police officers are already in Jordan training Iraqi police officers “on Western law-enforcement techniques.” Recent highlights in Western law-enforcement include security certificates, secret trials, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
Martin�s overtures to participation in Iraq are not something new. Even before the war started in March 2003, the Liberals were planning to send troops to Iraq.
In late November 2003, the National Post revealed that Canada was proposing to send between six hundred and eight hundred soldiers to Iraq. Three days after the massive anti-war demonstrations on February 15, Chr�tien announced Canada would not participate in the war.
However, Chr�tien then committed over a thousand troops to Afghanistan, freeing up thousands of American troops for Iraq. Canada also sent warships supposedly to help the “reconstruction” of Afghanistan. What was the navy doing helping the “reconstruction” of a land-locked country?
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Canadian ruling class are in the process of hitching their wagon to the American imperial project in the Middle East. This also means participation in missile defence, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the build-up of the Canadian Armed Forces.
The February 8 Toronto Star article ended with comments from Defence Minister Bill Graham. “We are on track. We are turning the corner. We are increasing the size of our army and our armed forces … We are increasing the ability for them to perform the outstanding role they provide around the world as peacekeepers.”
Only pressure from below can stop these overt acts of militarism and imperialism. The anti-war movement has already stopped direct Canadian participation in the Iraq occupation and delayed plans for Canada to endorse missile defence. Building the March 19-21 actions against the war is our next big opportunity to stop the Canadian war machine.
Socialist Worker 443, February 16, 2005 � http://www.socialist.ca
I’ve decoded the rest of the Liberal website here.
You can talk about change all you want. The fact of the matter is Harper is very dangerous because he is opaque.
just a little misleading, check http://www.liberal.ca/blogs_e.aspx?itype=83
also
what does “The fact of the matter is Harper is very dangerous” mean?
Opaque? You think Harper is opaque? How many ways can he spell out his platform? He has more integrity in his pinky than the entire House has combined. The Liberals WERE opaque until Scott Reid spelled it out for the dumb-as-bricks brigade who’d rather admit to being scared by ‘opaque’ bogeymen than inform themselves. Soctty made it simple; spoke in a language they could understand; summed up the whole Liberal philosophy of governance. Opaque?????
“The fact of the matter is Harper is very dangerous because he is opaque.”
Another Liberal troll wows us with the philosophic predilections of his Aristotelian boss.
Awooooooooooo.
Stephen Harper is scary.
What the hell is a reporter asking asking Dithers about Rob Ambers’ flyer “linking” crystal meth to “gay marriage”? Dithers was unaware (supposedly, who knows) but used it as example of intolerance, etc, etc,. Wassup?
Too much Law & Order. Crystal meth use on the rise among gay men in last night’s episode. Some Liberal plant watching too much tv. Anything to distract from beer and popcorn and drive-by smears of Bush with the resultant and predictable fallout.
Who is Rob Ambers? And Iron Lady, it was on Law & Order, seriously?!
Yes, last night, SVU. Some guy out killing gays who were into crystal meth big time, got carried away and started spreading weird new mutated AIDS strain that killed within months, no effective drugs to help. Boy, the Libs are so desperate, you have to laugh. Feel sorry for Rob, though. Can’t imagine what he was thinking/writing/not editing. But they’ll do anything because I think they’re headed for their final gasp.
Yes, I watched this same Law and Order. I find it hard to believe that the Lib’s have resorted to pulling issues from TV shows. (or so it appears)
We can only pray that their last breath is a painfull one. Also Lib’s have just been charged with plagiarism regarding and ad running in Quebec. They can’t even get it together to plan advertising with out coping an idea. Very sad, this is how they run our country.
It’s not the polls: It’s the Troll.
Due to technical problems/solutions beyond this Canuck’s IT capabilities, unable to post pic of Martin. It’s ghastly: the furrowed brown, the hand raised, the rheumy eyes, the teeth, baggy eyes, the purple blotches, & etc. Who me worried, does it say?
Librano$ are collapsing. >>>>
Sun Media poll: Grits slipping
As Canada’s federal leaders prepare to square off in Vancouver in the first round of televised debates, a Leger Marketing/Sun Media poll to be released Thursday shows the Liberals’ lead over the Conservatives is narrowing. >>>
http://cnews.canoe.ca/
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