Canadian Election Tread (part deux)

[Tingkai]

Where's the real NYE?

Usually you talk nonsense, but this time you're spot on.

You're right. A Conservative minority government would be a disaster. If the Conservatives win the most seats then they're screwed in the long run if they form an alliance with the BQ, NDP or Libs.

It's much better for the Conservatives to sit on the sidelines and let the other parties squable among themselves. Then the Conservatives would be in position to win a majority in the next election.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Conservatives are deliberately sabotaging themselves. That would explain Harper going crazy last weekend.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by notyoueither
btw, it is illegal to carry a weapon, period. I have never heard of anyone getting off before due to the rough neighbourhoos they live in. Anyways...

No, with the proper permits, anyone can carry a gun. You can carry a knife if you want as long as you do not have it for purpose dangerous to the public.

Kerr was charged with section 88 of the CCC. To be found guilty, the courts determine if:
a) Did he have a weapon; AND
b) Was it for a purpose dangerous to the public peace.

Everyone agreed that he had a weapon, but the majority decided it was for self-defence.
The majority wrote:
"The accused possessed the weapons to defend himself against an imminent attack and had a reasonable belief that the circumstances afforded him no legal way out"

The dissenting judge (Binnie, one of those bleeding heart liberals appointed by Chretien) argued:
"The evidence makes it clear that the accused would have been carrying his knife on the day of the incident irrespective of the threats. As on every other day, he was in possession of a dangerous weapon within a prison culture of violence for the purpose of self-help through the infliction of injury or death."

One thing to note is that this judgement won't change anything in the prison system. Prisoners already have weapons and have shown they are willing to use them.

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: British Columbia

Vancouver Centre - Liberal (NDP)
Vancouver East - NDP
Vancouver Kingsway - Liberal (NDP)
Vancouver Quadra - Liberal (Conservative)
Vancouver South - Liberal
Burnaby-Douglas - NDP
Burnaby-New Westminster - Liberal (NDP)
New Westminster-Coquitlam - Conservative (NDP)
Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam - Conservative (NDP)
North Vancouver - Conservative (Liberal)
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast - Conservative (Geen)
Delta-Richmond East - Conservative
Fleetwood-Port Kells - Conservative
Newton-North Delta - Conservative (Liberal)
Richmond - Conservative (Liberal)
South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale - Conservative
Surrey North - Independent (NDP)
Abbotsford - Conservative
Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon - Conservative
Dewdney-Alouette - Conservative
Langley - Conservative
Cariboo-Prince George - Conservative
Kamloops-Thompson - Conservative (NDP)
Kelowna - Conservative
Kootenay-Columbia - Conservative (NDP)
North Okanagan-Shuswap - Conservative (Liberal)
Okanagan-Coquihalla - Conservative
Prince George-Peace River - Conservative
Skeena-Bulkley Valley - NDP (Conservative)
Southern Interior - Conservative (Geen)
Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca - Liberal (NDP)
Nanaimo-Alberni - NDP (Conservative)
Nanaimo-Cowichan - NDP (Conservative)
Saanich-Gulf Islands - Conservative (Geen)
Vancouver Island North - Conservative (NDP)
Victoria - Liberal (NDP)

Conservative 23 (11-27)
Geen 0 (0-3)
Independent 1 (0-1)
Liberal 7 (1-11)
NDP 5 (2-16)

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: Alberta

Calgary East - Conservative
Calgary North Centre - Conservative
Calgary Northeast - Conservative
Calgary-Nose Hill - Conservative
Calgary South Centre - Conservative
Calgary Southeast - Conservative
Calgary Southwest - Conservative
Calgary West - Conservative
Edmonton-Beaumont - Liberal (Conservative)
Edmonton Centre - Liberal (Conservative)
Edmonton East - Conservative
Edmonton-Leduc - Conservative
Edmonton-St.Albert - Conservative
Edmonton-Sherwood Park - Conservative
Edmonton-Spruce Grove - Conservative
Edmonton-Strathcona - Conservative (Liberal)
Athabasca - Conservative (Liberal)
Crowfoot - Conservative
Lethbridge - Conservative
Macleod - Conservative
Medicine Hat - Conservative
Peace River - Conservative
Red Deer - Conservative
Vegreville-Wainwright - Conservative
Westlock-St.Paul - Conservative
Wetaskiwin - Conservative
Wild Rose - Conservative
Yellowhead - Conservative

Conservative 26 (24-28)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 2 (0-4)
NDP 0 (0-0)

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: Saskatchewan

Battlefords-Lloydminster - Conservative
Blackstrap - Conservative (NDP)
Churchill River - Conservative (NDP)
Cypress Hills-Grasslands - Conservative
Palliser - NDP (Conservative)
Prince Albert - Conservative (NDP)
Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre - NDP (Conservative)
Regina-Qu'Appelle - NDP
Saskatoon-Humboldt - NDP (Liberal)
Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar - NDP (Conservative)
Saskatoon-Wanuskewin - Liberal (Conservative)
Souris-Moose Mountain - Conservative
Wascana - Liberal
Yorkton-Melville - Conservative

Conservative 7 (4-11)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 2 (1-3)
NDP 5 (1-8)

[cinch]

I wish Dhaliwal would have run for the Liberal leadership. Of course, no one could've beat the Martin Machine, but it would've been a better runner-up than Copps (though I don't mind Manley that much).

[cinch]

It's looking more and more like a Lib-NDP coalition is inevitable.

I mean... will anything else really fly?

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: Manitoba

Charleswood-St.James - Liberal (Conservative)
Elmwood-Transcona - NDP
Kildonan-St.Paul - Conservative (NDP)
Saint Boniface - Liberal (Conservative)
Winnipeg Centre - NDP (Liberal)
Winnipeg North - NDP (Liberal)
Winnipeg South - Liberal (Conservative)
Winnipeg South Centre - Liberal (Conservative)
Brandon-Souris - Conservative
Churchill - NDP
Dauphin-Swan River - Conservative
Portage-Lisgar - Conservative
Provencher - Conservative
Selkirk-Interlake - Conservative (NDP)

Conservative 6 (4-10)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 4 (0-6)
NDP 4 (2-6)

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: New Brunswick

Acadie-Bathurst - NDP (Liberal)
Beauséjour - Liberal
Fredericton - Liberal (Conservative)
Fundy - Liberal (Conservative)
Madawaska-Restigouche - Liberal
Miramichi - Liberal
Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe - Liberal
St.Croix-Belleisle - Conservative
Saint John - Liberal (Conservative)
Tobique-Mactaquac - Liberal (Conservative)

Conservative 1 (1-5)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 8 (4-9)
NDP 1 (0-1)

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: Nova Scotia

Cape Breton-Canso - Liberal (NDP)
Central Nova - Conservative
Dartmouth-Cole Harbour - NDP (Liberal)
Halifax - NDP (Liberal)
Halifax West - Liberal (NDP)
Kings-Hants - Liberal (Conservative)
North Nova - Conservative
Sackville-Eastern Shore - NDP (Liberal)
South Shore-St.Margaret's - Conservative (NDP)
Sydney-Victoria - Liberal (NDP)
West Nova - Liberal (NDP)

Conservative 3 (2-4)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 5 (0-8)
NDP 3 (0-8)

[Asher]

Here's an interesting email that's been floating around:

>I got a nice email a little while ago telling me to vote conservative. I
>think who ever sent that or started that, should read this one carefully.
>
>The "new Conservative party" under Stephen Harper declares itself a
>moderate alternative to the Liberals, ready to govern Canada.
>
>In reality, the party has never had a convention or meeting of its members.
>It has no constitution. Policies are set with no control by, direction
>from, or accountability to a membership -- whoever those members may be.
>(The party is mailing out unsolicited membership cards informing surprised
>recipients they are party members. Mine arrived last week.)
>
>The "new" party is the old Reform-Alliance which took over the Progressive
>Conservative party, its colours and half its name. The word "progressive"
>was purged (along with its progressive wing). As Stephen Harper explained
>last June: "We may not have some of the old Conservatives, red Tories like
>the David Orchards or the Joe Clarks. This is not all bad. A more coherent
>coalition can take strong positions it wouldn't otherwise be able to take
>-- as the Alliance alone was able to do during the Iraq war."
>
>To accomplish the takeover, the Progressive Conservative constitution was
>trampled. Roughly 20,000 Alliance members were allowed to join, in Trojan
>horse fashion, increasing the PC membership by 50%. These Alliance members
>then voted twice -- in both the PC and Alliance ratification votes --
>producing the farcical figure of over 90% support for the takeover/merger.
>Senator Lowell Murray described the takeover of the PC party as a "coup,
>similar to what we have seen in some countries where the constitution is
>suspended and a new order ratified in a quick plebiscite."
>
>Now Mr. Harper's party has set up a Truth Squad to challenge Liberal lies,
>headed by none other than Peter MacKay, the man who infamously broke his
>word -- including that given in writing to win the leadership of his party
>-- not to merge with the Alliance, and who now refuses to reveal the source
>of the large donation he subsequently received to erase his campaign debts.
>
>This is the party that attacks the Liberals for lacking ethics and
>accountability! A vote for it will legitimize the actions of the clique,
>accountable to no one except their unseen backers (the most visible being
>Brian Mulroney) which destroyed the party that created Canada and which now
>openly spurns the most basic elements of democracy. As Mr. Harper has
>charmingly admitted, policy for the new Conservatives will be essentially
>what he says it is.
>
>For years Mr. Harper headed the National Citizens Coalition (NCC) -- whose
>motto is "More freedom through less government." Speaking to the NCC in
>1994 as a Reform MP, Harper boasted: "What has happened in the past five
>years? Let me start with the positive side. Universality has been severely
>reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy.
>The family allowance programme has been eliminated and unemployment
>insurance has been seriously cut back...These achievements are due in part
>to the Reform Party of Canada and. the National Citizens' Coalition."
>
>As Alliance leader in Parliament, Stephen Harper set out his views on
>health care: "Several provinces are involved in pushing for alternative
>private delivery, even on a profit basis. This is a natural development. In
>a properly functioning system, profit is the reward that businesses obtain
>for making substantial, long-term capital investments.The federal
>government must support this initiative."
>
>The Canadian Wheat Board, established in 1935 by Conservative prime
>minister R.B. Bennett, has in spite of fierce U.S. opposition become
>Canada's largest net earner of foreign currency. It has played a crucial
>role in keeping the grain industry in Canadian hands and provides one of
>the few defences left for western farmers. Harper and his colleagues,
>cooperating fully with the U.S. grain industry, call repeatedly for its
>destruction.
>
>Mr. Harper has promised to scrap Canada's commitment to Kyoto, joining the
>U.S. in its opposition to the only international agreement to reduce
>harmful carbon dioxide emissions. He plans to privatize major parts of the
>CBC and gut the nation's broadcast regulator, the CRTC, opening the
>broadcast industry to foreign takeover.
>
>And there is more: since coming from the U.S. Tom Flanagan, a key founder
>of the Reform Party and now Mr. Harper's chief advisor and the party's
>campaign manager, has made his career attacking Aboriginal people. The
>Alliance platform called explicitly for the privatization of the reserve
>system and the deliberate assimilation of Native people. In his book First
>Nations?
>
>Second Thoughts Flanagan writes: "European civilization was several
>thousand years more advanced than the aboriginal cultures of North
>America." He sneeringly dismisses Aboriginal treaty rights: "Sovereignty is
>an attribute of statehood, and aboriginal peoples in Canada had not arrived
>at the state level of political organization prior to contact with
>Europeans." With Flanagan's man in power Aboriginals are offered one
>choice: to cease to be a distinct people with fundamental rights.
>
>On June 29 a minority Conservative government can expect Bloc support --
>for a price. Both parties agree on dismantling the central government and
>national institutions in favour of greater provincial powers. As
>constitutional affairs critic for the Reform Party in the lead up to the
>1995 Quebec referendum, Mr. Harper stated: "Whether Canada ends up with one
>national government, orsome other kind of arrangement is, quite frankly,
>secondary in my opinion." His essay in 2001 defending Alliance MP Jim
>Pankiw's private member's bill to emasculate the Official Languages Act,
>"Bilingualism -- the God that failed," is equally revealing.
>
>Bloc MP Yves Rocheleau prefers a Conservative victory, he said, because it
>would "demonstrate what René Levesque called 'the impossible Canada.'
>Canada is a madhouse. It's a country that cannot be administered."
>
>A unilingual French speaking Quebec, a unilingual English speaking rest of
>Canada and no need for the twain to meet; this is the meeting ground for
>the Bloc and the Conservatives and a graveyard for the dreams of all who
>have fought for a tolerant bilingual nation stronger for our efforts to
>learn from, and be protective of, the other's culture and language.
>
>During the U.S. war on Iraq Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day repeatedly and
>vociferously advocated Canadian participation, including attacking the
>Canadian government in the Wall Street Journal:
>
>"Today the world is at war. A coalition of countries under the leadership
>of the U.K. and the U.S. is leading a military intervention to disarm
>Saddam Hussein. Yet, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has left Canada outside
>this multilateral coalition of nations.
>
>This is a serious mistake.. The Canadian Alliance -- the official
>opposition in Parliament --supports the American and British position. Make
>no mistake. the Canadian Alliance won't be neutral. In our hearts and minds
>we will be with our allies and friends.. But we will not be with the
>Canadian government."
>
>(March 28, 2003)
>
>Only in Quebec with its "pacifist tradition," Mr. Harper alleged, were most
>people opposed to the war. Peter MacKay, now Harper's deputy leader,
>excoriated Mr. Chrétien for being weak and vacillating, even cowardly, in
>refusing to join that illegal invasion. Today, apparently hoping Canadians
>and the media have lost their memories, Harper and Day try to deny their
>words.
>
>For those who want to protect Canada's culture, its environment, its
>institutions and its sovereignty, Mr. Harper and his inner circle have
>nothing but words of contempt as they work to dismantle our nation. They
>march to a different drummer, to the beat of Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Bush,
>pledging allegiance to a foreign flag.
>
>Here's a clip from an interview a man named Larry Spencer, the Alliance's
>family issues critic and the toronto sun.
>
>Spencer said homosexuality is part of a "well orchestrated" conspiracy that
>should be outlawed, a Canadian Alliance MP says.
>
>NDP MP Svend Robinson, who is openly gay, called Spencer a "bigot" and said
>his comments were "absolutely disgusting and unacceptable."
>
>Robinson said it wasn't the first time MPs from the Alliance had made these
>types of comments and criticized Harper for appointing Spencer as family
>issues critic.
>
>Spencer, the MP for Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre, said that this conspiracy
>began in the 1960s and included the seduction and recruitment of young boys
>in playgrounds and locker rooms.
>
>"I do believe it was a mistake to have legalized it," Spencer, 61, told the
>Sun.
>
>Spencer, the Alliance's family issues critic, said there has been a
>deliberate infiltration of homosexuality in North America's courts,
>schools, religious communities and the entertainment industry.
>
>
>Larry Spencer
>
>He said this conspiracy has led to successes in the gay-rights movement.
>
>"It's so sad that we have to take an issue like this and be asked to put
>the Good Housekeeping seal of approval on it without being allowed to tell
>the truth and talk about facts," said Spencer, a U.S.-born former Baptist
>pastor.
>
>He said homosexuals, due to AIDS and other health problems, have a far
>lower life expectancy than straight men.
>
>"Let's just say if ... anybody that used Colgate toothpaste, their life
>expectancy was lowered by 10, 15 years. What do you think would happen to
>Colgate toothpaste? It would be outlawed. Well, we know that's what happens
>to men living a gay lifestyle."
>
>He also said homosexuals can transform themselves into heterosexuals.

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: Newfoundland

Avalon - Liberal
Bonavista-Exploits - Liberal (Conservative)
Humber-St.Barbe-Baie Verte - Liberal
Labrador - Liberal
Random-Burin-St.George's - Liberal (NDP)
St.John's North - Conservative (Liberal)
St.John's South - Conservative (Liberal)

Conservative 2 (0-3)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 5 (4-7)
NDP 0 (0-1)

[Flinx]

Flinx's Election Guess: PEI + the territories

Cardigan - Liberal (Conservative)
Charlottetown - Liberal
Egmont - Liberal
Malpeque - Liberal
Yukon - Liberal (NDP)
Western Arctic - Liberal (NDP)
Nunavut - Liberal

Conservative 0 (0-1)
Geen 0 (0-0)
Independent 0 (0-0)
Liberal 7 (4-7)
NDP 0 (0-2)

[St Leo]

Roughly 20,000 Alliance members were allowed to join, in Trojan horse fashion, increasing the PC membership by 50%. These Alliance members
then voted twice -- in both the PC and Alliance ratification votes -- producing the farcical figure of over 90% support for the takeover/merger.

90% - 50%/150% = 57%

10% + 57% = 67%

10% / 67% = 15%

57% / 67% = 85%

Therefore, without the ballot stuffing, the merger would have passed with an 85% support. In order to get a 90% majority from a 49% loss, the PC party's membership would have needed to grow by 510%.

Eh.

[Ben Kenobi]

Here's an interesting email that's been floating around: