Canpol: Election Imminent?

[Odin]

Canada and the US have the same problem, both a have a ruling party thats corrupt, and an opposition thats incompetent.

[Agathon]

My main concern is/was that the government observe the conventions of the House.

I would have thought that the bigger problem was the conservatives losing their member who is perhaps most popular with Ontarians and who represents the progressive wing of the party.

Harper is doomed. Canada (in particular Quebec) is just too socially liberal for the current brand of conservatism to get anywhere. Similarly, the Tories would cuddle up to Bush, another sure fire vote loser in Ontario and Quebec. They need to move back to the PC mold and get rid of the perceived bigots. Until then the Liberals will win.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Odin
Canada and the US have the same problem, both a have a ruling party thats corrupt, and an opposition thats incompetent.

Of course, the US is ten times bigger than us, so their black spots are... a fair bit more than ten times bigger than ours, IMHO, but what do I know?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Odin
Canada and the US have the same problem, both a have a ruling party thats corrupt, and an opposition thats incompetent.

I have to lean a bit toward incompetent lately. I thought Harper was a lot smarter than he has shown me the last two weeks.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon

My main concern is/was that the government observe the conventions of the House.

I would have thought that the bigger problem was the conservatives losing their member who is perhaps most popular with Ontarians and who represents the progressive wing of the party.

Harper is doomed. Canada (in particular Quebec) is just too socially liberal for the current brand of conservatism to get anywhere. Similarly, the Tories would cuddle up to Bush, another sure fire vote loser in Ontario and Quebec. They need to move back to the PC mold and get rid of the perceived bigots. Until then the Liberals will win.

You really should learn to draw. Then you could draw caricatures for the Toronto Star.

[Agathon]

You really should learn to draw. Then you could draw caricatures for the Toronto Star.

There's a reason people read the Star here and not the Nazi Post.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
Yeah, which is why I really feel for all the people who voted for Stronach in her riding. They voted for a Conservative... it was their vote that got her where she is today - while now they have someone who is completely different and represents very different ideals. Thats undemocratic.

The people I know in Aurora said they voted for her because of what her family has done for the community. Along with having the company based there, the Stronach donate a lot of money to the community. She wasn't elected just because she was a conservative.

[KrazyHorse]

If she was then her constituents deserve what they get.

They put a check mark next to her name, not to "anonymous Conservative 246"

I vote for my MP as a person. My old MP was so good that if I were still voting in that riding and he was still running I would even have considered voting Liberal.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by notyoueither


I have to lean a bit toward incompetent lately. I thought Harper was a lot smarter than he has shown me the last two weeks.

His tone has been over the top, too.

He's been calling Liberals "monsters" in the House.

He might be losing points with that...

[Wezil]

Originally posted by notyoueither
The Libelars have not yet reached Republican status.

That being said, the Libelar Party is clearly a house of lepers. They deserve all of the opprobrium that can be dumped on them.

I like "Libranos"

[notyoueither]

Graham Hicks from the Edmonton Sun

You're by the North Saskatchewan River. There is great chaos, flooding and storms.

You're trying to shoot photos that capture the tragedy.

Suddenly, you see a woman in the murky torrents.


She looks familiar. It's former Conservative leadership candidate, now Liberal cabinet minister, Belinda Stronach.

She's going under.

Either you can save her, or you can take the best photo of your life.

The question, and please give an honest answer.

Would you shoot in colour, or go with black and white?

[Agathon]

Graham Hicks from the Edmonton Sun

Is he going to burn his barn in protest?

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Agathon

You really should learn to draw. Then you could draw caricatures for the Toronto Star.

There's a reason people read the Star here and not the Nazi Post.

I am compiling a photograph collage of the defaced National Post boxes in Toronto. They are rather abundant downtown.:P

[Shi Huangdi]

Hmm, it seems as though one of the independent MPs is lleaning towards toppling the government, the one that is the Ex-Liberal. Martin might not be out of the woods yet it seems.

What do you guys think the chance are if there is an election that Stronach could be defeated by a Conservative in her riding?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/05/18/kilgour-vote050518.html

OTTAWA - One of the two Independent MPs whose decision will decide the fate of Paul Martin's Liberals says he's leaning toward defeating the government in a budget vote Thursday evening.

David Kilgour, a former Liberal from Alberta who left the party in mid-April over the sponsorship scandal, made the comment during an interview with CBC News Wednesday morning.

"At some point, you say to yourself, 'Does the government have any competence? Does it have any sense of what the correct thing is for the correct reasons?'

"And finally, when you get enough reasons like this, you say, 'Mr. Martin isn't a serious person.'"

Kilgour said he was horrified by Martin's decision to appoint former Conservative MP Belinda Stronach to cabinet Tuesday.


He said that move sends the wrong message about politicians and what they represent.

(On a historical note, Kilgour has also switched parties. He was expelled from Brian Mulroney's Conservatives in 1990 after 11 years as a member of Parliament, partly because he opposed the GST. He became a Liberal three months later. )

In the interview Wednesday, he said he is also still very disillusioned by recent testimony at the Gomery inquiry suggesting that Liberals benefited from financial wrongdoing as the sponsorship program was delivered in Quebec after the 1995 sovereignty referendum.

Finally, he's upset about the aftermath of Martin's decision to send troops to Darfur, something he fought for. When the Sudanese government balked at allowing non-African troops into the country, Kilgour said, the Canadian government backed down.

Nonetheless, the MP for Edmonton-Mill Woods-Beaumont said he hasn't made a final decision on whether to support the Liberal-NDP side or the Conservative-Bloc Québécois side in a confidence motion vote Thursday evening.

MPs will vote on a government amendment to cancel planned corporate tax cuts and increase social program spending under the terms of a $4.6-billion deal the Liberals struck with the NDP to keep the minority government alive.

Martin's side needs to attract the vote of either Kilgour or Independent MP Chuck Cadman in order to win the vote and stay in power.

Kilgour said he's keeping an open mind as he weighs both sides of a number of issues before coming to a final decision on the budget amendment vote.

For one thing, he said, Senator Romeo Dallaire has been trying to convince him to support the Liberal government on the grounds that the Sudanese people can benefit from the support Canada has promised so far.

Dallaire is a respected former general in the Canadian armed forces who has observed genocide and its aftermath first-hand in Rwanda.

The United Nations has warned that Sudan's Darfur region is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis because of violent attacks by Arab militiamen linked to Sudan's government, and resulting starvation and disease.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
What do you guys think the chance are if there is an election that Stronach could be defeated by a Conservative in her riding?

Ordinarily? Slim. She won it by less than a thousand votes. That was with the advantages of name recognition (she had run for the leadership) being known as a moderate, and money (lots of money).

After Gomery? It's anybody's guess, but I suspect most people who know Ontario would say slim, still.