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Call To Power 2 Cradle 3+ mod in progress: https://apolyton.net/forum/other-games/call-to-power-2/ctp2-creation/9437883-making-cradle-3-fully-compatible-with-the-apolyton-edition
Cdn regulations make it very expensive to produce tobacco that complies with our domestic standards but there is a different standard for imported tobacco. It is not a level playing field.
Awwwh, me heart cries for them poor tobacco farmers.
So after coming home from a night of drinking, I'm wondering if Stan was still alive, would he have been elected and if he ran would he have been a Conservative, Liberal or NDPer.
God bless Stan.
And folks, as much as we argue, if you're in Canada, you're in a great country.
I'm stuck in Hong Kong. Can't get any time off cause my paper is expanding and there's no vacation time until we hire more people. My heart is breaking out here. I want to be with my family in the Rockies. I want to sit down and watch HNIC. Or to raise a jar in Grossman's bar.
No matter who wins, you'll have a better government than we have out here.
It's like Joni said you don't what you've got until they pave paradise and put up a parking lot.
They have 18 safe seats, because you have to remember all the interior votes Conservative, like Alberta votes Conservative.
23 4 9 0 0
4 seats? No way. I'd bet my avatar that they would get more then 4 seats.
Scouse Git (2)La Fayette Adam SmithSolomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!
Problems with his model aside, the Conservatives will lose a bunch of their seats in BC. There's no way they'll drop below a dozen or so, but their loses will be substantial.
CON Abbotsford +20k
CON Cariboo-PG + 8k
CON Chilliwack +24k
CON Delta East + 6k
CON Dewdney + 3k
CON Kamloops + 6k
CON Kelowna +11k
CON Kootenay +11k
CON Langley +12k CON Nanaimo + 4k
CON Shuswap +11k
CON Coquihalla +13k
CON PoCo + 6k
CON PG-Peace +14k CON Saanich + 5k CON White Rock + 3k
CON Surrey N + 7k
I can see them losing another 3, but the question is would these seats go to the Liberals? NDP has a higher total in Nanaimo, so I would figure, based on my earlier calculations, (and assuming the poll is correct), you have
14 CON
12 LIB
10 NDP
Last edited by Ben Kenobi; December 21, 2005, 17:28.
Scouse Git (2)La Fayette Adam SmithSolomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!
Scouse Git (2)La Fayette Adam SmithSolomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
"Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!
Yeah, I was thinking more or less the same thing. Here's what I came up with:
Code:
[b]Greater Vancouver/Lower Mainland[/b]
Vancouver Centre NDP/Lib
Vancouver East NDP
Vancouver Kingsway Lib/NDP
Vancouver Quadra Lib
Vancouver South Lib/NDP
Burnaby-Douglas NDP
Burnaby-New Westminster NDP
Delta-Richmond East Con
Fleetwood-Port Kells Con/Lib/NDP
Newton-North Delta Con/Lib/NDP
New Westminster-Coquitlam NDP
North Vancouver Lib/Con
West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Con/Lib
Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam Con/Lib/NDP
Richmond Lib
South Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale Con
Surrey North NDP
Abbotsford Con
Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon Con
Langley Con
Pitt Meadows-Maple Ridge-Mission Con
[b]Interior and North[/b]
British Columbia Southern Interior Con/NDP
Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo Con
Kelowna-Lake Country Con
Kootenay-Columbia Con
Okanagan-Coquihalla Con
Okanagan-Shuswap Con
Prince George-Peace River Con
Cariboo-Prince George Con
Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP
[b]Vancouver Island[/b]
Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca Lib/NDP
Nanaimo-Alberni Con/NDP
Nanaimo-Cowichan NDP
Saanich-Gulf Islands Con/Lib
Vancouver Island North Con/NDP
Victoria Lib/NDP
[b]Totals[/b]
Conservative 13-22
Liberal 2-13
New Democrat 7-18
Awwwh, me heart cries for them poor tobacco farmers.
That's a well reasoned response.
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." - Mark Twain
Tory `star' faces tough fight in Montreal
Outremont voted Conservative in 1988
But Fournier seen as a future leader
Dec. 20, 2005. 01:00 AM
GRAHAM FRASER
NATIONAL AFFAIRS WRITER
MONTREAL—Daniel Fournier is a Rhodes Scholar, a former professional football player and a successful businessman. Educated at Princeton and Oxford, he has wealth, charm, a wife and four children.
Fournier is also a Conservative.
"I just think we're extremely fortunate to have him running for us," said Michael Fortier, co-chair of the Conservative campaign, comparing Fournier to the Liberals' star candidate in Quebec. "In some ways, he's our Marc Garneau."
Anywhere else, he would be a serious candidate, but in Quebec, in Montreal's Outremont riding — which has voted Conservative only once, in 1988 — he is facing overwhelming odds.
The obvious question: Why would someone with a successful career as a businessman and consultant throw himself into such a long-shot proposition?
"I have been thinking about it for several years," Fournier said.
"It's really because I think we are at a dead-end which is structural. We have, in my view, a central government which is exercising a kind of federalism which is out of date."
He argues that the Conservatives represent the only way to break the deadlock.
"The Liberals haven't had a majority in Quebec since the Trudeau years," he said. "Among my Bloc friends, there is not one who will ever, in his or her lifetime, vote for the Liberal party. So what do we do?"
Fournier became a candidate in May, on the day Belinda Stronach crossed the floor to join Paul Martin's cabinet. That rendered any other political news of the day irrelevant.
But when the Liberals managed to survive a budget vote and hang on to power, Fournier — who'd had sold his consulting company — decided to travel across the country, meet Conservatives, and renew his understanding of Canada.
He met premiers, citizens, journalists and Conservatives — from John Tory and Tony Clement in Ontario to Peter Lougheed and Jim Dinning in Alberta — and asked them about the country, Quebec and what it meant to be a Conservative.
"People want a strong central government that respects the Constitution, but with much more respect for citizens, taxpayers and provincial jurisdiction," Fournier said.
"And also, for the place that Canada occupies in the world."
It is the kind of exercise prospective MPs rarely engage in, and some Conservatives wonder if he has larger leadership ambitions.
Fournier himself is discreet about the future, saying he is entirely focused on Jan. 23. Other Conservatives pick their words carefully when asked about his prospects.
"If ever there were a leadership at some point, would I like to see a guy like Daniel run?" said Fortier. "Absolutely."
Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin, co-chair of the Conservative campaign, said Fournier has never spoken about any other ambition than winning a seat.
"I hear the same speculation," he added. "We'll see."
But privately, other Conservatives are skeptical, pointing out that when Fortier himself ran for the leadership, he received less than 5 per cent of the vote, damaging rather than enhancing his future prospects.
And why Outremont, a Liberal stronghold?
Jean Lapierre, Paul Martin's Quebec lieutenant, won the riding in June 2004 with 15,675 votes, defeating his young Bloc opponent François Rebello by 2,955 votes.
Third came NDP candidate Omar Aktouf with 5,382 votes, and fourth, only 600 votes ahead of the Green party candidate, came the Conservative, with 2,284 votes — almost 13,400 votes behind Lapierre.
Fournier says simply that he lives there. Paradoxically, if he has a chance, it is because all four major parties are presenting strong candidates.
Little difference between Martin and Harper
Dec. 22, 2005. 01:00 AM
JAMES TRAVERS
What in the sweet name of election spin is happening? Cranky Reformers complain Stephen Harper is becoming Liberal-lite and the few remaining Trudeau-era Liberals worry that Paul Martin is just the Conservative leader with a winning smile. Truth is, this campaign's big story is a small shift toward the centre by leaders who know who they are and hope voters won't notice. On issues that matter most to Canadians, the differences between newly pragmatic Harper and fundamentally cautious Martin are hard to measure.
Run a finger down the list and find strikingly common views, if not always the same policies. On same-sex marriage, health care, federalism and national defence, the two leaders offer ideologically different solutions to national problems seen through essentially the same personal prism.
Are Martin and Harper more comfortable with the traditional definition of marriage? You bet. Do they differ much on the private delivery of public medicine, accommodating the provinces — notably Quebec — at the expense of a strong central government, or sending troops to Iraq? Not a bit.
Sure, Martin's personality is hot and Harper's cool, but other than that, a child's hat could cover the spread between them. That's not an accident and it's exactly what Conservatives, but not Liberals, want voters to be thinking as they cast ballots.
With few exceptions — the 1988 free trade campaign is one — the party that plants its flag in the mushy middle wins federal elections. Somehow, true-believer neo-conservatives missed that essential political fact of life and blew two decades telling voters what they didn't want to hear.
That allowed Liberals to demonize a Conservative leader who is much like their own.
Between the 2004 debacle and this campaign, Harper figured that out and the results are self-evident in Conservative tactics yanked from the Liberal playbook. Proof nestles in the Conservative Quebec platform and in the defensive wall Harper is building around himself on the charged question of Canada-United States relations.
Desperate to be taken seriously in Quebec, Harper is retreating from the old Reform-Alliance hard line in favour of what looks like appeasement. A Conservative government would rebalance federalism's fiscal imbalance, give all provinces more autonomy, and Quebec a voice at some international meetings.
That's farther from fiery Liberal campaign rhetoric than it is from Martin's record. While denying Ottawa is scooping taxes and leaving the provinces with the bills, Martin in power has been playing fast and loose with the country's economic foundations and, arguably, is weakening the federal government more, and with less public discussion, than any other prime minister.
On Iraq, Martin credibly insists the Conservative leader would have joined the U.S. invasion and, less credibly, claims that, as prime minister, Harper would bow to Uncle Sam. But during a fast-forgotten exchange in last week's second debate, Harper cited U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci's memoir as proof Martin was willing to dispatch soldiers earlier this year.
Martin denied it, but Harper's story is more believable. In February, the Star published articles saying Canada's former and current chiefs of the defence staff left a Martin meeting convinced the Prime Minister would say Yes to George W. Bush. But Martin changed his mind just as he did on continental missile defence when Conservatives, playing politics, got in the way.
Canada's current reality is that it has a Liberal prime minister who thinks like a conservative and is only kept from behaving more conservatively by public opinion and the fear of losing power. Instead of doing what he believes, Martin does what's politically expedient.
Sometimes that works. Knowing that equality matters to a polyglot nation, Martin is advancing same-sex marriage as a protected right, not as a bold statement about modernity.
Once in power, Harper would eventually find himself making the same arguments for similar reasons. But in the heat of this campaign, what matters now is how voters see the two leaders.
If the election-day consensus is that Harper is Liberal-lite and Martin just a conservative with a winning smile, the hunger for change will outweigh the risks and this prime minister will be chased from power.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
James Travers's national affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. jtraver@thestar.ca.
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There is only one political leader standing in the way of another Quebec referendum and it is not Paul Martin, Stephen Harper or Jack Layton.
Within the probable lifespan of the next federal government, Quebecers will go to the polls to decide the fate of Jean Charest's federalist administration. By definition, that election will be a plebiscite on another referendum.
Over the past two years, Quebec's sovereignists have rebuilt their coalition. They have benefited greatly from the corrosive fallout of the sponsorship scandal on the federalist brand name. They have made inroads in the ethnically diverse communities of Montreal. They have rejuvenated their image.
Charest has also been busy. When he came to power, the issue of the distribution of the fiscal resources between the federal government and the provinces was a somewhat obscure Quebec whim. Since then, it has become the common battle horse of the premiers.
For the first time since the premiers met at Meech Lake in 1987, Canada's political leadership — at least at the provincial level — has a common cause that resonates in Quebec.
The fiscal imbalance debate may be as Quebec-driven as the constitutional accords of the past but, in sharp contrast with them, it is not Quebec-centred. Significantly, Ontario's Dalton McGuinty has made the mantra of rebalancing the federation his own.
Martin's response to the mounting pressures to re-examine the fiscal underpinnings of the federation has been to chip away at the provincial consensus with one-off deals with various premiers.
In the process, the Liberal leader has turned the logic of the current system on its head. To make a long story short, the Prime Minister has been fixing the roof of the federation with bits and pieces of its foundation. Yet, he argues that federalism does not need to be fixed.
That's an approach that is finding precious few takers in Quebec. A CROP poll published yesterday showed that 74 per cent of Quebecers are not satisfied with the Martin government.
In this campaign, the Liberal leader has so far not backed his sincere passion for a united Canada with much substance. If he is to be believed, stern patriotic rhetoric of the kind he exhibited in last Friday's English-language debate coupled with punctual acts of generosity on the part of an affluent federal government will keep the federation on an even keel.
Conservative leader Stephen Harper has come to a different conclusion.
In a landmark speech in Quebec City on Tuesday, he vowed to sit down with the premiers to address the issue of the fiscal imbalance early on in the tenure of a Tory government. His words did not fall on deaf ears in Quebec. Yesterday ADQ leader Mario Dumont said he would vote for Harper next month.
Charest himself broke his self-imposed election silence to commend the Conservative proposals. That is not a routine event.
In contrast with their colleagues from the other provinces, Quebec premiers rarely get involved in federal campaigns. The risks of needlessly dividing the federalist camp are usually too high.
But Charest knows he would be better off campaigning for his own re-election against the backdrop of a government that is open to changes to the federation than against Martin's systematic rebuttals.
The premier is not about to forget that the federal Liberal leader started off his campaign in Quebec speaking as if the demise of the federalist provincial government was a foregone conclusion.
Like it or not, one of the unavoidable ballot questions on Jan. 23 will be which of the federal parties is best placed to secure the unity of Canada. Since 1993 and the implosion of the Progressive Conservative party, that answer had become devilishly simple.
From a Quebec federalist perspective, there was no serious alternative to the Liberals. But this week Charest signalled that is no longer the case.
Perhaps Jack should have read up on recent news of the Alberta Advantage. Of course, the fact that private healthcare was involved could have had him on full tilt mode.
Only NDP can be trusted to defend medicare: Layton
Updated Thu. Dec. 22 2005 11:33 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
NDP Leader Jack Layton travelled to Conservative territory Thursday to make the pitch that only his party can be relied on to defend Canada's medicare system.
Campaigning in Edmonton, Layton called on Alberta Premier Ralph Klein to "back off" in his support for private health care.
"You (Klein) are not going to destroy public health care," Layton said in a speech. "New
Democrats won't let you."
Layton also said that neither Paul Martin or Stephen Harper could be relied upon to defend medicare.
"The Liberals are avoiding the responsibility of standing up for Canada and
Canadians - with action - not election rhetoric," Layton said. "And the Conservatives? They've become today's Liberals in a hurry."
Layton said only the New Democrats would defend public health care.
"We founded medicare. And we'll protect and improve it.
Working families have the right to know that public health care is there for them – and for their parents, who deserve dignity after a lifetime of building this country."
Way to go, Jack. Set yourself up as the guardian of years long waiting lists, and the opponent of fast, efficient delivery of needed care for Canadians.
You winner!
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