firehawk12
Subete no aware
The slide into irrelevancy continues. 
But yeah, it's not like they were going to even try to win Alberta anyway.
But yeah, it's not like they were going to even try to win Alberta anyway.
Canada Poligaf - The Wrath of Harperland
- Thread starter DreamMachine
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The slide into irrelevancy continues.
But yeah, it's not like they were going to even try to win Alberta anyway.
I take you feel Crockett is a shoe-in on Monday?
The slide into irrelevancy continues.
But yeah, it's not like they were going to even try to win Alberta anyway.
There was a good chance of an upset in Calgary Centre by election.. After the comments from McGuinty that is likey shot now. Idiot.
I am so sick and tired of the regionalism and anti west bullshit in this country... How can people be surprised that Albertans constantly vote Conservative? Its the only party that isn't constantly bad mouthing and alienating the west.
Sounds like Mitt Romney writing off the "47 percent" that isn't going to vote for him anyway.
Newflash, folks, the West is where this country is growing. And a Trudeau shitting on the West kinda brings up old wounds, don'tcha think?
I don't really see how it's out of context. Obama's "You didn't build that"? Yeah, that was out of context, and easily explained. I haven't seen anyone explain exactly how Trudeau's quotes were "out of context."
In fact, when you say "the interview was conducted by a nationalist separatist journalist, Patrick Lagacé in French", it makes it sound worse, because in context, it means he was blatantly pandering to a separatist audience!
See, now this is just ridiculous.
Dismissing the Conservatives as just "Albertans" is exactly why the Left has been getting its ass kicked for the past six years.
See this map? There's a whole fucking lot of blue there outside of Alberta. The more people make statements like the above, dismissing the Cons by saying that Alberta is their focus, the more likely we see another Harper win, imo.
And writing off the West completely is not a good route to victory.
It concerns me that Trudeau has apparently given the Conservatives a shit-tonne of ammo in previous interviews, if he becomes leader. I say that as someone who voted Tory up to 2008, but whose 2011 vote finally went to the Liberals.
Ether_Snake
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Hahaha, the polls had the NDP neck to neck with the Conservatives before Trudeau announced his candidacy, so don't pretend Canada is happy with Conservatives in power.
Trudeau doesn't have to watch his mouth, the best thing he can is do the very opposite of that.
Trudeau doesn't have to watch his mouth, the best thing he can is do the very opposite of that.
Sounds like Mitt Romney writing off the "47 percent" that isn't going to vote for him anyway.
Newflash, folks, the West is where this country is growing. And a Trudeau shitting on the West kinda brings up old wounds, don'tcha think?
I don't really see how it's out of context. Obama's "You didn't build that"? Yeah, that was out of context, and easily explained. I haven't seen anyone explain exactly how Trudeau's quotes were "out of context."
In fact, when you say "the interview was conducted by a nationalist separatist journalist, Patrick Lagacé in French", it makes it sound worse, because in context, it means he was blatantly pandering to a separatist audience!
See, now this is just ridiculous.
Dismissing the Conservatives as just "Albertans" is exactly why the Left has been getting its ass kicked for the past six years.
See this map? There's a whole fucking lot of blue there outside of Alberta. The more people make statements like the above, dismissing the Cons by saying that Alberta is their focus, the more likely we see another Harper win, imo.
And writing off the West completely is not a good route to victory.
It concerns me that Trudeau has apparently given the Conservatives a shit-tonne of ammo in previous interviews, if he becomes leader. I say that as someone who voted Tory up to 2008, but whose 2011 vote finally went to the Liberals.
Well done, thank you. This constant Alberta this and Alberta that is mind numbing.
gutter_trash
Banned
ain't nothing like Mitt Romney. LOL comparing Consrvalberta to US minority voters hahahahahaha
It's very little like the '47%' comment. Now if Romney had claimed something like "Illinois/Hawaii/Kenya has too much control of our national social policy", then it might be about the same.
Dismissing large and growing voting blocs as "not going to vote for us anyway" and focusing on pandering to an ever-decreasing share of the electorate, then being shocked when you lose elections?
Yeah, not comparable at all.
and in case y'all haven't noticed, the Conservatives have pretty effectively swiped the immigrant vote from the Liberals, so you shouldn't be "lolling" at the idea of them winning votes among minorities.
Ether_Snake
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Growing voting block of conservatives? lol. How do you explain the NDP being neck-to-neck with the Conservatives in the polls before Trudeau's candidacy then? If anything is growing, it's the NON-conservative voting block.
Probably voters who would have otherwise voted Liberal is my guess.
Hey, I'll admit I'm no pollster, I'm just going off of 2011, the fact that the West is where the growth is, and the West votes Conservative, and that any new election is still a few years out.
Beyond that, I'll willingly defer that question to the professionals (of whom I believe we have 1 or 2 here in this thread)
All I know is this: the same Trudeau comment but against Quebec coming from any ROC politicians would have cause a shitstorm in the province.
The aggravating thing is that Trudeau said similar comments several times, stuff like this isn't our Canada, this doesn't reflect our values, I'll become a separatist if Conservatives stay in power. As if Harper was evil and giving power to Alberta (or Westerners in general) is a road to tyranny.
The aggravating thing is that Trudeau said similar comments several times, stuff like this isn't our Canada, this doesn't reflect our values, I'll become a separatist if Conservatives stay in power. As if Harper was evil and giving power to Alberta (or Westerners in general) is a road to tyranny.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Heh, that riding seems so fucked. It's like when the NDP beat Raheem Jaffer way back when.
Well, it's the same reason why Quebec doesn't want anything to do with the Conservatives.
But guess what, after nearly ten years of government, it turns out that Conservatives are just as incompetent as Liberals at managing a government. Who knew?
Not that anything will change. The Conservatives will never support the social policies that will give them Quebec (oh hey, remember that attempt to reopen the abortion debate?), the Liberal brand is poison, and the NDP are still seen as unionist socialist communists, so here we stand in a perpetual stalemate that favours the Conservatives probably for the short-mid term.
Broadly speaking, My only saving grace is that Harper has never had to pull a Romney and talk about binders full of women as a way to excuse his general lack of enthusiasm for women's issues or other social issues of the ilk. He understands that he has to let the anti-abortion people have their say in order to keep them happy, but that actually recognizing them in any official capacity is political suicide. At this point, I really do hope he stays in power forever because I don't even want to consider who would succeed Harper and what their social policies will be.
Just look at the gun registry issue. That's only symptomatic of the divide between the different regions of the country.
Well, on the mention of women's issues, I will, for reasons passing understanding, also bring up my own organization to scrutiny:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-head-bob-paulson-for-inaction-on-gender-bias
My take: I am ALL FOR women in policing. But this political meddling in hiring practices is absurd. If you compare across police forces in Canada, the RCMP *already* has a higher proportion of female officers than the national average across all police forces. In addition, Vic Toews wants "A specific strategy to, in the immediate term, reach a force where 30 per cent of the officers are female." IMMEDIATE TERM. Like, "now."
Well, there are roughly 18000 RCMP officers. If they average 25 years of service, that means roughly 700 are retiring, and 700 are being hired, on average each year. If 20% currently are females, that is 3600 total. If Toews wants 30%, that's 5400 total, or an increase of 1800. So if the RCMP stopped hiring males entirely, it would still take at least 2.5 years to get to 30%; even more, because some of those retiring officers are going to be women. The only way to reach the 30% sooner is to start firing RCMP members for being male.
But wait! The Canadian Forces are only 12% women! What an outrage! You don't see Peter MacKay writing letters to the Chief of the Defence Staff demanding that 30% of the Army become women within a couple of years.
/rant
I really feel Trudeau is a good-looking empty shell. Like the opposite of Stephane Dion. We all laughed at Sarah Palin, but Trudeau is the same type of politicians. The good news for him is that he has 2-3 years to prepare (Palin had a few months) if he wins the Liberal race. He will need a formidable team. A team that handled this crisis poorly this week.
So the discussion is not about this Justin moment...
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/23/justin-bieber-diamond-jubilee-medal-stephen-harper/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/23/justin-bieber-diamond-jubilee-medal-stephen-harper/
BladeWorker
Member
Between David McGuinty's "shills" comment, which was far less insulting, and Trudeau's comments considering the West to have had power for too long and all the Great Ones being from Quebec may seem rather "whatever" in and of themselves, but here's the thing:
The Liberal Party is dying for want of a real visionary, charismatic leader. And, at the same time, the party's brand has been successfully beaten to a pulp, so that to the broader public it resembles little more than a crumbling mess of "we're entitled to our entitlements" and "we're the natural governing party" and "if we do the same thing we always did people will like us" and former cabinet members facing criminal charges.
In this quest for re-branding, it is all-important to have a consistent message. Harper faced the same challenge in re-branding the Conservatives to be less "scary".
So, what Trudeau's and McGuinty's statements stand for is not about right or wrong, about what has been a traditional base or not, or about who's growing where or what.
It's about two Liberals who revealed, at one time or another, that the old ways of thinking about the west are still alive and well in a party that wants to start thinking of itself as The Big Uniter.
Trudeau could have salvaged the day using a mea culpa pivot: I got caught up talking smack, I am proud of the achievements of past PMs, but national leaders require national visions that unite and include all provinces and all people, and we cannot afford to play region against region in these trying times. I've learned this in the past two years and intend to put forth a vision for this party that will help us move forward in an era where Canadians must work together to achieve our greatest potential.
Then: and this is where we differ from the Conservatives, who have of late been bent on pitting Alberta's energy interests against BC's environmental concerns, et cetera, et cetera.
Instead, to use a football reference, he ran into his fullback's ass and fumbled the ball. "out of context!" then "I'm sorry!" then "They're scared they'll lose!" then "Give me money so I can fight these accusations!".
Good lord, it's enough excuses to make my head spin.
The Liberal Party is dying for want of a real visionary, charismatic leader. And, at the same time, the party's brand has been successfully beaten to a pulp, so that to the broader public it resembles little more than a crumbling mess of "we're entitled to our entitlements" and "we're the natural governing party" and "if we do the same thing we always did people will like us" and former cabinet members facing criminal charges.
In this quest for re-branding, it is all-important to have a consistent message. Harper faced the same challenge in re-branding the Conservatives to be less "scary".
So, what Trudeau's and McGuinty's statements stand for is not about right or wrong, about what has been a traditional base or not, or about who's growing where or what.
It's about two Liberals who revealed, at one time or another, that the old ways of thinking about the west are still alive and well in a party that wants to start thinking of itself as The Big Uniter.
Trudeau could have salvaged the day using a mea culpa pivot: I got caught up talking smack, I am proud of the achievements of past PMs, but national leaders require national visions that unite and include all provinces and all people, and we cannot afford to play region against region in these trying times. I've learned this in the past two years and intend to put forth a vision for this party that will help us move forward in an era where Canadians must work together to achieve our greatest potential.
Then: and this is where we differ from the Conservatives, who have of late been bent on pitting Alberta's energy interests against BC's environmental concerns, et cetera, et cetera.
Instead, to use a football reference, he ran into his fullback's ass and fumbled the ball. "out of context!" then "I'm sorry!" then "They're scared they'll lose!" then "Give me money so I can fight these accusations!".
Good lord, it's enough excuses to make my head spin.
Harper's looking creepy awkward , and Beiber looks like he walked off the set of a Vanilla Ice video circa 1991
See this map?
A cartogram of polling station results would be far more useful in making a point like you're trying to make here. Outside Alberta, a lot of that blue is from ridings that were won on pluralities and not majorities. And then you project them out to provinces and colour them in on a plurality of that as well, compounding the error. And on top of that, mapping the quantity of seats to the very different region size.
I really despise it when people use electoral maps to make broad sweeping claims about the inclinations of the entire population. They're an extremely distorted picture and extremely fragile electoral wins can look incredibly strong on them.
You may as well say that the US is an overwhelmingly 90% conservative country by looking at this map:
Never mind that it looked like this a mere four years later:
firehawk12
Subete no aware
You do realize that there's a bigger problem with sexual harassment and the general treatment of women in the RCMP though, do you?
Because of that movie that came out, rape in the American military has become somewhat of a public issue. I have no idea if there's a similar situation in Canada, but even if you want to ignore that Colonel who killed women and stole their underwear, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some system issues in the armed forces as well.
Well, the easiest way to dispel this would be to just point out the raw numbers.
Conservative: 5,832,401
NDP: 4,508,474
Liberal: 2,783,175
And the naive thing would be to say that NDP + Liberal > Conservative, therefore more Canadians are left-leaning than right-leaning!
Any kind of simple breakdown is naive. Because life's just plain not that simple. People have complex views that can't be broken down into a ridiculously simplistic notion of left or right, parties shift, loyalties shift, charisma shifts.
I'm not advocating anything even remotely like you just suggested I am, but you sure do like to make bold predictions about what people think and how they'll vote.
However, one thing you *can* say about those numbers is that more than half of Canada did not vote for their current government.
EnderWiggles
Member
I still stand by what I said. I didn't mean to imply that the Conservatives were only coming from Alberta, I understand and I am still flabbergasted that they have huge support in BC/SK/MB/ON as well. People seem quite happy with voting against their own interests, and just because the Conservatives have the majority of seats from those provinces doesn't mean their wellbeing is of any concern to Harper.Sounds like Mitt Romney writing off the "47 percent" that isn't going to vote for him anyway.
Newflash, folks, the West is where this country is growing. And a Trudeau shitting on the West kinda brings up old wounds, don'tcha think?
I don't really see how it's out of context. Obama's "You didn't build that"? Yeah, that was out of context, and easily explained. I haven't seen anyone explain exactly how Trudeau's quotes were "out of context."
In fact, when you say "the interview was conducted by a nationalist separatist journalist, Patrick Lagacé in French", it makes it sound worse, because in context, it means he was blatantly pandering to a separatist audience!
See, now this is just ridiculous.
Dismissing the Conservatives as just "Albertans" is exactly why the Left has been getting its ass kicked for the past six years.
See this map? There's a whole fucking lot of blue there outside of Alberta. The more people make statements like the above, dismissing the Cons by saying that Alberta is their focus, the more likely we see another Harper win, imo.
And writing off the West completely is not a good route to victory.
It concerns me that Trudeau has apparently given the Conservatives a shit-tonne of ammo in previous interviews, if he becomes leader. I say that as someone who voted Tory up to 2008, but whose 2011 vote finally went to the Liberals.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
It's just math though. It's almost worse than the whole Electoral College thing because you can basically see that Ontario is the "Ohio" of Canada at this point.
Can something massive happen that will fracture the right (Wild Rose becomes a Federal party)? Sure, and then the whole playing field is changed again. But after three elections with what amounts to the same results - a descendant Liberal party giving the Conservatives more and more seats - I'm feeling comfortable that short of any big surprises in the next two years, we'll get another Harper majority.
LiveFromKyoto
Member
Why is that naive? It seems demonstrably true, and reflected in the way Harper has tempered his policy.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Hey, if you think Justin Trudeau will save the Liberal party, then please bring me with you because I want to live in that world too.
All I see is that people have already forgotten the series of mini-scandals that plagued the Conservatives earlier in the year (where at one point, the government straight out lied to parliament), and no one gives a crap, so... yeah.
But then again, I'm a cynic when it comes to politics. lol
Because as maharg suggests, it's a bit more complicated than just looking at the raw numbers - for one, the assumption that if the two parties merged, you'd have a serious left wing party that could function as a viable alternative without cannibalizing each other. (Although, of course, I do think that more people would stay with this new party than either vote Conservative or abstain out of protest).
But yes, people say that Obama doesn't have a mandate because he didn't win the popular vote by a large margin. By that measure, Harper has a "negative" mandate.
And how do you come to that conclusion, exactly?
firehawk12
Subete no aware
The number of women coming out to talk about the abuse and harassment they have suffered/are suffering? The fact that it had to become a public case in the first place before anyone would take it seriously?
You're not thinking fourth-dimensionally.
If less than 50% of the force were to agree to undergo a certain procedure, the RCMP could achieve a perfect male/female balance almost overnight.
Lawl no. More likely be the death knell of the party as its fetishism for leadership angst continues unabated.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Well, take me to the fantasy world where Elizabeth May is elected as PM then. lol
LiveFromKyoto
Member
I'm not sure I follow why they'd cannibalize one another. Having a split on one end of the political spectrum was exactly what gave the Liberals years of power and led to the formation of the Conservative party.
Not that I want a left wing combo-party to come about. I have no desire for the hyper-divisive quasi democracy of a two party system.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
I mean they're cannibalizing each other now. Remember when Jack Layton used the "lend us your vote" line back in... god, 04 was it?
Andrew Coyne loves to point that most of the "power" Liberals would sooner move over to the Conservatives than join any NDP-Liberal party though.
Hah. Right.
Incidentally, I don't see any way the CPC gets another majority assuming stasis. I think a minority is likely. Mostly I think that because even though I think the path the Liberals are on will lead to their destruction I also think it'll lead to a last hurrah of seats in Ontario and that will fuck over the CPC pretty well completely. The NDP doesn't have much to lose there, though, and I think they'll still fare ok in Quebec. And the NDP will imo hold and maybe even improve on their gains elsewhere, even if they only turn over a handful of seats (mostly in BC and Saskatchewan, thanks to de-rurbanizing).
But I don't believe in stasis, so...
They'd join *a* conservative party. A Harper Conservative Party? Probably not. Too much bad blood there. I think much of the current LPC coalition is basically disaffected former PCers, but they'll always be nervous about voting for Harper.
Ether_Snake
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NDP is guaranteed to lose seats in Quebec to Trudeau.
Didn't say I think they'll keep them all. I just said they'd still do ok.
In terms of what it does to the CPC, though, it really doesn't matter. No plausible split is going to result in a substantial increase in CPC seats in Quebec at this point.
Ontario is where the CPC won their majority, Ontario is where the CPC is vulnerable. A resurgent Liberal party, even if it's only temporary until they turf him for not winning them a majority, hurts the CPC more than anyone else.
In terms of what it does to the CPC, though, it really doesn't matter. No plausible split is going to result in a substantial increase in CPC seats in Quebec at this point.
Ontario is where the CPC won their majority, Ontario is where the CPC is vulnerable. A resurgent Liberal party, even if it's only temporary until they turf him for not winning them a majority, hurts the CPC more than anyone else.
DreamMachine
Member
I think it will be interesting after the 2015 election. We will be having conservative policies for a long time coming unless something dramatic happens.
So far Harper has stacked the senate and in a year or so will have a majority in the supreme court.
So what happens after? gridlock for years until a re-balance or could it possibly be removed?
So far Harper has stacked the senate and in a year or so will have a majority in the supreme court.
So what happens after? gridlock for years until a re-balance or could it possibly be removed?
So far the supreme court has not proven to be terribly partisan either way. Harper appointees included. The senate will only really be a problem if we get an NDP government, in which case the government will have no members in it whatsoever and has insisted it would refuse to appoint any. Harper's actually made the senate less of a problem with his reforms to senator term length.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Are Senate term lengths even binding? Or are they just promises?
I think it would be hilarious if an NDP government had to expand the Senate by an impossible number just to get a presence in the upper house. Even Harper gave in and added over a dozen senators (probably more at this point).
As for the numbers, if the NDP lose any number of its Quebec seats, it'll have to make those seats up elsewhere before it can even think about getting ahead of the Conservatives. Where are those extra numbers supposed to come from? BC? The Maritimes? Ontario? To me, I just don't see it.
Of course, with the election of the PQ, does this mean that the BQ will be resurgent in 2 years time? That just wrecks the NDP numbers even further.
That said, I wonder what McGuinty's resignation in Ontario does for the Liberal brand here. Surely the provincial Grits are not long for this world, but how that plays out Federally I have no idea.
I think it would be hilarious if an NDP government had to expand the Senate by an impossible number just to get a presence in the upper house. Even Harper gave in and added over a dozen senators (probably more at this point).
As for the numbers, if the NDP lose any number of its Quebec seats, it'll have to make those seats up elsewhere before it can even think about getting ahead of the Conservatives. Where are those extra numbers supposed to come from? BC? The Maritimes? Ontario? To me, I just don't see it.
Of course, with the election of the PQ, does this mean that the BQ will be resurgent in 2 years time? That just wrecks the NDP numbers even further.
That said, I wonder what McGuinty's resignation in Ontario does for the Liberal brand here. Surely the provincial Grits are not long for this world, but how that plays out Federally I have no idea.
Like I said, none of that really matters. Unless you think seats the NDP loses in Quebec will fall to the CPC. I only said I don't see the CPC getting another majority, I didn't say they wouldn't win a plurality.
What happens from there is quite simply up to Ontario. Nearly everywhere else in the country the NDP became the #1 or #2 party and I frankly don't see that changing. If Ontario swings *either* way, the CPC's majority is done for.
What happens from there is quite simply up to Ontario. Nearly everywhere else in the country the NDP became the #1 or #2 party and I frankly don't see that changing. If Ontario swings *either* way, the CPC's majority is done for.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
My assumption is that the CPC won't lose any or many seats anywhere except in Ontario, which means the NDP would need like a 40-50 seat pick up in Ontario + extra seats to make up for losses in Quebec.
But hey, if they can somehow take back the Prairies, then the math changes.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Ah, fair enough.
But given the last previous government, I don't see how it matters if you have a minority Harper government or a majority Harper government. When shit goes bad, he can just prorogue until things boil over. That's basically standard parliamentary procedure at this point and allows a minority government to function as a majority.
Can't prorogue before the throne speech. The first thing the house does after electing a speaker is ascertain the confidence of the house.
Also, a lot of this depends on how many seats they fall short of a majority. If it's just a few, sure. They can get away with that. If it's a lot, and there's only, say, 10 seats between them and the next? No way is proroguation going to stave off a change in government.
Anyways, the CPC would tear itself apart if it fell back to a minority government.
Also, a lot of this depends on how many seats they fall short of a majority. If it's just a few, sure. They can get away with that. If it's a lot, and there's only, say, 10 seats between them and the next? No way is proroguation going to stave off a change in government.
Anyways, the CPC would tear itself apart if it fell back to a minority government.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Or if Harper decides to leave before the next election, I suppose.
firehawk12
Subete no aware
Stockwell Day, 2015. Believe!
And yeah, I'm sure he wants to get out before he has to take a defeat himself. Perhaps he'll just "randomly" quit like McGuinty though and walk away even if it leaves the party in a shambles.
Chretien and Blair did it, and they're sitting pretty for the most part!
crazy monkey
Banned
we do not have a single great leader at current political stage from any party. None have balls.
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