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[maharg]

we do not have a single great leader at current political stage from any party. None have balls.

I'd say Harper has balls.

I'm, personally, ok with the idea of having no 'great leaders', though. Super-charismatic people have a tendency to wreak havoc. I know people like to lionize people like Pierre Trudeau and JFK, but honestly those guys did some real damage along side the good things they did.

 

[BladeWorker]

Maybe not, but I'm of the opinion that while a pragmatist leader might get us through economic turmoil, it's going to take a visionary to get us past it and into a new era of prosperity.

Harper may have balls, but he's not a visionary. He's a pragmatist - incremental change, staying away from political suicide, choke-chain control over backbenchers, etc...

 

[crazy monkey]

I'd say Harper has balls.

I'm, personally, ok with the idea of having no 'great leaders', though. Super-charismatic people have a tendency to wreak havoc. I know people like to lionize people like Pierre Trudeau and JFK, but honestly those guys did some real damage along side the good things they did.

nah dude will bend over backwards for USA and Israel. ^ some what agree with above.We need a good vision for the future before its too late.

 

[Boogie]

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?

Bzzt, wrong.

There are a couple of prominent sexual harassment suits from women in the Force, true, but the problem in the RCMP isn't ingrained/widespread sexual harassment against women, that's just the angle the media has put on it.

The RCMP has many many many many many many problems, but the real problems aren't the problems that media focuses on. The problem isn't sexual harassment, or harassment against women.

The problem is harassment, period.

It's tyrannical bosses and management. Against women and men. (which I have personally not experienced, my own superiors are great, thank God). It's not a gender issue. But the media only highlights women victims of harassment, and therefore frames it as a gender issue, which means the problems the Force actually has won't be solved because it results in politicians and management tripping over themselves to hire and promote more women, while leaving the culture and structure that causes the harassment in place.

 

[gabbo]

nah dude will bend over backwards for USA and Israel. ^ some what agree with above.We need a good vision for the future before its too late.

Is there any opinion poll data (or any kind of data) that shows how Canadians feel on the Israel/Palestine issue or Harper's Israel by Default stance?

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

Is there any opinion poll data (or any kind of data) that shows how Canadians feel on the Israel/Palestine issue or Harper's Israel by Default stance?

I found this, which is pretty disappointing.

 

[gabbo]

I found this, which is pretty disappointing.

...yes... yes it is.

 

[gutter_trash]

NDP is guaranteed to lose seats in Quebec to Trudeau.

the main reason was because they voted for the man Jack Layton not the party. Most of the NDP MPs from Quebec are n00b first timers that nobody knew about. It was all about Jack.

Justin will get traditional older voters back in his camp + Quebec ethnic voters will return Liberal fully .

Some say that Justin is going for the youth vote but the biggest sway in the polls are older voters from 45 and up, lol.

I'd say Harper has balls.

Bowing down to Israel and China is now considered having balls? LOL. Harper and John Baird are such brown nosers.
========================

Jean Chretien had balls and told George W. Bush NO to his stupid Iraq War.
Jean Chretien didn't need the RCMP to remove a protester single handidly out of his way.

He got the moniker "le petit gars de Shawinigan" because he was a little guy who would fight his way through the naysayers and the bullies and come out on top

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

we do not have a single great leader at current political stage from any party. None have balls.

What about Mulcair suggests to you that he doesn't have balls?

 

[gutter_trash]

What about Mulcair suggests to you that he doesn't have balls?

Mulcair says two different things in both official languages. Bilingual people pick up on his bullshit.

He appeases the nationalists in one language then talk all Federalisty in another.

double speak.

 

[crazy monkey]

Bowing down to Israel and China is now considered having balls? LOL. Harper and John Baird are such brown nosers.
========================

Jean Chretien had balls and told George W. Bush NO to his stupid Iraq War.

Harper would have said yes right away and that scares me. The reason for my comment was as a country we really need to reinvent our self. Alberta is amazing now a days but rest of the country i dunno. Manitoba is in lol condition most of the place.

 

[gutter_trash]

Harper would have said yes right away and that scares me. The reason for my comment was as a country we really need to reinvent our self. Alberta is amazing now a days but rest of the country i dunno. Manitoba is in lol condition most of the place.

That changes all the time per generation per generation. When Western nations start developing alternate forms of energy to move away from gasoline, Alberta will decline anyway in that generation.

Short term, short shortsightedness spell gloom for the future.

Ontario and Quebec used to be big in manufacturing in the past and were the center of Canada.
Now manufacturing is thing of the past and they need to re-invent themselves.

Same will happen in the future when Europe will say a big fuck you to gas prices and move towards energy effecient forms of energy and we will be stuck in the past

 

[zedge]

Speaking of China, Trudeau fully supports the Nexen buyout by China. So he says anyway at his recent trip to Calgary.

 

[Hieberrr]

So, I want to vote during the next election, but I don't know much about politics. Is there a place where I can learn more about it?

 

[matthewwhatever]

I know I'm a few days late to the discussion, but I just wanted to point out that Trudeau's comments aren't necessarily that bad for him. Assuming he wins (which seems pretty likely at this point, unless people like George Takach and Karen McCrimmon are secret charismatic dynamos), he'll get hammered for them in 2015, but I'm willing to bet that the Liberals will still pick up seats, in Quebec and elsewhere. The other parties will try to use it against him in the election after that (since I have to assume that unless the Liberals have truly lost their mind, they'll realize that they have to stick with a leader for more than 1 election at some point), but it'll be less potent, to the point of being dismissed as irrelevant by most people.

How do I know? Because Stephen Harper said far, far worse things about Canada before he became PM. He said that Canada is "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term" (in the U.S., to a room full of Republicans, if I'm not mistaken), and that it's a "second-tier socialist country". He also said that Atlantic Canada had a culture of defeat. They were all minor points against him in 2004, and then total non-issues for most people by 2006. It'll be the same thing by 2015, with the key difference being that Trudeau's thing is in French, which means it'll be a lot harder to use it against him in an attack ad -- and the people who will hold it against him probably weren't voting Liberal anyway.

(All that said, I have my doubts that Trudeau's Quebecois-ness will be the focus of Conservative attack ads anyway. I think they'll start out by just ignoring him, and then, if that doesn't work, they'll try and paint him as a lightweight.)

On top of all that, 3 years is a very long time. Who knows what the landscape will be like in 2015? Harper may or may not still be around, the economy may or may not have plunged or recovered, provincial premiers may either help or hinder their respective parties...we'll still have a massive deficit, because the Conservatives have zero idea about how to manage money, but beyond that, there are too many variables at play to say that the state of politics in November 2012 will remain constant until the next election.

 

[Sapiens]

So, I want to vote during the next election, but I don't know much about politics. Is there a place where I can learn more about it?

Start reading the news. CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, etc. Stay away from the Sun or Sun News.

 

[gabbo]

That changes all the time per generation per generation. When Western nations start developing alternate forms of energy to move away from gasoline, Alberta will decline anyway in that generation.

Short term, short shortsightedness spell gloom for the future.

Ontario and Quebec used to be big in manufacturing in the past and were the center of Canada.
Now manufacturing is thing of the past and they need to re-invent themselves.

Same will happen in the future when Europe will say a big fuck you to gas prices and move towards energy effecient forms of energy and we will be stuck in the past

That recent WTO ruling against Ontario's Green policy didn't help things along much

 

[Hieberrr]

Start reading the news. CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, etc. Stay away from the Sun or Sun News.

I figured. Wikipedia isn't much help in terms if finding out specifically what each party stands for.

 

[Flash]

The conservative party really drills those smear campaign ads into the voters head and they do so early. So I expect the anti-Trudeau ads to start becoming a common place thing, and I'm guessing they are going to focus on his coronation, and how he's living of his fathers name and that he hasn't done anything to earn it.

 

[ripastraea]

I'm looking forward to seeing how Coyne and Garneau do. I could see myself supporting the Liberal party depending on their success.

 

[SRG01]

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.

You're from Ontario, right? Have you ever been an Albertan before?

 

[LiveFromKyoto]

Mulcair says two different things in both official languages. Bilingual people pick up on his bullshit.

He appeases the nationalists in one language then talk all Federalisty in another.

double speak.

That's not a lack of balls, that's the standard cynical tactics any party that aspires to be big-tent has to indulge in. Building a national party means building a coalition of disparate interests who need to be told what they want to hear.

Same as Harper doing the God, guns & hockey thing out of one side of his mouth while trying to grab the immigrant vote out the other, then talking pragmatist "hey Ontario I'm not scary" centrism out of the middle.

At the end of the day, it's just talk though. Look to other things to determine what kind of leader he's really going to be.

Start reading the news. CBC, Globe and Mail, National Post, etc. Stay away from the Sun or Sun News.

Too bad the CBC is typically too brief, the Globe has gone pay only, and the National Post run way too much of the typical WASP dog-whistle bullshit for me to take them seriously (don't try to deny it, I'm a WASP, I got that code cracked).

 

[SRG01]

I was going to post something really long about Albertan politics and incumbent power, but I decided to scrap it all and write something else entirely.

In as far as voting is concerned, let me put it this way: the road to electoral victory may not be through Quebec anymore, but it certainly does not flow through Alberta. Alberta is not vote rich. Alberta's economy is not that big. The CPC won by capturing formerly-Liberal center-right regions in Ontario.

In fact, if we were to many any analogy to the recent US election, it would be that Ontario is a giant swing state.

With regard to the immigrant vote in Ontario, it's kind of complicated so I'll leave this particular study here: http://www.cpsa-acsp.ca/papers-2012/Taylor.pdf

 

[gutter_trash]

South Ontario won it for the Conservatives.

Jason Kenny went it there with the Liberal playbook on how to woo ethnic voters and it worked.

I actually praise the Conservatives for doing this because it's by opening up the tent that you get everyone on board and win

Unlike the PQ who close it off

 

[firehawk12]

Bzzt, wrong.

There are a couple of prominent sexual harassment suits from women in the Force, true, but the problem in the RCMP isn't ingrained/widespread sexual harassment against women, that's just the angle the media has put on it.

The RCMP has many many many many many many problems, but the real problems aren't the problems that media focuses on. The problem isn't sexual harassment, or harassment against women.

The problem is harassment, period.

It's tyrannical bosses and management. Against women and men. (which I have personally not experienced, my own superiors are great, thank God). It's not a gender issue. But the media only highlights women victims of harassment, and therefore frames it as a gender issue, which means the problems the Force actually has won't be solved because it results in politicians and management tripping over themselves to hire and promote more women, while leaving the culture and structure that causes the harassment in place.

Is there a report indicating that harassment is equal for all genders (assuming there are trans members of the RCMP)? Honestly, I find that hard to believe.

And I'm sure they are going to do more than hire and promote more women. That's just the thing people focus on because affirmative action is teh evilz etc etc.

 

[Ether_Snake]

Justin Trudeau falls down a flight of stairs!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQ5Ncmx9ESY

In case you don't know, it was actually just him showing he could do this stunt, which supposedly his father was known for pulling off in parties.

 

[SRG01]

South Ontario won it for the Conservatives.

Jason Kenny went it there with the Liberal playbook on how to woo ethnic voters and it worked.

I actually praise the Conservatives for doing this because it's by opening up the tent that you get everyone on board and win

Unlike the PQ who close it off

My link actually talks about that. It's not that the Conservatives are doing well in ethnic communities. Rather, they recognized how ethnic voters in ethnic-light districts can help some electoral races.

Also, the immigrant/ethnic/visible minority vote is extremely complex. Immigrants tended to vote for CPC. Visible minorities went to NDP. Either way, it was the result of the general collapse of the Liberal ethnic vote.

 

[killer rin]

So, I want to vote during the next election, but I don't know much about politics. Is there a place where I can learn more about it?

If you have Cable (and even if not) CPAC

 

[Hieberrr]

If you have Cable (and even if not) CPAC

How do I go about learning about each party's policies and stuff? I want to find detailed stuff

 

[Earthstrike]

Stupid question but is another election coming up soon? And if so how do I register to vote? I remember hearing on the radio that something was happening this monday.

 

[You Are Viewtiful]

How do I go about learning about each party's policies and stuff? I want to find detailed stuff

Watch the 2011 Election debates on YouTube, and maybe check out their election platforms on their websites if you still don't quite get it. Layton (RIP), Ignatieff and Duceppe aren't party leaders anymore but their parties' policies aren't all that different.

 

[Sapiens]

Stupid question but is another election coming up soon? And if so how do I register to vote? I remember hearing on the radio that something was happening this monday.

Ontario's gov't is always on the brink of collapse. No majority, but I don't think we'll see an election anytime soon (maybe next year).

Federally, we're all safe until 2015.

 

[EnderWiggles]

So give me a good reason why Marc Garneau shouldn't be the next PM

WE GOING TO MARS, BITCHES

 

[maharg]

Stupid question but is another election coming up soon? And if so how do I register to vote? I remember hearing on the radio that something was happening this monday.

There are three byelections on Monday. Victoria, Durham, and Calgary Centre. If you live in one of those ridings there's an election on Monday for you, if not, nothing you can or should do.

 

[lacinius]

Worth noting I should think... Canada's Federal Debt has now crossed the $600 Billion mark, with apparently no end in site until maybe... just maybe... 2016-2017.

http://www.debtclock.ca/

 

[matthewwhatever]

There are three byelections on Monday. Victoria, Durham, and Calgary Centre. If you live in one of those ridings there's an election on Monday for you, if not, nothing you can or should do.

And you should add that you can find out what riding you live in on the Elections Canada website, elections.ca. If you're in a riding with a by-election going on, that'll tell you who the candidates are, and where you go to vote.
You can register to vote at your local polling place with a photo ID and a proof of address (any mail addressed to you works).

 

[gutter_trash]

My link actually talks about that. It's not that the Conservatives are doing well in ethnic communities. Rather, they recognized how ethnic voters in ethnic-light districts can help some electoral races.

Also, the immigrant/ethnic/visible minority vote is extremely complex. Immigrants tended to vote for CPC. Visible minorities went to NDP. Either way, it was the result of the general collapse of the Liberal ethnic vote.

for sure most of it is just posturing to win votes than actual policies that help them but eh at least they try....

unlike the freakin' PQ

 

[Boogie]

Is there a report indicating that harassment is equal for all genders (assuming there are trans members of the RCMP)? Honestly, I find that hard to believe.

As if I could give a damn what you find hard to believe.

And I'm sure they are going to do more than hire and promote more women. That's just the thing people focus on because affirmative action is teh evilz etc etc.

and knowing how RCMP management operates, this statement is just lol-worthy. If they (the RCMP, or the government) had any real plan for meaningful change, people wouldn't be firing off letters demanding 30% female representation in the "immediate term".

We also wouldn't be going through a complete overhaul of federal policing with zero information being shared with the frontline officers, with senior managers still saying they have no idea what the details of said reorganization are going to look like. etc. etc. etc.

 

[firehawk12]

As if I could give a damn what you find hard to believe.

Well, glad to know we don't have to talk about this any more then.

But let's just do nothing and assume the problem will fix itself! I mean, that's historically what happened throughout the last hundred years of North American history, right?

 

[gutter_trash]

 

[matthewwhatever]

Mark Carney to become Governor of the Bank of England...so much for the Liberal leadership rumours!

 

[firehawk12]

Mark Carney to become Governor of the Bank of England...so much for the Liberal leadership rumours!

That's... huh. I didn't even know they could do that.

I suppose there's nothing that says political appointees need to be the same nationality? Or maybe it's some weird commonwealth loophole.

 

[BladeWorker]

Geez, and people used to say that Mondays are slow news days.

Mayor of Toronto told to step down by Superior Court Justice in court ruling
Carney to be Governor of Bank of Britain
3 Federal By-Elections
et cetera...

 

[matthewwhatever]

That's... huh. I didn't even know they could do that.

I suppose there's nothing that says political appointees need to be the same nationality? Or maybe it's some weird commonwealth loophole.

Apparently it's the first time in the Bank of England's history...I know Carney is well-regarded there, but yeah, it does strike me as odd that they'd go with a non-Briton.

 

[firehawk12]

Apparently it's the first time in the Bank of England's history...I know Carney is well-regarded there, but yeah, it does strike me as odd that they'd go with a non-Briton.

Am I crazy when I think we should hire Krugman to run our bank then? lol

 

[maharg]

So as of right now, Greens are swapping back and forth between the NDP for a narrow lead in Victoria's by-election. Meanwhile in Calgary, the CPC candidate is only 500 votes up on the Liberal. Who is 1000 ahead of the Green.

http://enr.elections.ca/ElectoralDistricts_e.aspx

Interesting night. Too bad there isn't some easy way to see which polling stations haven't reported yet.

 

[les papillons sexuels]

I always get fustrated when I see what's essentially a 3 way tie end up going to a single person, or force a second election which requires at least 45% of the vote.

 

[firehawk12]

It's super close right now in Victoria. I guess Elizabeth May will be our next PM (because of the three opposition parties, she has just as much chance as the other two guys ).

The other two are still Blue though. The Calgary one is interesting because the Green and the NDP look like - to me, the guy who doesn't understand Alberta - they're splitting the lefty vote and letting the Conservative take it. But what do I know.

 

[zedge]

It's super close right now in Victoria. I guess Elizabeth May will be our next PM (because of the three opposition parties, she has just as much chance as the other two guys ).

The other two are still Blue though. The Calgary one is interesting because the Green and the NDP look like - to me, the guy who doesn't understand Alberta - they're splitting the lefty vote and letting the Conservative take it. But what do I know.

I agree, guy at work is in this riding and said he was voting green. I said you are just going to split the vote and let the Conservative win.. Its obvious more people don't want the conservative candidate.. but I guess that's how it works. :/

Less than 30% voter turnout so far also.. as always here apathy reigns.

 

[maharg]

It's super close right now in Victoria. I guess Elizabeth May will be our next PM (because of the three opposition parties, she has just as much chance as the other two guys ).

The other two are still Blue though. The Calgary one is interesting because the Green and the NDP look like - to me, the guy who doesn't understand Alberta - they're splitting the lefty vote and letting the Conservative take it. But what do I know.

There really isn't much of a 'lefty' vote in Calgary Centre. There's a kind of progressive libertarian vote that's shedding off the much more socially conservative CPC candidate's vote.

For context, this riding hasn't been anything but some form of conservative (PC, Reform, Alliance) since it was created in 1968. In the last election, the CPC won it with 57% of the vote. Very little of the Lib/Green vote that's happening right now is left-wing in a sense that would apply to most of the rest of the country.

Wow. Victoria is *tied*. To the vote. At 140/256 polls in.