It looks like the NDP won't adhere to the TPP also.
http://linkis.com/theglobeandmail.com/voy9C
It's their Hail Mary at this point. Back in July, when they were in first place in the polls, their trade critic
was saying this:
I cant think of a more foolish position [to take] on an important matter like a trade agreement than to pronounce on an agreement before it is completed, Mr. Davies maintained. In any event, he considered it highly unlikely the NDP would be ready to take a position on the TPP until after the election, because the party would first want to engage in broad consultation.
Now that they need to do everything they can to hold on to their Quebec seats, they're suddenly willing to forgo consultation in favour of protecting the dairy farmers.
Harper pulled off plenty when he had a minority. There's very little difference, really. He just rams everything through as a confidence vote knowing that voters will blame the opposition party who votes it down if it results in an election. And it works because our democracy is basically no longer functional. Especially if the bloc comes back.
One thing I'll never understand about the general Canadian mindset is that too much voting is a bad thing. I remember hearing that constantly from 2004 to 2011, when people would complain that they didn't want elections and just wanted to be left alone. I can't imagine there's anywhere else in the world where people are so hostile to the very concept of elections.
I'm gonna put on my tinfoil hat for a second because this move doesn't make any sense and could lead to a significant shift in the political landscape.
Mulcair is solidifying his support in Quebec and trying to get swing voters elsewhere to give us a Liberal minority.
He knows a Conservative minority would likely put us back into another election in short order, but a Liberal minority would supplant Harper.
I think you're giving them way too much credit. Their focus right now is holding on to their Quebec seats, even if it costs them elsewhere. That's why Mulcair has been so silent on the issue of his candidates issuing press releases -- through their national HQ -- saying they're against the niqab.
Besides, can you really imagine he'd be okay with Trudeau as PM? On a personal level, there's so much more animosity between the two than there is between him and Harper. Politically, it pushes the NDP back into third party status, and that's contrary to everything they've been trying to do for the last decade-plus.
What is the endgame for the niqab dogwhistling? It doesn't seem to be helping the Conservatives much outside Quebec, and inside even if they "surge" they'll get hardly any seats.
Is it just to bring back the Bloc? I mean if the Conservatives can win a minority with the Bloc holding the balance of power it'll be a lot harder for the other parties to justify a coalition.
Same thing as everything else they do: winning a few extra votes. Like everything else the Conservatives have done in the last ten years, it's been done with the calculation of how it helps them motivate their core base. They know that making their voters terrified of a multicultural future is an easy way of getting those voters out on election day, so that's what they'll do.
It looks like Ontario is going to gift Harper a majority, again. I hope Muclair self implode next week (because it doesn't look likely the other two will). A 50-25-25 split in Ontario means Harper for 4 years.
Huh? It's not going to be a 50-25-25 split in Ontario. More likely it'll be something like 40-40-20. The NDP is pretty much dead in this province outside of downtown Toronto and a couple of scattered ridings.
We've known since the start of the election that the Liberal party has a woefully inefficient vote when compared to the NDP. Essentially too much of their support is concentrated in too few of areas. They're strong in Ontario, Montreal and Atlantic Canada, but too weak in other areas. In contrast from the 2011 results the NDP was #2 in the most amount of ridings, so they're competitive in the most amount of ridings. Of the two parties the NDP is competitive in the most amount of ridings and has the most room to grow.
I don't think it works like you're describing. Depending on how this election turns out, you may have to view 2011 as a weird outlier, caused by the worst Liberal campaign ever.
Plus, just look at how far they've come in the last eight weeks: at the start of this campaign, the Liberals looked dead outside of Atlantic Canada. Then it was Atlantic Canada and Ontario. Now it's Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Montreal and good chunks of Vancouver and Winnipeg. Meanwhile, the NDP have seen their ceiling get lower and lower and lower. Yes, they did better in 2011, so they're starting off from a better place, but things can change, occasionally very rapidly.
And an RCMP anti-Muslim tipline? At some point, I hope that CPC voters realize their leaders think they're all idiots.
