You want to know why I’m pissed? Because the Conservatives made some good promises. If they’d have lived up to them there’d be no question in my mind that they’d be approaching majority territory, even though I don’t like a lot of what they stand for. Instead, they pissed it away by being afraid to admit any mistakes, and being unwilling to countenance any sort of compromise or consultation.

It’s that sort of pathetic ineptitude that makes me angry at them, and because of that doesn’t want them forming the next government, even if that means we get stuck with Liberals.

Frankly, I don’t believe you. Smacks of the radio phone-in show ads from ‘ordinary Canadians’.

And to be honest, because that scenario doesn’t break any laws or promises (the opposition parties never said that Harper’s law meant anything, in fact, they voiced that as a concerna bout it) it’ll receive practically nothing for a bounce.

Really, the only reason the election date is a bit of a bug-a-boo is because of the lengths the conservatives went to proclaim how their legislation was a triumph for democracy by preventing a PM from going to the GG whenever convenient. It’s not the calling of the election that’s the problem, it’s the hypocrisy in doing so after all the crowing.

Also, is anyone going to call the Conservatives on this charade that is just a delay tactic so give time for pre-writ ad spending?

Make noises about calling an election. Try to look good by meeting all the other leaders. Other leaders refuse to agree to cooperate but also lambaste you for making noises. Then: DON’T cross the street to advise dissolution, rather, go and re-open Parliament and get to work. October 2009, after all. Opposition parties, spooked into preparing for a nation-wide election, thoroughly unprepared for a return to work, collapse the House into non-confidence at the first opportunity, creating the election Harper wanted in the first place, but now without the hypocrisy charge, thereby permitting his heretofore dozen critics at Macleans.ca to swoon in adoration for having respected his stated intent in the fixed-date legislation.

“You see, Canada? I tried. These boobs said we shouldn’t have an election right away, and look what they just did, only now several weeks later so that the weather can suck for polling day. I did my best to respect the fixed-date law, really I did. It even looked like I would have to ask the GG to dissolve early, in spite of the good intentions of the law. Well, it looks like my instinct was correct. The opposition just achieved what they so forcefully whined they did not want. And THEY expect the privilege of your confidence on election day?”

I agree with Bill & madeyoulook above: get rid of this theft of the honest taxpayer to begin with, and let individual contributions from interested supporters fall where they may.

I wish that were so.

Among the many poisonous things the Liberals have done to honest taxpayers over the years, the recurrent per vote funding formula, and the reimbursement of campaign expenses, ranks right up there. If you as a candidate get a certain minimum percentage of the vote, the Canadian taxpayer refunds an insane proportion of your expenses, subject to legislated limits. National parties also get refunds for national-wide campaign expenses.

Last election, the Tories wanted to exercise their right to free speech by advertising, but they would be overspending their limits to qualify for funding. Some riding candidancies were not at the limits, so a little creative accounting allegedly took place. A “regional” advertisement would run with the fine print “authorized by the official agent so-and-so for Candidate X” rather than “authorized by the official agent for the Conservative Party.” So regional ad buys could have expenses split up among various participating candidates’ expense budgets. The expenses appear to have been twinned with transfers of identical or near-identical amounts of funds from the national war-chest (hence the derisive label “in-and-out”).

How did Elections Canada come to learn that the Tories might be pinning not-so-local expenses to local riding campaigns? The Tories told them, because the parties and the candidates submit receipts and are entitled to our money according to the legislated limits. Elections Canada refused to reimburse local candidates for those expenses, saying those national expenses were padding the local budgets that had the room for it, and otherwise would have pushed national party spending over the allowed limit. The Tories are suing Elections Canada to get that ruling reversed and to get their hands on our money (the campaign expenses rebate), just like all parties have applied for rebates for their expenses.

So it’s not true that we are dealing with “their own legitimately raised funds.” If that’s all the parties could get their hands on, the Liberals would have already thrown in the towel, declared bankruptcy, stiffed their creditors, and tried to register as a different party to run for office claiming responsible management of the taxpayers’ trust.

We are, in fact, dealing with how much the federal treasury should be refunding a political party for its advertising expenses for the last campaign.

Take away that stupid reimbursement program, and we have none of this nonsense to begin with.

I beleive that consensus to be wrong.

Whether he’s bluffing or not Dion’s taking the bait: “Leader Stephane Dion criticized Prime Minister Stephen Harper yesterday for threatening to call a general election.” (CP Headline)

There’s something surreal about that headline.

NDP snatches lead from Liberals in poll

LES WHITTINGTON
SOUTHAM NEWS

OTTAWA – The New Democrats have made political history, edging ahead of the Liberals into first place in a national poll conducted by Angus Reid Associates.

In its best showing since the party was created in 1961, the NDP received the support of 37 per cent of decided voters across Canada, marginally better than the Liberals, who slipped six percentage points since March to 36 per cent.

The Conservatives, at 25 per cent, continue to trail both opposition parties, but were up slightly from their record-low 23-per-cent showing in February and March.

Nationally, voters’ opinions about the three party leaders have remained stable since March. Broadbent continues to lead, with 67 per cent of respondents saying they approve of how he has handled himself.

Turner is second, with a 43-per-cent approval rating. Third is Mulroney, although his 28-per-cent rating is up four points since March.

Dion’s biggest failure as Liberal leader has been his inability to engineer a Liberal come-back in Quebec against the Bloc. Harper has placed CPC as the federalist default option in Quebec. Roberval and St-Hyacinthe-Bagot byelections showed the trend, St-Lambert byelection should confirm the trend in the ridings surrounding Montreal.

Politically, Harper needs more time to build up his organization in Quebec before he takes on the Bloc. Over time the Bloc seems to be weakening (is it me or does it seem that the Bloc isn’t making much of an effort in St-Lambert?) while the CPC gets stronger. By October 2009 election, CPC will be in a strong position versus the Bloc and will be competitive all across the province, including the francophone parts of the island of Montreal if the Liberal decline among francophones in la metropole continues.

As to an early election, I don’t see how this would serve CPC interests in Quebec. Nor do I see why the Bloc would support the Liberals in defeating the CPC when the result will be the loss of many Bloc seats to the Conservatives.

I believe that Bloc will prop up Harper government if the Liberals regain their courage and seek to defeat the government on non-confidence. The election will be in October 2009, just as PM Harper planned it.

The Canadian (Toronto) MSM should temper a little their obsession with Dion and the Liberals and report more on the Bloc and what is happening Quebec. Quebec is the only place right now where the politics is actually interesting (and shifting).

Indecisiveitis has plagued the Liberal leadership since Paul Martin took over the helm nearly 5 years ago. If there was one thing that characterized him and did him in was his indeciveness. The Econmist called him Mr. Dithers and the name stuck because it fit him like a glove. (The Oxford defines dither as “be indecisive).

Meanwhile, the guy the Liberals picked to replace him 3 years later, pressured for an answer about inaction on his environment portfolio in the leadership debates, bleats out “Do you think it’s easy to make priorities?” Again going to the Oxford, prioritize means “decide the importance of (items or tasks)”.

So when Mr. Wells gives rather obvious advice, (comment 10:44 a.m.)” Now, how do the Liberals short-circuit the game? Simple. Make a decision and stick to it. Sadly, apparently that’s asking too much.”, considering the leadership capabilities of Mr. Dion it really is asking too much.

That’s why I think Mr. Harper has decided, mercifully, to make the difficult decision for Mr. Dion and the Liberals will be reacting to events to their detriment.

I was watching Question Period a few weeks and Rosemary Thompson was one of the guest hosts. She suggested, in all seriousness, that there won’t be an election this fall in Canada because no one would be paying attention because everyone is watching Obama. I thought what she was suggesting was absurd but provided an insight about Rosemary. I too would like an election this fall, I am convinced Dion will finally decide to bring down the government and there will be an election before December.

I like elections. I’d enjoy having two big ones to watch this fall — McCain/Obama and Harper/Dion.

But the Prime Minister’s confidence is not widely shared. To begin with, polls show strong antipathy toward Mr. Mulroney personally. Only 13 percent of those surveyed in the October poll considered him to be best qualified to be Prime Minister, compared with 39 percent for Mr. Broadbent. And Conservative Party organizers say the New Democrats’ strongest election card may be Mr. Mulroney, rather than any popular shift toward left-wing policies.

Would like to see the underlying poll data…

this is just an impression from news reports but it appears the Lib caucus, at least the heavy weights, are messing with Dion. The reports last fall were Dion was itching to bring the government down but caucus wasn’t. In the spring, reports were claiming caucus wanted an election in early summer while Dion wanted to spend the summer touring Canada explaining Green Shift. They are like a bunch of cats in a sack so good luck trying to get them to agree what day it is, never mind picking an election date.

There is only ONE Opp Leader in the history of this country to have ever achieved this and it was not Broadbent. You need to go further back for this.

Now or next year — it’s all the same to me. :p

Boudica, could you please answer the following question?

Q. Which Canadian government was the first to introduce regulations aimed at curbing GHG emissions?

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Actually Boudica, it’s you who is wrong. I know for sure that Broadbent was higher than Mulroney before the 1988 election. There were a few articles about him at that time highlighting that fact; I remember one with him riding a bicycle by Parliament Hill.

Do I have to do all the work for ya?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Broadbent

In the 4th paragraph:

“Several polls afterwards showed that Broadbent was the most popular party leader in Canada. Broadbent was the only leader ever to take the NDP to first place in public opinion polling and some pundits felt that the NDP could supplant Turner’s Liberals as the primary opposition to Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives.”

Did you even look? Ok, now you’ve been proven wrong.

At any rate, polling (be it party, leader, or country-right-direction polling) is only one piece to consider when gauging how the next election will unfold. I seriously don’t get what your crusade (I think we can elevate it to that now) against leadership number polling is about.

One recent poll out of I don’t know how many give the Liberals a one point lead (compared to two other recent ones that have the Conservatives up 4 or 5 points) and libloggers are in a frenzy. Earth to libloggers:the polls haven’t materially changed since the last election when the Conservatives came out ahead by a 36-30 margin.

That’s why talk of dumping Mr. Dion, as Mr. Wells points out in his post, is a periodic topic of discussion within Liberal circles.

Meanwhile Mr. Harper has emerged as the most capable leader on the national scene since Jean Chretien started taking care of business in 1993. He has done so in circumstances which would have easily did in lesser men. He acts on events as opposed to reacting to them.

The Libs meanwhile mostly react, and mostly badly.

When are you Tories going to understand that you are no longer in the Opposition and are now in charge in Canada? Canadians are looking to YOU for leadership on the climate change file but you have produced what exactly?

Oily the friggin’ Splot.

And then they wonder why they are tanking in the polls…

However, given that we aren’t yet lead by Plato’s philosopher kings, and that while it’d sure be nice if people read policy documents and perused Hansard to see what their MPs were doing, out here in the real world public perception is what wins and loses elections. Whether that’s good for the country or not is rather irrelevant to the topic at hand — is Harper bluffing or not and what is the proper course for Liberals in either event?

I can’t help but laugh at this statement. A Liberal supporter is upset at the way the media has conducted itself “over the last while”. The “last while” being the period of time since the Liberals stopped being the dominant force in Canadian politics. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. Before that, plenty of conservatives would have made the same complaint. Because if your party isn’t in power, it’s because somebody else isn’t doing their job right.

Except that it can’t (the Wiki entry is wrong, or more clarification is needed). The dates considered are from the return of the writs after the previous election – which happened on Feb. 13th, 2006 for the 2006 election, and the date of dissolution, which given a fixed election date of Oct. 19th, 2009, would mean a dissolution date of Sep. 13th, 2009 at the latest (for a 36 day campaign).

So the longest this Parliament could possibly last is 3 years and 7 months, missing out on the longest every minority Parliament by 20 days.

Still, King’s 14th Parliament was not a minority Parliament for the whole term, and at that time affiliations were not as precise as now (many Liberal-Progressives, etc.). The Wiki entry actually lists the 16th Parliament as a minority, which Parliament’s site lists as a majority Parliament. Strange.

Likewise party horse race numbers have been wildly wrong before. The Campbell Tories led the Chretien Liberals going into the 1993 election, and we know how that turned out (2 seats!). So why would you put great stock in those numbers, but not in leadership numbers?

Over polls I put greater emphasis on historical electoral patterns for our country. Doing that I see that only once in our history have we retired a first-term minority government (Clark in 1980). As I said prior, we don’t throw governments out willy-nilly in Canada. If a government does reasonably well, then we’re averse to throwing them out for a new and unknown government. It’s not a particularly high standard that we’re comfortable with either (e.g. returning the 2004 Liberals with the Sponsorship scandal swirling around them).

Add in the better financial situation of the Conservatives (in itself doesn’t guarantee victory, but it helps), the better organizational situation for them (likewise), and it should be understandable to all but the most blinded partisans why the smart money is on a Conservative victory (minority or majority) in the next election. ANYTHING can happen, but the odds are in favour of the CPC, and it’s silly to deny that.

That’s when this could become the longest minority parliament in Canadian political history.

If you don’t want an election, don’t give us an election — we’ll see them ride this out till 2009. (It’ll be what, in the summer of ’09 that this parliament will become the longest-lived minority one?)

It’s all in your hands. (And has been since September 2007.)