Is Stalin in your avi?

Please don’t tell me Rogers/macleans supports Stalin…

I could be wrong..

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But don’t worry ,come Oct 09, you will be spinning how Harper is in bed with the BQ…

Lord, you overlook that it takes all three opp parties to take down the government..

Bottom line Harper holds all the cards, the only question is how the spin goes. And frankly, we have all seen this movie before IMHO…

(BTW, how does one get their own picture under their name id?)

There’s one of the most succinct expressions of the utter futility and laughability of the Tories “fixed election date” law I’ve read in a long time.

Successive minority governments weaken the policy capacity of departments, focus everyone on short-term initiatives, burn people out and lead to an incoherent patchwork of micro-initiatives which, eventually, are “rationalized” through “expenditure reviews”. Your tax dollars at work !!

If I’m not mistaken, the government’s position on the economy is that they must always move forward, not backward; upward not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!!!

LOL

Look at what Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien even Mike Harris did as leaders: they typically left the real mud throwing for underlings so that they could pretend to care about all Canadians. Harper seems to really relish being on the attack. He is never considered to be more on his “game” than when he is pouncing and attacking Liberals.

But there are lots of people who have voted Liberal who might vote Conservative but who are as turned off by this tactic just as those many Conservatives who might have voted Martin but were personally turned off of Martin’s “conservatives are scary” campaign. The red Tories were completely rejected by Martin himself not just the Liberals and the blue Liberals were rejected by Harper. If you don’t even think a leader might ever actually care what you think then you are not going to vote for him.

A little statesman like pretending he cared about those who might have voted for other parties before and Harper would have had a majority. Now it is too late to just bring out a sweater vest and claim to be a statesman.

The Media is dreaming again. There is no way there is going to be a election anytime soon. This is just a replay of the last Parliment. There will be a election when the fixed election date limit comes up, or Harper calls one.

So sorry Canadian media, “No stimulus for you”

Canada’s economy defied expectations in October, adding 9,500 jobs, but economists note it was thanks to a one-time hiring boost related to the federal election.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20081107/jobless_rate_081107?s_name=&no_ads=

It seems like they are getting some fairly good access.

Though when turnout dips to lower-than-municipal levels, it’d be a little worrisome, but it’s not like we deserve much better…

I’m not talking Obama-style bring the rafters down with a speech, but actual Canadian leaders who reach out to the public and talk about issues as if we’re not morons.

I look at the current leadership of all the major parties and in their front benches, it is hard to see “performers” who make you feel they know what your concerns are.

Mulroney and Chretien were both performers I think. They seemed to have done well.

There’s an excellent point from Anon.

Perhaps an election right now would be the safest bet! It seems to me entirely plausible that the only thing worse than not having our leaders in Ottawa working on dealing with the financial and economic crisis is having our leaders in Ottawa working on dealing with the financial and economic crisis.

“one can’t expect the entire country to forget that these are the same people who thought things were just fine back in October”.

Look, I’m going to go as far as some and compare this to a slush fund, or the sponsorship scandal (after all, $3 billion is MUCH bigger than the sponsorship scandal ever was, lol… OK, OK, that was just a joke, I’m not being serious, just couldn’t help it…). However…

Since when is $3 billion in spending without the normal oversight not a big deal? To this point, the Tories are even balking at saying where they plan to spend the money in broad, general terms. I’m convinced the opposition could be convinced to allow this money to move pdq, but in a minority Parliament you have to convince the opposition, not just dictate to them. In less than five months our government has gone from “We’re never going back into deficit again, and there are some wonderful buying opportunities out there for investors” to “Armageddon approaches, we need a $34 billion deficit and the power to spend $3 billion yesterday or the whole house of cards might collapse”. Now, I’m actually more willing to believe that their current statements are closer to the truth (!) but one can’t expect the entire country that these are the same people who though things were just fine back in October when they had an election to win (which was patently ridiculous to anyone who was paying even a LITTLE bit of attention).

The government can’t just keep up this “it’s our way or the highway” mentality forever. It’s a MINORITY parliament, and you may not need to convince the Opposition that your plan is the right one, but at the very least you have to try to look like you might theoretically, under certain circumstances, be willing to consider the possibility of perhaps, maybe, trying to convince the Opposition that you’re serious about making an attempt to possibly convince them.