Canadian Election Thread

[michelemichele]

Originally Posted by AuCanada

I remember the afghanistan panel, but not the anti-monarchy. He kindof reminds me of Beaker from the muppets.

Originally Posted by AuCanada

yeah, he was a rockstar candidate wasn't he?

Yup, that'd be him

He was for Iraq, but psh. So's Harper. Ah hell, Dion was alright, I'm not happy about writing him off at all.

[AuCanada]

Originally Posted by michelemichele

Yup, that'd be him

He was for Iraq, but psh. So's Harper. Ah hell, Dion was alright, I'm not happy about writing him off at all.

Unfortunately, it looks like ever since Trudeau, candidates must be some sort of celebrities rather than effective governors. Dion was an intellectual I'd have supported

[ianmine]

Originally Posted by AuCanada

I remember the afghanistan panel, but not the anti-monarchy. He kindof reminds me of Beaker from the muppets.

He voiced, rather loudly, his opinions right before he was to escort the Queen on her visist to Canada, and of course folks were shocked....sooo not done!

OMG! You're right...there's more than a slight resemblance!

I liked Ignatieff....more than I care for Dion anyway.

[AuCanada]

Originally Posted by ianmine

He voiced, rather loudly, his opinions right before he was to escort the Queen on her visist to Canada, and of course folks were shocked....sooo not done!

OMG! You're right...there's more than a slight resemblance!

I liked Ignatieff....more than I care for Dion anyway.

I grew up just down the street from manley's brother.

[michelemichele]

OPINION
TheStar.com | Federal Election | Biggest challenge is democratic deficit
Biggest challenge is democratic deficit
Oct 16, 2008 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (11)
Haroon Siddiqui

Stephen Harper has been proven prescient. On the day he called the election, he told reporters: "Yes, we believe it will still be a minority government."

Why, then, had he forced a vote?

Because, he said, Parliament had become dysfunctional. Except that it hadn't. It had passed 70 bills, three budgets and two economic statements – a record for which he, in fact, took full credit.

That's the kind of man the Prime Minister is. Facts didn't matter as he tried to lull Canadians into giving him a majority.

He has failed in that quest. Still, he has won big. He has dented the Liberal fortress in Ontario and he has wounded his chief adversary, Stéphane Dion.

While the Liberal leader is clearly the biggest, and only, loser – the four other leaders having increased their popular vote – he is not likely to quit without a fight.

His view, conveyed to party insiders long before Tuesday's vote, is that a leader usually gets to fight at least two elections. Didn't Mike Harris, Dalton McGuinty and Harper himself succeed only in their second attempt?

Unless Dion changes his mind, the Liberals face months of turbulence. With Gerard Kennedy entering Parliament and joining Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae in the not-so-unspoken leadership race, their internecine warfare alone will make governance infinitely easier for Harper.

The Prime Minister's greater challenge, besides the economy, will lie elsewhere: our growing democratic deficit.

The Tories won 19 seats more than they did in the last election with just 1.3 percentage points more of the popular vote. Such is the quirk of parliamentary arithmetic, especially with five parties running.

Canadians residing on the left of centre will begin to echo what used to be the standard complaint of those on the right, namely that a party with less than 40 per cent of the vote gets to implement policies rejected by 60 per cent or more of the voters.

The parliamentary answer is that like-minded parties can come together or work together.

But uniting four parties is harder than it was to unite two – Reform and the Progressive Conservatives. But the Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc have the option of using their Commons votes strategically. If they misuse it, they will pay a price.

It is the nearly 7 per cent of those who voted Green who will feel the most cheated. This "wasted vote" will trigger greater demands for a proportional representation system.

Add the steadily decreasing turnout – less than 60 per cent Tuesday, the lowest ever – and you are staring at an alienated electorate.

The problem of the disenfranchised and the disenchanted is not confined to Canada and not attributable to a sitting Prime Minister alone. But it does become his brief.

It is, therefore, essential that Harper deliver on his promise of providing "inclusive and responsive" government. That standard refrain of the winner takes on greater meaning on the more defining issues of the day.

Harper will have to stop ordering the opposition around. He will have to curb his partisan, deeply divisive and often vindictive instincts and those of some of his colleagues, such as attack dogs Jim Flaherty, John Baird, Peter Van Loan and Jason Kenney.

Harper will have to reduce the dissonance between his view of the world and that of a majority of Canadians, as measured by polls and partially proven by the election. He has to think hard about how best to work with a new U.S. president three months from now. He has to rethink our Afghan mission.

The news from Afghanistan is alarming. All NATO capitals, especially Washington, are going through a major rethink. Only Ottawa has been silent.

Unless Canada contributes toward finding a political rather than a military solution, we will, yet again, be blindly following what has so far been a disastrous American policy.

Haroon Siddiqui is the Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column appears Thursday and Sunday.

TheStar.com - Biggest challenge is democratic deficit

[SOG]

I'd say leave Dion in for 15 months to take the criticism, then have a leadership challenge.

[AuCanada]

Originally Posted by SOG

I'd say leave Dion in for 15 months to take the criticism, then have a leadership challenge.

I don't think the Libs can afford a leadership convention before then anyways.

[Lolli]

Originally Posted by SOG

I'd say leave Dion in for 15 months to take the criticism, then have a leadership challenge.

Originally Posted by AuCanada

I don't think the Libs can afford a leadership convention before then anyways.

I agree with both of you...and that's all I have to say about that.

We're all too agreeable me thinks.

[Heretic]

There is the chance that after Harper's term you guys could get a candidate delivering hope and change once your current master of disaster [really, he's the master of disasters] is over.

[michelemichele]

This is very cool:

Map of the Week: Election 2008: Turnout
Toronto Star Google Maps