Time for an election, Canada

[Layell]

what...

Do you know your candidates well enough to do that?

I sure don't. Most people don't even know their MPs, even less every candidate in their riding. I will definitely vote for the party and its leader and this is what most people do.

Independants being part of "others".

As of late I've been thinking on these lines also. Unless an MP did something that got some sort of bad media attention it will be their leader and parties stance that will get them elected.

Anyways it won't matter how much Dion bashing goes out in Alberta because it will be all blue this election. I just hope people do their research on this instead of just trusting these attack ads.

Also does anyone else feel thast Harper has been planning this election and had these attack ads prepared ahead of time to jump on Dion. It feels underhanded considering he also planned a set election date.

 

[Tracker]

I don't really care about what Harper does at this point. I'm more pressed with the Liberals and the NDP. The NDP's ad campaign sucks in my view. "A new kind of Strong" is a good slogan, but they aren't really tackling what they plan to do with the issues.

Dion is doing the opposite. Who really knows what Green Shift is? I don't. I think they should stop trying to sell it because not everyone really understands carbon tax on individuals. People see that Conservative ads on Liberals losing the $1200 benefit. $1200 is a real number people can relate with unlike the idea of a tax.

 

[Firestorm]

Well, mabye, but remember we don't directly vote for candidates. We vote for local MPs of your particular riding. For example, unless you live in Toronto-Danforth, you can't vote for Jack Layton. You vote for the NDP representative.

Adding a poll sidelines people who are voting for local issues and independents.

We'd be voting for our local MPs if they stood up for our rights instead of towing the party line. Or if they weren't idiots like the last MP my riding chose (David Emerson) who switched over to the Conservative Party 2 days after being elected.

I'm looking at NDP or maybe Liberals for my vote. I don't think I'd ever vote Conservative and those three parties are really my only choices. Guess I could always vote Green, Communist, or Libertarian. Last election was 43% for Liberals and 33% for NDP with around 19% for Conservatives for my riding.

 

[Olie]

Here in Alberta, The liberals got fucked. I recall something like 3 Liberal ridings compered to all others were PC.
Frankly though, all the signs up here are blue=/

But fuck that shit, I'm voting green.

 

[Tracker]

I just took a walk around East York yesterday here in Toronto. Lots of Jack Layton signs, but equally numerous Andrew Lang (Liberal) signs. Would be ironic if Layton can't even win a seat in his own riding.

 

[Vineon]

(David Emerson) who switched over to the Conservative Party 2 days after being elected.

hahaha wow

I just read about this a bit, you sparked my interest. This is terrible and there should be a law to avoid people to abuse the system like that.

Basically he didn't go in the elections as a Conservative knowing full well his riding is too left-leaning to ever elect someone from that political party. Once he got elected however, he immediately made the switch.

 

[Morm]

I am so sick of voting in federal elections at the age of 22. Honestly, we need to make it more of a fixed term system or at least make some changes. Whenever a party is starting to suck but hasn't pissed off too many people but are on the brink of doing just that, it seems they call a vote just to extend their stay. It drives me crazy.

Sorry, that's my rant. I'm Albertan, it's obvious how I'll vote: Conservative. Call me a redneck if you want, it's okay, Alberta is the Texas of Canada.

 

[akuchi]

hahaha wow

I just read about this a bit, you sparked my interest. This is terrible and there should be a law to avoid people to abuse the system like that.

Basically he didn't go in the elections as a Conservative knowing full well his riding is too left-leaning to ever elect someone from that political party. Once he got elected however, he immediately made the switch.

That is absolutely disgusting, and he should be out of whichever office he holds immediately. I'm not a terribly big fan of democracy but that just takes the piss.

 

[billymills]

I am so sick of voting in federal elections at the age of 22. Honestly, we need to make it more of a fixed term system or at least make some changes. Whenever a party is starting to suck but hasn't pissed off too many people but are on the brink of doing just that, it seems they call a vote just to extend their stay. It drives me crazy.

Sorry, that's my rant. I'm Albertan, it's obvious how I'll vote: Conservative. Call me a redneck if you want, it's okay, Alberta is the Texas of Canada.

Wow, that makes me so pleased. There IS a law about fixed election dates, it is not being followed by the CONSERVATIVE government, so if you really want some change in the system, you know what not to vote.

That being said, there are options for you. I'm not saying vote liberal, (Alberta had the second highest % of votes for green 1-2 elections ago) but conservative is not the party you want if you want fixed election dates.

Calling Alberta the Texas of Canada is just insulting to everyone is insulting to all other Albertans and Texans.

 

[Morm]

Yeah too bad that law that you speak of is abused by every party. It's just that the conservatives are more startegic than the liberals, who have awesome smear campaigns going on right now. Classy.

Conservatives have done nothing to piss me off except lower the GST- saving me a negligable amount and costing them millions or billions in disposable funds. The liberals, by contrast, piss me off on a constant basis with their scandals and money wasting.

I have two options as far as I'm concerned here: Vote conservative or don't vote at all.

 

[Vineon]

but conservative is not the party you want if you want fixed election dates.

Yeah too bad that law that you speak of is abused by every party.

It's not, reason being it is a very recent law (2006). It is an initiative by the Conservatives by the way but has enough loop holes within it to be completely ignored. It hasn't been abused by other parties yet, at least not on the federal level.

Under a motion of non confidence, that will happen in a minority governments, the government can still be defeated by the opposition and elections can be launched at any time. This is not the loop hole.

The aim was originally to make sure elected governments dont wait until a period that favors them to lauch elections, which is EXACTLY what the Conservatives just did, exploited that certain loop hole in their own law.

Loop hole being, the government still can make a case the Parliement is ungovernable because of the opposition, allowing the Prime Minister to make a request to the Governor General of Canada to dissolve it. Basically, it's as if that law didn't exist at all.

 

[Olie]

on another note, Elizabeth May did a visit in Edmonton (Ya, I get the Edmonton Journal) today, and was travelling by train to cut emissions =)
That's impressive, a candidate is actually doing what they believe in. Not sure how a green riding would affect cars, but hopefully for the better.

 

[Vineon]

Could also be because the Greens don't have enough funds to pay for anything else.

lol

 

[Olie]

Haha good political joke :D
but, now that I think about it, the green party probably can't even afford gas, it's all a conspiracy!! Vote Green for a Poor ass Canada! They're spending gas money on coal!!

 

[Morm]

vineon I love you now. Thanks for explaining all that business about that law, I guess I really didn't understand it all to well after all!

Also good call about the Green party. They don't have money to do fuck all.

As a side note, I see the first nations party is finally launching a serious candidate who is actually qualified. Too bad their main goals as a party seem to be as two dimensional as the communist party and the green party (or at least as 2d as the greens were at first). Why are there so many novelty parties? Such a waste of time and money really, why not try to make a serious party that can actually get votes?

 

[Vineon]

I watched both national debates, starting with the french one yesterday and the english one today.

I enjoy my right to vote and consider it a reponsability and I know this isn't the case for everybody. The very least someone like me should do is watch it.

Now I don't think anything great came out of it, I thought it was pretty boring actually but it's amusing to see the amount of Canadians that were more interested in the Palin/Biden debate.

Which brings me back to what I always believed and was proven again to me today. Canada sees itself as a small player. Worse.. it sees itself simply as a northern appendice of the United States. With some local flavours (like oh, hockey), nothing that really sets it really apart though.

That's called Canadian pride but looking closely there's none. Canadian pride is being American and reminding that to everybody and especially the Americans. Remind people they have roughly the same accent, that they watch the same shows and listen to the same music. Canada sees itself so small that it prefers believing it is just the United States again, it takes pride in having no identity of its own or at best showcase its very small local flavours as if they were anything even worth mentionning.

Anyone remembers the "I am Canadian" Molson ad?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg

Basically, it emphasizes that we not this, that we are not that, this stereotype doesn't apply to us, this other one doesn't either. That we live like Americans, talk like Americans. Roughly... it is meant to spark Canadian pride by reminding everybody that we are just Americans.

Canadians suffer quite a huge inferiority complex and every person today that prefered watching Palin/Biden, which they ultimately wont vote on, rather than our own national debate is just proving it.

Which in conclusion solidifies my independant Québec views, which I believe is the only part of Canada that sees itself as something else. That is proud to be different and even seeks to put emphasis on those differences rather than remind everybody around them that they'd rather just fit the mold and pass off as a flavourless country.

 

[Bologo]

Heh, I watched the English debate the other day. I'm not gonna lie, it was incredibly funny to watch. They were all sitting around a table basically giving Stephen Harper a 4-on-1 beating, but he did survive the debate, so I will give my props to him.

However, I personally thought that Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May both did very good jobs here.

Stephane Dion helped clear up a lot of the obvious lies that Harper had been saying about him in his campaigns, and I think that the truth is starting to come out now. Dion honestly didn't seem as bad as I had first thought, and although his English could definitely use some work, he seems like he has a lot of potential, since he presented himself very well in the English debate (from what I heard he did even better in the French one, but I didn't watch that one).

Elizabeth May was having her first Federal English debate, and I believe that she was definitely the best debater there. Unlike Jack Layton and Gilles Duceppe, both of whom I thought were pretty bad, she actually let people answer her questions without rudely interrupting them. She also showed that the Green Party is a party to be taken seriously, since they're not just a bunch of environment junkies, and actually care about a lot more of the serious issues in this country. I'm willing to say that the Green Party is going to get quite a few seats in the house of commons this time, which is a big change over the zero they had last election.

To be honest, even though I'm not of the voting age yet (in a few months i will be!), I'm really not sure who I'd vote for. I think Harper's constant Dion bashing with things that have been found out to be lies (and even the speech that he plagiarized), have been big turn-offs. Layton has been pushing people to vote for NDP by basically saying that other parties suck, so vote for his, which is a big turn-off in my opinion. I don't even live in Quebec, so there's no point of me voting for Bloc.

Dion and May seem like the only ones I'd consider voting for if I was of the voting age. However, I have seen very few TV campaigns from both of them, but I suspect that the commercials for them will start picking up. Hell, even with the low amount of money that the Green Party has, they were able to have a commerical a few days ago. If Dion starts showing the guy that he was during the debates, I think he'd definitely be a solid choice. Otherwise, I'd place my vote for Elizabeth May.

Heh, this election deserves more attention here!

 

[Firestorm]

I saw most of the English debate. I didn't get home quickly enough to catch the first bit. I honestly didn't learn much from them at all. I'm still voting NDP from how that debate went.

Vincent, I think the reason a lot of people watched the American debate is because it was more entertaining. The US election has been marketed in a way that makes it easily consumable. This is especially for those online who could laugh at the idiocy of it all on IRC. All the channels I was in at the time were laughing at it and it would have been nice to join in on it, but I, like you, figured listening to our potential leaders' plans for the country was more important.

I also disagree with you on that commercial. I like it. At least half of the statements he made are differentiating Canadians from Americans. The other half are just poking fun at stereotypes of Canadians which quite honestly aren't true. "Hey you live in Canada, do you know [blank]?"

 

[Yoshi King]

I'm going to be voting Liberal as I believe that a vote cast for them has the biggest chance of keeping the Conservative party out of a majority government. Harper's been doing a great job of PM so far (what with keeping the surplus etc etc.), but the moment I heard that he re-opened that issue of gay marriage for voting on... somesuch nonsense (I forget now, it's been so long), he lost my trust. The fact that he would take his stupid Christian beliefs and tell the huge amount of gay and lesbian married couples to shove it by trying to get gay marriage illegalized again just grinds my gears.

Yeah this post will probably make me look stupid... tl;dr, I'm voting liberal to keep Conservatives out of a majority government because I don't want gay marriages being banned again.

 

[Vineon]

I also disagree with you on that commercial. I like it. At least half of the statements he made are differentiating Canadians from Americans. The other half are just poking fun at stereotypes of Canadians which quite honestly aren't true. "Hey you live in Canada, do you know [blank]?"

lol I don't know, when the best they can find is that we say Zed not Zee... (I didn't even know that)

Let's just say you need to take a very deep look to see the differences, which you could simply count as local ones. Australia and England are both much more different from the US than we are. A Canadian could pass off as an American in a group, I dont think a British person could.

There are probably more differences between New York and Dallas than New York and Toronto.

 

[Firestorm]

I definitely agree that Britons and Australians are far more different from Americans than we are, but I do think that both of us are seeing the commercial differently due to how we think of Canada. You're a Quebec Separatist, and I'm quite patriotic towards Canada. We just decode the message differently. Same as with any other sign.

The beginning with the more mellow music was showcasing the similarities, then it kicks up around "I have a Prime Minister, not a President" and he starts listing a lot more differences from that point on. I can't figure out if the "a chesterfield is a couch" and "a toque is a hat" was proving my point or yours though.

 

[c l e a r]

Bah, in Toronto, you can see a sea of oranges and reds, no blues.

I am, however, going to vote Orange (aka wasting my vote), just because I'm a mostly Liberal person. I'm not going to vote Liberal this around though, just because I hate Dion, and Harper at least does not do things that irritate me.

For those who don't get it, let me do a contrast.

Harper does nothing productive.
Dion does shit.

Do you rather have nothing or shit in your hands?

 

[Deck Knight]

Yeah this post will probably make me look stupid... tl;dr, I'm voting liberal to keep Conservatives out of a majority government because I don't want gay marriages being banned again.

You're a single issue voter! How narrow-minded of you, don't you care about nuance and weighing all the issues?

/the crap I normally receive from my "enlightened betters."

Seriously, vote your conscience.

Oh, and Dion had a horrible interview today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grli...chives/2008/10/10/video-worst-interview-ever/

 

[Firestorm]

I saw that interview and honestly the interviewer was horrible. Confusing as hell even to me. Why even ask about today? Wouldn't Dion's first answer have been the most relevant? What would he have done instead of Harper? Why does it matter if he was Prime Minister today or once he's elected? Christ. What a moron.

Apparently he's some hotshot who complains about the media and tries to push it in people's faces that he's an investigative reporter.

 

[Vineon]

Well that was a cheap shot.

This was not a live interview so Dion expected those parts to be cut out. He was also told they would be cut out. It is normality in non-live interviews to start over and he had a good excuse to do it: he did not understand the question. He makes it clear to me what confuses him about it.

Thats not a screw up at all. The screw up is CTV believing thats something Canadians ought to see, which is simply Dion not understanding what the fuck the question was. Seems to be a language barrier thing here. The screw up is also the Conservatives using this against Dion.

I still can't believe they aired this. That's just low.