Seriously, if the governing party can just appoint representatives, then why hold elections? I’m asking that very seriously. What is the point of the election?
So you can elect whoever you want. Even a donkey without a clue of Parliamentary workings.
Dickhead can “appoint” anyone the local Tory Constituency chooses as candidate as a representative of the Party (hell they are, they don’t need appointment). He can’t appoint them as representative of the Government.
Shoot off mouth before engaging brain Dicko.
But that won’t stop PG from electing him again. They’d vote in a rock if it ran as a Tory.
Is there a reason, that Harper just can’t like, give the other MP’s access to the government? Or is it something about not being the in the same political thing?
No only Liberals can run as a Rock… 
Harper can easily give any MP an inside track to the government. Mr. Cullen is a not member of Harper’s party so it’ll be a cold day in hell before the Cons give Mr. Cullen respect or support for the constituents of this riding. It is all about petty, partisan politics.
Mr. Harper you should remember that you represent all Canadians in all ridings across Canada.
Somewhere in a storage shed, buried deep on an old Amiga hard-drive lies an early 90s DeluxePaint III rendition of “Canuck Combat Comix” featuring “Sgt. Allan Rock and Queasy Company”
It would appear that the Cons party, at least, feels that elections are only a popularity poll - the results of which do not need to be respected.
Remember highschool anyone? All the cliques and clubs? This really is just more exclusive group behaviour and I fear for our society if we cannot rise above this.
There are some really great blogs going about this topic out there - one that really got my funny bone is www.acreativerevolution.ca
I don’t quite understand what the problem is.
People who elected an NDP MP basically said “we are not serious about having any say in the future of our country and we are more interested in making an ideological statement than choosing a government”.
Socialism has been discredited the world over. It is a completely bankrupt ideology. Think Britain before Margaret Thatcher, the only first world nation that came seriously near to becoming a third world country. Handouts do not work, less government is better government, and the free market, while not perfect, is far better than all the other alternatives.
I welcome the chance to have some access to representation in our riding.
No, socialism has only been discredited by conservatives.
And the biggest conservative was the one who said if you just say it over and over again it will become the truth.
It works well on people who can’t think faster than their knees jerk.
I think you’re confusing your rejection of the NDP with your rejection of democracy.
BTW, you need only look at some of the European nations with higher GDP than ours for examples of successful socialism.
Or, by many standards, just look at BC or Canada for a great example of workable socialism.
But this is all irrelevant, as we’re not upset about the NDP vs Reform Party thing, we’re upset about the fact that a sitting government thinks it can just appoint representatives and reject democracy.
It’s great that you have expressed your opinion on socialism. But how would you feel about Dick Harris’s move if he were part of a socialist government? I’d bet you’d be making comparisons to Cuba.
The bottom line is that this move is undemocratic. All your opinions are valid ones, but they don’t excuse the usurping of democracy, do they? Or do you hate the NDP so much that you’d trade democracy to get rid of them?
This is BC. You can nationalize hydro, the railroads and the ferries and the other guy is the one who’s a socialist.
While I tend to agree that a purely socialist way of doing business is not a good thing for an economy, neither is unfettered capitalism. The current state of the stock market and its wild fluctuating daily index values is testimony to an unease over the direction of the US economy the bellweather guardian of all that is free enterprise.
The excess of the sub prime mortgage dealers, the voo doo economics of the hedge fund managers may very well bring this era of unchecked capitalism into a whole new direction. Since you’re a fan of history, check up on the lead up to the Great Depression of 1929, there was a bubble economy then, times were booming and money seemed to grow on trees until a day in late October.
I’m not suggesting that we’re heading for a Depression, times are slightly different (but in a way eerily similar as well) but a lot of what is coined the “socialist” era was developed in response to the broken lives created by the captitalism of that day collapsing.
Some of your points above are interesting and have some merit, others are a wee bit off target me thinks.
Sweden, France, Holland and some of the other Euro countries aren’t really my cup of tea, but they seem to do a decent job of providing for their peoples without a drastic reduction in standards of living, health care, education all subsidized by the state to a fairly high degree. Seems that the likes of Volvo, Ikea et al seem to function fine in the socialist warren states.
Today is the second anniversary of the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane katrina, Capitalism hasn’t really rallied to the cause now has it. There are dozens and dozens of neighbourhoods still uninhabited, hospitals have closed, businesses remain shut. All because the US government has not made a priority of rebuilding that city. While the banks and insurance companies drag their feet, people get sick, some die, the crime rate increases and people grow ever more cynical. I’m pretty sure that the folks in the lower wards of the city aren’t too concerned about what their economic system is socialist or captialistic, rather they’d probably like someone to drop by and lend a hand in putting the house back together.
Ireland as you point out has had a remarkable run after a more business friendly gov’t changed the direction there, though the price of housing is out of reach now for many of the Irish, fortunately it’s a relatively small nation so you can move out of Dublin and live in the boonies, but still there are the usual problems that come with fast and uncontrolled growth. They may not wish to return to the old days of state intervention in economic matters, but somethow I think that a mixed economy would probably benefit their lifestyle and redress some of the excesses of the new direction.
In an earlier posting you praised the days of Margaret Thatcher, while she no doubt had an incredible impact on life there, I’m pretty sure no one wants to go back to the days of class warfare that raged during that time. While he’s been maligned because of his “coziness” with George Bush, I don’t think Tony Blairs England was such a horrible place to live, and while he certainly wasn’t a Labourite of the eighties, the “third way” that he proposed seems to have helped move England back into the propserous times, without the ugly Us vs Then rhetoric of the Thatcher years.
Chile sure worked well when Gen Pinochet decided to change the direction of the nation, how many citizens disappeared or were tortured purely for sitting on the wrong side of the political divide there. Gulags and Pol Pots sometimes wear business suits (when they’re not dressed up as General) and take a rather right wing turn as well.
While the BC economy in most areas is as they say booming, again the housing crunch, health care crisis and lack of infrastructure in some communities is causing problems. Raking in the cash at the expense of the population isn’t always a win-win, the downtown east side of Vancouver has been ignored by both socialists and capitalists, the folks there seem to be missing out on these enjoyable boom years. Think there might be some room to make “the best place on earth” a little more comfortable for those folks? What does it say about a poltical and economic system that just pretends that wide swath of its largest city doesn’t exist?
As for the "economic malaise and despair of the NDP years " I seem to remember the Vander Zalm years, complete with the brown bag donations in restaurants and the insider politics that made a populace rather cynical. Bad politicians run on both sides of the legislature you know.
The NDP were booted out of office because they lost touch with the province, they began to govern as though it were a right and not a responsiblity, politics is cyclical, the current office holders will one day as well learn this lesson.
As for the pulp mill, far too many mistakes were made there from all directions, Mr. Petty the original owner before the collapse, was a very enthusiastic captialist and well he certainly ran into his troubles with his empire. The various level of governments decided to play politics with the mill in its final days and that led us to the state of the show today. There were no shining examples of financial prudence from any direction there. Management, union or governmental.
As for “cracking down” on the welfare and the unemployed, well sure having a job is better than collecting welfare, but when a town suffers as much pain as this one has in the last ten years, “cracking down” when the economy wasn’t creating any substantial and sustainable jobs is akin to bullying. There is a need for a social safety net in any society, people do fall through the cracks, it’s how we assist them back on their feet that tells us about our community and what we shall reap as a society.
As I said at the beginnig on my little treatise I’m not a devotee to the world of socialist programs and economic thinking, nor am I willing to just let the business community do what’s best for the little people.
A mixed economy that takes into consideration the needs of its citizens and the ability to keep an economy moving forward would be the best approach. We’ve yet to see that kind of foresight in BC in recent times.
While many parts of the province are in boom times right now, it’s how we prepare to handle the bust years that will tell how successful a system of government is.
Study history? Try tossing out your Republican-American journals and opening your eyes.
We’re all waiting for you to tell us Chapter Two where Ronald Reagan singlehandedly crushed the Soviet Union.
Tony Blair goes to Iraq and suddenly the Labor party isn’t socialist?
Ireland ended welfare, baby-bonuses, medical and abolished the minimum wage yet?
Shoveling public money to build a state owned railway to somewhere is bad but shoveling public money into a grant for a private company to build it is good?
Sounds like you bought the neo-con argument that something done for the benefit of all is “socialist” something done for the benefit of only a few is “good”.
LMAO, well-said.
“Mr Gorbechev, Tear Down This Wall!” Ronald Reagan, 1987
As I understand it President Reagan singlehandedly destroyed the Soviet Union between naps. 
This right-wing neocon nonsense is starting to get old. Heck even Karl Rove is packing it in:-)
Gorbachev and the Russian people had no hand in their own fate. He, the crowds and Boris the Pisstank did not face down the last gasp of the Commies…
In Chapter Three it describes how Vietnam was ‘winnable’ and the American public didn’t get fed up, it was betrayed by Jane Fonda, the liberals and the commies.
Jane appears again in Chapter Four, after marrying Ted Turner as proof of the ‘liberal media’.
Gordon Campbell would be a ‘leftist’ in the Bushite Bible
hmm i’m not really following politics that much anymore but a general observation: had this been a NDP “liaison” in a conservative riding, ihe/she would have been called “the representative of the working class”. i’m no fan of the conservative party, though
Welcome to HTMF, vanfan:-)
In my opinion this has nothing to do with left or right. This is a very transparent move on the part of the Conservatives to circumvent the democratic process and “help” the poor constituents. This bullshit will backfire come election day. I may actually get off my fat ass and help Nathan in the upcoming election. I really hate it when arrogant pin-heads screw with democracy. 
I was going to vote Liberal a couple years back and couldn’t stand their candidate. I met Nathan, and heard him speak at the town hall and he got my vote hands down.
Nathan helped me with an issue, and accomplished more in his first term than all the Reform-Alliance-Tories in all BC put together.
He’s got my vote as long as he runs. If Layton steps down, I’d run out to back Nathan. I think he’s one of the best federal NDP MPs.
Agreed. Nathan is as sharp as a tack:-) We are lucky to have him representing us!
Well if you have the patience to wait for CityWest to provide you with your page, all ye democracy advocates will gain a chuckle from the “official position” of Mr. Harris’ political Masters.
From the Globe and Mail
Government officials have distanced themselves from Mr. Harris’s unofficial appointment of Ms. Smith as the riding representative in Ottawa.
“He just kind of did that himself,” government spokesman Ryan Sparrow said of Mr. Harris’s move. “[Ms. Smith] is the Conservative candidate in the next election. That’s her only official capacity.”
Mr. Sparrow was unequivocal when asked whom local residents should contact for federal help: “They should contact their local member of Parliament. … Ms. Smith is working hard to be that person after the next election, but for now, the riding is held by a New Democrat.”
Full story can be found here:
theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ … hColumbia/