I’m not very excited about the Conservatives having another crack at this. As much as I dislike the Liberals, everytime I’ve heard the conservatives in the last year it’s been about missile defense, gay marriage, and protecting us from terrorists. And all of those issues are retarded, distracting, knee-jerk issues du jour.
kind of, ‘the devil you know…’
what are other peoples thoughts on this?
I think that the premises of the sponsorship program were noble and good in nature. In my understanding, money was supposed to be spent to promote canadian identity, especially in Quebec where the separatists movement was at the top of its cycle. It worked in some ways since the PQ government was replaced by Charest and his crew. I think, as a canadian, that keeping the country together is something that is less costly than breaking it apart. Take Quebec out of Canada and you don’t have Canada anymore.
But, greed and political organizers whose only job is to promote their party were too involved in this. And we have the results today. I think that even though the conservative may be like you say above, they have every right to attack the liberals on this one. The liberals did the same for Mulroney and company ( rightly so!)
Eventually, the ideal situation would be an overhaul of our political system so that elected officials remember why they are there.
But that won’t happen for a long time unless our whole western world view of progress/ economy/ environment/ etc… changes drastically.
cough Captain’s Quarter’s cough
Did anyone read that? The Liberals are up shit creek… that scandal was a pretty nice scandal…
Well, they can always blame it on the previous Prime Minister.
And he kinda pissed of his own party by passing that legislation that makes it illegal for businesses, unions and other organizations to donate to federal political parties anyway.
So while the current government can blame Chretien, he can always take the moral high ground by saying that he passed a law that made all political donations (except personal donations under $100 I think) illegal.
Anybody have the details on the federal donations rules?
They made us hire their niece Sally. Then they made us give them $100,000 in donations. Then they demanded 10% kicked back. Then they gave us a $2,000,000,000,000,000 contract and we took it.
Aren’t they awful people.
So I should to vote for the party beholden to businesses with such high moral standards, cuz they changed their name slightly.
Hmm scandals and legalize pot, leave people alone and make $9 billion surpluses…
or morality and another endless Quebec crisis, 60c dollar, tell people what they can’t do and maybe won’t have to hold back the puke while your PM dances a jig on TV with George Bush cuz your working overtime building missiles to save you from the bogeyman or the Easter Bunny…
tricky one
But the conservative aren’t your only other choice.
Around here, thank God that’s true.
Nathan: HINT- contain the lunatic fringe, move slightly more to the center, repeat often in public ‘Quebec is what makes Canada a distinct society’ and join in the ‘moral outrcy’. Layton is a smart man. Broadbent is a smart veteran. Use the Liberal trickery in a more adaptive way, "Sorry George we just can’t publicly accept a missile shield. But heres a bunch of interested Cdn Forces people to help and a list of businesses happy to cooperate"
You can win.
[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]Around here, thank God that’s true.
Nathan: HINT- contain the lunatic fringe, move slightly more to the center, repeat often in public ‘Quebec is what makes Canada a distinct society’ and join in the ‘moral outrcy’. Layton is a smart man. Broadbent is a smart veteran. Use the Liberal trickery in a more adaptive way, "Sorry George we just can’t publicly accept a missile shield. But heres a bunch of interested Cdn Forces people to help and a list of businesses happy to cooperate"
You can win.[/quote]
I read as much as I could about the parties in the last federal election and I think Jack Layton is smarter than most other politicians. He has a solid educational background and practical experience too.
I had to give kudos to Nathan too. I was working on my house last year during the election and it was a warm day. He was walking around the 'hood knocking on doors by himself. He came up and hung around for a while and chatted. Very personable fellow. Even offered him a beer but he declined, but the kind of guy I could see myself sitting around with having a beer.
The conservetives frighten me, the Libs have been at the public trough for too long now and it seems they feel that gives them the right to be able to do anything they please. With a shakey minority gov’t now they have to watch their P’s and Q’s, but with the Gomery reports coming out now, Martin and his croney’s can finger point all they want, but Martin was chin deep in the last Liberal gov’t so how much finger pointing can he really do?
I was thinking about it this morning, whats the big deal if Quebec leaves?
Aren’t we being reactionary, when the only reason I’ve heard is people lamenting the changing face of Canada. Big deal.
It’s not like I agree with the Quebecers argument for leaving (solidify their cultural base, or whatever), its just a bunch of stupid nationalistic bs, but if thats what 50%+1 of their province wants then how can we prevent them from doing it with our argument?
If only the NDP had won one more seat… then they could’ve formed a majority coalition with the Liberals and there’d be no talk of election now.
My predictions: There are several confidence votes this week. The Liberals will lose one of them and there will be an election in June. The Conservatives will win a minority government.
In the fall, the Conservatives will fail in an attempt to ban same sex marriage. They will lose a confidence vote and we’ll have another election around November.
For that election, the Liberals will either win a majority, or will be able to form a majority coalition with the NDP.
I don’t offer predictions only hope that in next week’s round of polls, Canadians will have calmed down and want to hear the enquiry out, and enough will feel that a nonconfidence vote would be a sign of sheer opportunism (which makes it difficult to claim any ‘moral high ground’).
That would settle everyone down and we have an election next year when we see what the Libs do about this, if the Tories can actually come up with some non-offensive social policy, and if the NDP can play a part in today’s world.
The only party with everything to gain and nothing to lose is the Bloc who will get even more seats in Quebec, screw up the whole country politically and economically, and blame it on everyone else instead of themselves.
Did anyone watch that show on CBC tv called H2O? I did not catch the whole thing but it was quite interesting.
About a corrupt PM who wanted to sell Canada’s water to the US. Wait wasnt there a thread on this ages ago? About selling water to the US?
It was a good show. Pretty abrupt and unsatisfying ending though, huh?