| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 11:32:07 AM | I particularly dislike Dion's self deprecation approach when he does public speaking.
As a woman I simply cannot support the Conservative party. They do nothing to help women along and their anti abortion stance and anti gay marriage stance bothers me to no end.
I believe the gov't doesn't have a say in what I choose to do or not do with MY body or whom I can marry. Honestly...if you're not sleeping with me I couldn't give a rats arse WHO you are sleeping with...why does the gov't care? | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 2:20:26 PM | job creation. Since Harper took over a couple of years ago...there have been mass manufacturing jobs disappear. He hasn't done a thing to address this... except ratify the SPP that would see such jobs sent to Mexico on the U.S. Sure, ther have been jobs created in the retail sector and like to replace them...but a $10 an hour job is nothing like a $20 an hour job. No rocket science there. I work in the manufacturing sector...so I have great interest in this.
Did a google on Anyone But Harper...which the user enters their postal code...and the result tells you who to vote for in your area...to offset the Harper vote. I realize that in Alberta a snowball has a better chance of surviving 24 hrs in July.... than a political party other than Conservative getting in.... but it looks like I'm going Green this time around. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 2:55:30 PM | I am honestly confused by anyone who claims the Conservatives are bad for women? Besides the anti-Abortion stance, which a lot women agree with, what gives? It's 2008 in the country of Canada, no offence, but are women in this country really still feeling discriminated against????....please enlighten us? I'm sorry if that sounds rude, but maybe being a young, single, male, and having mostly other young, professional females as friends, I am unaware of the issues that women in other demographics face?!
Btw...am I the only one that thinks of Fogel (AKA McLuvin) from Superbad when they see Dion? Only Dion is an older version of him with zero personality. I wonder how the Liberals and Dion would deal with a man like Putin? | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 5:14:44 PM | | Are you kidding me??? the Anti Abortion issue should be ENOUGH for women not to vote conservative. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 5:50:07 PM | That's just your opinion though. For a lot of people, Abortion is not about sexism at all. It's a morality. It has nothing to do with taking away power from women. For others it's against their religious beliefs. Even for those who aren't religious, they perhaps believe that life begins from conception. I don't get why you are claiming and assuming that just because someone happens to be a woman they should be against Abortion because it takes away all women's rights...I'm pretty sure there are other reasons to either support it or be against it, not just the sexism issue...you know what I'm saying? I have a friend who is fierce NDP member, but she is also a Catholic and believes that Abortion is wrong (not sure if it's because of her religious beliefs, she may have other reasons), I asked how she can still vote for NDP and she told me that one can never subscribe to EVERYTHING a party believes in.
Btw...there are Abortion supporters and pro-life supporters in every party. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 6:00:31 PM | I am someone who believes in life from conception. It would be a personal choice though. I don't think we have the right to judge or interfere with what happens in someone else's body. Government shouldn't be involved in the issue at all, except maybe economically. If they shouldn't regulate it, they shouldn't have to pay for it either. I think the same way for people who brand themselves or do cutting etc... If you do it to yourself and it gets infected you should have to pay. Your choice, your dollars.
Every political party and indvidual politician likely has different beliefs on a number of issues. Voting should be based on what you believe is best for the country and to choose not to vote for a party based on one issue is not something I would recommend to anyone. The most important thing to remember is to vote. If you don't vote, you can't complain. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 6:35:05 PM | The minute you start telling me what I can/cannot do with my own body is the minute you loose all my respect in every way. I agree that it's a choice - and that gov'ts shouldn't be footing the bill for it. But lets remember who is in charge of who's body - it's not the gov't...it's every indivual.
Go ahead and be anti abortion...you don't have to HAVE one. No one HAS to have one. I'm saying...let the CHOICE be there for those who want it or need it. What gov't would want to force anyone to carry to term a baby that is literally killing them? How about that of a rape victim...if she were pregnant does she have to carry to term the baby of her rapist?
My belief is that it's a woman's body...it's her right to choose. I'm not saying let abortion become a form of birth control - but let it be a choice for a woman when she needs to make that decision based on her own situation and belief system.
Maybe if men were subjected to some similar situation they would feel differenty. There is nothing out there that potentially threatens a man's decision over his own body - maybe if there were you'd fight for your right to choose to do what you will too.
This isn't the only issue why I don't vote conservative...but it's 90% why. No one should have power over another's body. No one. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 6:37:58 PM | So it's not really a sexism issue is it? It's an individual rights issue?
I just can't understand why the Conservatives are seen as sexist by some...I just don't see it. On top of that, I feel that women have been equals for so long now, I don't know maybe it's just you older folks but for folks my age it HAS never been an issue.... | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 7:25:44 PM | While I can respect somebody being concerned about public policy on abortion being changed by the party of Myron Thompson and Stockwell Day, Harper and company have clamped down on the moonbats of the party. Abortion policy's not going to change, because the party's realistic enough not to think that it's supported.
I'm not calling folks in the pro-life camp crazy or reactionary, I'm labelling outspoken bigotted politicians as such. And the conservative party no longer puts up with them, at least speaking brazenly. There are pro-lifers that I can respect who're still around, there's no way that they're going to push new legislation even as far as withdrawing public funding for abortion, let alone prohibiting it altogether. They're not dumb enough to fight an unwinnable fight. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 8:22:15 PM | | Exactly Civ...as a visible minority, I should be afraid of a few of the Conservative party's members who hold more "extreme" views against Multiculturalism and Immigration. But I'm not succombing to the Left's fear tactics in painting the Conservatives as monsters. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 9:07:33 PM |
It's 2008 in the country of Canada, no offence, but are women in this country really still feeling discriminated against????
That's a whole other thread and it can't be done any justice in the context of an election discussion. Women should educate themselves of the whole Torie platform before voting, not just the sound bites of the campaign. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 9:16:53 PM | Papabear, since you asked, here are some links. I would have preferred it if you took the nine minutes it took me to look up these ones for you.
Less freedom of information.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/420873
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/02/cairs.html
Harpers control of what can be said to the media by filtering it through the Prime Minister's office.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/429903
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/ccs/nav03.cfm?nav03=48215&nav02=44994&nav01=35499
Tories under Harper overspending election budgets directly against laws established to control and equalize spending.
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/461029
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/417316 (read the article, not just the headline.)
The Cadman affair, Harper and the torries trying to bribe and buy votes.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/indepth/id_tories/s/capress/080924/delection/fedelxn_mounties_media_2
Leaving documents lying around for anyone. You already know about the whole Hells Angels thing
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080526/harper_bernier_080526/20080526?hub=TopStories
Here's another one that was found on an Ottawa street corner.
http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_25864.aspx
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=1201db78-41ce-4ba6-b723-8fef755037d9
I don't generally spoon feed people information when they clearly can look it up for themselves, but this is an important issue. My concern is to open peoples eyes and make them realize that not buddy they work with, not Aunt Thelma and cousin Bob, not past representatives in history for the Conservatives nor a longstanding tradition to vote conservative should be used to base a desire to see Harper back in office. This man is in no way a representative of the conservatives of old, he and his party are dangerous to the citizens and to the nation. And through his control over everything including what he lets you hear, you will never know what he's up to until he's gone and only then can things be discussed. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/25/2008 9:52:40 PM | If you take a close look at the evolution of Stephen Harper in politics you can see he's less than a 'moderate' conservative...
PC, Reform. Canadian Alliance, National Citizen's Coalition... there is a strong thread of social conservatism in these last three organizations. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/26/2008 12:49:45 PM | Jay, completely uncalled for. I have no idea and don't care what your background is, that kind of attitude is one to avoid.
There's a difference between expressing a different opinion and backing it up and making an unfair and completely disrespectful slam on someone because of their background. You have just proven there are the same nature of person in other family trees. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/26/2008 10:21:00 PM | I'll have to give Dion some credit for dealing with candidates that are less than, shall we say, above board. Upon discovering that the Winnipeg candidate was a tinfoil-hat wearing anti-Semite, they were dropped like a hot-potato.
All Harper does when confronted with loose-lipped wing-nuts in his party is muzzle them and then hush it up.
I don't think anyone need be reminded of one ministerial comment about aboriginals on the DAY of Aboriginal reconciliation that was just passed over as a slip of the tongue...
And just recently another ministers comments about listeriosis deaths - and the jab at his opponent across the floor hopefully being one of them - brushed off. In Strathcona, we still have Rahim Jaffer, a candidate still holding his office after he deliberately had someone impersonate him in a CBC radio interview because he couldn't make himself available for it.
There used to be a site hosted called "In Their Own Words" that was a clearing house of all of the things captured in the public eye that made a record of the anti-aboriginal, anti-women, anti-visible minority, anti-poor statements by members of the party. Classics are still available if you Google. Sitting members that may not be relegated to the back benches that refer to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist criminal, verbal attacks on homosexuals, women and people essentially not of white middle-class male Christian identity - the core support of the CRAP party (Conservative, Reform, Alliance Party) that hijacked the old Tory party of Canada. Alas, if you want to find such notable quotes you will have to do the digging a little harder and go by name and by member, but I don't doubt it is all still there.
More to be worried about than their verbal gaffes and party members barely reined in bigotry is Harper's essential allegiance to the Neo-Conservative political movement. If you are unaware of the "Calgary School" and Tom Flanagan, The Fraser Institute, Leo Strauss, Ted Morton, et. al. then you really should...it's quite enlightening.
I am happy with a minority government of any party...keeps them in check, keeps them accountable...and until there is a major systematic revision of the sstem, electoral reform, voter boundary reform, etc. it keeps these douchebags in fear of the whims of the electorate...which is exactly how it should be... the poorer we can keep them, the more in fear of elections, and the more informed we can become, the more we can keep power in the hands of the people and out of the hands of politicians and entrenched bureaucracies where it is now.
The status quo is the LAST thing you want. It (the process) is BROKE. It needs fixing. Don't buy the BS from the party machines.  | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 9:20:46 AM | | What, after providing links to demonstrate proofs of the Con-servative corruption as requested, nobody has anything new to say? | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 11:28:35 AM |
I'll have to give Dion some credit for dealing with candidates that are less than, shall we say, above board. Upon discovering that the Winnipeg candidate was a tinfoil-hat wearing anti-Semite, they were dropped like a hot-potato.
in the politic this action have classification which call an opportunism.
since when the personal opinions has become the crime?
if i have critical view on the zionism, policies and discriminations in society of the state of Israel, the brainwashing media of North America, morality of the owners of the world's leading banks and financial institutions including Wall Street, Federal Reserve etc. do it's mean i'm anti-semite too?
as for election, well unfortunately from all four candidates no one worth much. to watch their run for votes it's like to watch marathon of snails.
as for Harper, seems this guy have big desire to become some sort of Duche or mini Führer of the Canada. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 2:39:39 PM | Less Freedom of Information:
Getting rid of the CAIRS was done above board, nothing at all illegal about it. If you actually read the article and attempt to form your own opinion, rather than just taking the journalist and their tone at face value, you would notice that it is "AN" access to information registry, not "THE" access to information registry. Anything that could be found through CAIRS can still be found, you just have to look elsewhere. Also, how many people, including yourself, had even heard of this system before this article? Let alone used it? I'm guessing 1% of the population at best... if you say this noticably effects you or your life in ANY way, you are being melodramatic.
The PMO filtering government messages to the media:
Has always been done. By all parties. As Mad Fiddler said in his post, when a Liberal said something that made the party look bad, he was "dropped like a hot-potato". Sounds like filtering to me, just reactive rather than proactive. And if the Conservatives do have such tight, draconian muzzles on all their members, how is it that there has been an uproar lately about ministers making inappropriate comments about Natives and listeriosis? And how are these ministers still in the party? If the Conservatives were so evil and secretive, wouldn't these people have been "dropped like a hot-potato", as the Liberals do?
Oh, and citing an opinion piece by a university student hardly constitutes proof.
Overspending on election budgets:
I'll just quote a couple of lines from the article you linked to:
"It is alleged that the expenses were actually incurred by the Conservative Party of Canada and not by the candidates who claimed the media buy transactions as their own," Lamothe said.
Allegations by opposition MPs that the Tories "bought" the last election by overspending strike at the very heart of the party's election pledge to restore integrity and transparency to Ottawa."
See the words ALLEGED and ALLEGATIONS? Perhaps you need to buy a dictionary and look up the word "proof", because I don't see any of it here. I'm not saying the Conservatives didn't overspend, but I'm also not going to take someone's allegations as proof. It is still under investigation... once that is wrapped up and they're found guilty, then and only then can you consider it "proof".
Cadman affair:
Once again, a quote from the article you linked to:
"Cadman, a Conservative candidate, is famous for sparking bribery allegations against her party by telling a journalist last year that her dying husband, former Reform and Independent MP Chuck Cadman, claimed to have been offered a million-dollar insurance policy to change his vote in Parliament. "
Allegations and claims. Again, how is this proof? Do you honestly believe everything you read without questioning? Maybe they did try to bribe Cadman - but until it is more than allegations, I'm not going to just swallow it.
And another interesting quote from the same article:
"But the most infamous case of RCMP deploying its resources for essentially communications reasons came under the watch of former Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien at the 1997 APEC summit in Vancouver.
An inquiry into the pepper-spraying of protesters concluded that the Mounties had "succumbed to government influence and intrusion in an area where such influence and intrusion were inappropriate."
How come you failed to mention this little bit? Seems like the Conservatives aren't the only ones who shut people up...
Gov't documents misplaced:
So 2 unimportant documents out of millions were misplaced. Quite honestly I have bigger things to worry about than whether an MP leaves his work at his girlfriend's place. Such as the 100+ million dollar Liberal Adscam debacle. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 3:22:11 PM | Thank you someone for replying and demonstrating you've read the articles. Now keep looking. I was asked for one or two examples of what I had said. Quick searches and links to the first couple on each search. There are more if you care to hear about them.
I'd suggest you do. As you suggest to me, I suggest to you that you look deeper, do more research and then come back to back your position. I have more going on in life than to give every link possible for you to digest. That part is what being a responsible voter entails. And that's for you to do. All I have done is listen to the first ten minutes of newscasts and read newspapers, but I have a mind for general information and can recall things at 37 years old that I did and said when I was six, then tie that in to what happened when I was 12 and see how it relates to something going on today. Sort of a curse, but it's how my mind works.
So if you really do care, keep searching.
As for censorship, no other government in the last fifty years has barred the press from full access to politicians, the post-parliament walk out area and to free said comments and discussions. NONE. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 5:05:23 PM | | This is a good thread Pease keep us informed.I agree---whatever you do be sure to vote and think about the person before you mark your ballot. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/28/2008 5:18:51 PM | At least in Canada it is not quite a Pepsi vs. Coke election. In contrast after the first US debate I was struck by how little difference there really is beyond style between party policy. Even less after the big government freak-out -- I mean bail-out --- which I personally believe will prove to be a very costly mistake for US government... but back to Canada:
his party are dangerous to the citizens and to the nation.
I don't think Steven Harper's party is dangerous to the citizens of Canada. Of course the Canadian parliamentary system is intrinsically very undemocratic when any party has a majority -- which the Conservative Party will get. Some of the best government policy has always come out of minority governments. All majorities tend to become near-dictatorships by the PMO since there are no where near the checks and balances of the US model of executive, house and senate -- or the British system with far less party-line voting.
The most interesting long term changes might come from long over-due Senate reform.
This "risk", "danger" and "fear" talk has become the main voice of the campaign by all the parties --as it was in the previous Election which Paul Martin fought. (HARPER is SCARY, solders with guns in our streets, etc.) It is in play with the Dion (not worth the risk) message that Harper has used quite successfully -- being more moderate. I think Harpers campaign in fact is quintessentially Canadian -- fairly modest, practical, somewhat boring by design.
The one thing really strikes me is the press have performed far below expectations -- both in the US and in Canada -- 25 -- 30 years ago objectivity and depth of coverage was light-years beyond the current sound-bite Sesame Street attention span driven coverage that displays no sense of proper portion or balance. A story about a joke gets more coverage than a $40 billion taxation policy proposal..... One leader could promise to restart conscription and send Canadians North to fight Russia --- and it would likely get the same amount of scrutiny as the significance of Bob Rae wearing tie while Dion appears in an open shirt. | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/29/2008 12:35:39 AM |
This "risk", "danger" and "fear" talk has become the main voice of the campaign by all the parties --as it was in the previous Election which Paul Martin fought. (HARPER is SCARY, solders with guns in our streets, etc.) It is in play with the Dion (not worth the risk) message that Harper has used quite successfully -- being more moderate. I think Harpers campaign in fact is quintessentially Canadian -- fairly modest, practical, somewhat boring by design.
The one thing really strikes me is the press have performed far below expectations -- both in the US and in Canada -- 25 -- 30 years ago objectivity and depth of coverage was light-years beyond the current sound-bite Sesame Street attention span driven coverage that displays no sense of proper portion or balance. A story about a joke gets more coverage than a $40 billion taxation policy proposal..... One leader could promise to restart conscription and send Canadians North to fight Russia --- and it would likely get the same amount of scrutiny as the significance of Bob Rae wearing tie while Dion appears in an open shirt.
Harper's campaign...I don't know if I would categorize it as just boring or quintessentially Canadian...the level of the attack ads from all parties have stooped pretty low.
The fear tactics employed by Harper and Dion both are pretty standard as is the tarring to a greater or lesser degree of "red-baiting" from both. Harper has the easy ground here referring, "McCarthy-like" to any progressive program as a potential tax-and-spend solution without actually addressing how his opponents might achieve it through change of policy, oversimplifying it into a cheap drive-by soundbite that will appeal to Johnny LunchPail and Charlie Sixpack and the inbred fear and loathing of the "socialist" without any actual knowledge of what might be done to change policy...
Meanwhile the Tories will have no problem maintaining a healthy status quo of corporate handouts in a rather disastrous attempt to emulate free-market economics of down south... uh...News Flash Steven, things down there are in the effin' tank because of wild speculation and lack of market controls and corporations tying on the feed bag. We DON'T WANT TO GO THAT WAY. And being as it is too expensive to up and leave, the businesses will stay here... someone needs to unplug the morphine drip that the Tories are getting from the Fraser Institute.
Dion, meanwhile has no problems trying to borrow the Tory playbook in an attempt to appear further moderate and risks alienating traditional Liberal voters, driving them - as polls suggest - toward the NDP.
Well, you know what, that should teach them not to fumble the ball again and elect a leader who cannot possibly draw a vote in Central or Western Canada and, obviously a leadership in general that doesn't know how to read their own electorate.
So far, it leaves Layton looking, as he has recently, the most statesman-like of the three of them...and if the leadership of the two other parties would actually have the chutzpah to debate him on the NDP platform or on the issues instead of the usual obfuscation or red-baiting nonsense we have been seeing, I'd be quite interested in seeing the results. That is if their handlers will let them.
http://www.politicalcompass.org/canada2008 | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/30/2008 5:10:52 PM | http://www.publicbroadcasting.ca/2008/09/harpers-hidden-agenda-isnt-hidden.html
Agenda information | |
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| Who's following the Election?
Posted: 9/30/2008 9:30:20 PM | Thanks very much for posting that, PL. That has many of the quotes that used to be referenced by the site "In There Own Words" before it went down that shows the true colors of the now hijacked Tory party, now full of the bigots, neo-cons and fringe nutjobs of the CRAP party...blown aloft by their own petards as it were, in print, well cited.
Alas, as I noted, despite attempts of others to point out these obvious cracks in the facade of gentility that they present from day to day when Harper has the "choke-chain" on his members and keeps the press core tightly filtered, you practically would have to catch one aborting baby Jesus before people would wise up to the fact that this party is gleefully selling the country up the river to corporate interests, selling out their personal freedoms (as did the Liberals before with the creation of the Canadian equivalent of Patriot Act style laws and an Homeland Security style Ministry in the shape of the more Canadian friendly name of "Public Safety" ministry that would slip by us the powers are roughly the same, including suspension of habeas corpus) and essentially killing public debate through the same ad hominem flinging dirty politics practiced down south.
Good post Lurker, thanks again  | |
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