Political Flyers:

I finally got the old scanner hooked up and running so here is a picture of the flyers from the local candidates that i was talking about in a previous post. Remember the Telegdi flyer opens to about 3 times that size. Click on the picture to get a better look.

Transition phase:

Well, it has been a week and I assume that because the Canadian flag is still flying throughout the country, and the earth has yet to implode, that the new Harper minority conservative government is not the worst possible outcome of the Canadian federal election, much like I had originally hypothesized. And although I have been patiently waiting for Mr. Harper to announce his cabinet selections, he is yet to do so, and since this is the last day for my blog posts to be marked I am going to have to go ahead and post this one without an actual list of people chosen by the new Prime Minister. I guess I’ll just have to go out on a limb and pick ministerial appointments on my own, here goes…

Deputy PM: there has been some talk about Peter McKay, since he is the deputy party leader, I don’t see why not.
+ He is from the east coast
- He cried on national TV when Belinda dumped him

Finance Minister: I would pick former MPP from Ontario Jim Flaherty; he seemed to do
a fairly good job in the Eves and Harris premierships.
+ There is little representation from Ontario, this would help that
- Reminds me of a car dealer

Since it has been a while since the last Conservative government, and thus no one that can really pickup a ministerial portfolio that they previously had or was involved with it is hard to guess who will be doing what in the upcoming government, and since I am not really that acquainted with many other conservative MP’s or there positions in shadow cabinet it has become exceedingly difficult to predict what Mr. Harper is going to do; not always do shadow ministers make for proper portfolio managing ministers in the government. It is hard to go from critic with few responsibilities to actual person in charge of the real thing.

Penny for your thoughts, it’s alright I can make change:

Now that I’ve taken some time and looked back at the Liberal campaign this past election, I see problems. The more I look the more I find. Let’s just think about it step by step. The Liberals were already in trouble over the Sponsorship scandal, even though Martin picked a cabinet of people who were unaffiliated with it, the general public till thought that Mr. Martin, the federal finance minister at the time should have know something about what was going on. I know government is a big place and there are a lot of people doing a lot of things all at once, it can be hard for the people responsible for money to watch and see where it goes all the time. This scandal was the keystone in the conservative campaign. Then at the onset of the election, there came the “income-trust” alleged scandal, however nothing was found to be done under the table, this mess did nothing to help the Liberal campaign and attempts to shake the corruption banner that was hanging over them. The third major hit to the campaign was in BC, where a conservative member running for election in a ridding I don’t seem to remember, claimed that his liberal opponent offered him a “bribe” in the form of a cushy job and financial compensation if he were to drop out of the race. Immediately Mr. Martin denounced this party member and his actions, but the damage was already done via national news coverage. One of the final nails in the liberal coffin was the use of negative campaign ads. Personally I have always been against negative campaigning (unless it is so far out there that it becomes funny, but that never happens), so I am somewhat happy to see that the voting public is not going to stand for that kind of crap. These Liberal attack ads were out of hand, and the one that specifically got the most reactions was about the plans the conservative allegedly had to put armed soldiers in Canadian cities. What was the thought process that was behind that idea? Overall it was just a poorly organized campaign, they relied too heavily on the idea/notion that Stephen Harper is scary and will do crazy things to our country. That and the premise that I call the “Paul-itus Martin-itis” which is basically the charisma that Mr. Martin shows, and his ability to interact well with the public, and the flowing ability he has of speaking in both official languages (if you listen to Harper, his French is a rusty at best). Too much reliance on the abilities of the leader along with a mix of bad ideas and a party dogged by scandal accusations doesn’t really make for a convincing argument, when I comes to choosing a government.

Off to the (Leadership) races:

Well big news these last few days concerning the Liberal leadership search, with the bow-outs from former deputy PM (under Chretien) John Manley, and former New Brunswick premier, and newly resigned American ambassador Frank McKenna, both as citing “personal” reasons as the cause for opting out of the possible position. But there is a list of other theoretical candidates, all which have a brief synopsis about them on the CBC website (click HERE). Talk of successors to the Liberal throne include long time liberals such as Brian Tobin (former NFLD premier) and Allan Rock, who has held many ministerial portfolios over the years including health and justice. All the way to new first time MP Michael Ignatieff, and semi-celebrities such as Belinda Stronach and former Toronto Maple Leafs goalie and social development minister Ken Dryden. Even former Ontario NDP premier and WLU chancellor Bob Rae has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the spot. Personally I think that it would be appropriate for the leader of the Liberal party and possible Prime Minister (since the Liberals have a tendency to win a lot) to be Ken Dryden, who better than a former Hockey Player to be the leader of this country, plus he is a really nice guy in regular life. Who I think shouldn’t be given a chance to govern this country is Michael Ignatieff; and if he does become the leader of the liberal party, I would rather vote for the Bloc then give him a chance to run Canada. I know he is exceptionally intelligent and is well respected in the academic world, but I just don’t like that guy by any means, maybe it’s his eyebrows that are sinister looking.
Let’s see, whom else can we talk about? Belinda Stronach is not experienced enough, even though she has had a ministerial portfolio for a few months, I just don’t think that she has enough political experience, and beside she just crossed the floor from being a conservative MP, where I might add she came out of “no-where” (politically speaking) and decided to run for the leadership of the Conservative party. I have a feeling that if she runs right now for control of the Liberals that she is going to loose any creditability she had about not being a “wh*re for power”. In know that Bob Rae seems like a strange name to see in the hat, and that’s because it is. I have a feeling that Mr. Rae has been out of the political light for a bit too long to really gain any meaningful popularity. But then again the average Canadian isn’t going to really be involved with picking a liberal party leader, unless of course they are a party member, and to that end, why would they pick a former NDP premier to lead the Liberal party?
As for some of the others mentioned, I think that Brian Tobin would defiantly be someone to look out for if you were going to throw your name in the hat as a potential party leader. Some of the other people like Scott Brison, who is also from the east coast could be a challenge, but I haven’t really heard much about him in the last little bit, but who knows maybe a lot profile might be good for a new liberal leader, especially now after the party has gone under so much scrutiny from scandals and alleged income trust boondoggle. A name that is not on the CBC list, who I think we should keep an eye on is Ralph Goodale, the finance minister in this past government, although the income-trust thing isn’t going to help his image, he seems to be found innocent of any wrong doing, and as a candidate from the west (Saskatchewan), that might help his chances.

It’s true, read it for yourself:

Here are some websites and news articles that are actual proof of some of the things I was talking about in earlier posts.

Harper and Ricky related? Read the article from the Halifax Herald, and the source of this exciting genealogical find.
http://www.halifaxherald.com/Front/477109.html

Party Sites
Green Party: http://www.greenparty.ca/
Liberal Party: http://www.liberal.ca/default_e.aspx
Conservative Party: http://www.conservative.ca/
NDP: http://www.ndp.ca/

NEWS FLASH!!!:

You may or may not have seen in the news paper the other day (oh, maybe a week ago now, in the STAR I think…) that our new Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper is related to “Ricky” from the Trailer Park Boys. I guess Harper can’t be that bad can he?

Stupid technology:

This is what happens I guess when you use two different computers to do your schoolwork, some things get lost in the shuffle. I know some of these updates are from a while ago, but I was forgetting what had been transferred from my laptop to my desktop and what all was posted on the blog. But I think that’s all my backdated posts, so now there can only be new and interesting post-election things to talk about, like Harper’s cabinet choices. That is what I find more interesting then the campaign and party smoke screens intended to disorient and confuse you.

Election Night:

Well watching the Canadian federal election last night I noticed that over all, the outcome was not really a surprise. For starters the conservative win was pretty much predicted when you are looking at the polls and campaign movement during the last week or so of the campaign. So what does this final result of a minority conservative government mean? For one, I think it means the Canadian voting public have had enough Liberal governance over the last, what 15 years? So does this mean that it actually is “time for a change”… maybe. What is more important is that the people want a short leash on the conservatives, hence their winning only 21 more seats then the Liberals. In the last election the conservatives only had 99 seats, so now in real terms we actually like the liberals more then the conservatives, but people just don’t want to have to put up with the oligarchic foundations and potential that the Liberal party is and has been displaying, thus the sponsorship boondoggle. What really came as a surprise to me over the course of the night was Paul Martin’s resignation as leader of the liberal party. To make myself more specific; it was the fact that he did it last night. This election was basically the last kick at the can for both Paul Marin and Stephen Harper as their respective party leaders. But truthfully I would not have guessed that Mr. Martin would have boomed out that kind of statement during his concession speech. Now in retrospect that decision/announcement is somewhat of a good idea, in that it will now cause attention to be drawn away from the Conservatives, with an upcoming Liberal leadership campaign and convention.

Point, set …. Martin??

Flyers:

I was looking at all the mail we get at our house today, and in among the crapmail was some flyers from our local conservative and liberal candidates. Both were brightly coloured, dawning the boldest of the respective party’s colours on the front, and I thought that I should pull out the old biology dissection kit and see what these two candidate’s messages are really made of…Well the conservative candidate Ajmer Mandur’s flyer is about the size of a postcard and the front has pictures of Paul Martin with some sort of googly worried smirk, beneath the words “for their friends”; and the other side is a smilin’ Stephen Harper (as creepy as it looks when he does it), with no tie and the top button undone, to eradiate a vibe of relaxed and confident leader, who is under the words “for the rest of us”. On the back there are two panels one for the Liberal Plan and one for the Conservative Plan, and the sections of “Tax, Crime and Child care” beside the ‘cut and paste’ statements, and blatantly miss construed policy explanations, the information is pretty vague and trying to be strait to the point…the conservative point. Then I looked at the “flyer” from Liberal Candidate and incumbent Andrew Telegdi. And when I say “flyer” I use the term loosely, due to the sheer size of this beast, I really don’t think that the term flyer can be just, when talking about the size and scope of information this booklet contains. Before I get to the information contained within Telegdi’s flyer, I have to ask do I really have the time to read through this whole thing. There is something to be said about simplicity especially when it comes to politics. When you unfuril the flyer, it is actually quite impressive, it goes through the many accomplishment that Mr. Telegdi had done in his 12 years as a member of parliament. It even has quotes from conservative, NDP and Bloc representatives and MP’s telling us just what a great guy Andrew is, and what sort of community involvements he is and has participated in, which is a good thing considering his ridding has two universities just down the street form one another, and that means there is a section dedicated to his and the parties plans and thoughts on education. As large as it is, the Telegdi flyer conveys much more information about the candidate and his party’s plans, whereas Mr. Mandur’s flyer just states the same party rhetoric as usual. Uh yeah, I forgot to mention that both candidates offer rides to the polling station for anyone interested…I wonder if they’ll stop be the beer store on the way?

Brian Mulroney vs. Stephen Harper:

Word on the street is that there are many similarities between the Harper campaigns of ought six and the Mulroney conservative campaign in the eighties. I don’t know how true this information is, and since I have heard that Stephen Harper dunks his cookies, not in milk but in the tears of orphaned children. So there is an outside possibility that the two campaign don’t actually have a worthwhile connection, but that tears thing is totally true*


*the views of the author do not necessarily represent the truth.

Party websites & Politics on the world wide web:

So I was looking at the party websites for the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and the Green Party the other day and it is somewhat funny to just take a quick look at the setup of each, of course the content of them are an issue for another day. If you just take a fast peek at the design of the site for the Green Party you will see a field of sunflowers in the top title bar, and the layout of the various topics and issues is fairly simple, in just a normal text. I think that it is nice and subtly effective to deliver the opinions and platform of the party. Whereas if we look at the Liberal website, the viewer is bombarded with flashing words and pictures of Conservative leader Stephen Harper drowning a burlap sack filled with puppies…or shouting in the House of Commons, I don’t exactly remember. But the point is that the Liberal site is filled with excitement and ‘distractions’, brightly coloured fonts in bold and underlined, which connect me to links about the “facts” of the upcoming election, some of which at first glance did not seem too factual under the light of actual knowledge. After recovering from a small overdose of ‘bull-something-or –other’ I decided to take a trip over to the Internet’s conservative town. The first impression I had is well, it’s a conservative setup; I know stunning, who would have thought that a web site for the conservative party would have a formal and conservative styling. Man, there sure is a lot of blue; now don’t get me wrong, I think that blue is a fine upstanding colour, but this site runs a little heavy on the party colours. As my delirium-inspiring odyssey continued, my final stop was the mighty shrine the New Democrats have erected to Jack Layton. Of the whole lot I think the NDP site was actually the easiest to navigate, despite the bold green and orange.
I have to stop and question myself if the internet, more specifically, each party’s space on the internet is really the best way to find the information you want about policy and election information. If only some of the allegedly independent non-partisan websites were as easy to find as the individual party’s.

Steve Paikin for President:

Last night’s federal leader’s debate (English debate) from Montreal was pretty good, and the majority of that goodness belong to the moderator TVO’s Steve Paikin, host of Studio 2. As a recap of what happened, the debate started off with a lot of Conservative Stephen Harper bashing, but that soon subsided when the other leaders were not getting the kind of answers they wanted Harper to fumble with. A number of good policy issues were brought up but no real concrete strategies were actually brought forward. As party leaders, pretty much everyone was fairly solid; Paul Martin tried to stay away from “dirty/negative” questions in an attempt to show the public that he can take the moral high road and just maintain his ability to stick with the pressing issues that should be the focus of the general voting public. When the issues were actually talked about during the debate, without interruption of the ‘Sponsorships scandal” some of the actual presentation of policy positions were some what substantial, with regards to the amount of time that television allows for meaningful debate. Then Martin blindsided us all with the proposed removal of the “notwithstanding” clause. Why would you bring something such as that up during a debate? I’m going to need to think more about this one…I’ll get back to you.

Previously on CPAC:

We find our party leaders venturing head first into a winter election campaign, with Christmas right around the corner. After the first major announcement from the Conservative party about the lowering of the GST from 7% to 5% over the period of the next five years so people are excited, I on the other hand fail to see how advantageous a 2% drop in five years is something to be overly excited about when the money collected from the GST is a great source of revenue for government programmes. Just before Christmas, through till about the 3rd of January the leaders and their respective parties quiet down; hopefully to enjoy the holidays and not just to “re-tweak” their attack adds that I am sure are soon to be released like a pack of angry hounds on an unsuspecting fox.
As a final sum up of what has happened so far, this is what you missed. Childcare moneys from both parties; gun control strategies from both parties; GST drop form the Conservatives; Tax cuts from both parties; and today there was talk of immigration fees being either dropped or decreased by both parties. When I say both parties I mean Liberal and Conservative. There has not been too much word from the NDP other than concerns about Health care costs and wait times. And as for the Bloc, I don’t consider them a real party because they suck. They are more of a special interest group, like PETA, who I have about the same amount of respect for; my definition of animal cruelty is cooking a steak anything past medium-rare. For anyone who is all about the Green Party, you’re going to have to “speak louder” because for some reason the rest of the country and I can’t hear you.