Mill Bay
Voyager
Long Suffering Bosun
Posts: 2,886
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Post by Mill Bay on Oct 15, 2008 13:38:57 GMT -8
Finally, I've never seen less enthusiasm from party supporters than I saw when Dion, Harper, and Layton made their speeches to the faithful last night. Was anyone happy with this election? Neil, add to this, the lowest voter turnout in Canadian history, and you've got it all pegged. I'm glad someone tells it like it is, but you seem to have a bone to pick with all the parties. I can't say I blame you, seeing as the 'leaders' in Canada rarely keep their promises to the people, but who would you want to see in power? And Harper wasn't joking about his reasons to dissolve parliament: It truly is utterly ineffective or, you could say that thanks to 'the winner take all system', it isn't even democracy at all.
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Post by Northern Exploration on Oct 15, 2008 13:50:32 GMT -8
Basically while the election is deemed to have been useless by many, it has accomplished a few things. Had the Canadian populace kept with the trend of about a week ago in some polls with the apparent resurgence of the Liberals, we would be looking at a Liberal Minority or Majority. Under the current regime the only way that would have worked is if Dion followed the Chretien example of having a couple very strong super ministers like Paul Martin and Lloyd Axeworthy were. However since the buzz is that Dion didn't listen to advisors regarding the Green Shift and other policies, the chance of him giving control over may have been slim. Not to mention that he was a distant third place choice who only got momentum when Gerrard Kennedy threw his support behind Dion. Dion doesn't have the connections, support and machinery John Turner did so likely won't get another chance. My dad's former boss raised a couple of million dollars in one night for the Turner campaign when they were in trouble. I just don't see any of the power brokers doing that for Dion. The Conservatives took two small issues and thought they would play well among their supporters. They horribly misjudged the overall effect of that. The relatively small effect of the budget cutbacks on the arts awoke every fear that many have of Harper. All of a sudden it galvanized Quebec back under a faltering Bloc Quebecois. I also believe it helped prevent any inroads in the large metropolitan centres - particularly Toronto. Culture is massive in Quebec and to a lesser extent Toronto. The young offenders announcement was equally as ill timed and just reinforced the slide. Harper never replaced Mulroney as a seasoned advisor on the national scale after he was sidelined by the Schreiber controversies. A direct result is that Harper in two short strokes told Quebecers he was not really one of them and didn't understand the province. He desperately needs a Mulroney replacement who can tell him when he is offbase, and tell him what issues will resonate with a broader base of voters. Think what you may about Mulroney in that role is very valuable. To win after losing Quebec, he would have had to make massive inroads in Toronto (he keeps ticking the city off as he does to a lesser extent Vancouver, so not likely ) and perhaps sweep more of BC as well. He made some minor inroads in the burbs around the Toronto. Harper saved the Bloc from a very serious slide because one thing Duceppe is good at is appealing to Quebecers self interest. The Bloc would have been sidelined and perhaps the movement would have lost all steam and gradually faded away if it hadn't been for that helping hand. Quebecers in general except for the small hard core separatist group, had felt it was time to move on. Everytime you hear Duceppe whine the next 2 to 3 years you know who to thank. That is a pretty significant outcome to the election although not one that anyone much wants. Jack Layton is a good guy, with a good heart, quirky and good at drumming his drum. However, he isn't focused or broad enough to seriously prove a threat as much as Ed Broadbent was. Ed Broadbent you could disagree with, but his leadership skill and style was always forefront. If the election sets asside the itching of the opposition for partisanship, and gets the conservatives back to the more cooperative style they had at the beginning of the last government , it will be a good thing (although expensive). The previous government had a reasonable amount of legislation pass so hopefully the same thing will result now until the honeymoon is over.
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Mill Bay
Voyager
Long Suffering Bosun
Posts: 2,886
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Post by Mill Bay on Oct 15, 2008 14:04:28 GMT -8
If the election sets asside the itching of the opposition for partisanship, and gets the conservatives back to the more cooperative style they had at the beginning of the last government , it will be a good thing (although expensive). The previous government had a reasonable amount of legislation pass so hopefully the same thing will result now until the honeymoon is over. Now for the big question... the answer to why we needed an election and why we keep needing to elect governments. Every government passes so much legislation... almost more than we can comprehend. Why do we need so much more of it? Was the old legislation bad or just ineffective? Hopefully Harper will remember his own statement that the reason he so much wanted to replace the previous parliament was not just for his own gain, but because Parliament had become, in his own words, 'ineffective'. Let's hope he remembers this and that now he might actually focus on making this parliament work to do something effective. Expensive I think we can all deal with in the short term, as long as the cost is worth the outcome in the long run.
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Post by DENelson83 on Oct 15, 2008 16:19:04 GMT -8
Line up to show you had your card that was received in the mail and were registered and had ID. Once you proved you were registered you were sent to the booth that corresponded with your number. That's the job I was doing yesterday. I was an "information officer" at my polling place, directing voters to their ballot boxes, and I was greeting everyone in both English and French, despite the fact that I'm not totally fluent in French.
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