ShitHarperDid.com

EKOS Politics

The Right in this country (Conservatives) drank a gallon of the 'youth don't vote' koolaid while planning their re-election strategy, and are now taken off guard by a growing youth mobilization, especially in universities and organized online, where a slow-reacting, opinion-discouraging party is at a distinct disadvantage.

One of their officious officials tried to snatch a ballot box from an advance polling station at the U of Guelph last week, claiming the ballot was illegal and the votes should be disqualified - despite the fact that there has been a polling station there un-challenged for the past 3 federal elections. I personally think he got frightened by the long lineup of students willing to wait up to 2 hours to cast a ballot. More so since the other major party (Liberals) is promising tuition help and better tax credits for students and/or their supporting families.

After investigation, Elections Canada ruled the polling station legal and the ballots already cast were valid. But they closed the poll nonetheless and told the remaining 700 students in the lineup that they'll have to drive downtown to the district electoral office if they want to cast their ballot in advance of the May elections (vote during exam/end of semester crunch, or during peak transit time for students going home or to summer jobs).

They have since decreed that there will be no more advance polling stations in universities this election cycle.

Thus is an exercise in participatory democracy gently leashed by a soupcon of intimidation and the bureaucratic distaste of 'scenes' by aggressive right-wing suits.

Bah.

The up side is that the 'youth do vote' movement is surging across the country like alky relatives to an open bar. Let's hope the online enthusiasm converts to actual appearances at ballot boxes despite the attempt to discourage the youth of the country from exercising their franchise.

Who's going to win? I haven't kept up with the issues or anything, so I can't guess. Seems like Harper's been there forever, though. Time for a change?

__________________
Standard disclaimer: the disgusting statements contained in this post are the views of the poster, and unless specified do not represent the views of the moderators or the site's owners.

Just Canada, not like anything going on there matters. I wish someone would pay me to vote, that would make voting much more worthwhile too.

__________________
Give unto Caesar that what is Caesar's, and lie like hell to keep as much of the rest of your shit as you can.

"If you want something said ask a man...if you want something done, ask a woman" Margaret Thatcher

Issues? What issues? The Harper Tories (with support ranging from 35-40% of voters) have only one message to spread: fear of the chaos and higher taxes that electing anyone else will bring down upon the country.

The Liberals have come out strong with a centrist platform that's not too bold anywhere nor economically disasterous, but they're hampered by a leader who, though undoubtedly brilliant academically, has come late to the realization that not all voters respond to university-style elocution.

The other solid parties - NDP (left/socialist) and Bloc Quebecois (French sovereigntist) - have no chance of forming a government and spend their public appearances shooting at targets on the two main leaders' backs while the last party, the Greens, likely won't win a single seat this time either despite having growing support across the country in the past 3 elections and presenting quite a respectable platform that's environmentally sound and in general fiscally responsible. Everybody who can't hold their nose to vote for their usual party votes Green instead, resulting in a fair percentage of popular support but not enough in any one region to win any one seat.

Harper's most likely to win another minority Conservative government. His numbers have slipped in the past week from near-majority territory to fewer seats than his last government held - mainly due to missteps by staffers in the various ridings and a steady drip-drip of scandals associated with his hand-picked appointees (such as the ballot-box kerfuffle above), but he'd have to be caught with a rent-boy to damage his standing with his hard-line base.

Harper's party was recently cited for contempt of Parliament, which triggered this election, and he will have no more cross-party support after it than he had before. It will be a messy session as Harper has never been known for working well with others. He's only been there five years in minority governments, but it seems like decades.

There are a couple of damaging reports in the offing - Afghan detainee torture and misappropriation of funds during the G8-G20 beanfest - that will greet the new government very soon after the House returns. If the Liberals and NDP together on May 3rd hold more seats than the Conservatives, things will get interesting. If a non-confidence motion brings Harper down again soon, rather than hold yet another election the Libs and NDP could ask the Governor General for a chance to form a new government between them (always supposing the leader of the NDP can submerge his ego long enough to negotiate and sign a cooperation agreement - he's an arrogant little spoiler, our Jack, with no shot at becoming Prime Minister himself but enough seats to make his ego felt in a minority government).

If the Liberals and NDP need Bloc seats to outvote Harper, any cooperative goverment is doomed because the Bloc is dedicated to separating Quebec from the rest of Canada. Their participation in a federalist coalition government would be greeted with howls of outrage from all sides, including their own followers. In this case we will likely limp along another year or so with Harper doing pretty much as he pleases until a scandal too great for even his staunch supporters to stomach triggers another election.

And another 300 million dollars out the window. Hell, it's not like we have any other need for that much dosh.

The only up side to another Harper minority is that, having failed to give his party a majority three times running, he will be listening for the knives being honed behind his back every moment he remains as leader. Torture indeed to a man who has stabbed in the back every leader he has ever worked under.

So far, though, it's a more interesting race than the mainstream media expected or was willing to admit for the first couple of weeks. The leaders of all parties except the Tories are talking policy and engaging with the different regions of the country. And now the youth-vote movement is stirring the pot even more. Fun, fun, fun.

Canadian mainstream press is finally noticing that the polls are shifting ever so slightly down from the pro-Harper highs of previous weeks. They're only a week behind the curve. They're still telling us that Canadians, especially young Canadians, don't care about democracy or a working Parliament, though.

Realistically, we have a choice between Harper, a smarter, overtly meaner version of GW Bush (closer to Cheney, really) and Ignatieff, an internationally respected intellectual and author who has made a lifelong study of what makes a country strong. Among Ignatieff's many books and articles is “BLOOD & BELONGING - Journey into the New Nationalism” published in 1993 by Penquin Books, in which he wrote of his exploration through Croatia-Serbia, Germany, Ukraine, Kurdistan, Northern Island and Quebec in search of an understanding of nationalist strife. If Harper had ever left Canada before taking power, I'd be surprised.

Ignatieff at least got other people to pay for his international education and took his time at it. Harper's learning curve has been short, steep, marginally successful despite his souvenir photos with other world leaders, and paid for (and will be paid for in many ways beyond the immediately monetary) by Canadian taxpayers.

It shouldn't even be a contest.

Cheers! Good summary.

__________________
Standard disclaimer: the disgusting statements contained in this post are the views of the poster, and unless specified do not represent the views of the moderators or the site's owners.

First there was the Afghan torture report due - the definitive layout of which Harper cabinet ministers knew how early that detainees were being turned over to Afghan units that had tortured in the past and whether they lied to Parliament about it - can't be released during the election cycle when Parliament isn't sitting.

Second comes the Auditor General's full report into a 50-million-dollar truckload of federal pork into a single riding that the Tories had barely won last time, an early draft of which was leaked early in the campaign with some damning quotes about 'misrepresentation' and 'lying to Parliament'. Can't be released unless Parliament is sitting.

Are we seeing a trend here?

Now there's this: the overdue report into how the Tories' hand-picked 'Ethics Commissioner' who was supposed to be looking into government misdeeds, managed in three years to not find a single complaint out of all those filed by a government staffer or concerned citizen worthy of investigation at all. She left office abruptly, just before the preliminary report went public.


A potted history of Christine Ouimette

Yeah, government reports are madly boring reading, but during an election is when you want to know exactly how badly the incumbent behaved, right? So you can make an informed decison about electing him again if his misdeeds benefited you? Or if you got what you paid for in election contributions?

YouTube - An Open Letter to Canada

Nice summary

F

__________________
"Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time and to its government when it deserves it."-- Mark Twain

"Inter arma silent Musae"--when the weapons speak, the muses fall silent.

An't nanum hearm deth, doth hwaet ye willath.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished
unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire

Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -4.36

Today's Harper-tory scandal further involves the PM's former hand-picked advisor, Bruce Carson, who had 5 fraud convictions over a couple of decades before becoming the PM's senior advisor and whose girlfriends were ex-prostitutes (one of whom was convicted in North Carolina, USA in a money-laundering scheme from a prostitution ring - and deported back to Canada) cited for unregistered lobbying. Harper said when the fraud convictions came to light that 'a staffer' hired Carson and he never would have approved it if he'd known about the two latest fraud convictions. (so... three convictions is okay, but five is too many?)

Anyway, in letters released by Tory staffers today, attempting to demonstrate they were responsible by referring Carson's dealings to the ethics commissioner a couple of years ago for a conflict-of-interest ruling, it appears now that the PMO got rid of Carson by funding not one but two 'think tanks' back in Calgary (Harper's home riding, one over from mine) to the tune of 25 million dollars and making Carson head of them.

25 million of taxpayer dollars into the control of a five-times convicted fraudster, who at the time still owed back taxes to the federal government over other ill-gotten gains.

Whatever dirty pictures Carson has of Harper, I hope this time the Tories bought the negatives back or a re-election of Harper will bring another bill from Carson's think-tanks.