Countdown to Canadian Federal Election 2006 Thread

The Liberals are smart enough to not have Paul Martin in their commercials, since it's not like Martin is Captain Charisma or relatable in any way. He's spoken about but never seen.

Conservative: Stephen Harper. Smarmy douchebag. Adores US Republicans.
Liberal: Paul Martin (current PM). Less smarmy. You take the good with the bad.
NDP: Jack Layton. Thinks he's so suave. Trying his best to make socialism more of a factor in mainstream federal politics.
Bloc Quebecois: Gilles Duceppe. I think I would really like Duceppe if it weren't for the whole seperatism thing.

*translated from French

Are there any attempts to answer my question posed at the top of the thread?

Enviro-stud and eye columnist Gord Perks is the NDP candidate in my new riding.

Conservative :: Stephen Harper :: Much like that dude from Ghost in the Shell he is now more android than man. Once killed over 50 seniors when a glitch in his cybernetic brain caused him to ramble about Liberal corruption for 38 hours straight - sucking all the air out of the tiny auditorium. Has an unhealthy affinity for chaps.

Liberal :: Paul Martin (current PM) :: Ex-shipping tycoon who became head of the Liberal party and de facto Canadian PM after defeating former PM Jean Chretien in a stuttering contest. Still receives a weekly allowance from his parents and is rumoured to occasionally wet the bed.

NDP :: Jack Layton :: Barely speaks english and when he does we all wish we didn't. Had a disappointing finnish in the previous election on his ill-advised "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" platform. Has the yellow fever.

Bloc Quebecois :: Gilles Duceppe :: Rehabilitated supervillain. Has the dreamiest blue eyes and is probably too smart to be in politics.

Green :: Jim Harris :: "Hu?"

xpost - HEy me too!!! Davenport reprezent!

to those who haven't seen this pic: THIS IS NOT A PHOTOSHOP JOB

That said, what was lacking from the BC election, I felt, was any sense of excitement. Either from the long-term planning or the contiunous extra-parliamentary anti-Campbell nonsense that everyone was exhausted from, May 17th felt like the final end to a long, long march. It felt so inevitable, like a major holiday; all the excitement about an election (Now! right now! we're runing out of time!) that we can use to get pumped up now when no one knows the exact date was gone. Now, this may have been peculiar to the race I worked in or this election's dynamics, but I didn't like it. I like the balls-in-the-air, anything-can-happen jitters from a snap election.

I just haven't heard any reasons, yet, why fixed election dates would be any kind of improvement on the current system. I've heard people say it might make parties more accountable, but I think it might have almost the opposite effect. I'd rather that they put their energies, political reform-wise, into some better form of proportional representation.

I thought Duceppe was the best of a bad bunch in the debates. About the only one who didn't just repeat the talking points that had obviously been planned beforehand. Too bad about the rehabilitated supervillain thing, though. Although having a supervillain in charge would make things more interesting. "Retarded cousin", eh? More like "retarded cousin with a laser gun that can heat the earth's core to a million degrees if you don't meet this list of insane demands!" mwah, hah, hah....

The NDP is more to blame for that.

75%

Carlson *usually* doesn't sink down to this sub-O'Reilly level ... there were some episodes of Crossfire where he was getting roasted over the war or whatever and he'd almost be laughing as if to admit "yeah, I know my viewpoint is a bit fucked but I have to say this stuff because that's the whole point of this show". I haven't seen him since he's been on MSNBC, but I gather that they hired him to act like a straight-faced no-bullshit conservative douchebag because controversy = ratings, or something.

xpost

And CTV Newsnet just reported that illegal music downloading could become a hot issue in the campaign. There must be an intern filling in on the newsdesk over the holidays.

And did Paul Martin just say that aboriginal people were "the root cause of poverty"?

(I know what he *meant* to say, but I don't think that's what he said)

Also, the BQ could be part of a coalition govt in principle (even though they claim it will never happen). Regardless, any party that holds a non-ignorable number of votes in Canada's parliament is a party whose platform I want to hear discussed in a national forum.

I'll be happy if Lib+NDP > CPC

Dave says 6 mos.
I say 23 mos.

I hope you all are faring well with it all.

My riding (Davenport) stayed Liberal, although I expected a lot more vote shuffling, since the incumbent (Silva), who being Portuguese had obvious guaranteed votes, came out (quietly, mind you) as gay during his recent term. This doesn't sit well with many of the older Portuguese, and figured there would be a chunk of votes over to the Cons (also a Portuguese candidate), since they couldn't stomach voting for the whitey NDP guy. I voted for the NDP dude because he did door-to-door, and I got to chat with him for a bit and he seemed like a good fella. Looks like he'll come in 2nd, mind you, so not bad. I did consider voting 'strategically', but I talked so much shit in the past about voting 'locally', I stuck to my guns...

So a Conservative minority, then. Well, better than a majority I suppose. And I'm inclinded to agree with Sundar - the instability of the parliament will hopefully keep that creepoid Harper and his cronies in check. And I've been thinking that maybe this country needed to experience a shitty conservative government (and leader) just to remind us not to do something silly like that again for a while.

And after being delivered a good slap, I predict a Liberal minority gov't next time, and blah-de blah blah... IT GOES ON LIKE THIS

Will the Bloc prop up the government just to help in the upcoming election?

It should be noted that no party won seats in all provinces, with Liberals sweeping PEI (all 4 seats) and Cons sweeping Alberta.

Westerners always complain that their votes don't matter because every election is decided in Ontario. Winning all of Alberta's 28 seats (more than their margin of victory) gives all non-Westerners a reason to slap anyone who still wishes to claim that.

(although one might also argue that the election was won by the Liberal -> Conservative shift in Quebec)

Gosh, you just lost some valuable smug points against your lovable neighbors down south.

Some, but not all. Furthermore, the fact that he didn't win an outright majority means that Mr.Harper can't take things as far to the right as some, myself included, had feared. Don't expect the smugness to stop anytime soon. Besides, Canada's not a utopia. It just looks that way sometimes due to who we automatically get compared to.

xpost

http://www.oracleofottawa.org/Tony_Clement.jpg

Peter MacKay Minister of Something He Can Be Hidden From Public View For.
Stockwell Day Minister of Prayer.

xpost ha ha! that should be her title!

-- MindInRewind (), December 14th, 2005 4:32 PM.

Hmmmm ... interesting looking back on some of our comments after the election is over. We now know that the Liberals decided they wouldn't bother campaigning too much until the New Year, and that Harper as "man of the people" ended up working. History should show that the announcement of the RCMP criminal probe was the backbreaker -- if you look at the polls over the course of the election, things were fairly stable up to that point, but immediately afterward there was a runaway train of Tory support. With a big lead in the polls, Harper had plenty of time to divert himself from discussing policy 100% of the time and start into "getting to know me" mode.

Yet Goodale cleaned up in his riding. Which I guess probably has as much to do with the other parties not fielding strong candidates to run against him as it does with his smarmy good looks and the fact that the "insinuations" were pretty bunk.