Riverwind

The study must be based on the number of media stories about corruption.

Vancouver SunThis is going to be very controversial. To say that the Liberals play hard ball is a euphemism. I think now I understand Harper's comment of not becoming a monster to defeat a monster. Assume for once that there was no conspiracy, no bribing. Assume that Chuck Cadman is a man of his word and voted based only on his principals. It is quite logical that the Liberals who are extremely greatful for his support, would move an issue that was on the back burner to the front of queue in a spirit of goodwll. Why is this a bad thing? Obviously it looks bad. But would you rather see Cadman see an issue that he cares deeply about be forgotten about for another 12 months until after a new parliment resumes just because it looks bad? In any case, even if there was an unstated deal - this kind of legislative horse trading occurs all of the time in the US: you vote for me on this bill and I will vote for you an that bill. Americans consider it normal. For that matter, why is it any different than making a deal with the NDP on the budget? Chuck Cadman is a party of one.

In all my discussions, I meant to say that urban depends on the regional context. 1988 is before my time. The Vancouver federal Liberal ridings go Liberal provincially. The NDP parts of Vancouver are NDP federally. An interesting note: Chuck Cadman's riding went quite strongly NDP in the provincial election. So he was probably right when he said his constituants wanted the budget passed. I agree that Montreal voting patterns are much more complex than I have tried to make out. My main point is that you should not dismiss the Liberals as a 'regional' party even if it looks that way given the current seat counts.

When the original 'exchanges' as you called them were made, there were many 'entitlements' that British subjects enjoyed that the Natives could not. Most importantly you could not be both a British subject and a Native. In other words, having Native only entitlements made sense given the prejuduces of the time. If you want to go back to the nation to nation exchange where Natives would have the original entitlements but would be responsible for their own healthcare, education and not have any right to vote then you may have a point. However that is not the way it is today, since natives enjoy all rights as Canadians but they also get additional entitlements based on their race. I don't know what else to call it but racism. That said, I recognize the political and legal realities that make it necessary to come to some sort of settlement and I don't blame the natives for trying to milk these treaties for all they are worth. But I am not going to be politicially correct and try to pretend that there is something noble sacrificing democratic principles in order to get a deal.

I agree 100% which is why I think land claims have to be settled. However, I wish the gov't negotiators would do a better job a ensuring concepts like 'no taxation without representation'. For example, native bands should have no right to collect taxes from people who own property on their land unless those same people are given a right to vote for and run for positions in the native government. There are obviously lots of ways to structure deals that could give the natives what they want (i.e. establish commercial leases with the property owners). The important thing is to establish the principle that if natives want to govern large chunks of the country the most follow some basic democratic principles.

The metis are a politicially created ethnic group that are partly European decent I am all for settling land claims - largely because a rapidly growing population living in areas with no real job prospects is a recipe for creating home grown terrorism. That said, I still believe that native land claims are ethically equivalent to aparthied and have no place in a democratic country.

It appears I read that article a little to quickly.

I live in the middle of 6 Liberal strongholds in Vancouver - The Liberals are not considered an Ontario party in these ridings. The last election was an aberration in Saskatoon and Regina. The conservatives won those ridings with 25-30% of the vote because the liberals and the ndp split the vote. See: http://www.cbc.ca/canadavotes/riding/236/ Montreal is also liberal stronghold and shows a pattern similar to Vancouver: the ridings closer to downtown go Liberal. The suburbs go BQ/Conservatives. Quebec City and Calgary are the only exceptions and that is because they are the heartland of the two strong regoinalist voices in this country. I agree there is a regionalist aspect to Canadian politics that does not exist in the US. However, I think it is a mistake to call the Liberals a regional party. They are a national party that has been squeezed out by the regionalist Reform/BQ parties. When/if the regionalist tide recedes the Liberals will move out of the downtown core into the surrounding ridings. They will never win the truely rural ridings. Then the Liberals will need to resurrect themselves like they did after Trudeau. It took about 10 years.

If you overlayed a population density map over the electoral map you would see a strong correlation between population density and Liberal ridings in every region in the country. The same is true in Quebec. The drop in support in Francophone urban ridings is a new phenomena brought on by Gomery. FYI - the exact same correlation exists in the US with the democratic vote. Teh conservatives only really dominate Alberta. The other western provinces are divided much like Ontario. The rural ridings tend to be conservative and the urban ridings are liberal/ndp. The ADQ could try to get into Federal politics. They are not exactly federalists but they are ambiguous enough on the topic that they could be part of a government coilition.

I would not say that. The Liberal party is a party of urban Canada. The bigger the city the more votes the Liberals get. Calgary is the only exception. If we had true rep by pop in country (i.e. all ridings had exactly the same number of voters) then the BQ and the Conservatives would have considerablely fewer seats.

It is bad enough that we have to accept an aparthied-like system in Canada which gives special rights to people based on thier race. It is a mistake to create new 'races' in order to hand out even more entitlements.

I would not gloat too much. This was a really, really safe liberal riding. A byelection in newmarket aurora would be a more meaningful barometer.

Uh, the Liberal (22%) and NDP (9.5%) vote totals for Alberta are around 31.5%. I would not characterize all Liberal voters as left-wing. (Come to think of it, I'm not certain how I would characterize Liberal voters but that's another issue.) I assumed the numbers in the table added up to 100% and the conservatives got 62% Liberal voters would be left wing from the point of view of RightWinger.

The article was in a local Toronto paper so a focus on southern ontario should not be that surprising. I am really not sure what your point is? The the PMO is parochial? You would need to know that there are no other people in the PMO that reflect the views of other regions to make that statement.

40% of Albertans are Left wing?? Can we see some stats on that? Or are you a Liberal too? I guy who makes outlandish statements with no backing whatsoever? http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/election...davote2004.html Last election shows that 32% of Albertans voted Liberal or NDP. Not 40% but still a significant number. You better get started you have a lot of lynching to do. Last time I checked a democracy is a place where 1 person has one vote and the majority rules. Quebec and Ontario cast 8 million votes in the last election. Alberta cast 1 million. It seems perfectly reasonable that Quebec and Ontario would have stronger voices on the national scene. Just like Calgary and Edmonton have a bigger voice compared to Fort McMurray. How much money is Fort McMurray sending to Edmonton? Maybe Fort McMurray should separate? Vive le Fort McMurray libre! In dollar terms, Ontario pays more into the federation than Alberta does. It is a complete fiction to say that Alberta is paying money to Ontario. Gee, that describes me and I don't see any problems. Maybe it is because I realize that in a democracy I can't get my way all of the time.

He has been playing dirty in the last few weeks - the polls say it has got him no where. People are sick and tired of that kind of politics. If Harper does not start putting forward a positive vision for the country he will go down in flames.

Of once you achieve your goal of separating Alberta from Canada you will likely need to start a party to get Calgary to seperate from Alberta because those polictians in Edmonton are all crooks. Next, of course will be to get North Calgary to separate from South Calgary.... You will also need to get a posse to lynch all those nastly left wingers living in Alberta (about 40% of population the last time I checked). Having to live in a democratic country with people who disagree with you must be quite horrible. You have my sympathy.

Here is an example of rediculous use of stats in the media: "The startling fact is that half of all students are told they are below average. Just to make sure they don't miss the point, almost every report card includes a record of the class average." Gee, I wonder what he would think if only 10% of students were below average? It reminds me of the anti-poverty groups who use the LICO to measure poverty. LICO is defined by stats Canada to be the bottom 20% population. And, surprise surprise, no matter what governments do they cannot seem to reduce the poverty rate below 20%. The original article is here: http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentSe...ol=968350116795

I can agree with you on that point. However, I still feel the conservatives should have put more weight on the 'wrong' of giving the seperatists a strategic advantage vs. the 'wrong' of leaving an incompetant (at least in their opinion) gov't in power.

You attach too much altruism to the Conservatives motivations for calling an election. When Brault testimony first came out they ran to their pollsters - once they saw their support rising so they pushed for an election. If that blip in the polls did not occur then they would not have pushed for an election.

The Chretien Liberals screwed up badly and were clearly incompetent at managing politically motivated programs (HRDC, Sponsership, Gun Registery, etc). That said, two wrongs don't make a right.

True, but insisting on an immediate election which would give a large strategic advantage to the BQ is a funny way to show your love for the country. Conservatives could continue to oppose the gov't and demand changes to important policies without an election.

Don't Quebec nationalists use those tactics to attack any Quebec politician who tries to co-ooperate with the federal government?

A yahoo?

We may disagree on what the gov't should be doing about gay marriage and stuff but in my book there is nothing wrong with having deep religious convictions and teaching that to your kids. Don't get the idea that everyone opposed to 'social conservative' issues is opposed to religion.