nittanylionstorm07

From what I remember about Nanos in the Federal Election, they were always the slowest to update their numbers with the NDP surge. It's no surprise they still have the libs in the lead. That said, newest polls suggest a Tory minority, NDP opposition, Liberal third party situation.

Zooey Deschanel doesn't have a man voice... just a squeaky voice.

Gross. I take it you like man voices?

Alberta Leaders' Debate Thoughts: Danielle Smith/Wildrose- Honest but definitely the Canadian Sarah Palin (slightly less annoying/crazy though with a handful of decent ideas). Definitely tried to come off more centrist/libertarian than right-wing. Alison Redford/Progressive Conservative- Big. Fat. Liar. Absolutely terrible and hope she gets the boot this election. Annoying as well. Raj Sherman/Liberals- Lol. Please come back from the planet Uranus. The Liberal Party has the worst ideas ever. Brian Mason/NDP- Great ideas, not the greatest communicator. One idea I didn't like, but the rest outweighs it.

That's the beauty of Westminster Parliamentary systems though... you can always create, join, campaign for, etc. a new party.

I'm sorry, but your post makes no sense. I'm a market socialist. I wouldn't want to do most if not all of what Hudak is campaigning on.... but that isn't even the point. The point is that he has run quite possibly one of the worst campaigns ever.

I'm sorry, but Tim Hudak must be the most incompetent person ever to run for a head of government position in the first world. The Ontario PCs were headed towards a majority government near the end of August/early September...but now it's actually possible they may get less votes than in 2007. I suppose that's what happens when you campaign on nothing but easily disprovable, inflammatory lies?

= How unshockingly Liberal of them.

It just depends on how you set up the system. For the most part, the Senate is an equal-in-power to the HoR in the US. Combine that with the fact that due to the current extreme polarization of politics in the US, the filibuster in the Senate has been abused to the point where everything needs at least 60 votes to pass... and it is no wonder why our system is so unbelievably screwed up. The best bet for Canada, especially since you have a Westminster system, is to have a Senate that simply serves as a check on the House of Commons, helps to approve Supreme Court justice picks, etc. All budgetary matters would be left to the HoC, but the Senate could debate non-budgetary matters, foreign treaties, etc.

Seems to me that the NDP government in NS is doing just fine, and the one in Manitoba is on the way up. You should probably stop using the one bad example and trying to apply it to all of the NDP. Canadians are not buying it.

I figured Ontario would be covered fairly well, and it's okay I suppose (I don't understand why the last poll that came out had a one month sample though)... Manitoba is also decent, but could be more frequent.... ...but I'm having a hellacious time trying to find any polls on BC, SK, and NL. Virtually nothing of note. I know BC doesn't technically have an election yet, but we know SK and NL will be later this year. It would also be nice to know more about Alberta since their election is next year... but I suppose they'd rather wait until major party leaders are actually chosen.

You are absolutely silly and completely don't understand the difference between the population of a city vs. an urban area vs. the population of a metropolitan area. You listed the population of urban areas of Canada which is defined as the following: The urban areas identified below are defined by Statistics Canada with reference to continuous population density, ignoring municipal boundaries. For example, a rural area within a city's limits may not be included, such as some areas within the city limits of Ottawa, while neighbouring cities that directly continue a city's urban core population will be included, such as Westmount and Montreal. Completely silly. You should be looking at a metropolitan population. By the way, the purpose of a metropolitan area is to include all of the population around a city that commutes and does business in said city on a daily basis. That is an international definition, not some great conspiracy by Statistics Canada. The US has the same thing. I live in Indiana, but it's a suburb of Louisville, KY and is included in the metro. Oldham County, KY is very suburban/exurban/rural and is included in the metro population too simply because many commute from Oldham into Louisville. Your complaint against Granby is absolutely ridiculous. Here are actual pictures of Granby: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granby,_Quebec Complete with their city and metro population. You showed a picture of Lac Boivin http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac_Boivin_(Granby) in a complete and absolute disservice to the intellect of this forum community. I'm sure I could find several pictures of Red Deer, AB where it looks like no one lives there either! While you might complain that the metro is too small to be considered a metro or city or whatever the hell you are complaining about, again, the US (and the world, for that matter) does the same thing. Look at State College, PA for instance. It is a borough of about 40,000 with a metro of about 180,000. It is purely for statistical purposes and isn't some grand conspiracy. The point is to show how many people live in a urban vs a rural area. Rural areas are not part of urban areas. There are tons of those. It is a fact that the population of Canada is significantly more urban than rural. It's the same in the US. It's simply because more people want to live in the city versus by themselves... and that doesn't mean that they are trying to say that there are more liberals versus conservatives if you are trying to imply that. I know of many liberal rural people and conservative urban people... election results can show that. Your comparison to the US is absolutely baseless. You've compared the power of the most and second most populated states and sadly attempted to compare that to the power of urban vs. rural areas in Canada. That makes no sense. First, Ontario and Quebec are the 1st and 2nd most populated provinces... Alberta is 4th. There are 10 provinces, but 50 states. If you want to do a comparison, it would be like California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina (236 seats) together as a group deciding how things would go in Arizona, Tennessee, Missouri, Maryland, and Wisconsin (42 seats). Which they could, if they actually agreed. However, we have large cities where conservatives dominate, and we have large cities where liberals dominate. We have liberal rural areas and conservative urban areas. These balance each other out. In Canada, it's different because you don't have as many cities or populated provinces.... so naturally, the people in the Windsor-Quebec City corridor... where the vast majority of Canada lives... are going to have the greatest say in Parliament. Also lol @ your immigrant rant.

Typical. Just answer the question or stay out of the thread. The CPC has new members too, you know.

Oh okay. I suppose Harper should start believing in his own riding rather than going to a hockey game or the G8, too.

I have to say that Helene Laverdiere (NDP-Laurier-Ste Marie, QC) is really, really impressive. Not just because she defeated Gilles Duceppe, but because she is extremely knowledgeable about International Affairs, her questions during QP are spot on so far, and she has a firm voice in what she believes in. What say you?

Here's the problem, though: If Alberta continues to whine so much to the point that they do in fact managed to keep the vast majority of wealth from the oil, they are burning bridges between them and Ontario/Quebec. Which, in the short term, I'm sure Alberta would be quite happy to do. Here's the problem: when Alberta runs out of oil, where do they turn? If they've burnt the bridges to the people who could support them, they've risked having the situation turned upside down on them,

It's going to be absolutely hilarious when Alberta runs out of oil and Ontario and Quebec will have to start subsidizing Alberta. Absolutely hilarious.

You don't like mine, but you like his? Where is your grievance? Under his system, the west has 16 seats to eastern Canada's 32. You seem to complain that the west doesn't have enough seats now, but under his system, they only have less than a third of seats. My system gives each major region an equal number of seats (BC, AB (yes I know AB can be considered prairie, but it is too populated now to be lumped in), Prairies (SK/MB), ON, QC, and Atlantic), and it gives eastern and western Canada an equal number of seats (24 to 24), with the balance of power in the territories.

What Smallc said... as well as the fact that the younger generation of francophone Quebecois despise the older generation's obsession with sovereignty while ignoring real problems in the province. The majority of Quebecois are tired of the sovereignty debate. That is why the NDP is now in the HC from Quebec. PQ may be elected to a minority government in Quebec next year, but it's not because the population is begging for sovereignty.. it's because they are tired of the PLQ. They've also spread their vote around to help ensure that the PQ doesn't get too crazy (last poll only 34% support the PQ which is down from the last election)

With respect to your first sentence... Senate reform hasn't happened yet, and I guarantee that Ontarians and Quebecois will be raising hell if PE gets the same amount of senators. As I've said before, I support spreading power around regionally in the Senate, but not to the point of fault. Under my suggestion, the west would have 24 senators compared to ON/QC's 16 and AC's 8. Equal amounts in East and West Canada. Using our Senate as an example is a bad idea. Our Senate is terrible, ineffectual, and is the root of all problems in terms of getting things done for America. This is mainly due to the filibuster abuse, as the wishes of the minority have trumped the wishes of the majority to a terrible fault. Rural states now have way too much power based on that alone. Canada cannot be compared similarly as it has a smaller amount of regions and is less complex. The only true "equalness" is one person=one vote and if the same amount of people had the same amount of representatives across the country. The Senate in the US is not equal, as it gives people in lesser populated areas more power than those in higher populated areas. Although the House has the common misconception of being the other way around... it's simply not true. Since representative constituencies are balanced population wise, everyone has an equal say.

For now it doesn't. Population should have at least a minor consideration. Not as much as Parliament, but enough so that one province isn't ridiculously overrepresented. Why should Ontarians feel like they are so much less special than Islanders? They already get that in the House... why make it worse in the Senate?

The Conservatives in this thread are ridiculous with this false anger. The reason Jack said that is he knows it is never going to happen, as does the rest of Canada. Get over yourselves.

True, yes, but the region as a whole more or less acts like an Ontario than the individual provinces in Atlantic Canada. If we get closer to some of the more popular suggestions... for a total amount of senators around 103 (100 for the ten provinces and one for each territory)... that's 10 senators for PEI. At this rate, we might as well merge their Legislative Assembly with their Parliamentary delegation.

My biggest problem is giving Prince Edward Island the same amount of Senators as Ontario. It doesn't make sense. This plan does soften the blow of the majority. My biggest suggestion on that front is that Atlantic Canada would have equal the amount of Senators as Quebec, in this case. The Atlantic Senators should caucus as a group to defend such actions. Alberta has more population, combined, than Man/Sask. They deserve it since they have more than 10% of the population of Canada. Ontario, Quebec, BC, and Alberta are the four major Canadian powers. Man/Sask together counts as a fifth. Atlantic Canada is the sixth, together. That's how things play out. Re: the territories, they are not provinces... and compared internationally, they should count themselves lucky that the government of Canada would be willing to give them representation in the upper house individually.

Here is the requirement based on that: To qualify for full representation of 8 senators, a province must have at least 10% of the population of the country. Between 3 and under 10%, a province receives 4 senators. Under 3% with provincial status, 2 senators. Territory status, 1 senator.