Newfoundlander

I know that but it is still just allegations.

They claim they never did that though. All they're saying is that polling stations moved and they called supporters to make sure they were aware.

It was part of their Get Out The Vote.

As well according to Dean Del Mastro in the last few days of the election, Elections Canada changed the location of polling stations. The Conservatives say they phoned their members to tell them.

Impersonating an Elections Canada official is illegal. I don't believe there is anything wrong with phoning people and saying you're a worker of a campaign when you're not.

Well we also don't know how many people may have went out to vote, showed up at the wrong place and then didn't bother to vote at all. I know people who worked at polling stations on election days and they said it was unbelievable the people who showed up at the wrong place and then say they aren't going to bother voting.

The pone calls from people pretending to be an Elections Canada official might be the only calls that were actually illegal, but harassing voters while pretending to be a volunteer of another campaign is still voter suppression.

I can't remember what has been said now. Brian Topp seems to twist everything people say so maybe I'm just getting mixed up with him accusing Mulcair of being a hated centrist.

This was first mentioned months ago wasn't it?

Elections Canada's information isn't always right. I've heard of a number of cases where people showed up to the place where Election's Canada had told them to vote and it was incorrect.

Well seeing there is already tons of confusion around where people vote on election day I think people could easily be confused if "Elections Canada" phones and says their polling station has changed. As well there were more calls made then just those that said where to vote. They might not have all be connected but in St. Paul's there was supposedly someone phoning around impersonating Carolyn Bennett's campaign volunteer, and similar things happened in other ridings.

So are you saying that it is the voters own fault for listening to these calls?

Didn't he say they need to move to the centre?

Bringing governments down? Are you referring to him moving the non-confidence motion on Joe Clark's government?

If Bob Rae was responsible for this why would he announce in the House of Commons a Liberal staffer was responsible, instead of say a press release?

So these calls were all made up and actually never happened?

I read Rob Silver's article earlier and I tend to agree with a lot of his points. What I think Mulcair might be trying to do is make sure that the NDP actually don't make the mistakes the Liberals have made. The Liberals have been criticized for living in the past, they've talked about the great things Trudeau did for this country as a reason to vote for them. They never did anything to fundamentally change themselves over the last number of years and therefore have become an old tired party without a modern message. I think what Mulcair would like to do is forget about these messages the NDP have been giving for the last 50 years, look past their former leaders and look to the future witha new message for Canadians. I think if the NDP don't try and change themselves they could end up even more like the Liberals.

The NDP were a distant fourth is almost every riding in Quebec in 2008. The Librals have had some strong showings in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and BC over the last decade. I think they could definitely do well in western Canada with the right policies and didn't ignor the region. There's a chance that some CPC supporters will look for another option in 2015, if they feel Harper hasn't done a great job, and there's no reason why the Liberals couldn't be that option.

If it wasn't such a long process it could be interesting for the Liberal leadership. Three potential leadership candidates whos ridings were targeted, Peter Fonseca, Martha Hall-Findlay and Borys Wrzesnewsky, lost their seats by fairly small margins, if by-elections were held in their ridings and they ran I think they'd each win.

Why does it matter if he was well known or not? I think that can be a legitimate asset, Layton wasn't well known when he became leader.

Harper made some comment about if Mulcair wins he wins and if he loses he wins.

Chantel Hebert wrote an interesting article last week about how she spoke to people within the Liberal Party last year when they were planning to defeat Harper. They told her that the Liberals were looking to make big gains in Quebec as the federalist option, she asked them how the NDP factored in and they never considered them to be a threat in the province. Look how that worked out. At this moment the NDP and Liberals are closer in polling then the Conservatives and NDP.

I don't think any of the NDP leadership candidates are at Rae's level. Rae is pretty much in his own league when it comes to performing in the house, scrumming, and being interviewed.

I think many in the NDP would have rather seen him as a member of the PQ then the Liberal Party of Quebec, seeing the Quebec Liberals are such a staunch right-wing party.

He is by far the best in debates, he's young, more moderate, has better French then most, has a sense of humour and appears to have little to no baggage. He's also represents a rural riding is western Canada, that is now a safe seat for him. His background outside of politics isn't overly great but I don't think it's a big deal. I think he would appeal most to Canadians and is the one who is probably most like Layton.