Mad_Michael

Your last point calls into question the quality of your judgement/analysis offered in the first. Btw, Rae speaks French more fluently than Iggy. Check it out.

Um... during the last Liberal leadership campaign, most of the 'Martin-faction' of fiscal conservatives were behind Rae. Rae has moved to the right-side of the Liberal party as heir to the Martin tradition (oddly enough). Canada's sound banking system and robust fiscal position is owed to Paul Martin's reign at the Finance department. Liberals are the party of fiscal discipline in Canada. The Conservatives under Harper are as irresponsible as the Mulroney set or the US Republicans. They don't walk the walk.

That's a downside. Separation is good policy only as a threat of action. As action, it is notoriously difficult and rarely gives any benefits to anyone. Indeed, Quebec would take a 10% hit on their GNP/capita once once the Federal subsidy taps are turned off.

Completely unacceptable to the Cree. Why are you proposing to give Northern Quebec to Quebec as a gift? It doesn't belong to them at all. That's Federal land with Federal responsibilities. And does your 'trial' idea include a 'trial Quebec currency' and a 'trial seat at the UN'???

You're kidding about Iggy right? Guarenteed winner? This guy makes Gordon Brown look like a movie star. Btw, it is helpful to remember that the Liberal party tried to "crown" Iggy the first time and that was such an ugly prospect opposed by a majority of the party that we ended up with Dion as the 'anyone but Iggy' candidate. Iggy has nothing. He's just a warmed over Harvard boy - totally out of place in Canadian politics - and he makes Gordon Brown look charismatic by comparison.

I'll support Rae over any of the 'assumed' candidates for leadership of the Liberal Party. He's shifted very nicely from a 'silk-stocking-socialist' past to adopt the liberal-centerism of Paul Martin over the last twenty years. Most of the members of the Liberal party that I like, were in the Martin faction and supported Rae. He's got the best package of abilities needed for the top job - impeccable French language skills, telegenic looks and is a polished and experienced campaigner (clearly Harper, Dion and Iggy are not). And most notably, Rae's national polling numbers taken during the last leadership contest showed that he was the only candidate that was resonating with the public in all of the Provinces across this great country. And I'd even defend Rae's record as Premier of Ontario as a 'decent job' under impossible conditions. Rae's victory was a total surprise for everyone (including Rae I'm sure). Rae was caught between the rightwingers screaming about manning the barricades against the socialist hordes to one side and leftwingers demanding they storm the Bastille on the other) - and inheriting another one of those 'mystery' deficits that Conservatives always leave behind when they get thrown out (and deny furiously the existence of). Indeed, the greatest opposition to Rae's premiership came entirely from the left (public sector unions). Though, truth be told, having Mike Harris follow you as Premier can make anyone look good by comparison. Indeed, Rae's principle failing as premier of Ontario is that it revealed him to be a centerist liberal. The left hates him for that. The right just hates anyone who is not a tory, so that's a bit of a moot point. Rae has the personality needed to bring the Liberal Party back together. And yes, the party establishment will line up behind Iggy. That alone is enough for me to prefer Rae.

Yes, the elites always need to create reasons to explain why the people don't play along with their rules and their games. I'd venture to guess that turnout was historically low because the choices on offer were historically poor ones. Kinda like Bush vs Gore in 2000 (ugly choice). Increasingly, the people (ie. voters) are learning that voting just doesn't matter all that much.

Not really. Those ads probably were more effective in preventing Harper from getting a majority. The Liberal party vote was down barely 1% over 2006, despite two years of non-stop Harper-Tory attack ads against Dion.

Few things telegraph one's hard-core rightwing partisanship more clearly than the use of the expression "dippers".

Agreed. Charest has a done a decent job in Quebec. The point is that this will not translate into a national reputation that is needed to run for PM. That the party was utterly wiped off the map in the next election seems like a relevant fact to keep in mind here. Charest will not excite Ontario at all. Ontario appears to be rebelling against too many Quebec leaders of the Liberal party lately. Besides, Quebec is tough electoral ground for all parties (except the BQ) no matter what. But Ontario is the bastion of the Liberal party. This has to be the number one priority. If the Liberals can't hold a majority of Ontario seats, they are toast no matter what happens in the rest of the country. Ontario is the base.

Australia's experience could be illustrative here. They use a 'bastardized' mixed system. I personally haven't researched this Australian system lately, but it seems like the kind of thing that a "mixed" system would look like. And yes, they do have a half-dozen tiny parties.

Please review the number parties that sit in the Israeli or Italian legislature. Once you have PR, no 'big-tent' party can get over 25% of the vote - ever.

I think you may be misinterpreting the election results and seeing what you want. Canadians didn't reject carbon taxes. There was virtually no discussion of taxes, carbon or otherwise during this election. No, Canadians just rejected Stephane Dion. You can be sure carbon taxes will be back. It is the responsible thing to do and a necessary policy in the long run.

Agreed. Justin Trudeau is a handsome and charming young man with a bright future. However, he's a decade at least away from any serious leadership possibilities. As for Charest, his profile in English Canada is roughly ZERO and his Premiership in Quebec has been underwhelming. And being closely affiliated with the Mulroney era is not a benefit. I honestly hope we don't have Gerard Kennedy. I consider him the most leftwing of the whole Liberal Party caucus and that's not what the Liberals need right now.

Westerners hate Trudeau because it is apparently part of their culture to hate "eastern intellectuals" (and Toronto). Eastern intellectuals and Torontonians (generally) have learned these facts long ago and don't really care too much about it. This is rather similar to the longstanding rural American cultural suspicion against intellectualism I might add. And as Trudeau also proved, you can hold a majority government pretty much ignoring the west. That's a fact. One can't do it ignoring Ontario or Quebec. This is simple electoral calculus, nothing more. I agree that the Liberal party needs to return to the center. I was always a big supporter of Paul Martin as Finance Minster and PM. Canada's sound economic position right now in the midst of market turmoil around the world we owe to Paul Martin's run as Finance Minister, not Harper's government. As for Justin, he is not his father and doesn't have a Ph.D. in Law and is not a distinguished philosopher-academic as his father was. He doesn't have that stature and likely never will. All Justin has is the name, handsome good looks and some charisma. That's enough to get him into politics and will give him some stature in Quebec and the Liberal party. He is still quite young and it will be many years before he could be in a position to vie for a leadership position. And I repeat, Justin deserves some kudos for taking on a tough to win BQ riding against a sitting incumbent - and winning.

PR looks good on the surface - especially in light of recent electoral trends in Canada. However, one only has to survey those nations that have used PR for a long time to see how they get stuck in the opposite pattern to the one we have now. That is to say, the Legislature gets held to ransom by a plethora of tiny parties. On the whole, I'd rather that our legislatures were held to ransom by large big-tent parties with 35% of the vote rather than tiny little ones with 5%. Israel and Italy are not exactly models that Canada should consider copying.

The only reason the "left" looks weak is because of Dion. If the Liberals have a good leader, then this issue disappears. Ultimately, the Greens will start to pick off Liberal strongholds in the big urban centers (Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver). When that happens, that will push the Liberals to adopt a green platform and that will suck the wind out of the Greens. But as Dion's ill-fated "Green Shift" plan shows, right now is not the right time for aggressive leftwing green policy games. If anything, the Liberals need to return to the center they held under Chretien-Martin. The Dion-left shift has been disasterous for the party.

I agree about Ignatieff. He's as unispiring of a leader as Dion has been. Indeed, Dion only became leader because so many Liberals were underwhelmed by Ignatieff's wooden personality, lack of Canadian connections and strong Bush-Iraq support. Ignatieff is still as wooden and uninspiring as ever. If the Liberals replace one uninspiring leader lacking charisma with another one, they deserve to sit in the backbenches. Rae on the other hand does have charisma and has superb French-speaking skills (one of the very best amongst all English politicians). It is also to be noted that during the Liberal leadership contest, Bob Rae had the strongest public opinion support of all the contenders - in every Province in Canada (except Ontario). As for Rae's popularity in Toronto, check out his winning vote margin in Toronto-Centre (its huge). And Rae's background of spending years as a party leader and a term as Premier in Ontario gives him a solid base of experience that can be built on. Ignatieff has ZERO experience of running anything at all, let alone being a political leader. He's even more of a political neophyte than Dion was. I have no worry about Ontario voting hard against Rae. That just doesn't make sense. Only partisan Tories think that way. Btw, I've already heard a half-dozen 'non-political' types at my workplace comment on how the Liberals would have done way better with Rae as leader. No one ever mentions Ignatieff (except political types on forums).

One can only hope that Justin is half the man his father was. That would put him a good measure higher than most other politicians. P.E.T. was one of Canada's greatest and most respected leaders. We've had none of his stature since. Congrats to Justin on winning a hard-fought campaign in a tough riding. Justin could have chosen to run in a 'safe' Liberal seat - he didn't. He's going to be one to watch because of it.

If Dion hasn't resigned yet, he's a bigger idiot and even worse leader than I figured him for. Good leaders fall on their own swords in order to A) take responsibility for failure, and to get out of the way of a possible solution. Fact is, the knives are out for Dion now whether he likes it or not. Those knives are not going away until he does. (I'll be supporting Bob Rae for the leadership of the Liberal Party)

My question was rhetorical. I didn't expect anyone to answer it (indeed, I usually only ask questions that I know the answer to already). And yes, this is how forums work all too often. The thread is about a real issue (CPP) but most of the comments involve a partisan pissing match over Green Shift or some other issue of partisan polemics. And you are quite right - the topic of CPP (or Social Security in the USA) always comes up whenever the stock markets are down. Bottom line is that CPP funding is guarenteed by the Government of Canada, regardless of the stock markets being up or down on any given day. I'm ready and willing to contribute to a discussion of economics, but that doesn't happen very often (at this forum in particular). (I'd post a link to my own discussion forum for you, but I don't want to attract all the toxic trolls from this forum)

Your assertion is predicated on the assumption that everything was just peachy for Ford 12 months ago. That just isn't credible.

Hard to nail down the exact figure, but it seems like the deficit that Harris' Tories left Ontario with (and still pretend didn't exist) was $3.5 billion. Certainly spendthrift Dalton boosted that to $5.5 billion pretty quick, but that doesn't change the fact that the Ontario Liberals inherited a big deficit from the outgoing Conservatives (Harris-Flaherty).

Specie alert! Is that funky Alberta-based 'Social Credit' game being re-launched? Didn't anyone learn this the first time?

I believe only Texas has the constitution right to susceed from the Union. The last time some states tried to sucseed from the Union, that resulted in war. On this basis, even discussing the topic is absurd.