normanchateau

Unfortunately, you're probably right. As Ignatieff rises in the polls, the NDP guns, in a replay of their relentless attacks against Paul Martin, will turn towards him and away from Harper. I expect Ignatieff will hold up better than Martin, in part because there's no rational way to link him to the sponsorship program.

Yes, he did unite the right but the right wing vote has not increased. 2008 election Conservative votes =5,205,334 % of votes=37.6% 2006 election Conservative votes =5,374,071 % of votes=36.3% 2004 election Conservative votes =3,994,682 % of votes=29.6% 2000 election Alliance and PCs combined =4,843,927 % of votes=37.7% 1997 election Reform and PCs combined =4,959,785 % of votes=38.2% Brian Mulroney's numbers were far higher because he appealed to centrists more than to Reform types. Harper will not recapture those centrists which is why a new leader is required. But I agree with you that Harper won't step down until he loses another election. This time it will be the Leader of the Opposition, and not Harper, who determines the timing.

Also, from this poll: "The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey indicates the newly minted Liberal leader is viewed more favourably than either Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper or NDP Leader Jack Layton. Indeed, Ignatieff was the only national leader to score a net positive rating, with 43 per cent of respondents saying they had a favourable impression of him versus 32 per cent who had an unfavourable opinion. Harper was viewed favourably by 43 per cent and unfavourably by 49 per cent, relatively unchanged since last October's election." Not only has Ignatieff's favourability rating now matched Harper's, a feat Dion could never accomplish, but the difference in unfavourability is remarkable. It seems that Canadians bought the old CPC ads of the need for a strong leader and are responding by moving to the leader who has Harper on a leash. Just as Harper managed to gain seats in the last election by running against the weakest Liberal leader in the history of the party, Ignatieff will gain seats by running against the most hypocritical and humiliated "Tory" in the history of the party. Will the disorganized Conservative Party of Canada figure out that they need to replace failed "economist" Harper before the next election? Not a chance.

Why did David Emerson, a CPC Cabinet Minister accept the same US-Canada lumber agreement that was turned down earlier by David Emerson, then a LPC Cabinet Minister? The answer of course is that the US offered the Liberals and the Conservatives the same agreement. The Liberals turned it down. The Harper Conservatives accepted it and hailed it as a great victory and evidence that George Bush likes Harper. It's curious that when then Canadian Ambassador Frank McKenna presented the US plan for a negotiated settlement on softwood lumber to the Liberal government late in 2005, the government rejected the plan on the advice of Liberal Cabinet Minister David Emerson. Yet when a similar US plan was delivered to the Harper government in April, 2006, that plan was accepted, apparently on the advice of Conservative Cabinet Minister David Emerson. Here's what David Gray, BC spokesman for the Montreal-based Free Trade Lumber Council, had to say about the plan that Emerson suddenly and inexplicably found was good enough to betray the softwood lumber industry: "They've taken McKenna, they've put lipstick on it, they've put a girdle on it, high heels and a wig, but it's still a pig." He later modified his metaphor: "It's still a pig, but now we're trying to make it fly." Here's the link: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/s...d3c&k=48564 The deal which the incompetent Harper approved allowed the US to keep a billion dollars of illegal duties obtained from Canadian lumber companies. Half that money went directly to US lumber companies giving them the funds to hire battalions of lawyers to launch decades of attacks against the Canadian lumber industry. The US lumber lobby continues to oppose free trade in Canadian lumber despite Obama, who opposed the Iraq war, being President: http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/b...a7b&k=51623 To suggest that the US lumber lobby continues to obstruct the Canadian lumber industry because Chretien would not invade Iraq is as absurd as Harper's credibility.

Here's what the New York Times had to say about Chretien in 2003 when he left office: "In his time in office, Mr. Chrétien brought a near bankrupt federal government back to solvency, doubled the size of the national park system, reformed campaign financing and championed increased international aid to Africa. When he kept the army out of Iraq, he broke historical precedent by becoming the first Canadian leader to refuse to send troops to a war being fought by this country's two closest traditional allies, the United States and Britain." http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=1 Sounds like the New York Times was not particularly upset by Chretien's decision.

Some might disagree that the national party is off the hook: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Editorial/1105413.html "When the local Conservative executive continued to support Mr. Casey as a candidate, the national party took over and called the shots. It prevented a general membership vote on Mr. Casey; it appointed a new management committee that had little local support and which failed even to find a candidate. It supplied a parachute candidate from a federal minister’s office. In short, the head-office Tories created the conditions for this mess. They bulldozed the workings of local grassroots democracy, they overrode the judgment of mainstream local Tories (who stuck with Mr. Casey) and they created the inept rump organization that ran not just a losing campaign but a sleaze-tainted one as well. They owe the public and Mr. Casey a forthright apology."

Maybe he has other plans, such as aspiring to replace Harper as CPC leader once Ignatieff pulls the plug. CPC might even pick up a few seats in Quebec with Bernier as leader. Here's my prediction. Bernier will be in Ottawa long after Harper slithers back into Alberta.

Harper is only pragmatic when his life depends on it. Do you think he was pragmatic when a year after being elected Prime Minister, he introduced into Parliament a motion to take away the right of lesbians to marry? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6120701684.html Was Harper being pragmatic when he voted against Bill C-250, the legislation which made it a hate crime to promote or advocate the murder of homosexuals? Or was he playing to social conservatives and the lunatic religious right? Was Harper being pragmatic when he introduced legislation requiring judges to impose a mandatory six month sentence for growing one marijuana plant? http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/5171.html Fortunately, Ignatieff now has the loathsome Harper on a leash, reducing the harm Harper's intolerance for civil liberties would otherwise produce.

And another reason why Harper will eventually have to respond to allegations of criminal behaviour: "The NDP is calling on both parties to disclose the terms of their deal." "Now it just sort of disappears from the radar because of this closed-door agreement?" said Vancouver MP Bill Siksay. "I don't think that's acceptable." http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianp...alxu-m_o59dF-Yg

"There's been some confusion the past couple of days over whether, as part of the settlement of Stephen Harper's lawsuit, the Liberals agreed not to make further public comment on the entire Chuck Cadman saga, or just not to comment on the lawsuit itself. For what it's worth, I'm told it was only the latter. In other words, if the Liberals are interested in getting to the bottom of what Stephen Harper was talking about on Tom Zytaruk's (apparently undoctored) tape, they should be able to ask all the questions they want." http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/WBwbradwanski

Not necessarily. The lawsuit against the Liberals was dropped but Harper still engaged in alleged criminal behaviour. Even Harper's own experts acknowledged that the tape was not altered. There is nothing to prevent further investigation of Harper's involvement in the Cadman affair. By dropping the lawsuit, Harper hopes the issue will die. In fact, it can be reactivated at any time.

Does the Newsweek article point out how Harper's 2006 budget opened the door to 40 year, zero down payment mortages in Canada which the chronically incompetent Harper didn't realize was a huge mistake until 2008? http://www.comer.org/2009/harperleg.htm “In the first half of this year, as the subprime mortgage crisis was exploding in the US, a contagion of US-style lending practices quietly crossed the border and infected Canada's previously prudent mortgage regime. The mushrooming of a Canadian version of subprime mortgages has gone largely unnoticed. Just yesterday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty repeated the mantra that the government acted early to get rid of risky mortgages. What he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper do not explain, however, is that the expansion of zero-down, 40-year mortgages began with measures contained in the first Conservative budget in May, 2006. “The new rules encouraged the entry of US players such as American International Group the worlds largest insurance company and Triad Guarantee Inc. of Winston-Salem, NC. Former Triad chief executive officer Mark Tonnesen, who spearheaded his company's aborted push into Canada, said the proliferation of high-risk mortgages could have been mitigated if Ottawa had been more watchful. “Virtually unavailable in Canada two years ago, high-risk mortgages proliferated in 2007 and early 2008 and must now be shouldered by thousands of consumers at a time when the economy is sinking quickly and real estate prices are swooning. Long-term mortgages designed to help new-comers get into the housing market sooner are the most expensive in terms of interest costs, and least flexible when mortgage-holders cannot meet their payments and need extensions.”

This is the first poll since the last federal election which has the Liberals ahead of the Conservatives in six provinces. Those six provinces account for 70% of the population. Only in Western Canada do the Conservatives still lead. Not likely that the Conservatives are going to gain seats in Western Canada in the next election.

If that's true, how do you explain the fact that Harper has been trying to slither out of this lawsuit for months? e.g., Sep 16, 2008 07:37 PM THE CANADIAN PRESS "OTTAWA–Prime Minister Stephen Harper is employing stalling tactics to avoid a court hearing into the Cadman affair, the lawyer for the Liberal party said today. Chris Paliare levelled the charge after Harper's lawyer sought to postpone a hearing into an earlier application to postpone a hearing into Harper's request for an injunction to prevent the Liberals from using a controversial tape recording at the heart of bribery allegations in the Cadman affair. In his 37 years practising law, Paliare said he's never seen a case where the plaintiff requested an adjournment on an adjournment hearing. "It's sort of adjournment squared," the Liberal lawyer said in an interview. "I don't know what their motives are, but they don't seem anxious to have this matter dealt with expeditiously," he said. The tape recording is at the heart of Liberal allegations that Harper knew about a Conservative attempt to bribe Chuck Cadman, the late independent MP, in return for his support during a crucial 2005 confidence vote. On it, Harper can be heard saying that he was aware Tory officials had offered "to replace financial considerations that (Cadman) might lose due to an election." On Tuesday, one day before the court was to listen to arguments for adjourning the case, Dearden asked for another adjournment. He contended that he needed time to examine an affidavit filed Tuesday by the Liberal party. Paliare said there is nothing new in the affidavit, which simply reiterates the chronology of the case so far in a bid to bolster the Liberal party's argument against a delay. Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland is expected to rule Wednesday on Harper's latest request for an adjournment." http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/500412 It's wishful thinking on the part of Harper supporters that allegations of criminal behaviour by Harper will go away. LPC and CPC merely agreed to drop the matter of the lawsuit initiated by Harper, a lawsuit which Harper has been chronically trying to squirm out of. There is nothing to prevent the RCMP or other agencies from investigating Harper's alleged criminal behaviour. Harper dropping his lawsuit against LPC is further evidence that Ignatieff will continue to keep the humiliated Harper on a short leash.

With Ignatieff continuing to keep Harper on a short leash, I suspect it will.

So if jdobbin wanted to extinguish your urge to engage in blatant, personal attacks on him, his writing style should become more personal and emotional?

"OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff seems to have read the public mood precisely with his decision to support the Tory budget with conditions, a new poll suggests. His offer to support the Conservatives' fiscal policies in return for a pledge for regular status reports on the economy won majority support across the country. The Canadian Press-Harris-Decima survey suggested that 72 per cent of respondents support the idea of quarterly updates, with only 20 per cent opposed. Support for Ignatieff's decision cut across all political parties, with 85 per cent of Liberals, 75 per cent of Bloc supporters, 68 per cent of New Democrats and even 64 per cent of Conservatives saying it was a good idea." http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianp...m7oywqiodikB16g It appears that Canadians like the idea of Ignatieff putting Harper on a leash.

The only people who would not get the full $300 kickback are those who pay less than $300 a year in income tax.

Did you know that if you give $400 to the Conservatives, you get back a tax credit of $300? That's $300 that would otherwise go into government revenues rather than into your pocket. Why should the taxpayer be on the hook for your $300 kickback?

I agree that government policies on drugs should be based on scientific evidence rather than personal anecdotes from drug users. The problem, in my opinion, is that too often government drug policies are based on ideology rather than scientific evidence.

A British company, GW Pharmaceuticals, is currently conducting clinical trials on the efficacy of a combination of THC and CBD. Apparently the combination increases clinical efficacy while reducing the adverse effects of the individual components. Here's an abstract of a review article by Russo and Guy, GW Pharmaceutical researchers, which was published in Medical Hypotheses in 2006, Volume 66, pages 234-246: "This study reviews the current knowledge of physiological and clinical effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) and presents a rationale for their combination in pharmaceutical preparations. Cannabinoid and vanilloid receptor effects as well as non-receptor mechanisms are explored, such as the capability of THC and CBD to act as anti-inflammatory substances independent of cyclo-oxygenase (COX) inhibition. CBD is demonstrated to antagonise some undesirable effects of THC including intoxication, sedation and tachycardia, while contributing analgesic, anti-emetic, and anti-carcinogenic properties in its own right. In modern clinical trials, this has permitted the administration of higher doses of THC, providing evidence for clinical efficacy and safety for cannabis based extracts in treatment of spasticity, central pain and lower urinary tract symptoms in multiple sclerosis, as well as sleep disturbances, peripheral neuropathic pain, brachial plexus avulsion symptoms, rheumatoid arthritis and intractable cancer pain. Prospects for future application of whole cannabis extracts in neuroprotection, drug dependency, and neoplastic disorders are further examined. The hypothesis that the combination of THC and CBD increases clinical efficacy while reducing adverse events is supported." To the best of my knowledge, there are no studies to date which have compared whole cannabis extracts with the THC/CBD combination on any health-promoting measure.

I didn't know Popes could choose to ignore Church teachings. Must be nice.

And the Church used to sentence people to burning at the stake if they claimed that the earth rotated around the sun. And the Bible condemns to death those who engage in homosexual behaviour but has nothing negative to say about pedophilia.

Amazing that you know how an entire professional group "feels". Or do you actually have a citation or reference for this blatant fabrication?

The citation you have of the Red Cross "claims" comes from an anti-Semitic holocaust denial site. I challenge you to provide a citation which originates with the Red Cross as opposed to a secondary source.