normanchateau

Prentice would be an excellent choice but his weak knowledge of French would be a liability in the same way that Dion's English speaking ability was a liability. John Baird is completely unacceptable to the social conservatives for his position on gay rights and abortion: http://www.socon.ca/events/true_conservative.html Moreover, the socons in CPC would never accept a party leader who's apparently gay: http://www.exaro.ca/2007/01/how-long-befor...ally-outed.html Then again, Baird might actually help CPC acquire some seats in ridings with a high GLBT population and where else would the socons go? There aren't too many parties to the right of CPC. My own personal preference for a new party leader is James Moore...a fluently bilingual social liberal and fiscal conservative from a riding west of the Rockies. He's also far more articulate than the dullard Stephen Harper. The only downside I see to Moore is that he was the "spokesman" for Harper when Harper's knowledge of the bribe to Cadman was publicized by Cadman's own widow. Defending an alleged criminal put Moore in a negative light but he might have sincerely believed that Harper was innocent. Speaking of which, I wonder how long it will be before Harper's lawsuit for defamation is withdrawn by Harper now that Harper's own audio expert reported that the tape implicating Harper was not doctored: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/story/2...adman-tape.html

Revising a hypothesis when presented with additional data makes someone a fool? Your false misattributions say far more about you than about me. Apparently you have yet to acquire either debating skills or basic knowledge of scientific reasoning. At no point did I claim that people who go to Prairie universities are stupider than those who don't. Some of the brightest people in the world have had no university training whatsoever and there's no shortage of fools with university training.

Wishes of the citizenry? Harper? You think that the citizens wanted to revisit same sex marriage in December, 2006? Sure if by citizens you mean largely CPC voters. A majority of citizens support the legalization of marijuana and and an overwhelming majority supports at least the decriminalization of marijuana yet Harper supports criminalization, including permanent criminal records and potential jail time for possession of even trace quantities of marijuana.

For the same reasons why the Conservatives don't want Stockwell Day to remind Canadians that both he and Stephen Harper believe that the Earth is 6,000 years old and that humans once rode dinosaurs Fred Flintstone-style.

Yeah, I've often wondered how successful Jesus would have been in attracting followers if he didn't have bacon as a lure for those who had been denied it for thousands of years. I think it's one of the first things budding Messiahs must learn when they go to Messiah School.

The relationship between the Northern Foundation and Stephen Harper is discussed in a book called "Of Passionate Intensity" by Trevor Harrison. From pages 121-122 of the book: "Complaining of socialist/progressive thinking, and a media/political system controlled by 'lib/left' elites, who had been 'able to impose their agenda on the Canadian people because small-'c' conservatives had been divided, the Northern Foundation was the creation of a number of generally extreme right-wing conservatives, including Anne Hartmann (a director of REAL Women), Geoffrey Wasteneys (A long-standing member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), George Potter (also a member of the Alliance for the Preservation of English in Canada), author Peter Brimelow, Link Byfield (son of Ted Byfield and himself publisher/president of Alberta Report), and Stephen Harper." And from pages 263-264 of Warren Kinsella's "Web of Hate": "The Northern Foundation's president was Rita Ann Hartmann, widow of former Western Guard activist Paul Hartmann. Hartmann had moved to Ottawa in 1987 with her six children, two of whom were skinheads who would go on to recruit on behalf of the Heritage Front in the national capital. From there, Hartmann maintained connections with Neo-Nazi groups across North America. In March 1990, for example, she wrote to the ultra-violent Confederate Hammerskins of Tulsa, Oklahoma..." Interesting that you mentioned Conrad Black. When it became public knowledge that he was a member of the Northern Foundation, Harper disassociated himself from the Northern Foundation. Trevor Harrison states "He had little trouble doing so as the media was largely muffled by one fact: press baron Conrad Black, then reaching the height of his powers was also a member of the Northern Foundation and equally shy about having it publicly known. Journalists feared incurring his wrath as he employed many of them at the time and was a potential employer for those that he didn't employ. Had they made the membership list public Black would have been exposed." There does seem to be an inconsistency in how the relationship between Harper and the Northern Foundation ended. According to Harrison: "... the foundation later banished Stephen Harper from the movement because he was not right-wing enough; for his part, Harper now calls the foundation "quasi-Fascist." " The problem I have with all of this is that it seems to come from a single source, i.e., one book. I don't expect that Stephen Harper will comment on the story.

Eyeball, we don't do that these days. It's sufficient now just to label Jesus or whoever in some negative way publicly, and try to create an association in the minds of the gullible public between that label and the person, either through advertising or word-of-mouth. e.g., Communist, secular socialist, bacon eater.

I think it has something to do with being a follower of Satan.

Ironic that Harper now leads the latest version of the out-of-control spending Conservative Party. If you flash back 20 years to 1989, Mulroney was introducing the GST to Canada while Stephen Harper was founding the eugenics-oriented Northern Foundation. In retrospect, Mulroney doesn't look so bad. History will be kinder to him than to Harper.

I sometimes think that those who refer to everyone to the left of them, even people like Ignatieff who has criticized Chretien for his cuts to military spending and supported the US invasion of Iraq, as "the Left", are the same people who once fretted about the "Communist menace", seriously believed that the Soviet Union would invade North America and viewed Joe McCarthy as an American hero. Someone like Jim Prentice, if he were bilingual, could hand CPC a majority. Unfortunately for CPC, by the time they figure this out, Harper will have one last kick at the can and Ignatieff will become Prime Minister.

The fiscal policies are similar but the increases in spending by Harper surpass the increases in spending by Mulroney. Long before the global recession was evident, Harper's government chose to increase government spending by a larger amount than any Prime Minister in the history of Canada: http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/03/fla...ig-spenders.php And the handouts to Quebec by Harper surpass the handouts to Quebec by Mulroney. Mulroney was the only Conservative in half a century to win a majority. Harper can't possibly pull this off in that no matter how socially moderate he pretends to be, he can't escape the reality that he's known to Canadians as an Evangelical who personally opposes abortion, stem cell research and ssm. Harper supporters argue that he really is a fiscal conservative and has governed as a big spender because his is a minority government which must appease the opposition. Yet at the same time they argue unconvincibly that the identical rationale will not apply to his social conservatism...

Hypocrisy and ignorance are not the unique domain of the Left. Some would argue that hypocrisy and ignorance exist among the Right, the Left, Centrists, Atheists, Agnostics, Religious People, and along the many other dimensions which differentiate and divide the human population. Do you think it is helpful to divide Canadians politically into two groups, the Left and the Right, as opposed to acknowledging that many if not most Canadians are centrists and view themselves as neither exclusively Left nor Right? If one does accept the notion that all Canadians can be pigeon-holed as members of the Left or Right, where's the dividing point and who determines it? In theory, a Christian Heritage Party supporter might argue that all Canadians to the left of CHP are "the Left", a Liberal supporter might view all Canadians who support the Greens, NDP or Bloc as "the Left", and paradoxically, a CPC supporter might view more than 60% of Canadians as members of "the Left". Is a fiscal conservative a member of "the Left" if that individual rejects social conservatism? Are Brian Mulroney and Michael Ignatieff members of "the Left"?

Speaking of changing his mind: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national...6e-b5f5fafe1542 http://www.macleans.ca/columnists/article....9_139786_139786

I'm sure there will be tax cuts in the budget. Of course it would have been nice if he'd cut our marginal tax rates when he had billions a year in surplus dollars instead of handing another $3 billion a year to Quebec in the 2007 budget in a failed attempt to buy votes.

If your hypothesis is correct, my riding must be the exception. I live in Vancouver Quadra where 57% of all adults have a university degree and the average family income is $145,000. The University of British Columbia is located in Vancouver Quadra which had the highest Liberal plurality in British Columbia in the October election. Few students can afford to live in this riding.

Rumor has it that he was courted by the best universities in the world. Of course if he'd stayed in Canada, you'd be singing his praises right now.

So you oppose socialist subsidies to churches and believe they should, like businesses and homeowners, pay taxes.

Federal governments are about as likely to do that as they are to remove the tax credits for political donations.

Or cut necessary services.

You must be hallucinating. I never said that.

Because it reduces government revenue and ultimately forces government to seek the lost revenue from other sources.

Here's a revised hypothesis. Those who live in Canadian ridings with the best universities in the world are less likely to vote for Harper. Note that only three Canadian universities are ranked among the top 50 universities in the world: http://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/news/item/?item_id=22166 None of the universities you listed even made it into the top 100.

It's not often I have that effect on one of Mr. Harper's most eloquent spokesmen.

And he only improves over time: http://media.canada.com/idl/otct/20080129/11044-3055.jpg

So you seriously believe that Ignatieff knew about Adscam as it was happening?