normanchateau

Exactly. The Conservatives will move neither up nor down. They'll remain stuck in minority territory as long as they're lead by the social and religious conservative, Stephen Harper.

In the poll I saw, only 33% of Canadians thought Harper was lying about knowing about the million dollar insurance policy bribe. However, 44% thought he knew that something was offered to Cadman. Strategically, I think Harper did the right thing. As long as it's before the courts, he has an excuse not to talk about it. Either way, Harper's "clean" persona will remain tarnished up to the next election.

I doubt that there's anything that will make the Conservatives drop much below 30% or so in the polls...not even difficult economic times or an admission by Harper that he ordered the attempted bribing of Cadman. On the other hand, as long as they're saddled with a socially conservative leader like Harper, a Quebec breakthrough, key to a Conservative majority, remains permanently out of sight.

Perhaps if Harper follows Lord's recommendations and spends billions on promoting the French language outside of Quebec, the Quebecois will love us, vote Conservative and we'll all live happily ever after.

In the latest 2008 Decima poll, March 18th, voting preferences break down as follows: "In Quebec, the survey put the Bloc Quebecois on top with 37 per cent support, followed by the Liberals at 27, the Tories at 19, NDP at 12 and Greens with four. Those numbers coincide closely with the averages over the last three Harris-Decima polls." Source: http://canadianpress.google.com/article/AL...qbLip_yN70vxRFQ The Conservatives are not in free fall yet but the Liberal vote in Quebec appears to be rising relative to the 2006 election. No matter how many billions the Conservative big spenders transfer from the rest of Canada to Quebec, they can't seem to rise in the polls there. If the Conservatives remain in third place with a dysfunctional Liberal party in Quebec, imagine where they'll be with a fully functioning Liberal party. For the Conservatives to win like Mulroney did in Quebec, they'll need to dump social and religious conservative Stephen Harper.

What I meant by "like" is that they're big spenders: http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/03/fla...ig-spenders.php Of course they differ on what they spend money on. For example, the billions in transfer payments to Quebec in the 2007 budget is viewed by Conservatives as a good investment as it might yield votes and seats in Quebec in the next round of elections. Money given to the have-nots is a poor Conservative investment as the have-nots tend not to vote and when they do vote, they tend not to vote Conservative.

Yes, but we await a meeting of the minds on exactly what we want to debate. For example, you might have noticed that none of the Conservative supporters want to debate that their beloved government, while professing fiscal conservatism, has in fact increased spending by more than any government in the history of Canada: http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/03/fla...ig-spenders.php Yet paradoxically, some Conservative supporters are happy to attack the NDP for being a big-spending political party. Perhaps the paradox can be explained by what the money is spent on. It appears that the NDP wants to spend money on those it perceives as being in need. The Conservative government wants to transfer billions from the rest of Canada to Quebec, as they did in the 2007 budget, in order to win a majority. Squandering billions on Quebec to buy votes is considered good government. Squandering money on those in need is socialism and therefore bad government.

What? Stephen Harper's government corrupt merely because they plan to spend billions on promoting bilingualism. That's like saying that they promote corruption because they failed to implement some of the Gomery recommendations: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/03/13/...ee.html?ref=rss

What we have now is a Conservative government which spends like a NDP government but promotes bilingualism and social policies closer to those of a Liberal government. Of course supporters of this whacko, free-spending government would claim, if they were more forthcoming, that's only because they are a minority government. They're in a catch-22 situation. If they claim that a Conservative majority government would act differently, they'd lose the middle-of-the-road voter that they're desparate to attract.

No wonder Stephen Harper appointed Bernard Lord to head the commission recommending that we spend billions on bilingualism. Lord of course pandered to francophone Quebec. The chameleon-like Harper can quietly claim to his redneck supporters that his 2001 position hasn't changed and he's merely acting on the Lord recommendations. It's a no-lose position for Harper. Instituting the Lord recommendations might win a few francophone votes but it won't lose any votes among diehard Conservatives. The latter will rationalize it as something poor Harper must do to win a majority. That's also why Harper was safe to propose that the Quebecois are a nation, a position that even Duceppe accepted. Harper is well aware that to capture a majority government, he'll have to capture more than 50% of the Quebec vote as Mulroney did...as well as pretend not to be a social conservative. The socially moderate Mulroney is the only Conservative who won a majority in the past 50 years or so. For a social and religious conservative like Harper to pull a Mulroney, he'll have to out-Mulroney Mulroney.

Nor do I see a turnip joining the Conservatives or any other Canadian political party.

Belgium employs a policy where only Brussels is bilingual. The rest of Belgium is either Flemish or French-speaking. Stephen Harper once proposed the Belgian model for Canada. Of course he's now totally abandoned that idea in order to pander to Quebec. If he had no plans to pander to Quebec, he wouldn't have given the task of making recommendations to Bernard Lord.

Your arguments are probably not the best way to convert others to socialism and make about as much sense as social conservative Stephen Harper professing financial conservatism while increasing spending by more money than any government in the history of Canada: http://andrewcoyne.com/columns/2007/03/fla...ig-spenders.php Conclusion: For a free-spending government to squander billions of tax dollars on new programs and get away with it, that government must be viewed as "conservative".

In other words, your defense of the Conservatives squandering billions on a pointless policy is that the Liberals will do it as well? How times change. I can remember when the Official Opposition rightly criticized the Liberals for pandering to Quebec. And I can still remember when Stephen Harper said: "As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions." Perhaps Harper now thinks for bilingualism to work, he'll need to spend billions, not merely millions.

Gain a majority? Certainly not while Harper leads the party. History is not on Harper's side. In the entire fifty years since John Deifenbaker was elected, only one conservative has ever won a majority and that was Brian Mulroney. Mulroney did so by winning more than 50% of the Quebec vote. Harper is third in the polls in Quebec. Mulroney also captured more than 50% of the Ontario vote. Mulroney was and still is a centrist. His environmental credentials are well-respected. The Conservatives remain saddled with an evangelical, social and religious conservative: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/st...96-76f3db32808e

You might also want to study this article published in Jewish Political Studies Review 17:1-2 (2005): http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-kuntzel-s05.htm To the best of my knowledge, these 2003-2006 cartoons reminiscent of Nazi cartoons of the 1933-1945 era, were not created by Christians or Jews: http://somebodyhelpme.info/cartoons/anti-S...ti-Semitic.html

Of course Harper will accept these recommendations. Quebec anglophones aren't likely to vote for Harper anyway and Harper will spend as much as he needs from the rest of Canada to lure the francophones to vote for him. One only needs to look at the 2007 federal budget when Harper took an unprecedented budgetary surplus and totally squandered it by shovelling billions into Quebec from the rest of Canada. No wonder Duceppe warmly endorsed the 2007 budget.

Stupid or strategic? If I were Pauline Marois, I'd be thanking Harper. He's made it clear that on principle he'd not object to Quebec separating if that's what the Quebecois want.

Just as they could run Jesus Christ in any riding in Alberta and lose hands down.

Grey and inconsistent. Marijuana seeds contain less mind-altering constituents than poppy seeds. Poppy seeds contain measurable quantities of the opiates morphine and codeine. i.e., heroin precursors. Eating sufficient quantities of poppy seeds will result in a positive reading on an opiate drug test. Poppy seeds are illegal in Singapore and Saudi Arabia. Why haven't Stephen Harper and George Bush banned the sale of poppy seeds?

Perhaps in the same fashion that Harper's absence explains why the Conservatives almost won...

Yes, it's shameful and scandalous. That "NCC" site does indeed appear anti-Harper. A more objective site would be this one which merely quotes Stephen Harper rather than describes his past behaviour and previously held positions: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/stephen_harper/

By contrast, Dion did have the courage to appear with the Vancouver Quadra Liberal candidate three days before the by-election.

Shortly after the US does.

Harper can block the extradition but he can't be blamed for initiating the process. Canadian police, acting on behalf of the US Drug Enforcement Administration and with the permission of the federal government, arrested Marc Emery on July 29, 2005.