normanchateau

"The most recent public opinion poll on same-sex marriages became available on June 19th, 2006. The poll, conducted by Environics Research, showed that support for the law increased, as Canadians accept gay marriage by a 59-33 majority. An Environics poll taken in January of 2005, showed the majority favoured the law, but by a tighter margin: 54-43. The poll also asked respondents if they favoured reopening the issue, as Stephen Harper has promised to do in the fall. 62% responded that the issue is settled, 27% felt the issue should be reopened. An Environics poll taken in January, 2006, showed a margin of 66-30 against reopening the debate. Thus, although opposition to reopening the debate fell by 4 points, support for raising it again fell by 3. Finally, only a slim majority of conservative voters felt the issue should be reopened. Strong opponents have fallen from 46% per cent to 35%." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_Canada

BQ drops 4% in Quebec, Conservatives drop 3% in Quebec and Liberals up 9% in Quebec. It's time for the Conservatives to look for dirt on Dion and remind us about adscam. Good luck Harper. http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArtic...EC-POLL-COL.XML

Gladly, abcon99 you are now banned from this forum. Thank you Greg.

I'm sure this will all be settled when someone shows citations from a study to show the Liberals have received biased coverage. "During the 2006 federal election campaign there were 2,113 articles written about the election in the 5 English newspapers studied (The Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, the Toronto Star and the Vancouver Sun). Of those 2113, 1,711 (81%) mentioned the Liberal party. Out of those 1,711, there were 34 (2%) with positive mentions of the Liberal party and 342 (20%) with negative mentions of the Liberals, giving a 10 to 1 ratio of negative mentions to positive. Meanwhile, for the Conservative Party, the figures were 1592 (75%) total articles, including 82 (5%) positive mentions and 159 (10%) negative mentions, for a roughly 2:1 ratio of negative to positive. The NDP garnered (4%) positive mentions and 7% negative mentions, while the Bloc had the most favourable(!) coverage of any party from the English language papers at 4% positive, 5% negative (although they were only mentioned in 15% of stories)."

I'm sure this will all be settled when someone shows citations from a study to show the Liberals have received biased coverage. January 2006 election coverage: http://www.cbc.ca/news/about/burman/pdf/ERIN_report-2006.pdf

Well they are a left leaning center party. Center at best. It depends on your reference point. They're not left-leaning or even centrist by contemporary Canadian standards.

Wonder why less Liberal MPs backed Dion than Rae, Kennedy or Ignatieff if they knew this would be the outcome?

You Alberta easterners are so out of touch with BC politics. Burnaby, which borders directly on Vancouver, has two ridings, both of which are in the hands of the NDP, not the Conservatives. And the Vancouver suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and North Vancouver are all now in the hands of the Liberals. Prior to 2006, North Vancouver and West Vancouver were Conservative ridings but the Cons chose to run religious extremists as candidates in the January, 2006 election. In Richmond, so-con religious extremist Darrel Reid was the Conservative candidate in January, 2006. Harper muzzled Reid prior to the election but Reid still lost. Now he's Chief of Staff to Rona Ambrose. The Conservatives have now lost BC seats for two consecutive federal elections. I expect with so-con Harper leading them, they will lose seats again in the next election. Emerson's betrayal of the softwood lumber industry won't help Harper nor will his deteriorating relationship with China which is of special importance to BC. Harper's desire to create permanent criminal records for teenagers possessing any quantity of marijua won't help him in BC where support for decriminalization is particularly strong. According to the November 22, 2006 Mustel Group poll of BC, the Conservatives are now down to 33% in BC, the Liberals at 30%, the NDP at 27% and the Greens at 9%. This drop in Conservative popularity means they will lose seats again in the next federal election. 66% of the BC population now supports parties to the left of so-con Harper's party. Other than Quebec, I can think of no other province in Canada where the Conservatives are now less popular. Not a single Vancouver riding went to the Conservatives in 2006. The Conservative candidate in Emerson's riding received less than 20% of the popular vote. Emerson's riding is still filled with lawn signs reading "Recall Emerson". Harper shamed himself by bribing Emerson to switch parties in return for a Cabinet position. And he shamed himself further by making an unelected Quebecer who had been his campaign manager an appointed Senator and Cabinet minister. Harper was elected in January and his sleaziness became evident by February. Garth Turner called Harper on it which is why Turner was bounced from thre CPC. As Turner discovered, telling the truth is not permitted if you're a CPC MP. The CPC is a center\left party in many peoples opinions including mine.

Analogous questions: Do the Conservatives go back to using the sponsorship scandal as a bogeyman? Will they claim that Dion is somehow linked to it and knew or should have known? Will they do this so that the voters ignore the Conservative record, the Emerson appointment, the Fortier appointment, the Darrel Reid appointment, the "Clean Air Act", the income trust broken promise, the increase in the personal income tax rate on July 1, 2006?

Appointing Darrel Reid is a plan but it will ultimately help Dion, not Harper. Harper is so out of touch with ordinary Canadians that he can't even see the negative optics of appointing a so-con who lead a religious extremist group which did not believe that global warming is occurring.

You Alberta easterners are so out of touch with BC politics. Burnaby, which borders directly on Vancouver, has two ridings, both of which are in the hands of the NDP, not the Conservatives. And the Vancouver suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and North Vancouver are all now in the hands of the Liberals. Prior to 2006, North Vancouver and West Vancouver were Conservative ridings but the Cons chose to run religious extremists as candidates in the January, 2006 election. In Richmond, so-con religious extremist Darrel Reid was the Conservative candidate in January, 2006. Harper muzzled Reid prior to the election but Reid still lost. Now he's Chief of Staff to Rona Ambrose. The Conservatives have now lost BC seats for two consecutive federal elections. I expect with so-con Harper leading them, they will lose seats again in the next election. Emerson's betrayal of the softwood lumber industry won't help Harper nor will his deteriorating relationship with China which is of special importance to BC. Harper's desire to create permanent criminal records for teenagers possessing any quantity of marijua won't help him in BC where support for decriminalization is particularly strong. According to the November 22, 2006 Mustel Group poll of BC, the Conservatives are now down to 33% in BC, the Liberals at 30%, the NDP at 27% and the Greens at 9%. This drop in Conservative popularity means they will lose seats again in the next federal election. 66% of the BC population now supports parties to the left of so-con Harper's party. Other than Quebec, I can think of no other province in Canada where the Conservatives are now less popular. Not a single Vancouver riding went to the Conservatives in 2006. The Conservative candidate in Emerson's riding received less than 20% of the popular vote. Emerson's riding is still filled with lawn signs reading "Recall Emerson". Harper shamed himself by bribing Emerson to switch parties in return for a Cabinet position. And he shamed himself further by making an unelected Quebecer who had been his campaign manager an appointed Senator and Cabinet minister. Harper was elected in January and his sleaziness became evident by February. Garth Turner called Harper on it which is why Turner was bounced from thre CPC. As Turner discovered, telling the truth is not permitted if you're a CPC MP.

ANY Canadian that votes for the Liberals based on environment doesn't have the mental capacity to vote. Does no one remember the record the Liberals have on environment? How emissions skyrocketed faster than ever before, how toxic waste sites increased and how more reserves than ever (well, since the white man came) don't have drinking water? People are going to vote for the Liberals on environment why? What are they doing different this time? Nothing!! How easily people are convinced by empty rhetoric... The liberals may do little on the environment but the conservatives are doing absolutely nothing and have made it clear that they will never move a finger while our environment is ravaged by their friends. I wouldn't say the Conservatives have done nothing. So-con Harper made so-con Darrel Reid Chief of Staff to Rona Ambrose. What better place for Harper to show how he cares about the environment than to put the former Focus on the Family leader into this position. After all, it's not Harper's fault that Focus on the Family doesn't believe in global warming. Far more important in Harper's mind, apparently, is that so-con religious extremists have a safe landing pad in Harper's new government.

Maybe this is why Stephen Harper made Darrel Reid Chief of Staff to Rona Ambrose. Darrel Reid has a PhD. Ironically, it's on the history of Victorian society. Clearly this is the type of knowledge base that Harper values in his Environment Ministry. Reid is also former Canadian head of Focus on the Family, a religious extremist group that views global warming as a "theory" based on "junk science". Reid's other brilliant views include opposition to abortion, same sex marriage and even stem cell research. So why exactly did so-con Harper put fellow so-con Reid into the Environment Ministry? Was it because Harper viewed the Environment Ministry as unimportant? Was it because he viewed this ministry as one where Reid would do the least harm? Was it to please the so-cons and religious extremists who back Harper?

Life is not a series of statistics. Even court evidence is not numbers, percentages, statistics, etc. Even statistics can be biased depending on who puts them together, and their polling methods. In the age of google searches, your idea of a discussion I guess is a series of google quiries. Kind of funny if you think about it. Gimme a link, LOL. Go have a conversation with your computer. In other words, you have no evidence other than your preconceived stereotypes of Jews.

Whether Dion gets elected will not, in my opinion, be a function of his English-speaking ability. Those who have a problem with his English are likely Harper supporters.

I hope Harper believes these numbers and calls an election in the next month or two.

Do you not see the inconsistency in saying "he will most likely pick a time" and "he will wait to be defeated"?

Time for me to sign off, bacon99. I've long had a fear of being crushed by sword-wielding Conservatives who mixed metaphors.

So do you think Harper will call an election if the polling data show he'll lose?

See Forum Rules and Guidelines: No trolling.

Who's skippy?

T.....r.....o.....l.....l

What if a polling firm commissioned by the Conservatives called?

Correct me if I'm wrong Bacon but weren't you the one I encountered on another website more than a year ago promoting Alberta separation if the Liberals got re-elected?

I'm talking MP's... do you not remember who made the commitment to Afghanistan? Chretien got us in. But you're wrong to say "now they all oppose it." The mission would not have been extended without significant Liberal support. And many of those who voted not to extend the mission did so because of how Harper handled the motion. MPs were given only six hours to debate the motion. Such a debate required days, if not weeks. Other Canadians should have been consulted. And Harper first claimed he would not consult the House of Commons. Then he said that if the motion was not passed, he would not abide by the vote and would call an election. Let's not forget that he was higher in the polls at that time. Harper's arrogant and contemptuous behaviour on this motion precipitated many of the no votes. In other words, Harper mishandled this issue so badly that former Afghanistan mission supporters voted against it. I anticipate Dion will re-open debate on this issue when he is elected but I don't expect he'll push for complete withdrawal.