gc1765

The sample was 1000 drawn from the general population with breakdowns according to whether the person supported the Liberals or not.Dryden did well because of name recognition. That's all. It will be the Liberal delegates who will select the next leader and this poll is only relevant in that it may influence their choice. I'm sure they will discount Dryden's good numbers. (In addition, the Liberals are not going to choose a leader who "speaks" French the way Dryden does.) Instead, the delegates will focus on two points Paul Wells noticed too: Dion is doing well in Quebec, and Rae is doing well in Ontario. I'd add a third point that Rae's negatives are very high. There are many people who will simply not vote for the guy. I have always felt that this would be a three-way race between Rae, Ignatieff and Dion. Increasingly, I think the Liberals will not choose Ignatieff. He is too right wing for them, and the Liberals are just not ready to move yet - and Ignatieff's not the guy to make them. That leaves Dion and Rae. If Dion can show that he can win in Quebec (and I have no doubt he can), then it will be hard for Liberals not to choose him. The Liberals are the party of Ontario/Quebec. As to Rae, I noted in a different thread my comments about an interview I heard on The Current. He is articulate and passionate. He would be a formidable opponent for Harper who can be bland and dispassionate. Good post, I agree. I do have a question though. You are from Quebec, how well-liked is Rae in Quebec? I've heard that a lot of quebecers like him. Apparently he speaks french fluently, how important is that to someone from quebec? I'm surprised Rae is doing well in Ontario, I thought that his tenure as premier turned a lot of people off of him, but I guess there are people who either think he did a good job, or else they are willing to forgive him.

I'm surprised that Dryden has such high support. You don't hear much about him in the media. All we hear about is ignatieff, who apparently isn't even doing that well (good riddance).

As a heterosexual male, what rights am I losing by allowing homosexuals to get married?

Politicians always try to use whatever they can for political gain, no matter how tasteless. I'm willing to bet all parties will make at least one partisan comment.

yeah, I guess he was just being lazy, there really wasn't much for a President to do after 9-11. Except read about goats Bush that's what he was reading to children when the towers were hit, it has nothing to do with how busy our president was after 9-11. But, nice attempt at humor. Actually, it is what he was reading for 5 mintues after he found out that the second tower was hit and that "America was under attack." That's not even including the fact that he knew about the first plane hitting the tower even earlier than that. I wonder what was going through his mind....

yeah, I guess he was just being lazy, there really wasn't much for a President to do after 9-11. Except read about goats Bush

My mistake. Please accept my apologies. Apology accepted.

But this is from your original post in this thread.... Kinda seems like criticism to me. Or am I too obtuse to see the subtley of what you were asking? Ummm, I think you are getting me and gerryhatrick confused...

Nope, I'm not criticizing the conservatives OR the liberals for conducting public opinion polls. I was just pointing out that some people are blinded by partisanship to the extent that they would condemn one party for certain actions while defending the party they support for the same actions. If you don't mind the liberals paying money for such a thing, then you are not guilty of that. But I'm willing to bet there are people on this forum who would condemn the liberals if they had done the same thing, while defending the conservatives. Just trying to keep those people honest. If a party conducts public opinion polls to guide their policy in such a way as to reflect the wishes of Canadians, I have no problem with that. I am curious though, did this poll ask Canadians what priorities the government should focus on if they disagree with the 5 priorities? If Canadians agree with the priorities, then the government knows it is on the right track (though the election probably should have done that) and can proceed with confidence. However, what if many Canadians disagree? How would their opinions help to change government policy? If they had asked the people who disagree with the priorities what the priorities SHOULD be, that would make more sense to me. Also, the part about asking Canadians if they trust the government seems like a waste to me. How is that going to help the Conservatives make better policy?

Let's look at the differences in *screw-ups*. The Conservatives polled people to see if they agreed with the five priorities and used that information to plan the actual implementation. Some Conservatives supported the use of the money in question to as a legitimate use of taxpayer money. In the sponsorship program a judge found that the Liberals divereted over $1.1 million of government money for work which was NEVER performed. There is a difference... I don't understand why you are changing the subject. Yes, I agree that sponsorship scandal was worse and I criticize those responsible for it. But just because the liberals screwed up in the past, does that mean it's OK for the conservatives to screw up? Getting back to the subject, how would you feel if the Liberals had used $85,000 to conduct polls? Would you think, oh well at least it's not as bad as the sponsorship scandal?

There have been dozens of examples of Gerry's ignorance on this board. Why wouldn't you just admit that Gerry's behaviour is indefensible? I'm not defending him (or her).

Well I certainly didn't mean to single you out specifically, I was just pulling quotes from this thread. There are a lot of other posters on this forum who love to bash gerryhatrick. Why is it OK to bash him/her but not OK to bash Harper? Excuse me, sir. I did not bash GH. I gave him the highest praise, which was to refer to him as an "excellent poster". I consider GH to be quite an intellect, and I am privileged to post alongside him. That is why many (though not all) of the threads and posts I referenced were his. I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding, I was not trying to imply that you were bashing GH. I was quoting Hicksey and Ricki Bobbi's posts because they (and other posters) were bashing GH. I know you did not bash anyone.

For all those who tend to defend the Conservatives, ask yourself this question: How would I feel if it were the Liberals who were doing the same thing. I'm guessing if it were the Liberals who had done this, a lot of people would be condemning them for it, but when the Conservatives do it it's OK. If you want an objective, non-partisan, view of the subject try that little trick. Would you feel the same way if the liberals had done this or would you feel differently? P.S. It works both ways. If you are a leftie, next time the Liberals screw up, ask yourself how you would feel if it were the Conservative who had screwed up.

Gerry just told me to "grow the F**k up. Hw does this fit into your concept of fairness and justice? Fairness and justice would be report the post to the moderator, and let him decide what to do about it. Aside from that, ignore the post.

Good, it seems that we all agree that's it's not OK to bash people, only to bash their arguments. Whether it is a politican, or a fellow poster, how about we avoid personal attacks? Just as there are people who attack harper personally, there are also people who will attack fellow posters personally. It also seems as though there are people on this forum who will defend harper when he is attacked, but will turn a blind eye when someone attacks a fellow poster, and even occasionally join in on the attacks. That does not make for very good debate in my opinion. While I may disagree with some things gerryhatrick has said about other people, I would never turn around and insult him or her in response. That would not only be hypocritical, but it would also make things worse, as it takes two to fight but only one to ignore the comments and report them to the moderator. I'm not trying to single out either of you for insulting others, but why is it that you condemn gerryhatrick for insulting Harper but don't condemn others on this board who personally attack gerryhatrick, rather than attacking his or her ideas?

Well I certainly didn't mean to single you out specifically, I was just pulling quotes from this thread. There are a lot of other posters on this forum who love to bash gerryhatrick. Why is it OK to bash him/her but not OK to bash Harper?

Apparently there are people on this board who can't live a minute without bashing gerryhatrick either: I have to applaud your mastery of sarcasm. Hypocrisy?

Woooow, you are so ignorat on this subject its crazy, but,,,, that's a different a story. Well, after you're finished at UBC (a far cry from Yale as universities go by the way). You can stop by Havard for your MBA, then you can debate grades with GWB. Ignorant about what? Ignorant about grading at UBC relative to other smaller Universities in Canada? I wouldn't say so, I am basing that on personal testimony. If you have been a student and Yale and/or Harvard, please comment on the marking at those Universities compared to other Universities. That would contribute a lot more to the discussion than just calling me ignorant. P.S. In what way is Yale far better than UBC?

It will only be justified if the new government of Afghanistan is better than the one it replaced. There is some evidence that it might be fairly extremist itself. And if security cannot be established, it won't matter how justified people felt when it started, the government's popularity will be judged by how they improved things have become. For me it will be justified so long as bin laden and his buddies are on the run and not capable (well, less capable) of carrying out further attacks. It will be justified if he is someday captured and brought to justice... though it has been 5 years, who knows if that will even happen. You'll have to enlighten me on why the new government is extreme. I thought Karzai was fairly pro-western/reformist (well, compared to the Taliban that is). But then again I can't claim to be an expert on the issue, so I'm interested on hearing more information.

I'm surprised by that. On American news I mostly hear about the casualties in Iraq and not about those in Afghanistan. On Canadian news, I don't hear as much about deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan, unless it's a Canadian that is killed in Afghanistan. At least the war in Afghanistan is justified, in my opinion.

I don't know about Yale specifically, but I'm not so sure that the school makes that big of a difference. I go to UBC which is considered a pretty good school in Canada. I know, and have talked with, many students who transferred from other smaller 'lower quality' (whatever that means) schools and their marks were comparable (for example, someone getting a B+ at a local college would probably get a B+ at UBC). Maybe science is different, and maybe Yale is different...but I doubt it's a HUGE difference.

Yes, when Harper said We don't make decisions in our government based on polls I took that to mean that Harper would not make his decisions based on polls, ever. To suggest that he meant he is only making his decisions on principle some of the time, is like saying "this government does not lie" and then lie some of the time and not lie some of the time (I'm not saying Harper is lying here, I'm just using it as an analogy). The fact that he is polling people and listening to the results suggests that he plans on using that information to guide his policy. To pay for the polls and ingnore them would be a waste of money don't you think? Would you rather your tax dollars be wasted? Then why was he polling? To waste money? When did I say this is my best example of his hypocrisy? I brought up this example because it is relevant to this thread, not because it is the "best" example. When did I say I hate Harper? I give credit to Harper for the things I agree with. I don't agree with much that he does because I happen to have different opinions (nothing wrong with that, right?), but I do agree with some things and I have mentioned that on this forum before. For example, I agree with the mission in afghanistan, transit tax credit etc... Some people just don't get it the first time. Once again, where did I say I hate Harper? Please provide proof, otherwise don't make false comments. What exactly did you add with this post except to call me a Harper hater? Now, since you obviously have nothing to add, and I am adding nothing responding to your nothing, this will be my last off-topic post. If you want to talk about the issues I will be glad to respond. If all you want to do is call me a Harper-hater, consider yourself ignored.

Well the name "al qaeda" may not have existed in 1989, but Osama and his buddies (now called al qaeda) did exist in 1989 and were fighting the soviets. That's what I meant when I said al qaeda. P.S. I found this on wikipedia: Link

Kinda except we never funded the Taliban and the Taliban never fought the Soviets. Oh..and the US never funded the Taliban either. No, that was al qaeda that the U.S. funded to fight the soviets. Although correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that Pakistan funded/aided the taliban, and they were funded by the U.S., so the U.S. was indirectly funding the taliban.

We don't know what the government's environmental policy is going to be other than that it won't be based on supporting Kyoto. Since polls indicate that a majority of Canadians want the government to follow Kyoto, I think Harper's statements above are certainly accurate when it comes to this issue. If you want to criticize Harper, go ahead. But at least make sure your criticsm is sensible. We do know that the government's environmental policy will likely be influenced by polls (i.e. the one that is the topic of this thread), despite the fact that Harper has explicitly said that his government will not be influenced by polls. For that, I called him a hypocrite. Isn't that pretty much the definition of hypocrite, saying one thing ("we don't make decisions in our government based on polls") and then doing the opposite (basing their decisions on polls)? So I'd say that's a pretty fair and accurate criticism, wouldn't you? Sure, it makes sense (I never said it didn't). What doesn't make sense is claiming that Harper doesn't make decisions based on polls, and then making his decisions based on polls.