Michael Hardner

I disagree. Harper could have done more to keep the social cons out, but he had to keep that element of his party happy. He could have made it CPC policy to leave the charter alone, and concentrated on the scandal and his economic vision. So, Harper has to bulletproof his party from that kind of attack. Or, I suppose he could give up. Really ? Were the Liberals also villified by the Bloc ? Or villifried ?

They're more inept then corrupt. And they seem to appeal to certain voters' desire for stability. I would advise the CPC to get more mainstream. Canada will elect them for lower taxes, but they have to cage up the social conservatives for good.

But the ads didn't attack the CPC based on their Western-ness. They attacked the CPC based on the Charter of Rights, Iraq, Abortion etc. The scare-mongering ads worked in Ontario because they appealed to Ontarian's fears of the unknown, and reminded them of their recent experiments with Harris and Rae. Can't the CPC just drop the social conservative stuff once and for all and move on ? That would probably boost their fortunes.

I think Harper has to jettison the only thing holding him back - the social conservatives. The new CPC needs to set policy that clearly sets itself apart from the Alliance on those issues. Free votes will still be allowed "on anything that isn't party policy", so he should set firm policies that state that the party supports the Charter as it is, and so forth. If he does this, and the Martin minority government falters, then he will be PM next time around. Hopefully Harper has done well enough to stay on and undo the social conservative influence in the party. Otherwise, they won't break through and the Liberals will sit for another four terms.

I wasn't talking about Martin, I was talking about us MapleLeafWebbers. And I don't ascribe to the idea that people's appearances and mannerisms inform us as to their personalities 100% of the time. Somebody even tried to convince me that Stephen Harper was evil because of his evil stare. Nobody was portrayed as a hick. The only Albertan that was vilified in part was Ralph Klein, and why not ? He arrogantly stated that he would be remodelling his province's health care irrespective of the law, didn't he ? This is the kind of thing Ontarians can't understand. They vote for PMs who come from other provinces in election after election. Why ? Because they identify themselves as Canadians first, not Ontarians. Not even Harris could have rustled up separatist feelings here. If you think the CPC's disappointment in Ontario was an anti-West message, maybe you're identifying the CPC with the west too much. Don't worry. Harper will do better in Ontario next time, I'm sure.

No.. Fearmongering works. Mudslinging is like when you try to say your opponent supports child porn.

That was the comment "I will represent EVERY region" that he made. He knows that he needs to do something different. But it's probably too late.

Gracious in victory... gracious in defeat... I think Martin will make a concerted pitch to mend fences with the west. Furthermore, I think it will include some real changes that the west have been calling for. And ... it will probably fail.

Well, Martin shouldn't get too comfortable. I don't think anyone is that thrilled with him, but he was viewed as the least worst choice. He will have to offer a substantial olive branch to the west, and soon. I hope Harper stays on as leader. If the CPC dumps him, then there will be no pressure on Martin to do anything. An interesting comment I heard was that the real split isn't east-west as much as it is urban rural. The Liberals did very well in cities.

PR at this point may happen, but if it does it's just gerrymandering. I hope they don't do it. The timing is wrong. For every ten seats they allocate to PR, the Libs and NDP give themselves another 2-4 combined seat lead over the CPC and that's not right.

The seat projections were not scientifically done, and they were out by a whole bunch. They should scrap that next time.

I don't think so. It isn't. You can draw correlations between silly things that have nothing to do with each other, like teddy bear ownership and liklihood to commit murder. You can't do anything with correlation. Oh. Well, I don't think those situations are analagous at all. I don't think they do welcome those movements as part of them. Anyway, I think that homosexuals can be as good as heterosexuality at parenting, but I don't think that's an argument that will go anywhere. I mainly wanted to make the point about the abuse of statistical science.

I agree... but I also think that people spent too much money, and that they sometimes take extra jobs to buy things that no family needs.

No. I just want to know why you think that. I guess the answer is "just because". Ok. The Liberals don't give Quebec more powers. They give them more money Well, even the CPC only allows free votes on issues that aren't part of party policy so the leader still ultimately has control. I guess you missed my point. Anyway, I haven't voted Liberal in 16 years so there you go...

This kind of attitude is exactly the problem. You can't pay people to be better parents. It's not lack of money, it's lack of spirituality.

No that is not why we outlaw child porn. We outlaw it because filming it is a crime, and because it is generally disgusting. No, it is not. You are also confusing correlation and causation. There are no such grounds shown here yet. A loving homosexual couple may well be as fit to parent as a loving heterosexual couple. There's no statistical way to say they're not. And I think that common sense should tell us that either couple is fit to be parents.

I think he means that Canadians generally didn't trust Klein to do the same.

I want to add a counter-example that might be relevant to today's election: Ontario experimented with some right-of-centre and left-of-centre governments in the 1990s. The political hang-over is still with us.

Are you saying that the provinces need more power simply because they have less than the federal government does ? How does that argument apply to cities under provinces ? Once again, people are arguing that a certain political infrastructure is "fair" because it benefits their advancing point of view. Please don't open up this debate in THIS thread too. It's not about representing the people, it's about power. Pure proportional representation in parliament (something I oppose by the way) would certainly represent the people. And.. it would result in a Liberal-NDP coalition almost every time. Would you be happy then, with the people all represented and so forth ?

My local candidate and websites for other local candidates were my source. It's not that Free Votes are dangerous, it's that a CPC PM can enact them to satisfy his MPs even when those MPs do not represent the views of average Canadians. Free Votes, Referrenda, Proportional Representation are all the holy grails of democracy, if you believe their proponents. But oddly enough, they best serve the leaders of the parties that propose them.

Me too. I haven't voted Liberal in a long long time. But Martin seems to me the kind of person who could possibly map out a true "third way", ie. truly effective and efficient government providing superior services at a relatively low cost. And I also believe he's smart enough to realize that the West needs some real representation in Ottawa and that he can't provide that himself.

There's something to what you say, but let me ask you: What do you think Chretien would have done I think he looked the other way. But again, there was only so much he could do without resigning the party completely. Chretien was the leader, and this was how he operated. I think he had his lawyer's hat on there. What constitutes "knowing", anyway. We all "know" what's going on, but do we actually know the facts ? If he had any brains at all, he kept at arms length from all of the nastiness, knowing that it would come back to him later.

Thanks for the post, DAC. I think we'll be seeing another, hopefully more positive, approach to redefining federal-provincial relationships very soon, whether the Libs or CPCs win.

There's a lot of talk about how people are unenthusiastic about the candidates and apathetic about the election in general. In my view, the three main candidates were the best we've had in years. ( The last election's main candidates were Chretien, Day and McDonough, remember ? ) Here's what I thought were the strengths of the main contenders: Harper He mostly took the high road during the campaign. He had faith in the voters. He showed intelligence and thoughtfulness all the way through. Layton He had seemingly boundless energy and optimism. He showed that he's not too idealistic to be pragmatic. He correctly pointed to the shortcomings of his adversaries without going into the gutter. Martin He rose to the challenge of this election, campaigning like a man twenty years younger. He acknowledged mistakes, while remaining proud of what his government did achieve.

Well, he met with the provinces and set up stable funding and the framework for future funding, and discussions. How so ? There have been charges laid in the sponsorship scandal haven't there ? Isn't that enough progress to warrant calling an election to ask for a mandate ? Accusing politicians of political opportunism sounds to me like accusing fish of swimming. Not to be cynical, but even Reform had days where it unashamedly grabbed at the brass rign. I don't know about scare mongering. The CPC did a good job of giving him things to talk about.