Ricki Bobbi

It appears that selecting Senators by election could be done without a change to the constitution. (Yes a succeeding Prime Minister could repeal the legislation, but that would be political risky.) Term limits would need a change to the Constitution. s. 29 of Constitution Act 1867 defines that Senators can sit until they are 75 so it would need a constituional amendment. I'm not 100% sure but I think it would fall under 7/50.

Why not stop twisting the main idea of the story to make it look worse for the Government than it really is?

I hear you, but I can't see how or why anybody but an unelected Senator about to lose his seat on the gravy train, would have standing in a case like that. Even so, once Senators have been elected under Federal law it would be very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

Maybe he is thinking that if he makes the change no premier will take the political risk to challenge it in court?

That's a very good point. *IF* Charest is on side here is my take on the probable yes votes to elected Senators. -BC -AB -QC -PEI -Nova Scotia -New Brunswick (if the PCs win the election on the 18th.) Definite NO. -Ontario Maybes -Saskatchewan (probably leaning no) -Manitoba (probably leaning no) -Newfoundland (probably leaning yes)

He has been rolling out his plans on the Senate. The first part was the bill proposing term limits on Senators in the spring. The second part was the bill that will be introduced in the fall calling for Senate elections.

But opening up the constitution would be pretty difficult. Are Canadians really ready for another round of constitutional talks? We have all seen how unsuccessful the big rounds of constitutional talks can be.

No the fall of the Tories in Quebec was *not* the main focus of the article. Quebec isn't even mentioned until the halfway point of the article. Here's a little hint as to what the *focus* of an article is. It's whatever is talked about in the first paragraph of the article. (Yes, I realize the NDP isn't mentioned in that first paragraph *but* they are mentioned before Tory fortunes in Quebec.) True you haven't mentioned me by name, but using the personal pronoun is drawing a very fine line. Was it really that personal attacking asking to move past your unfair presentation of the article to discussing the article objectively?

That is the point of forcing the issue of an election. Canadians have been complacent for so long about Senate reform he is forcing the Senate to put up or shut up. Do we know exactly what form an elected Senate would take? Do we know what the relationship between the House of Commons and a new Senate would be? No on both counts. Harper is opening the door to a debate on the issue. Maybe the debate will be held during an election or maybe not...

Gerry can you post some information on where exactly that line is? Better yet, your guidelines on proper behaviour on a pollitical message board. Your objective and respectful tone on this board is one I believe all posters should strive to follow.

I think this is a good move strategically for Harper. He is taking a page out of the election playbook. Keep the focus on the Conservatives proposals. Because of this announcement there will be far less coverage of the NDP convention and the Liberal debate. I also like Harper's signs that he won't broker deals throughout a minority. Strong leadership is strong leadership regardless of how many seats you have in the house. Personally I think reforming the Senate is a good idea. Some sort of balance to the House of Commons would be great. Can't see the opposition parties banding together to take the government down over the issue.

I didn't disagree with the article, I disagreed with how you posted it. You still haven't responded to the point I made about the NDP losing so much support in such a short time period was a bigger story. Seems like you are just here to pick fights and make Harper look bad at every chance. Your post to start this thread was more of the thread. If you really want to move on just address why you chose to ignore the NDPs freefall in your original post. btw, is your call for civility only adderss to people who don't hate Harper? Seems like GerryHatrick's calling my actions *plain ridiculous* is far harsher than asking people to move on from simply bashing Harper.

Which part of that was bashing? Where I spoke about the NDP losing five points to the Greens? Do explain how I bashed his commentary of the article by aksing why he misrepresented it?

Support as in evidence to prove that this alleged poll actually was commissioned and paid for by the Government of Canada and really asked if people supported the Government's five priorities. Didn't think so.

Bash, bash, bash, bash. The proof is the proof. Good work jdobbin! Your response is a perfect example of the open-mindedness and commitment to considering others opinions that lead to the Liberals doing so well in the last election.

Here's my response in its entirety. Feel free to show how I was bashing you.

Wow! Any other insults to hurl at people who took offence to the CBC's *fair and balanced* reporting of the story in question?

But the last Decima poll *was* posted by the same poster. I wasn't taking issue with the story. Took issue with the post. Try actually reading what I post. As to credibility gerry. That reminds me of the old story of the pot and the kettle.

You wouldn't have support for that would you Gerry? Didn't think so.

The CBC chose to apologize for the impression it left with the report. Are you saying that the CBC has a paranoid suspicion of itself?

Look at the entirety of the post you snipped that quote from. The Conservatives are actually up from the previous Decima poll, which jdobbin also posted on this thread. If you look at just the part you quoted it is easy to paint me as being overly defensive. But in the context of the post, and a later post, I explained how the sub-headline was unfair and how the drop in NDP support was the bigger story. I wasn't dismissing the commentary because there wasn't much to speak of in the original post. jdobbin has made those points over and over and over again on the board. If you let your enemies continually attack without fighting back they set the agenda. Something Harper proved very adept at avoiding in the last election.

as well as persistent. I don't really understand why somebody that single-minded wouldn't dish out his vitriol on babble?

Your sub-headline was: That was bashing by ignoring the facts and the bigger part of the story. What was that you say? Hmmm, they weren't way down in Quebec from the last Decima poll and objectively the loss of NDP support was a much bigger story in that poll. Kinda like the CBC, ignoring the bigger story just to make the Conservatives look bad.

The Conservatives are up in this poll from the poll that Decima released the week before last. Let's move past jdobbin's *bash* *bash* *bash* the Conservatives and look at this poll closely. Every party, but the NDP, is up since the last Decima poll. The intersting part of this poll is the NDP being down 5 points in less than two weeks. Is the Green Party really withing striking distance of the NDP? Wouldn't that be interesting if the Greens finally got into parliament at the expense of the NDP?

typical of the Harper-haters out there. He has dug up a couple minor little quotes and hammers away at the PM like he is the devil based on those minor quotes. Is Harper perfect? No. Is he doing a pretty good job so far? Yes. But people like gc, will never give an inch. Not to worry though. You know he won't ever give Harper credit for anything so why bother? Take a look at this thread. gc has repeated the same thing over and over and over and over again. We get it gc you hate Harper, but you can't be arsed to add anything new to the discussion. Good work sir.