hitops

I think we're definitely onto something here: http://www.theonion.com/articles/internet-comes-up-with-85-million-leads-on-potenti,32095/

I think it's an overreaction to polling, which will probably change in the future regardless of what they do. They have lots of money.

Force of habit I think.

But that's not what happened. At their weakest, liberal party voters went mostly to the NDP rather than CPC. See the numbers in previous post. The liberal party is positioned to take more NDP than CPC votes, if last election's numbers are any hint.

Ok let's look at the number again. In the last election, the CPC gained 2% of voter share and the NDP gained 12.5%. Liberals lost 7.4% and the Block lost 4%. It's clear that the NDP won votes from the liberals in english Canada, and mostly from the Block in Quebec, far more than from the CPC. The CPC did improve, but that is a VERY modest 'high water mark', if that's what you want to call a 2% gain. Now back to Ontario. In the vast majority of ridings, where the CPC won, the NDP were second, and vice versa. That means that votes from Liberal to NDP benefitted the CPC. Because we already know that NDP gains were mostly Liberal losses in english Canada, it follows that if the liberals won votes back, they would mostly come back from the NDP. The CPC did not change much, very few would come to them from the CPC. Therefore if the liberals have a better candidate, that is more likely to hurt the NDP than the conservatives. Looking specifically at the CBC 2011 electoral map results, I cannot find many CPC-won riding in Ontario where shifting the NDP vote to the Liberals would result in a liberal victory, if any. But about half or more of the NDP-won ridings would result in a CPC victory is more votes were shifted to the Liberals. Hence my conclusion. Chasing voters from Trudeau will mean chasing them to Mulcair, not Harper, for the most part.

Ultimately it does not matter whether they are willing to revisit anything. All that matters is whether on what they consider their land or not, they are willing to produce enough economic activity to sustain the costs they incur. It's a basic posture of independence and doesn't have anything to do with whether they 'own' the land or not. If I move from my home to the US, that will have no bearing at all on whether I will want to work and participate in the economy and self-sustain. In either place, my posture on that will be the same, and I will get the same results. If the native people think getting more control of land will solve their problems, they will have a lot of disappointment. I do not require that a certain section of Canada be declared land for the ethnically dutch/german/english, the Mennonite, the person with x shade of tan or anything else, in order to succeed. There is no reason native people's should either. They and I already have exactly the same right to do or be anything within this land.

You said not true, and then agreed that NDP growth does did not come from CPC. So I'm confused.

You can't compare the BC native situation with the rest of Canada. Come to the prairies where they actually make up a significant part of the population to see how things are. Or better yet the territories, where native are the majority and massive chunks of the entire economy is based on federal transfer payments and assistance.

It's the simple fact that the NDP does not take votes from the CPC, those votes came largely from other parties. Both the Block and LIberals lost 40 seats each in the last election, total of 80, and NDP gained most of those. CPC is not going to win much in Quebec. If they lose votes, it will be mostly to the liberals in english Canada, but liberal votes can also have the effect of diminishing the NDP and resulting a CPC win in some ridings. If they destroy Justin by election day, the NDP becomes a real threat. The best strategy would be, IMO, to just let NDP and Liberals fight it out. Another way to look at it is simply look at Ontario. Nearly all the ridings they lost, they lost to the NDP. In every one of those cases, CPC was second. That means a few more liberal votes gives them those ridings. Because most of the NDP gains in english Canada came from the liberals, it follows that most liberal gains would come back from the NDP rather than from the CPC.

That's great for people making it out there. My question is whether they are doing this on their own, or without various benefits not available to other Canadians? Also what area are you in?

What I mean is the split could be even more optimized if Justin takes back some votes from the NDP. The NDP won those votes largely from the liberals. If they had a more even split, than the CPC comes out on top in many of the NDP-held ridings now, meaning the potential preservation of their majority since they are sure to lose some seats out of the population's sheer ennui with them.

Bingo. It's not that they want to be left alone, it's that they want to be left alone........as long as we pay for it. The problem with that is that traditional living and boundaries lead to traditional living. But natives don't really want traditional living, they want modern living with running water, electricity, phone service, central heating and health care. You can't have those things way up north unless somebody else is footing the bill. So if native want traditional native lives and lands, and we just let them, most likely about 70-80% of the population would just die off because they cannot actually survive that way. They need us to enable them to survive, and of course that means us paying for it. If you snapped your fingers and suddenly all non-natives disappeared and the land was left to natives, all the modern infrastructure was left in place for them, the first thing to happen would be a sheer decimation of the native population in the first 1-2 years. In the opposite happened, the effect would go almost without notice (other than the obvious people wondering what the heck happened to them). I don't live way up north because it's really expensive and there are few job opportunities for me to provide for my family. That is a rational choice of a mature adult. Native are not put to that same standard, for them it's ok to live up and take my tax money to make sure it can happen. So they can get flown to hospitals, receive money from welfare to buy things etc. None of that exists without non-native Canadians. In contrast, without natives, that would not affect non-native Canadians ability to benefit from natural resources of Canada in any way, in fact it would make it quite a bit easier. Natives will never progress until they are treated like other Canadians.

He is saying the exact same thing every politician says, "Canadians are tired of negative.......". And at election time, he will run negative ads as well. They all will, because they all know they work, and everyone else knows that as well. I think the conservatives should just leave him alone. Let him take the vote back from the NDP and split it up again. The voters who went to the NDP last time are the ones who will be swayed by his looks and a vaguely defined anger against the machine. Harper should just sit back and let it happen. For the negative side, Mulcair is a professional complainer, and will probably do most of the work for him. Oh ya, cause that kind of thing would really resonate with the CPC voters he is trying to sway.

They certainly are not. What qualifies as a human right has been redefined many times over the years both by the UN and many other bodies. They most certainly are relative, and they will change again in the future.

Is that supposed to be a joke? It doesn't even name the auditing firm. The auditors claimed that the first nations audit was poor spending. LOL....that audit was cheap and extremely worth it - basically showed us there is literally zero accountability or even knowledge of how money is managed. The conclusion of this 'article' is actually that all governments, ever, has always mismanaged money terribly. That is a conclusion of a high school student not a serious auditor. But honestly I can't tell if that website is satire or what. Anyway I repeat my point because you never answer it. We spend billions every year, the budget of the dept indian affairs. I supposed this fact just doesn't exist in your world.

lol wow no hesitation on that one. He has the distinct disadvantage of being young during the era when everything is recorded. Are the ads really necessary this far before the election?

I have no problem with them wanting to live in their home. I have a huge problem with them wanting me to pay for it. You have yet to respond to the reality of the dept of Indian affairs and the billions it takes from Canadians and gives to people based on nothing but race.

Agreed!

Such as yours, for example. The difference between 5% and 13% is massive when you're talking employment. 5% is basically almost full employment, and 10% was considered a national crisis when they were at that level in the US. I doubt there are any other ethnic groups in any other nation in the developed world that has that degree of a gap. You can't tell the difference between wanting to be rid of arrangement which are nothing but stones around aboriginal peoples necks, and outright racism. That's because you wear the 'anything-is-racism' glasses, for whatever reason.

No I can't do that because that land originally belonged to bacteria.

Interesting......what was your address and phone number again? I think the CRA would be interested in investigating your choices. We're not talking about people who are disabled. We are talking an entire group that thinks it's ok to take tax money from everyone else, billions every year, for no other reason than their ethnicity.

There you have it, we should go back even further and just give the whole place to the Africans. How far can we take this nonsense?

Well before the natives peoples made it to North America, there were only animals here. Maybe we should just ship everyone out and leave it as it's true original state as a nature reserve? Ok but we'll accept they are just animals. Now we have to carefully track every little tribal war and massacre that took place over thousands of years before Europeans arrived, all land exchanged, restitutions need to be paid etc. Cause we need to restore everything to it's 2000 BC state. Canada, looking foward!

I'm not sure what is centrist about our Manitoba government. I moved here from sask 5 years ago, and it has a distinctly socialist vibe. The usual trappings are there - a lot complainers, culture of lack of initiative and entitlement, high taxes. Right now we have one of the only payroll taxes in the country, one of the highest top marginal rates and one of if not the lowest threshold for entering that bracket at $67K. Taken in concert, pretty much the worst taxation scheme in the nation apart from Quebec. The government also, of course, has no ability to manage a budget and is dependent on Alberta for handouts every year, I can't find information about historical tax rates, can you link me? I can't imagine the taxation could have been worse but I would be interested in finding out.

I'm quite happy with the service they provide vs cashiers. I'm quite unhappy, on the other hand, with the service provided by indian call centers vs local ones.