August1991

You may be right but that's not the point. In a parliamentary system, the loser becomes the chief critic of the government. Harper and Martin will both be in politics after the election. Either Bush or Kerry will instantly become a nobody.

He did that because under the previous total, NOBODY qualified. (The bureaucracy had huge backlogs and the purpose was to stop adding to them.) Now, some people qualify. But are the backlogs any smaller?

Scandinavia is not a good point of comparison for English-Canada . America is. There are more immigrants to the US than Canada. The US is more ethnically diverse than Canada. Consider what happens to Muslims in the US: Arabs in Dearborn

Normandy. G8. Are you posters such ignorant teenagers not to see what the next photo-op is? Well, you'll get the deal, eventually. But do you believe potential voters won't? You underestimate them. Should Harper say anything about Dieppe when Martin stands at Juno? We Canadians once stood for something. (René Lévesque went abroad in a US uniform to tell the truth!) Let's make this plain: PM PM is about to show up at Normandy, and then a G8. He believes that potential voters are NOT Internet posters. Can you posters understand my sarcasm, cynicism? Moi, j'y crois. Sincèrement. Autrement dit, "Pourquoi ces gars sont morts?" [i have walked around the grounds of Dieppe, Juno, Beaumont-Hamel, Nettuno and Dachau. Do I understand perfectly? Probably not.] I wish all Canadians have the freedom to travel and form their own opinion. Canada matters. In ways Canadians have not, I hope, forgotten.

Olivia Chow was wearing BRIGHT GREEN. Why? Is the NDP worried?

Argus, how do I explain in a medium like this why people from Canada and America died abroad "defending freedom"? You Brits apparently fought for nation or class. What do you think of the Brits who came here (ages ago) and then went abroad to fight again? Why? King and Country? (The Yanks?)

Argus, you underestimate the wonderful feeling of freedom. In Canadian history, Christians were not "laid back" at all. (Do you know how Canadians voted in the past?) The history of Jews and Canadian Christians is, well, quite a history. I'd say most Jews are laid back now - compared to their grandfathers (in part because the gentiles are less uptight). What percentage of Canadians are Muslim? (You find the stat, Argus. Better, what's the Muslim growth rate?) You know this and I know this. Canada (and America) is "Romeo and Juliet", "West Side Story" or "Pocahontas" writ large. How many decent, honest Muslim kids are finding ways around their parents' rules tonight? Freedom. Unbeatable.

Exactly. It could happen. Did they? Has it happened?This thing called "Canada" (the pink part on the map) is a changing entity. Take where you live, go back several thousand years, and then come to the present in your mind, thinking about the various people who walked on the land where you live. We all know people came here first by Siberia/Alaska several thousands years ago. They "claimed" the land. Then Europeans came, and the French primarily "claimed" the land, from St-Louis to Portage-la-Prairie. Then the English came, defeated the French and "claimed" the land for the British Crown Now others come. And to claim a small piece of land, a semi-detached with 40 ft frontage, they must pay a market price. These immigrants are not thieves, they are paying thieves.

I am very uncomfortable drawing a comparison between two religions but let me do it anyway. In the 15th century, the idea of reformation of the Catholic church was anathema too. But it happened. IMV, it is impossible to understand ben Laden without understanding Savonarola. More gravely, the root of Arabic is the Koran. Jesus Christ, or the Buddha, never spoke modern languages, their words were never recorded and so we today only know about them through various hearsay translations. There is no agreed upon version of the Bible. (Some Christian fundamentalists absurdly see some kind of special insight in the 'English' wordings of some versions.) Buddhists really have no single text at all. For Muslims, the Koran (in Arabic) is the word of God as reported by his prophet. By chance, Islam arrived when technology allowed for genuine transcription. (This is disastrous for language which must evolve.) ------ IMHO? I always liked the line in Jesus Christ Superstar: If God ever sent an offspring, messenger, prophet or informer among us, wouldn't God choose a time when the message passed better? Give or take a couple of thousand years, what's the difference? So, why not opt on the side of clarity?

One of the most irritating thing about yours posts, Argus, is that you seem to define Canada (or its best interests) in a way that is best for you. Your arguments seem to be self-serving. Not Icelanders, not Mexicans. What about Swedes? Danish? Russians? Croatians? How about people from the Caribbean? Oh, I see. It seems really that you don't like Chinese and Muslims. Why didn't you start a thread on that. I thought we were discussing the principle of immigration to Canada.

What an absolutely hilarious list. I'll pick some of the more absurd: Do you know what the BNA Act is? Do you know how many senators come from Quebec? Do you know why? Geez, I wonder where you got this idea. (So original!) (Have you ever thought that accountability does not start and end with the A-G? And who appointed the current A-G anyway?) Really popular measure in Quebec, that one. In fact, it'll be really popular with many Canadians of European origin. How do you define "non-essential"? "General business tax"? Huh? Are you so sure the tax incidence would be shifted? (Argus, do you know what tax incidence is?) OF COURSE! Argus, you must a student in a post secondary institution!

That may well turn out to be the $64,000 question, and the start of a constitutional crisis. I don't mean to be impolite but FreeThinker, you're basically wrong. We have not had a coalition government in Canada since the First World War. And there is no strict rule that the party with the most seats wins the government. It is VERY possible that the Tories will win the most seats but the Liberals have more chance of governing with NDP support on key votes. The issue is: Is the GG forced to ask Harper to form a government if the Tories win the most seats? (Ans: I don't think so. After the election, Martin will still be PM and could say that he wants to go to Parliament to see if he still has support. Would the NDP support him in a confidence vote?) If the GG asks Harper to form a government, he could easily take 6 months before calling the House in session. (Incidentally, an ongoing debate in Quebec is whether the BQ would vote with Tories on a confidence motion.)

Kliege, you and I appear largely to agree (although you've got 1 PEI party win...) Where we disagree is Ontario. That's the unknown.

This is to bring this thread to the top. Take a look at the stats on the first post of this thread for Ontario. The Libs could go as low as 35 or so in Ontario.

I predicted this on 10 March (before the Tory convention). I was assuming Harper would win, which he did and also a spring election: You can see these at the other thread.

I'm still going with a CPC minority government. The tough call is Ontario. IMV, the only way to predict is region by region.

Kliege, we'll hold you to it:

"Never been to Canada?" What do you mean by "Canada"? Canada is a changing country and if you were to return here in 150 or 200 years, you would probably be unable to recognize it. Just as if John A Macdonald would find modern Canada unrecognizable. More practically, this debate will not happen. Most immigrants live in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. There are few immigrants outside of those urban centres. For many Canadians, this is simply not a major issue. In addition, there are many non-Anglophone "English" Canadians (we call them allophones in Quebec) who go crazy every time someone says Canada has two founding nations. These people resent WASPs and ultimately see something good in immigration. Finally, we have imbibed the American ethos that we are a country of immigrants. We currently accept about 250,000 people per year, or about 1% of the population. This is less than the targets set by the government. This means our total population growth is above the replacement rate. The only plausible debate would be about the huge bureaucracy we have in place to select immigrants. Americans select their skilled immigrants by lottery. This forum is a good thing, Argus, because it allows you to start a good thread. But it's a third rail...

While the American democratic system has its advantages, I have always liked British parliament. First, Gore is now an absolute nobody. This seems a waste of talent. (It must be absolutely devastating on a personal level.) Second, it would be healthy if Bush faced a heckling opposition instead of a respectful press corps. Third, parliament makes a real distinction between a majority and a minority. The US democratic system has existed for over 200 years, evolving in that time. (Senators are now elected. The vote is almost universal.) The British parliamentary system is older and has evolved probably more. My point? Bush would have won with a minority government. (Incidentally, we in Canada are not immune to cliffganger elections. In 1972, Libs/PCs split 109/108 - and one Liberal riding was finally won by 4 votes after several recounts.)

G&M Blame the advisors Interesting history of the past few months. No doubt these assistants have many enemies in Ottawa. But as the expression goes, trees die from the top, and fish rot from the head. Watch for resignations - as during the Turner campaign - and some old Chretien stalwarts invited back. Victory has many fathers; disaster is an orphan.

Jack it up? As in, Jack up taxes?

I thinking she's running in Sherbrooke against an impressive Liberal candidate who will probably lose. Her candidacy is something of a PR joke (but not in Quebec). (Who is Bill Blaikie?) Neither the NDP nor Tories will get any seats in Quebec. There are about 20 safe Liberal, hard-core federalist seats - the kind where Daffy Duck could run for the Liberals and get 87%. The rest will go BQ.

Very interesting Slavik. Those numbers are proof of the +/-3 % margin of error. The true population numbers could have stayed constant during this whole time: Lib 38 CPC 28 NDP 28 ... and all we're seeing is the sampling error. This is almost a textbook case. The rise of the Greens in BC strikes me as much more important than where the NDP/CPC are in Quebec. The Greens may well supplant the NDP in the long run future.

They would look reallyy dumb if they didn't call the election. I guess they could wait another week and hope something turns up... G&M On election call But who calls an unneccessary election when going down in the polls? PM PM seems to be all blather.

Who ultimately holds the power in a democracy? Politicians or the people? If we the people hold the power, how can we be a victim? In practical terms though, this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard of - or at least vaguely American. Who is going to charge the "lying" politician? The RCMP? Who is going to judge the "lying" politician? The Supreme Court? You don't think that the effect of this law would be to make the RCMP extremely political. Do you think the Supreme Court would ever send a Liberal politician to jail? In the US, it is possible to impeach an elected official. And some places have the callback procedure (eg. California). In Canada, we rely on the Crown and elected officials (parliament) to judge whether a politician has committed an "impeachable" offense. If someone were to suggest we have a callback procedure, the ant-American left would immediately say this more evidence of how Cnada is becoming American.... Finally, think of Clinton. Do you want politricians spending all their time defending themselves against special prosecutors and such? (Maybe that's not a bad idea! They'll have less time to dcause problems for the rest of us!)