August1991

I saw the Internet clip. I'll read the papers tomorrow, and discuss this with friends. But I think you're right. Well, Harper told the truth But he didn't bare his soul. For an honest English, he did his passionate message. I suspect he wanted it. Still, he's no Trudeau, Parizeau, Levesque, Ryan, Bouchard. But Goldie, I think you're right. Why? (Hearing this story, French Canadians will be curious now... Why did this English speak as he did.)

We live in an Internet world of high school graduate voters. (Fifty or a hundred years ago, people were illiterate. Now, they know better.) I say, give people the info upfront, ASAP. But play the game too. Imagine Kerry annouced his VP in January? (VP Edwards!) Now, what about Harper's cabinet? Whaddya think? What does Harper think? Should he tell?

I'm just presenting a possible CBC scenario to the story tomorrow. When Harper wins, the CBC will be smug and sanctimonious about his victory. The CBC was not smug and sanctimonious when Layton won. We all pay involuntary taxes to hear this. Putin got re-elected by similar methods.

WTF? Please explain.

I deliberately didn't watch. I saw him in Mtl in person. (IMV, he's no Lévesque, no Trudeau. He's just tall and shy. Ontario guy with an MA in Economics from Calgary.) Will Ontario voters feel comfortable with him? This will be the 1979 Election.

It will the shock the CBC. From Quebec? The story will be that Stronach tried to buy votes but she didn't succeed because well, she didn't understand Quebec. Then, the story will be: We're Canadian, not American, and we don't sell votes well. But, you know what, that's what Tories try and do: Buy and Sell Votes. But the Tories are bad at doing this and that's why Harper won. Harper wants a dog-eat-dog world, and now that he won so easily, he wants to impose it on the rest of us. IOW, no logic at all.

!!! - A Liberal, Mulronified, Liberalized Mess. If this is Canada, Newfoundlanders deserve so much better. I've been to Beaumont-Hamel. ACOA is not the Newfoundland I know.

WOW! Too western, I think. He's the PM - that counts for a lot. And I think he'll pull a Clark and have Quebec Tory Senators. (Mulroney gave him the choice. Clark had none to choose from!) But you're right. The Ontario Tory caucus is an unknown. So, Harper's cabinet is an unknown. My opinion? Harper's first cabinet will be much more sympathetic of the East than Trudeau's first cabinet was of the West.

dv4dev, do you mean that the US provoked the World Trade Center planes? Then you blame Clinton? Bush responded to these planes. Everyone, please. Let's get this absolutely straight. We can argue about Bush's response but he didn't start this.

You sure? That's 9360. More than half of what's required. I'd put it at 50% and 30%. But I repeat: Watch how the CBC reports this. It won't be Layton winning the NDP, it'll be, well, Harper winning the Conservatives.

And this explains perfectly why the Japanese economy has been a tremendous success for the past 10 years or so. NOT! As developed countries go, Japan is in a mess. No one talks about the "Japanese Model" or "Japan Inc." anymore. Why?

Voting starts at 10 am in Montreal. (That's EST, no?) There's an 80% chance Harper wins on the first ballot. If he doesn't make 50%, then Clement falls out and his second choices are counted. No doubt there, Harper wins. Key question? How will the CBC report Harper's win?

Dead on! Touché! But I don't get this thread. There will be a TV debate during the upcoming election (Spring or Fall) and it will involve four people: Duceppe, Harper, Layton, Martin. Given Canada, we'll have at least two debates, English and French. In fact though, these guys debate every day in Question Period. And unlike the US where Gore becomes a nobody, our loser becomes a nemesis. (The US Constitution writers - working in the 18th Century -never imagined what would happen to parliamentary democracy.) As a result, our debates are much better. Watch when Layton hauls off and points Martin in the chest! Canadian politics - heck politics - at its best! Find a country in the world that does it our way (our way is not a shared press conference, but a real one-on-one), and in two languages to boot. The Liberals try to avoid TV debates but Martin's ego would never let him say no. I'd say Clark-Trudeau 1979, or Mulroney-Turner 1989. No, good chance it'll be much better.

Why is it so cheap? For $100 million, Bush can buy control (major influence) over an annual Federal Budget, during four years, of $1 trillion. No private investment opportunity would ever be so good.

Am I wrong in making this comparison? About 30 years ago, Trudeau mused about selling wheat and then went on to explain why the Federal Government, why the State, has a role to play in critical private matters. Trudeau was roundly condemned for his musing - and he's probably still hated for it. Harper recently mused about Atlantic Canada and how Federal Government welfare has not been helpful. Harper has been roundly condemned - and no doubt some Maritimers will never forget his comment. Is it wrong to muse in public in such a way? Neither Trudeau nor Harper were wrong. (BTW, I think Trudeau was more right than Harper.) In crudely electoral terms, where are the seats and how did the rest of Canada react? Harper was wiser in his sortie than Trudeau. But I'm convinced, naively perhaps, that neither Harper nor Trudeau did it thinking about votes. We Canadians are so unforgiving of thinking politicians. No wonder the Vander Zalms of our small political world dominate.

I thought you brought the thread to a nice conlusion, BD, and basically solved the problem. Haiti offers no other jobs to find. Haiti is a no job country. IOW, Haiti will be poor for all time. End of story. PS. It would appear, according to your sites, that the US just eliminated another job in Haiti too, the job of Haitian President.

Whoever said democracy was about choice? As far as I'm concerned, democracy can only be about getting rid of the buggers. When people realize the guy's a nutbar, how do they get rid of him? "Democracy" provides a peaceful, civilized way to tell the guy to leave the stage. The rest is merely detail. But you want truly weird? Consider these questions: First, why bother voting? (Your single vote will change absolutely nothing, let's be honest.) Second, the person who gets to be US Pres gets to control (more or less) an annual budget close to $1 trillion. Bush has raised about $100 million to get control of $1 trillion during four years! So, why don't politicians spend more to win?

Good post Hugo. At the risk of sounding anti-English, which I'm not, smug is the word that describes many English Canadians. Pierre Berton wrote a book about it but Robertson Davies really drove the point home for me. Some English Canadians like to feel sorry for others - they even say, "There but for the grace of God go I." (Imagine the moral superiority of such a declaration.) These English Canadians believe that Canada is a more civilized, safer country than the US. Chretien played into this English Canadian smugness, and the CBC is rampant with it. I'm no psychologist but I suppose the smugness ultimately stems from an inferiority complex. Anyway, the facts speak otherwise, as your post attests. Health care is another one. Talk to any American and one quickly discovers that, in practical terms, our system borders on Soviet. It will be soon.

It was a "joke" BD, don't you have a sense of humour? But let's be honest. A union is a form of monopoly that, like many monopolies, eventually dies because it prices itself out of the market. Most unionized labour in Canada now is in the public sector. What stops any worker from buying shares in publicly traded companies and benefiting that way? Argghhhhh! And I suppose advances in technology have nothing to do with it - or were they due to unions?.

Here's a question: Should Harper put Mulroney-appointed Quebec Senators in his Cabinet? Does this question seem weird? It shouldn't. It will be a question soon enough. That's Canada. Better? How will Harper deal with such questions!

Is this election about ideology alone? Do you understand that Ontario voters (106 seats) will vote not on ideological grounds but because they want a safe, united country. People in Quebec (75 seats) will do the same. This is simply a reality of Canadian politics. Talk of NDP/Harper in an ideological context is completely silly.

Dennis: Stronach and Layton sound like Torontonians, regardless of what they say. Harper, regardless, sounds like a Westerner. And French Quebecers understand nothing because, well, they know absolutely nothing about this debate you and I are discussing. Stronach? Layton? Dennis, go figure, then we'll talk about this country you consider yours.

Pig? Fly? This is serious. What would a Harper Cabinet look like? In a few weeks (months?) Canadians will be asking themselves this question. Newspapers will talk about it. The CBC will have special reports. I'm asking the question now. You guys are the experts. Whaddya think?

The French system! Two tours! Well, the Americans have it. Primaries, and then November. The methods of voting are endless. Even Constitutional rules. Senates, Parliaments, blah, blah. Democracy? Bottom line? Is it possible to get rid of the sucker in a painless, civilized manner. Consider Brezhnev, Castro, Mao, Hitler August 1944. If it requires a bomb, then it's a bad system. (Nixon left by helicopter.)

You sure? Don Martin? Got me there totally. Sorry, who is Don Martin? The rest of your post? Fell off my chair laughing!