August1991

The Toronto Star poll on the weekend was close to the final result. Clearly what happened is that enough people in Ontario were frightened with the idea of Harper as PM and decided to vote Liberal. The result is that about 25 Ontario seats went Liberal, not Tory. Polls aren't the issue. Attack ads work.

PM PM was the right wing tough guy of the Liberal Party who booted out Sheila Copps and all those socialists. The Liberals say whatever is necessary to get votes.

From what I can see, alot of people in Ontario were influenced by the Liberal attack ads and decided that Harper was a scary guy. True, Harper let them do it. But the real lesson is that attack ads work in Canada. BTW, the NDP was as much a victim. Many potential NDP voters switched to Liberal. The only regions that voted honestly (without fear) were Quebec and the Prairies.

Thank you Michael for making the same individual points I would have made. Here though I'll disagree with you. Child poverty is much less of a problem in Canada than it once was but it still exists in the world. Putting a few dollars in a poor child's pocket makes a difference.Late me be plain, around the world, the best child policy would be a parent in a job with a good wage.

DAC, I disagree with many of your individual points and at first thought I would go through your post point-by-point but instead, I'll try a different tack. In Quebec, the government in the past few decades has gotten involved in what might be called "social engineering" or an attempt to "improve" people through social policy. The State has somehow taken over the role of the Catholic Church. [in North America and Europe in general, the atrocities of WWII lead to a desire to "improve society" and a belief in the "perfectibility of man".] For example, in Quebec, a woman is not allowed to assume her husband's name at marriage. The purpose is to ensure that the woman remains an independant individual in her own right. I mention all this because the results of these social engineering experiments have been mixed. I frankly think they will ultimately fail unless people decide they like the changes. So, DAC, your long post suggests too often that the State should intervene to somehow change people. It's another form of social engineering. I don't think it will work but alot of effort will be wasted. Where moral questions are concerned, it is best for the State to be pragmatic. For example, most moral questions in Canada are left to local jurisdictions (eg. drinking age, youth offenders). This means some places allow certain activities and other places forbid them. This is as it should be and is pragmatic. ----- To get back to your thread, marriage means little anymore, nor should it, unless children are involved. In fact, the modern definition of marriage is having children, whether the parents are married or not. The issue seems to be what is the best way to ensure children grow up in a good environment? This is hardly a new problem. It is at the root of our existence as a species, or indeed any species.

Christopher Mac;

Revision noted, MS.

You underestimate the shrewdness of Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe. You also ignore the old adage, "Politics makes for strange bedfellows." Alliance rump? We don't yet know what the Tory caucus will look like but there will be some 40 new MPs from Ontario. I think PM PM will resign (and that would ensure no election while they choose a new leader) but I'm not so certain as I was before. But given the ugly civil war in the Liberal Party in the past few months, Herle is history and PM PM most likely too, whether he wants to resign or not.

Do you have any evidence of that? 40 years puts us at 1964. Try stats on child mortality, hospital beds per 1000, telephones per 1000.For all I know, it may well be that in some African countries poor people were better off in 1964 than in 2004. Which begs the question, why? You use the term "compared to the richest 10%". Do you mean that it is best if society reduces the gap between rich and poor, even if it means that everyone has less? I have the impression Blair that you have started from a premise (anti-US, anti-corporation, anti-private sector) and then you have sought to find evidence or create arguments to support your opinion. That's not the scientific method.

For the initial post, I transcribed almost word-for-word something a friend said to me. It is wholly subjective.My interpretation? Too often, there is too much suspicion on the side of English-speaking Canada. The position of French-speaking Canada forces them to trust the better nature of the majority.

At the risk of being completely foolish in public, here are my predictions before we know the results: There is little doubt that it will be a minority government with either the Libs or the Tories having a plurality of seats. PM PM has said that the party with the most seats gets first dibs at forming a government. There is little chance the NDP will have enough seats to support alone a minority government. Hence, the Liberals or the Tories will have to support each other on a confidence vote or seek support from the the BQ. My prediction: A minority Tory government that will last for as long as two years. It will do this by seeking usually BQ support but Liberal support when the BQ won't offer it. Even if the Libs get most seats, my prediction will still come true. There is no way the BQ and the Tories will support a Liberal government. But the BQ will support a Tory government. I suspect Duceppe and Harper have already talked about this in very general terms. It explains in part their relative calmness in the past few days. The BQ is in a funny position. It doesn't want to become a permanent fixture. But it also wants to make plain that it can get along with English Canada. The Liberals will have a new leader within one year.

I have seen the federal Liberals do this bait and switch tactic too often to believe that PM PM is any different. If Canada was not a fundamentally fractured country, the Liberal Party would have long since disappeared. We just went through an election where the BQ was involved in an English debate despite having no candidates running in English Canada. And obviously, the Greens were excluded from the same debate. Only Edward Albee could capture such nonsense.

True.As they say, vote early and vote often.

I have seen this film and I didn't find it as entertaining as 'Roger and Me'. F911 is a mish-mash with some very good sequences. The first act concerning the Saudis and the Bushes ignores the fact that the Saudis have ties all through US politics. Prince Bandar has been in Washington a long, long time. When Mark Steyn and Michael Moore agree on something, you have to give it some thought. The scene with Bush in the Florida school room on Sept. 11 is devastating and is worth the ticket price alone. The final act about the war in Iraq covers material presented better in Hearts and Minds. In between all this, there are numerous shots of Bush Jnr in various poses. People that truly dislike him will get to feel superior. Will this film have an effect on the election? Yes it will. Along with several thousand other events between now and November. IMV, Moore Has a good editor's eye for the newsworthy but he has no ability to put anything into a coherent whole. Incidentally, if you wish someone in Canada would make this kind of stuff, Le Confort et l'Indifférence is a better movie.

???Harper could have won his majority in English Canada. He didn't. Harper let PM PM get away with far too much, including too often setting the agenda.Clark almost got a majority in 1979 with a government more popular and more united than this Liberal crew in 2004. Alabama is warmer but Vienna is better for walks. I'd suggest a choice based on music preference.

Name me a corporation that forces you to pay for its product even if you don't want it and decide to buy a competitor's product.Name me a corporation that forces you to consume the product it decides and gives you little or no say in the matter. Our modern education system is precisely that. It gets worse. People working in a monopoly that has no need to seek customers eventually lose touch with reality. The provincial ministries of education have become bureaucratic monsters where most civil servants have long since lost sight of what they are supposed to do. Teachers' unions are a parallel bureaucracy acting as an official opposition to the "employer". Like all bureaucracy, the meetings are endless and the jargon arcane. One can stray for a while but eventually hard reality sets in. At least kids sitting in a classroom are real. Teachers as a minimum have to face that reality. Many of these comments would apply equally to our medical system.

The major (only?) trade dispute is software lumber.We export about $US 250 billion in goods and services to the US each year. About $US 7 billion is softwood lumber. The US government's imposition of duties and now a quota for softwood lumber means that the 7 billion is lower than it otherwise would be. How much higher should it be? My point is that to state that we have "trade problems" with the US is an exaggeration. Hundreds of business people show up for work in the morning at a shopping mall. During the day, thousands of people go to the shopping mall and buy stuff. No doubt some of the shoppers will disagree with some of the shop clerks. That is the proper way to view trade between Canadians and Americans. Incidentally, this US policy may hurt Canadian producers but it hurts primarily US consumers, people buying new home.

Blair, I went to the web site and read through quite a few of your articles. I could comment on several but instead I'll ask two questions: Do you think the high average standard of living of Americans (and Canadians) is somehow connected to the low average standard of living of people in, say, India or China? Do you think the poorest 10% of the world's population have a lower or higher standard of living than the poorest 10%, say, forty years?

Can you provide a link?

Let me translate a viewpoint: I believe in free debate and democracy. By nature, you English Canadians want to suspect. By nature, we French Canadians want to trust. Can we make a country? We make the effort to understand your Language but you, as typical males, don't understand us. We want to ensure that what we do is good. Can you please help us to do this, in all languages?

Caesar, Blair. What are "survivor benefits"? How do the insured protect their children, or dependants? What is a contract? Enforceable? The Clueless Left. "The State will protect us," as in, Soviet think. These people don't understand Soviet pensions, the Berlin Wall or August 1991. History is my witness. Only fools blindly trust the State.

What planet are you living on? Do you know about their pensions? Double dipping?I have absolutely no complaint to Ontario teacher or Ontario civil servant rights to pensions, nor spouses survivor benefits. But bear in mind the consequence. A fat, ugly single (divorced) 55 year old retired Ontario teacher or civil servant will go abroad and, with a pension promise, seduce an attractive 19 year old male or female in a poor country. The survivor benefit will be for life. This is the world the Left has created for all of us.

To my knowledge, Ontario teachers "absolutely and totally hated" Michael Harris. Ontario civil servants "really disliked" Michael Harris. Ontario teachers and Ontario civil servants with inherited boomer money send their children to private schools. Central Canada (meaning the English CBC, the Toronto Star and the Globe & Mail) is supremely hypocritical. Where do Quebec children study? Who pays? L'hypocrisie me fait honte. Personne n'en parle. (Immigrants! Wake Up! Go USA! - You all know this anyway - that's where your kids go.) Les Invasions Barbares, on ne l'a pas vu?

takeanumber, idealisttotheend, caesar. Make a prediction. Clear seat numbers by province. (Total house seats are 308 but it's best to calculate seats by province.) RANT/ I like arithmetic because it forces precision, or at least an attempt at precision. Mathematics is a clear language and a great human invention. Let's teach this language well, and use it properly. For the same reason, I like profits as a measure. How does the left measure good? /END RANT I think the Ontario 106 seats are critical in any predection.

Maybe it's time to get rid of McDonald's, jazz and Disneyland. Chirac? Putin?