Moonbox

No they definetly did not. I'd really like to know how they came to these conclusions though. It really seems like a funny poll to me.

If Danny Williams wasn't retiring soon he'd be keeping his mouth shut. Take whatever he says with a grain of salt. He's just going out with a bang.

This is a really good post. Very smart and very true. I'm glad I read that.

I would be heavily skeptical of any poll undertaken by the CBC especially when every other REPUTABLE poll shows Harper as the best PM by miles.

and that's why the oppositions are going to flop this year. They've made issues of things most Canadians don't care about. Stephen Harper hasn't made the environment a priority and I'm glad for it. If politicians were SERIOUS about combatting climate change, they would be investing huge amounts of money into research for nuclear fusion and newer efficiency/material technology. Give people an alternative to polluting and let fuel prices steer them in the right direction. Don't babysit and penalize them for behaving normally so that you can come up with thinly-disguised income equalization taxes. As for marijuana, I couldn't care less. Legalize it or don't, it really doesn't matter to me. I'm not going to choose a party based on it nor are the majority of Canadians (who by the way don't smoke it either).

I think that there's HUGE and distinguishable difference between the scare tactics of the different parties. The Conservatives are making Canadians question very specific policies Dion has brought forth. He's said Dion wants to raise GST back, which he's said openly is a strong possibility. They said he'll cost Canadians money via the Green Shift, which is impossible to argue unless you belong to the lowest of the lowest tax brackets. He's said Dion is a poor leader and not worth the risk and I don't think that's really much of a stretch given his bumbling. Opposition, on the other hand, sends the vague and ambiguous message Harper hates the environment, the economy and Canada itself. According to them, he encourages his ministers to say stupid things and his party is the only one that has boneheaded members. NDP (who I hold in absolute contempt more and more each day) have taken it a step further by devolving their propaganda back to WWII era imagery of soldiers marching and bombs dropping. This doesn't make sense to me. Are you saying that we shouldn't be talking policies and we should instead argue image and rhetoric like the Americans? In a sense I get what you're saying in that Bush and his administration have Americans so terrified that they'd probably vote for Rambo as president but I think that's more a testament to their sheeply tendancies than it is of anything else. I think scare tactics regarding things like "higher taxes" are unavoidable in election campaigns. You HAVE to talk about the issues and ponder at the consequences of your opponent's policies. The silly imagery that comes with the idiotic ads all three parties have come up with this year I think is insulting to Canadians and completely unnecessary, but a lot of Canadians buy that sort of crap so it kind of tells you how sophisticated the average mind really is.

I live in Guelph and they have no chance of being elected here. There is a strong little core of voters who will vote Green around the University and in our old downtown but Guelph has quickly become a suburb of Toronto/Mississauga and it will probably be a Liberal again. It could go blue but the local conservative candidate is not impressing anyone.

We can start with the fact that the President has far too much power in government. He cannot be voted out if he's doing a bad job. The American electoral system is done under the system of Electoral Colleges, which is idiotic in and of itself. The American electoral system can result in crippled governments unable to pass legislation (as in President opposed by Congress). The primary system is stupid and exclusive. I realize that I was vague and rhetorical and I'll explain further if i have to, but even the Americans think their system is broken.

I think you're wildly exaggerating the effects of makeup and scripting in the US. It happens everywhere in the world. The only reason you think this is because the American elections are really just a 1.5 year pageant. It's a long, grueling pageant where the candidate who wins is generally the one who stirs up the most positive drama or at least less negative drama than the other candidate. It's just a media frenzy where the candidate who looks the best, guards his words and mind the best and who can make himself look the most 'american' wins. Sadly, Obama, being black, doesn't look 'American' enough for his fellow Americans. McCain and the Bush administration are likely to get another term in office just because the average American's capacity for ignorance and primitive thought is rivalled only by that of the zealots looking to destroy them.

There's fiscal conservatism and social conversatism and I think these are very different things. Fiscal conservatism is low taxes and prudent spending. Social conservatism is what I like to consider stubborn ignorance and religous/moral indoctrination. American Republicans right now are socially conservative but fiscally stupid. Canadian Conservatives, whatever the individual people believe, are socially liberal and fiscally conservative.

but the problem here is that you're acting like you're an expert on Nuclear safety, which you aren't. Numerous experts and agencies have attested that Linda Keen's assessment of risk was 100% bogus. Not surprisingly, Linda Keen, who is not a nuclear expert, has provided no support for her opinions nor has anybody been able to find any experts ready to support her. AECL reported that even if a catastrophic earthquake were to hit directly underneath the plant (an almost impossible occurence), the amount of radiation leaked within the plant would have been equal to that of a CT scan only IF all of the other safeguards failed. What's also interesting is why Linda Keen took 17 months to discover the problem at Chalk River. He was trained. He was certified. He did report. He was supervised. Walkerton happened because a trusted regulator abused his position and the only way to have prevented him from drinking and cheating on his job would have been to double the inspections and make sure someone supervised him when he was doing the inspecting. Doubling the water inspection budget is not something any party is advocating. Differ to a different expert then because the changes the conservatives have proposed as far as I have read haven't even been implemented yet. Oh my. The federal government has very little to do in regards to the day to day management at Chalk River. That's the AECL and Linda Keen's job. As far as I know, and I've been unable to find any information showing otherwise, but parliament had no idea Chalk River wasn't complying with safety standards until after the plant closed down. She made a GREVIOUS error in judgement in her over-reaction and parliament had to step in. She was fired for incompetence, which strangely enough was a unanimous vote in the House of Commons. You're laying a lot of blame but you have nothing to back it up with.

I can appreciate how expensive home care and the like are as I recently had to help a very old grandmother arrange it. The only problem with this is that it is PROHIBITIVELY expensive to provide it to the entire low-income senior population. I fear because of how much it and similar services cost the low income Baby Boomers are going to be in for an unfortunate surprise when our senior population balloons over the next 10-15 years.

I just think it is an interesting choice for leader of the party. Being fat is a lifestyle and the 'image' it exudes is the opposite of environmentalism, which is what the Greens are all about.

It will be amusing to see public opinion drop for the Greens after they get a good look at Elizabeth May. This will probably be taken as hugely offensive and I don't mean it to be a judgement of character but I find it somewhat ironic to see someone leading an environmental crusade who clearly eats more than her fair share. Eating too much food is also not good for the environment.

It was their decision to make. It was also their decision to fire her. There's something to be said about the 'arm's length' argument the opposition makes, but when you have an appointed official from the previous government deciding to close down a facility vital to world health on concerns that were ignored for many years before by the SAME OFFICIAL and discarded by the same previous government who appointed her, you have to question her motives. In this case, there's substantial reason to believe that this was a partisan decision by an arrogant bureaucrat to embarrass the current administration. She made a completely misguided decision that put tens of thousands of Canadians DIRECTLY at risk on the basis of another concern whose risk was negligible and completely unjustified by almost any expert's opinion. If the Canadian government is NOT responsible for making life or death decisions like this and we should be leaving them to petty officials with politically motivated agendas then I think I might move to Iceland.

Oh well that's a compelling response. Blame God I guess right? You're the one throwing blame around without any idea what you're talking about. Liberal Ministers were quoted saying that Walkerton was a tragedy that no government could have realistically prevented. The water inspector was a drunk and he was forging documents. To some extent, you have to trust that your watch dogs will not need watch dogs otherwise there'd be no end to how much regulation would cost. The head of Maple Leaf foods has stated that the Lysteriosis outbreak was his company's fault. You can't have meat inspectors on the floor 24/7 and thus again, you have to trust the companies to some extent on their own. Finally, Chalk River was only made into a big issue because a Liberal appointee made what is widely considered a politically motivated decision to close down a facility that I've now read provides desperately needed materials to hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide because of a less than 1/10000000 chance that something bad COULD happen. I've already countered all of your arguments. Your post was lame, biased and without any substance whatsoever. Try again.

Answering my question with another question and then some nonsense rhetoric about evil Harper and his dictatorship leads one to believe that you are just blowing hot air and have no idea what you're talking about. I'll ask the question again. How does recognizing Quebec Nationalism make ANY difference to you or me or anyone else?

The US election is bullshit and even worse bullshit than our own. If you think that American politics is somehow compelling than you should also check out: The Hills because it's all 100% drama put together by a bunch of suits campaigning to an electorate so dumb the rest of the world can't help but shake their heads. Why would anyone care which presidential candidate is more devoutly religious? Why are the main campaign issues whether Barack Obama thinks himself smarter than everyone else or not, or Sarah Pellin's pregnant daughter? How dumb does a country have to be to make a big fuss because someone won't wear a freaking pin on their jacket? The idealogical divide that you say makes US politics so interesting is nothing but political indoctrination to a degree that you see in VERY few other nations. There are a few 'swing' voters that do vote based on the issues and those are the ones campaigns are directed to, but 90% of the US electorate votes the exact same way every election because they grew up being told by daddy that democrats were evil socialists or republicans were run by evil corporations. George Bush has been one of the most disastrous leaders of the Western World in modern history. His bungles internationally and domestically rival those of leaders like Chamberlain and yet it's VERY possible that the American people will re-elect the administration that ran his government. Why? Because when you grow being told what to do and what to think your talent for making excuses and refusing logic/reason becomes lengendary. The majority of Canadians are pretty ignorant. The majority of Americans are so ignorant that you probably need to invent a new word to describe how ignorant they really are. Watching the American elections makes me sick.

and you fail to look a little further into the issue and realize that Chalk River was a problem that the Liberals had been ignoring for years before the Cons were elected. Shiela Frasier, the auditor general at the time, corresponded with Liberal Health Minister Herb Dhaliwhal warning that Chalk River was not up to snuff and that safety concerns were over time becoming significant. Dhaliwhal poo-pooed the exact same issues and said he thought everything was fine. Linda Keen had her job from 2001-2008 and these problems were made apparent well before the Conservatives were ever elected. I wonder if there MIGHT have been a little bit of political motivation in her choosing to raise a stink over the issue under the conservatives when she did absolutely nothing for the previous 5 years when the Liberals who appointed her were governing.

The tories aren't competing with the Green or NDP. Any gains they make will be at the Liberal's expense. Go green. Go NDP.

and how does accepting Quebec Nationalism affect you specifically? Is this maybe kind of like Liberal pandering to urban ethnic voters and immigrants? Yeah I thought so.

Walkerton happened because the water inspector in the area forged and cheated his inspections. It had nothing to do with a lack of funding. Next? You've failed to provide the link where you actually explain how it was the result of Conservative management that the public food inspections were inadequate. For all we know the problem might have happened under Liberal government as well. You need cause and effect to lay blame, not just effect. Otherwise you're just ranting partisanship. It is good management. On the one hand, you CERTAINLY endanger tens of thousands of lives worldwide and in Canada, condemning many to unnecessary death, and on the other, you run the almost impossible risk of a big earthquake which would endanger a few thousand working in and around the plant in the time it takes to complete the retrofits. You either default on an international responsibility that tens of thousands depend on for their lives or you run the 0.00000000000001% chance of an earthquake devastating Chalk River. The earthquakes in the area are barely felt and even if they're like 2.0 3.0 richters. You'd need a 6.0 or 7.0 for any damage to occur and even then it would be light. Linda Keen's assessment of risk was also WAY off according to most nuclear experts and completely out of touch with reality. Here's a former senior safety commissioner and current advisor of R&D for the CANDU: Linda Keen's Balogna Read that and tell me she made a wise and objective decision to close the plant down. Haha.

Oh I remember Chalk River I think. Was that the fiasco where an appointed Liberal, acting as a nuclear regulator, ordered the closure of the plant that produces most of the world's medical isotopes and thus would have been directly responsible for almost assuredly tens of thousands of lost and endangered lives worldwide? What was her reasoning again? Oh yeah. This plant, almost 200 kilometers north west of Ottawa, wasn't earthquake proof. Now, let's think this through. Should you: A ) Close the plant and most assuredly leave tens of thousands worldwide without medical material needed to diagnose cancer (which will lead to deaths) or B ) Keep the plant running, make the necessary repairs and improvements while it's running and run the 'danger' of a freak Northern Ontario earthquake (haha) large enough to endanger the plant and the town's tiny population. Gee I dunno...

I know that Mike Harris balanced the budget of Ontario after a $9 BILLION deficit (the biggest ever) under Bob Rae and then Flaherty balanced the budget EVERY YEAR he was finance minister until Mike Harris resigned. You can say what you want about Ernie Eves and what he did because even PC supporters feel betrayed by his legacy, but when you talk about Flaherty's record in Ontario why don't you ask Dalton McGuinty why he's whining about budget problems after something like $24 Billion worth of spending increases along with higher taxes since 2003. Hmmmmmmmmmm..............

When I think Bob Rae, I think, "Worst Premier of Ontario EVER" and so does most of the rest of Ontario. Rae recorded Ontario's biggest deficit of its history and he did this before the federal liberals cut transfer payments to the provinces. I'm pretty sure that Ontario will remember how he and his NDP screwed the province over and killed the NDP provincially ever since.