ReeferMadness

The per vote subsidy was a good system for reducing the influence of money in politics. That's why the Cons eliminated it.

Maybe that has something to do with the astonishing frequency with which the US Government has lied to its own citizens and the rest of the world.

And surprisingly, that's far from the most elitist thing I've read from people on MLW.

I find that 95.2% of right wingers on MLW just make stuff up because they're too lazy to do a little research. Do you have any evidence of your claim? Or should the mods just helpfully delete this thread and ask you to do a little digging?

You misunderstood my point. Yes, PR forces parties to compromise and work together. That's how democracy should work. What FPTP does is encourage the type of game playing that Harper has become famous for. Boutique tax credits, negative campaiging, voter suppression techniques, wedge politics. When it takes just a couple of percentage points to move a government from minority status to "majority" then the government has little incentive to work with other parties and lots of incentive to play games.

It's a game. And Harper plays the game very well. It's the only reason he's still in power.

This is a perfectly feasible scenario and is exactly why we need PR and better rules on party donations. Under FPTP, parties have a huge incentive to play political games because a few votes can make the difference between opposition status and forming a "majority" government when you have all the power.

This isn't a foot race. If the CPC and the Liberals wanted to form a coalition and could convince the GG that they had the confidence of the house, that's perfectly valid under our system of governance. That would make the CPC raving hypocrites, given that they accused the Liberals and NDP of staging a coup a few years ago, but CPC hypocrisy is the norm anyway.

Certainly, the image of Mulroney taking bags of cash for services of dubious value makes you wonder what might have transpired while he was in office. But I think the Harper brand of corruption is much more insidious and, in the end, much more damaging. He's developed a consistent pattern of dishonesty and underhandedness that has permeated his entire governance - from the practice of omnibus bills loaded with unrelated clauses to the tilting of election rules in his favor to the blatant dishonesty in his PMO during the Duffy affair to the unprecedented use of government advertising for partisan purposes. This is a government that has lacked any pretense of honesty or integrity and bent every rule for political advantage. Mulroney and, to a lesser extent, Chretien, were corrupt in a monetary sense. But Harper's regime has been corrupting democracy itself. The definition of corrupt from dictionary.com Tell me that is a perfect description of Harper.

That's because they see the rampant hypocrisy of a movement that started out to clean up Ottawa morph into the most centralized and corrupt administration in living memory.

True dat. On many fronts, the federal NDP are now to the right of the federal Libs. It you too NDPers from the 70's and showed them what their party has become, they'd be horrified. Idealism has morphed into crowding the centre.

This "private citizen" was the Prime Minister's chief of staff and he paid off a sitting senator. You should be thankful that Nigel is in the witness box and not trial himself. And then they covered it up and then they covered up the cover up. And now it looks like everyone is lying, including the PM. All of this from the government that campaigned on cleaning up Ottawa. Is that really so hard for you to understand? I know you would prefer we would all move on to more important items. Like conservative ads that poke fun at Trudeau's hair.

It's worse than that. People will ridicule those who tell them they are going off the side of a cliff and listen to messiahs who tell them that they are really flying.

You're right. People say that they want their politicians to be honest. But what they really want is someone who promises them they can have it all with no consequences. That's what Harper and Mulcair are promising right now. And they are the frontrunners. Read the nonsense that people post around here. People believe that the world is a magical garbage dump. Whatever we do, the world will just "adjust" and we don't have to deal with the consequences of our actions. Scientists who repeatedly warn us of the risks of our actions are only out for more research grants. So, we can just trust the magical fairies who tell us that the free market will fix everything. We just need to have more faith. The predominant religion in today's western world isn't Christianity. It's right wing economics. It doesn't work. And every time it fails, we're told it's only because we didn't have sufficient faith to adhere to it deeply enough.

You're absolutely right. The planet is fine and it will be. Whether it will still support 7 billion humans, however, is very much an open question. But that's OK - don't worry yourself over that. Just turn up the seat warmer in your SUV.

Just keep telling yourself that. It probably works better with heavy doses of pharmaceuticals. You can be the last one to believe it.

There is no serious investment in alternative energy in this country. It's for show. Dinosaurs like Harper and Wall will ensure that fossil fuels are milked to the last drop, even if it destroys the environment and hurts us economically down the road as everyone else has moved on. It's a gold rush mentality. Meanwhile, China has gotten into solar in a big way.

I'm less fussed about how conservative he is than how honest he is. I don't think that Harper would be there if he conducted himself with honesty and integrity. Brad Wall may be hot stuff in Saskatchewan. See how well he plays in Ontario and Quebec.

Because the usage of fossil fuels is hugely damaging to the planet and should be gradually eliminated. There will still be need for oil but I would think that less dirty, conventional fuels would meet demand for non fuel use.

Well, that would be worth celebrating.

They should be shut down - in time. But your paranoia that any of the current crop will do anything close to it is utterly ridiculous. Nice fear mongering.

Wouldn't it be easier to talk about those if he actually provided them?

And CEO's are dictators. Democracy is irrelevant.

A practice that belongs in a banana republic. Or maybe a petro state.

Not according to the Harper echo chamber. Harper is the CEO. His power should be unlimited. Why aren't you genuflecting?