Molly

Maybe governments shouldn't endorse the nomination papers of far-out people who have crazy axes to grind. Maybe governments shouldn't pretend to be supportive of those far-out people/ideas when talking to them and to their far-out supporters, but insist that they don't share those 'insane beliefs' when being observed by anyone who would be offended by them. Just sayin'.

From that link: "The federal government wanted to increase the control Canadians had of the oil industry and provide some relief to Eastern Canada in the price of oil and gas."-- in other words, butt into a provincial-jurisdiction resource industry, abscond with the profit, and give it to the East. Where's the lie? It was not a new strategy-- the colonial attitude to the newer provinces had existed for longer than those provinces had, and Trudeau was more guilty of dismissing and ignoring them than most. NEP was just the step too far.

Punked is right about senators starting off beholden to whoever appointed them even though they are out of reach of the whip. The beauty of the system, though, is that senators outlast prime ministers, and every year they are there, fall further out of the reach of mere partisanship. That's what makes short term limits so dopey. They would be getting fired just when they are becoming truly useful! Partisan rubber stamps are not valuable; sober second thought, well informed, politically savvy and outside the reach of the flavour du jour... that is valuable.

That said, the CTV over-the-top, all-out cheeze-for-brains gush about the royal wedding is hard to explain. They could have spent the same time/effort/money on something that actually mattered, but chose not to.

To be fair, the media 'failure to cover' must be partially chalked up to media 'failure to exist'. If the local daily/weekly has 10 reporters to cover the activities of the area, then those events are pretty likely to be covered and covered in depth, but if that same weekly shares a single reporter with three or four other community advertiser rags, you could drop a bomb on city hall without the press noticing. Economic stresses have removed many many of those 'feet on the ground', so non-net news relies on fewer and fewer feeder sources, with less and less time/space/information to flesh out what does appear. I understand the lazy gossip and copycat sound-bite sort of reporting. It's all that a reporter has time to do, and all that their employers want from them. I hate it, but I get it.

Now, Mulroney deeply underwhelmed me on his first kick at the leadership. My assessment of his character and worldview has subsequently been proved very precisely accurate. The old PC party had 'Progressive' tied to the name for solid reasons. They did indeed have a social concience, along with a little lot of respect for taxpayers pockets and taxpayers privacy (and taxpayers analytical capacity too, though that was proved to be trust misplaced). One of the really great things they had going for them was a reluctance to place all (ever-increasing) authourity in the PMO. (While I like a fairly strong central government, that tendency to crown an individual despot was one big thing I held against Trudeau.) Another was a willingness to tell the truth even when the truth was unpleasant. (Jack Horner was great. He could be counted on to tolerate fools badly, blow a fuse and spell out the way the real world worked.) As you say, Bill, I could vote for the Liberals (of the last decade) and have the thing most similar to the pre-Mulroney Red Tories, but I do like 'em a little bluer than that,and never was fond of the Liberal failure to commit to an idea. Depending on the leader, they fluttered in the wind forever pandering for a vote, not making a decision. The CPC would have had my vote the first time but for offering me a completely unacceptable candidate. They have subsequently proved to be a social experiment gone horribly wrong... I'm hard-pressed to think of much that I hold any general agreement with them about... just arctic sovereignty and the long gun registry, both of which they seem eager to brag about, but unwilling to spend any political capital to accomplish. Evening Star... ... when you put it that way.... The NDP is a hard sell. That fundamental disrespect for parliamentary institutions doesn't fly well with me, and neither does their doubtable attitude to money, and to collectivism. I would call myself and much of my lifes work a victim of Roy Romanow, so federal NDP has a lot of proving up to do.

That's pretty funny. Anti-women; anti-science; anti-parliamentary; anti-peace; anti-accountability; anti-democratic; (anti-truthtelling); anti-informed-decision-making..... That's not 'bringing the Party (back to) the Centre' so far as I can see. (And what Freudian quirk is betrayed by your capitalization of 'Party' and (U.S.A. spelling)'Center'?)

And the party only ever fell into the hands of Peter MacKay because it was already in death throes, a direct result of having abandoned all judgement to select Mr. Mulroney of the obviously doubtable ethics and the strange attitude to Quebec nationalism. I have not forgotten, Bill. I'm still pretty darned bitter about it all.

You may not have noticed, but Mr. Harper has a track record on the subject, in which he has given remarkably free rein to the 'whackados'. The active anti-choice rep of both party and prime minister relies partly on the PMs apparent personal opinion; partly on the wink-wink failure to quell Lunney and Bruinooge, that whackjob from Humboldt and so on, the all-round general suckup to the anti-choice crowd AND on things like the mealy-mouthed dodge game played around the third world healthcare initiative that led to the utterly hypocritical, anti-healthcare notion that maternal health could somehow be properly served if abortion was utterly removed from the menu of healthcare options. It's not picked out of the air. What's more, 'unlikely' isn't even close to good enough protection when it comes to challenges to that most basic of rights.

If as true and binding as it is made to sound, then that's good, good news. However it sounds rather more like the same beginning of term pep-talk that would be handed out in every new government caucus: "Try not to embarrass us all." It's fine, but not particularly meaningful.

Good observation, Small c. I note that Bob Fife was shipping that same load this a.m. There are some- a few- who are truly trying to offer clear, concise, accurate and thorough information, but they live in a sound-bite world. These are not good times for real journalists.

I'm happy enough to blame the Liberal party for its own apparent demise, just as the death of the Progressive Conservative party was a suicide, not a murder. There's plenty of reason not to vote Liberal past, present, and possibly future as well. There just happens to be a lot more reason for me to not vote CPC. Nice prose, though. A charming shade of purple.

Don't be an ass. I'm not the only self-described Tory posting on this very forum board who wouldn't vote for these goofs on a bet or a dare, and certainly darned well didn't vote for a CPC candidate on May 2. The RL list is much,much longer, and the list of folks who have been looking in vain for an alternative- almost any alternative- is growing. That nasty habit of personal aggression toward those who say things you don't want to hear is one of the least lovely traits of new Conservatives, and just one of the reasons so many who have a clue are 'disgusted and fearful'. Yours is a gang of thoughtless bullies, Sandy. Thoughtless bullies that don't seem to have much for self-imposed limits on their conduct. (You fit well among 'em.)

Yep. You are definitely naive. Dunno... have you ever had any doings with any senators? Certainly they pretty much all got there through some partisan service, but they are not frighteningly different in outlook from any Joe Voter... Anybody here over the age of 22 who has voted for the candidate from one particular party at every election in which they have voted? They have the great advantage of being out of reach of the partisan flavour du jour. No need for secret ballots there. To be elected means that they must be a first-class, long-term party suckup and not just a handy sycophant Hand in hand with shortened terms, it means that they have to stay that way. (unlike now, where once in, they are bound bytheir own concience)

That situation can't exist. By disapproving the PM, one is disapproving a primary/foundation decision made by that government. If they can't even be trusted to competently select their own leader, what can they trusted with? It's a little like saying you have a really great mechanic, except for the part about being incompetent at fixing/maintaining your car.

Sorry Bambino- I lost your comment in x-post yesterday /would have replied directly and immediately had I seen it. IMNSHO, party names should not appear on ballots either, and most otheracknowledgementsandpriveleges -fund raising, for instance- should only be acknowledged on a constituency/individual candidate basis. Parties are already given a far greater nod than they are due, and that standing should be trimmed, not expanded and/or firmed up. Parties are more of a parliamentary problem than a solution. The 'backbenchers are useless/all MPs are beholden to the in-crowd', while largely true, is a problem of too much acknowledgement/engagement with parties, not too little. Someplace in all of this must come the realization that MPs are directly answerable to the people who elect them. If the people don't hold up their end by responsibily choosing who will represent them, and holding those individuals accountable (denying the parties that power by holding it themselves)then there is no amount of tinkering with party/parliamentary structure/relationship that will save them from their own neglect. The horse is already standing knee deep in the water....

And there, exactly is the problem, CPCFTW. When dealing with a binary question -a dichotomy, yes/no,black/white, yin/yang- then if it ain't yin, it must be yang, and there's no 'swing' about it. A hairsbreadth nuance of a lean is all it takes. Mr. Harper has worked very hard indeed to create a two-party, clash of extremes system, and it may prove in the end to be as bad for the CPC as for the LPC. The NDP, though will almost certainly be the beneficiaries of that absence of a moderate option. Hold onto your hat. Unless the NDP stinks beyond stink in opposition and the LPC pulls off a miracle, we're on a one-way road to an NDP government. The CPC will not govern in perpetuity/lots of folks who would describe themselves as Tories are already sick to death of them, disgusted and fearful of what they plan to do/ so if NDP is the only alternative, then it's on.

The selection of party leaders is again, not the business of parliament, but of the parties... and I'm creeped out by the use of secret ballots by MPs performing the business of the nation. I don't much care for secret ballot as it applies to the speaker, and I'd lead marches against it in the selection of a prime minister. There is NOTHING that an MP does on behalf of the people that should be outside the review of the folks that MP represents.

There's a lot that's interesting in your post overall, but none of this part is any of our business. Political parties are private clubs. We have no more right or interest to pass legislation controlling things like this than if the club in question was 4-H, or soccer. The parties can choose for themselves who they will or will not endorse, or the means by which they will make that decision. If you don't like the way they do it, then don't join that party (or do join, and change it from within). If you don't like the candidate and don't think they've been democratically selected, then don't vote for them. I find it a bit scary that folks- even fairly knowledgeable folks- seem to assume a far greater government role for parties than they actually have, and that those parties are somehow mandated by and necessary to our government. Scares me,and annoys me.

......does that actually solve either concern, though? It may be fashionable to address every issue by adding yet another layer, but does it ever actually accomplish anything? My instant reaction to it is to see hyperpartisan but poorly attended extra elections, selecting a crew that don't so much have any big-picture expertise as they have a fashionable (short term and thoughtless), politically partisan axe to grind. Aka... complete waste of time and heat... actually worse than an all-out referendum. (And... if you must have a national election for a single question, you may as well present the actual question and save the cost and complication of a body whose only function is to relay an aye or nay. What's the point of having actual people if that's the sole role?)

When we need healthcare, legal advice, mechanical services, electrical or plumbing work...yada, yada, yada... we consult(almost to the point of blind obedience) a professional expert in the field. If nothing else - representative democracy allows for meaningful consultation with folks who have more than a cursory grasp of the issues involved. We need look no further than these very pages to see how often many or even most are operating from a negligible information base, getting their tails in an unholy twist based on ignorance and/or misinformation- so yeah, sometimes the voters get it wrong. (And when they do, they pay the price.) Not all management needs to be micro-management. I see that obsession with direct democracy as ...well.. thoughtless, and in being ill-considered, it is completely representative of the sort of decisions that government by referendum-neverendum would bring us. I'd rather have a trusted delegate studying and deciding constitutional adjustments on my behalf than leave it in the hands of the unresearched 35 or 40% of voters who eenie-meenie an option that they haven't actually read, much less understood..

I'm not referencing them as being 'crazy out there', but just that they are decidedly not the middle. Would even describe themselves as not occupying the centre. It does not make so much sense to me that the one in the middle should be the smallest/weakest of the three when the human opinion being represented and described is truly more a bell curve. While we all have our tendencies of perspective (and certainly our partisanships) we are not really so ideologically driven as all that. We cluster at that peak, and overall have differences that are really only nuance....

Not likely meaningful at all. He was raised Methodist-- wich is basically just a branch of the C of E. Lots of folks, especially when he was a kid, wouldn't differentiate at all.

Wow. Small town Sask, and I grew up knowing more jewish folk than folks who shared my own ethnic background. My best school pal was jewish/favourite aunt converted. My house had those cute little plates on the door frames.... I'd expect 'political junkies' to be aware of the existence of Sid Spivak...

Mmmm... depends on what your mind's eye picks up as 'as they are'. IMO this is a centrist nation (begging the question of the definition of centre)- the extreme right/left dichotomy a false one, and falsely presented in our parliament. 'Moderate' (and pragmatic) remains the majority attitude, if not the recent voting pattern.