Bryan

Cow-towing to the gossip mongers has nothing to do with either. Thankfully we have a government that is above that.

Considering how unprofessional and vindictive the media has been towards the conservative movement in general, and to Harper in particular, it's perfectly understandable why Harper doesn't have much to say to them now. If anything, it's commendable how accommodating he is sometimes. That he sits downs with Mansbridge for a one on one a couple of times a year is astounding -- it's far more than the CBC deserves.

Who knows, but a guy who leads by example the way Romney does is exactly the kind of political leader we need on both sides of the 49th.

Only if she chooses to.

You're right. The woman's obligation is significantly less. She's got a medical condition that will solve itself if she just ignores it, in less time than a lot of Canadians wait to have other medical conditions dealt with. A few months of inconvenience, and she's done. The man on the other hand, is being forced to bear a tremendous financial burden for (at least) 18 years. If he ignores that, it doesn't solve itself, he goes to jail. Even if abortion was 100% illegal, the woman is still substantially better off than the man is.

Parties call a lot of people to try to gauge support and/or change opinion. Undecideds are often a fairly significant block. Election day numbers for the CPC have been better than most pollsters predicted for five elections running. They are the only party to increase their support every single time over that period. They are clearly better at this than anyone else. Why would they volunteer to let the opposition know how they do it?

How do YOU think they know these things, cameras in people's homes?

I like what you're thinking, but the WTO might consider that a tariff and have a harsh opinion about it. It'd be worth trying though.

Both options are completely phoney. Find ways to make green energy more affordable and people will switch to it anyway.

Why not? If traitors want to try to take part of our country away, they'd be the ones declaring war as far as I'm concerned. Taking up arms against them would be an act of defense of our nation.

You know exactly why. CPC has the best "get out the vote" program, and the opposition would love to know how they do it. CPC is simply not going to let the opposition have an opportunity to hear what their conversations with voters sounds like, not even if the CRTC or Elections Canada orders them to.

No kidding. It's a garbled mess that should have been outright replaced a long time ago. That Americans revere it so much doesn't say much for their collective intelligence.

And yet, in the case of the Soviet Union, one of the most vile governments in history fell without either of those things happening.

Now you're the one being ridiculous.

Yes, both of them were left out in the editing.

These aren't binary choices. The local supply of guns needs to be removed AND smuggling needs to be stopped. Stealing already is banned, it just needs to be enforced.

Just because one thing isn't being restricted consistently enough, doesn't mean nothing can/should be restricted. Besides, anyone can grow/make drugs in their basement with little to no previous knowledge of them.

Where did the firearms come from? Closing down all otherwise legal avenues of gun procurement also removes those avenues from criminals who might steal them or coerce their way into possessing them. Less legal guns means less guns that can become illegal.

I don't know about debate, but keeping track can be informative (and fun) over time. The general trend in the past has been a spike in popularity for a new opposition leader, followed by a return to something pretty close to what the actual election result was. It's interesting to see if that's what's going on now considering so many other things have changed. So far, it looks like that's what's happening, and at least for me it's very interesting to follow along as see if it continues (or if it doesn't, where the difference happens). Are you saying you don't find it interesting?

Lefties lecturing about fiscal management is hilarious. You'd almost think they actually believe the goofy things they say.

You have to love those EKOS polls that don't add up to 100%. Must be why they always short-change real CPC support by at least 5%.

Cutting for the sake of cutting is a necessary evil. Every single department needs to know that they must reign their budgets in. If they don't decide what can go, someone else will decide for them. When it gets to that point, they've already abrogated their right to complain about what got cut. If you didn't ramp the spending up, you wouldn't have lost whatever you thought was so important.

Whether or not it adds anything to our economy (or truly affects the price of food), supply management should be gotten rid of anyway. A marketing board that's optional? Sure. But to set it up so that producers are not ALLOWED to sell outside of that board? I'm in constant disbelief that this level of communism was ever allowed to exist in the first place.

It's deeper than that. It's not just the success of the national party/leader that affects the local candidates' chances. That candidate also has to manage contradictory expectations from their constituents. Some will want the elected official to act local and/or act with conscience, but a large number will expect that MP to stick to furthering the party agenda. In Wilks' case, while it's quite likely that he did get a call from the PM, it's even more likely that that he got a LOT of calls from constituents who made it very clear that they did not invest their votes, volunteer time, and money into his campaign so that he could start freelancing.

Many polls right before the last election also claimed the CPC would get substantially less support than they did. CPC real support is almost always higher than what the polls say, NDP's is almost always lower. Take a look at the numbers leading up to the election: Opinion polling in the Canadian federal election 2011 Not much different than now.