Evening Star

Not at all.

Hm? Imperial measurements are not consistently duodecimal at all. There are 16 ounces in a pound for instance. And while 180 (the number of degrees F from freezing to boiling) is a multiple of 12, it's really a bit weak to use 15*12 instead of 12^2 if you want a duodecimal system (and that wasn't Fahrenheit's reasoning afaik). There are 8 pints in a gallon. 5280 (the number of feet in a mile) is 440*12 but again, that's not really a sensible duodecimal multiple. A mile is 1760 yards, which does not divide evenly by 12.

He was foreign affairs critic before the leadership race and did very well in that role, I thought. (Most certainly not a radical leftist.) I like him a tonne, being from Ottawa myself, but I don't see him as being ready to be Leader of the Opposition yet.

This seems REALLY overstated to me.

Do you have a citation for this? Anything I've seen has just suggested that Cullen wants to do joint nominations in strategic ridings so that PR can be implemented right afterwards, which would make a merger unnecessary, according to that line of thinking.

Thought you said earlier that you'd vote Liberal in this situation? I've changed my mind about things a couple times on this thread so I've got no beef with anyone changing their mind: I'm just checking if you changed your mind or if you actually meant something different.

I'd like to see a list of 'regressive' actions undertaken by the Romanow govt when Topp worked for them. (Also, I'd like to see that website post a comparison between Quebec tuition rates and tuition anywhere else in Canada or the US.) Edit: Also, some background on the power and status of unions in Quebec vs elsewhere in the country

True enough but the Ontario PCs did not collapse after Harris's reign the way the federal PCs did after Mulroney's. I don't have a sense that Harris is universally loathed in the same way. Many see the Common Sense Revolution as something that was necessary after Rae's term. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think your average middle to upper middle class suburban Ontario voter (who might like a tax cut) fears Conservatives/PCs the way they do the NDP. (The last election suggests that I'm not wrong.)

Olp1fan, if you've been paying any attention at all, you'd know that I'm voting in the NDP leadership race. I've donated to and volunteered with the NDP. I'm anything but a Conservative shill.

Mike Harris was re-elected to a second majority government after his first term.

Olp1fan, you're assuming that the LPC and NDP are both 'left' parties and the CPC is a 'right' party. Not everyone sees it that way: for people who voted Liberal because they liked Paul Martin's economic policies, for example, the Conservatives could easily be preferable to the NDP.

This has been known to be a long-term Conservative goal: weaken the Liberals so their supporter have to choose between the NDP or CPC. The Conservatives were banking that many would choose CPC - and they were right.

You know, they do poll these things some times and ask people how they voted in the previous election etc. (For example, we do know that something like 25% of the people who voted NDP in 1988 voted Reform in 1993.) My understanding was that there was some polling that backs up what you're saying. I never really doubted that many suburban Ontario Liberal voters would swing CPC if they had to choose between the CPC and NDP.

I don't think Peggy Nash holds her own even in the NDP leadership debates.

For me to even consider supporting a merger, I'd need to see someone propose a coherent set of principles and policies for the new merged party (and, obviously, they'd have to be ones I could support), something beyond desperation and a desire to win/beat the other guy.

Olp1fan, even if I were to accept your premises, which I don't, you still haven't shown why Cullen's idea is any good. xpost OK, you realize that what Cullen is proposing is not a merger, right?

The Alliance and PCs merged. They didn't pull some half-assed 'joint nomination' scheme in certain ridings while running against each other in other ridings. If someone wants to advocate a merger, I could at least take that idea seriously.

OK, yeah, that could get expensive. I mean, I've stated my preferred system already, which would be very easy to implement compared to most of the other suggestions.

I don't have any problem with the system you propose.

I could respect his idea more if he were advocating an outright merger. There is just no sensible reason why NDP candidates should run competitively against Liberals in some ridings and co-operate with them in other ridings. Are they two different parties with different agendas who are competing with each other or are they not? It's so half-baked and actually leads me to question his judgment more generally. And, as you note, he hasn't even run it by the Liberals. When MPs get elected on their own (or their party's) merits and then decide to co-operate on certain issues in the House, that's an ENTIRELY different thing. Edit: I think I've been convinced to leave him off my ballot. Another edit: Your last sentence leads to another problem with this: it assumes that Liberal and NDP voters all oppose the Conservatives more than they oppose each other or even more than they support their own party. In my opinion, that's not a safe bet. I think there are, for example, many Liberal voters in suburban Ontario who would prefer the CPC to the NDP and NDP voters in Quebec and the Prairies who might choose the BQ or CPC over the NDP.

WWWTT, are you sure you're not confusing j44 with someone else? I've not seen anything that suggests that he is a conservative either.

Would you use a preferential ballot or hold a second election in the riding?

Is that the same as the AV system that the Brits voted on?

To clarify, I oppose PR or MMP as long as it's some sort of party list-based system because I think that would give too much power to political parties. There may be other forms of PR that I could be open to. However, I'd be satisfied if we kept the existing FPTP system and allowed MPs more autonomy.

Tbh, a party with the political culture of the NDP and the policies in the 2011 Liberal platform might come closer to my ideal, especially if they also advocated for weakened party discipline and significantly more liberal copyright laws. Edit: So why do I oppose a merger? I'll have to think that through.