Evening Star

I'm pretty sure he speaks decent French by any reasonable standard but the bar tends to be set pretty high for an NDP leader these days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Canadian_parliamentary_dispute I'm guessing this is why Jean was brought up in the first place. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King-Byng_Affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Tupper#Prime_Minister_of_Canada.2C_May.E2.80.93July_1896

I do like a number of Reform's ideas about democratic reform.

So you have no problem with Mulcair's French citizenship then, considering that he's lived and worked in Canada his whole life? Cool, glad we're on the same page.

Yeah, Mulcair's handling of this is a pretty good sign of why he'd be the strongest match for Harper.

Ha, I started watching tonight's debate and then decided to watch a DVD of The Office instead.

You keep saying this as if it means something at this stage of Canadian political history. Even the Liberals are still trying to figure out what it means to be the Liberal Party right now.

These are definitely the sorts of things that should be decided by the party at a policy convention. I would find it inappropriate for leadership candidates to take strong stances on these things. It's not a primary for a Presidential candidate. Cybercoma's points are very well taken, however. Yes, they could certainly emphasize their areas of focus and personal strengths.

Cool, thanks.

Well tbh, I find it ironic that you posit Harper as the potential victim in this imaginary scenario since it is so similar to the actual angle that the Tories used to smear Ignatieff in the last election campaign.

I really like Dewar, actually! Everyone was saying earlier on that his French isn't good enough to be a serious contender (even if it's somewhere around Harper level) so I didn't think of him as one. Maybe things have shifted. (Apparently, I've been following this closely.)

I'm guessing that he's referring to government debt?

OK, this is the one legitimate criticism of Rae Days that I've heard.

What stances are they really supposed to take? I thought party policy is determined by the party at policy conventions, not by an individual? The contest has to do with who has the best chance of winning an election.

Didn't think the US allowed dual citizenship?

Yeah, it's been mentioned a couple times already that multiple PMs, most recently Turner, have held dual Canada-UK citizenship, by birth no less. I'm not very convinced either by the rationalizations for why it's OK for our monarch and head of state to hold UK citizenship by birth but not for a potential Opposition leader to hold French citizenship. I never had the sense that it was Dion's dual citizenship that sank him. Did people really care about that? Maybe I don't remember. xpost

You should be a campaign strategist, cybercoma. Is there a way we can spin this into "Conservatives eat babies"?

This assumes that the government is actually wasting large sums of money, which may not be the case.

This is the second time someone here has claimed that Rae Days meant that everyone had to work unpaid overtime! They were basically the opposite of that: public sector workers all had to take unpaid days off, i.e. their hours were shortened. http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/local/article/176559 http://raisethehammer.org/blog/401/ Even this editorial that is opposed to Rae Days defines them the same way I did: http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/239387

You're opposed to public service cuts then, even very modest ones?

I think I have less confidence in Rae's ability to win back Ontario, let alone the rest of the country, than I do in the NDP's ability to hold onto Quebec tbh.

I like Rae myself but do you have any idea of how popular he is with most New Democrats? Try searching for his name on Babble.

Where is the evidence that 'ordinary Canadians' give two craps about this, considering that we've had PMs who held dual citizenship by birth? A six-year-old comment by a dead member of the political class with a vested interest? How on earth is this comparable to MPs' pensions and benefits? Many 'ordinary Canadians' hold dual citizenship and manage to go about their lives.

I don't think we need free votes on every issue but since voters do only vote for their local representative, I do think these representatives should have greater power and autonomy to act as representatives as opposed to placeholders. Otherwise, if we must have the level of party discipline that we currently have, if MPs largely function to toe the party line and people are thus voting for parties rather than individuals, then I think we should move towards some type of proportional representation that actually recognizes this. I don't have a problem with a party winning an election with 35-40% of the vote but I don't agree that this should give the leaders of that party the level of control that it gives them now. I didn't like it anymore under the Liberals btw. However, I would much prefer a FPTP system where MPs just have a little more autonomy than they have now.

These sound good in principle. What are your thoughts on how this can be done? What do you see as lacking in the existing 'public forums for debate'? Does this mean you'd want to accelerate how much the PS already contracts work out? Something else I might lean towards is having a national public employment service, a national 'temp agency' of sort, perhaps.