Evening Star

Well, what were Rae's sins? A deficit? He governed during a devastating nationwide recession. The social contract? That was probably one of the fairest ways any leader could have made cuts without excessively hurting too many public employees. Plus, it actually worked OK and made Mike Harris's job a little easier. And he had some accomplishments too: rent control, anti-scab legislation, educational reforms, Jobs Ontario. He probably was relatively ineffectual though, which doesn't really make him seem that inspiring as a choice for PM. Who knows though?

I think TB's prediction is quite possible. I always wonder how much of a role this will play. By the time of the next election, we will have first-time voters who were born after Rae's term as premier ended. Leblanc or perhaps Kennedy would be much stronger choices (for the reasons you give).

With the last couple of elections, I was assuming that, at least for urban and especially Montreal-area voters, people were voting for the BQ's leftism more than for their separatism/nationalism. Now that Duceppe really seems to be emphasizing the latter, I'm really interested to see what the QC results will be.

This makes some sense, actually...

That poll is striking but still seems like an outlier.

Don't you think there's a difference between private charities raising private funds and the federal government using tax dollars?

Ha, yeah, considering that I just explained to my parents what Facebook and Twitter are a couple weeks ago, Layton's line probably flew right by them.

It's possible that I went in with very high expectations of Ignatieff and was excessively disappointed.

No, I said the same thing on another board last night!

Ignatieff made Stephane Dion look masterful in comparison. I actually empathized with him a little since it is very difficult to speak extemporaneously in public, let alone in a high-pressure situation like this, but he was hopelessly repetitive, clung to catchphrases ("shut down everything you can't control", "let ... flourish") and dwelled on relatively minor issues or even issues that will probably work against him (the gun registry) without, as you note, doing much to emphasize his own (imo excellent) platform. Harper performed depressingly well, although I'd like to see him with a lie detector test. I thought Layton was quite strong as well, and much better than in 2008. His use of 'hip' slang was pretty embarrassing though. Am I misremembering the last debate or two or has Duceppe thrown away all previous restraint in terms of openly rejecting multiculturalism, proudly advocating for the extension of Bill 101, and boldly referring to "Quebec and Canada"? Whatever ideological kinship I ever felt with him has fully dissipated. His demeanour was kind of fasincating in its raw aggression though.

I preferred the Liberal platform before the debate. The debate really nudged me back towards the NDP.

I do also think that we should actually wait for the final report without arriving at conclusions (and am glad that no one reads my drafts ).

This leak does still seem to show a lack of transparency verging on manipulation of Parliament, unusually high expenses, and inadequate documentation. I don't think it's a total 'nothing'.

Yeah, it's not exactly a forgery, I'll give you.

Think he's referring to this: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/11/cv-election-weston-ag-fraser.html

Actually these don't seem wildly unlikely, if you substitute "slash funding for" for "defund":

This is really intriguing... Afaict, the UK coalition has mostly worked because of Clegg's near-total capitulation. I don't really see Layton doing the same so I'm actually pretty curious how this would work out... Maybe something like the centrist, fiscally prudent NDP govts in MB/SK? Or something like the UK's wartime coalition where the Conservatives handled military/foreign policy and the socialists got to manage domestic social programmes...?

Hm, what do you mean by that? Are you talking about Clark?

Let me guess: The solution is for everyone to vote Liberal. There is a fair amount of fluidity between CPC/LPC support as well as between BQ/NDP support.

Social democratic option for federalists with a brilliant high-profile Quebec MP? The Liberals are also campaigning as such but perhaps their conversion is less convincing in Quebec? To be honest, I was surprised the NDP didn't do better in Quebec before.

RNG, why do you think Norway's Statoil has been so comparatively successful, if Petro-Canada was not?

Hm, well, there's probably a lot I don't know about it... but by all accounts, Petro Canada was heavily involved in exploration and drilling of oil within Canada: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/petrocanada/ So were they not selling any of this oil??

I could live with that, actually.

(TB, I'm guessing he was commenting on the use of "right" as an adverb, which seems to be part of Maritime dialects.)

Actually, the NDP are usually pretty up-front about raising taxes, ending fossil-fuel subsidies, and limiting our military actions. Whether you think those ideas would work is another matter but I never see the federal party buying votes with promises of goodies without explaining where the money would come from. (I've always associated that approach with the LPC, tbh. Maybe the NDP would be more successful if they tried it.)