Scotty

A huge chunk of the 'support' for the NDP is a fad, and the people who support them don't even know what they stand for.

Just saw Mulcair on CBC now defending her. He said she went through french immersion in school, but 'what is considered bilingual in Ottawa isn't considered bilingual' in her riding, so she has some work to do. Mulcair promised the citizens of her riding that he and his office would be lending her and them whatever assistance was needed until she was up to speed. And he dismissed the supposed memory lapse of one couple who signed her papers as unimportant.

I don't disagree here. But we must remember that there are a certain number of areas the Tories could not go near before due to their minority status, but which their base - and frankly, their voters, will welcome intervention. Just because doing so sets a number of people howling, that's not necessarily a reason not to, so long as the howlers are made up of people who never voted Tory and are never likely to vote Tory. Almost everyone who voted Tory this time around is, at least, a fiscal conservative, or leans that way. No one who wanted big government intervention was likely to be voting for Harper. So on fiscal issues they should have an all-clear - except where that conflicts with the support many fiscal conservatives have for social support networks. But there are a lot of ways to appease their base without turning off the centre. The gun registry is history, and its elimination is not going to cost him any of the people who supported him this time around. The vote subsidy was always opposed by the majority of Canadians, and certainly by all those who voted Tory. I saw Kenney interviewed the other day and he was reminded that something like 99% of the Tories at their last convention voted to repeal the censorship provisions of the human rights act, and Kenney admitted that's an area they will be taking a look at. I doubt mainstream Canada would be very upset at a curtailing of the powers of human rights commissions. Tougher laws and parole are supported by every person I know, including the Harper haters. So there is lots of room for them to please the right without upsetting the centre.

Did mine online today. It probably took less than a minute. Odd thing was the guy next to me was mailing his back because he wasn't given that option. He had a paper copy to fill out and mail. Wonder why.

I would've taken him up in the helicopter to about the same height as the ninetieth floor of the WTC, then blown him out the door with a flame thrower so he got to feel what it was like for those desperate people who jumped that day.

Bush cheney is now a fan of Obama?

The ministers of state serve dual purposes. First, they give something to do to energetic people who might otherwise go off on tangents and do something stupid. Second, it lets them study these 'junior ministers' in action to see if they have an capability to rise higher.

Michael Chong's name was suggested on CTV

Maybe the parliamentarian of the year for last year! Sound right?

Ah, then he's a shoe-in for cabinet. Mind you, he would be regardless of race. Indian Affairs minister, maybe?

Libby Davis?

Unfortunately, selecting a cabinet is not merely a case of picking the smartest, most capable individuals. It's political, and you have to take people from across the country. Just about anyone elected in Quebec will wind up in cabinet, which is unfortunate, because with the loss of what, three Quebec cabinet ministers, one assumes the talent is pretty shallow in what was left. The Tory that got elected in NF will be in cabinet, and they'll have to take one or two from PEI and NB. Doesn't matter if any of them have brains or not. They had a number of bright people elected in and around Toronto, including a former ambassador (foreign minister?) and a surgeon (health minister, or maybe health care reform minister?), as well as an investment banker. Caught this in the Star, mentioning possibles among newcomers there. Toronto Minsters among newcomers

It started out as a reward for good behavior, and an acknowledgement that a prisoner had made great strides at rehabilitating himself. It became a budget saving measure.

Maybe, but don't forget Harper is a founding member of that Reform wing, and he didn't get into politics to see the new Conservative party become the same soulless political machine the old P.C.s turned into. The Tories, like the NDP, have an ideological reason for existing - and that's conservatism.

We need to move towards a Western European style health care system. And yes, that includes private for-profit services.

It will be Leblanc. Quebec, now that the BQ's hold has been broken, has enormous potential for the Liberals. They will focus their efforts there. The NDP have nothing even remotely like a solid hold on all those seats they got. The enthusiasm for them will fade, and if the Liberals show up in four years with a sensible, Quebec oriented platform and a personable French Quebec leader they will get dozens of them back. Popularity in Quebec has always carried a caveat with Ontario, and so it will help them there, too. They might not build all the way up to a new government, but they'll come out respectable, doubling their seat count, if not more.

I would expect that money going to unnecessary programs, particularly 'cultural' programs would be considered to be of a lower level of importance. The CBC will probably be losing some money and told to do more advertising - if not privatized. Services which are seen as a duplication of provincial efforts, particularly in areas of provincial responsibility, could also face the axe, or severe pruning.

There is no constitutional right to parole, let alone mandatory parole after 2/3rds of your sentence.

All the allegations I've seen from the opposition concerned the Tories eliminating the 'mandatory supervision' rule, and that it was this, and toughening other parole applications, which required more prisons, not that the government was going to 'create new criminals'.

Well... crime is down...

Apparently, though, they're smart enough to tell the difference between wiretapping and online information gathering. There is a difference, y'know. All this will require is that an ISP tell them who someone is if they see they've made some sort of radical comment or threat, ie give them your name and address, which is not much different than looking up your phone number, really.

It's not a 'mental illness'. It's history. You probably don't remember and don't care about the ridicule, the jeers, the contempt and scorn heaped upon the Reform Party when they first showed up in Ottawa, but it was continuous, and led by the Liberals - gleefully, in fact. Every slightest insinuation was blown up into a national scandal. Every slight verbal misstep was pounced upon to defame the entire party. The Liberals ensured that a goodly number of the population were convinced the Reform/Alliance/Conservatives were little more than brown-shirts eager to start up the concentration camps. This continued through the Alliance years and into the Conservative years. After all those years, Harper has every right and reason to despise the Liberals.

My earnest hope, and perhaps it's naive, is that now that he has a majority he doesn't have to shrink from the accusation that he's trying to destroy health care. This has been an accusation flung at them for years. Remember Stockwell Day desperately holding up a sign at the debate!? I think fear of that kept them from addressing health care issues, and now, hopefully, they are free to do so. That doesn't mean simply allowing private health care. It means, to me, moving us towards a more rational, multiple tier health system like they have in Europe - that's social-democrat Europe, btw, not fascist right wing evil American loving Europe.

So how do corporate interests influence the government without donations? Other than promising jobs, new factories, etc.

Puuuuurfect! Let all the poor people die! They don't pay taxes anyway!