The Numbers Don't Lie. Ignatieff On His Way Up

[KeyStone]

If it did mean that the Tories became a predominantly western party so what? What else would be new? As I had said, the Liberals are obviously an eastern-only party.

A Western party isn't going to be our Federal government. In addition to the West, the CPC also has a strong base in non-Toronto Ontario.

The Liberals are not an Eastern only party. Granted the CPC won more seats and had a higher percentage of the vote, but the Liberals fared well in all provinces but Alberta.

Look how quickly they were willing to dump the West with their attempt at a coalition!

I must have missed the part of the Coalition agreement, where they agreed to jettison the West.

Harper acted as if he had a majority, trying to financially cripple the other parties, at a time when the Liberals were in dissaray, and did not have the money for a new election leaving them no choice but to attempt to topple the government. If you don't understand how our parliamentray system works, and are still convinced that it was an undemocratic coup, then perhaps both you and our current Prime Minister need to take a remedial course in Canadian politics.

After all these years, I'm beginning to suspect that Canada should give up the attempt at being united across the continent. If the only way you can keep people in a country is with bribery, force or negating any other choices then perhaps you don't deserve to BE a country!

Perhaps you are right there. Quebec, Alberta and Newfoundland are destroying this country by continuing to exploit Canadian's desire for unity, by using the parties self-interest as a tool for unfair one-sided deals. Once we get an Ontario party showing the same level of greed and disinterest in Canada, this country is through.

[kimmy]

The Liberals are not an Eastern only party. Granted the CPC won more seats and had a higher percentage of the vote, but the Liberals fared well in all provinces but Alberta.

The Liberals won 5 seats in BC, and 1 each in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, none in Alberta. That's 7 seats out of 92.

They didn't reach 20% support in any of the 4 western provinces.

By what possible stretch of the imagination could they be considered to have "fared well" in the west?

They have continually shown that they just don't "get it". Ignatieff himself concedes as much:

“Sometimes we've fallen prey to the temptation to run against the West, you know, to run against Alberta, to run against the Saskatchewan energy sector. This is not the way to go,” he said.

G&M: Ignatieff vows to do things differently.

-k

Edited February 17, 2009 by kimmy