Ignatieff inner circle shrinks, 2 more aides depart

[Hydraboss]

Strike one against the CPC.

If you include fountains in other cities... thats Strike TWO against the CPC.

HST would be strike three, and you are paying thrice on that baby. One to fund the tax, two to implement the the tax, and three to put the tax upon the tax.

CPC is out....

So, who are you voting for.... LOL

Tell me about it...

This is what is so frustrating. I can't vote to the left of the CPC, but the CPC themselves are far too left for me. Without a credible party to the right (and being raised that it's my duty to vote), I'm left with a voting choice that IS no choice.

Plug thy nose and cast thy vote.

[madmax]

Without a credible party to the right (and being raised that it's my duty to vote),

You have been raised well. I too was raised that it was my duty to vote. I too have plugged my nose, even regretted it once, but then you get to change it the next time. My biggest struggle when I was younger was and still is to some degree on the municipal level from the Mayor, down to the school trustees. Its when I get here, that I put myself in others shoes who don't follow politics Federally or Provincially and have no idea who the candidates are what any political party stands for. I mean no knowledge. So they have no idea who to vote for even if they feel they should vote. Thus they stay home. I have alot of respect for people who vote and who follow politics because it is a duty.

When I read your comments about no party on the "right", it becomes clear to see why the CPC are moving up and the LPC is moving down. That is where the Liberal Voters are moving and the CPC may get there majority because of it.

[Hydraboss]

When I read your comments about no party on the "right", it becomes clear to see why the CPC are moving up and the LPC is moving down. That is where the Liberal Voters are moving and the CPC may get there majority because of it.

I have said this for a very long time now: The CPC will move left and will gain from it. Not because it is what the "majority" of Canadians want necessarily, but because those on the "right" will not stay home out of fear of the "left" winning and have no one else to vote for, and those that typically vote Liberal will be given an option they can live with.

It's sad but it's true. It's not that the CPC are trying to retain their base, it's that they CAN'T lose them because they're the only game in town.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

I have said this for a very long time now: The CPC will move left and will gain from it. Not because it is what the "majority" of Canadians want necessarily, but because those on the "right" will not stay home out of fear of the "left" winning and have no one else to vote for, and those that typically vote Liberal will be given an option they can live with.

It's sad but it's true. It's not that the CPC are trying to retain their base, it's that they CAN'T lose them because they're the only game in town.

Nonsense. The left doesn't stay home very damned often either. The gig here is that the CPC is indeed moving left. That is why their star is rising. One should be careful about that.

[Hydraboss]

Nonsense. The left doesn't stay home very damned often either. The gig here is that the CPC is indeed moving left. That is why their star is rising. One should be careful about that.

So what then is the option for the true conservative voter? There's no one left on the right to vote for. The "left" doesn't stay home during voting time, so if the "right" does, it's all over and we know it.

Why should one be careful about anything? The CPC know people like me will vote for them regardless of how far left they move, as long as they are the "most right" choice. You talk as though there are options available that both satify (or nearly satisfy) my political leanings AND keep the Liberals out of power. If you know of such a party, please share.

[noahbody]

I may have underestimated this person to a large extent. He has turned the party 180 degrees to the point where most of us see it standing on its head and spitting nickels.

Ignatieff is just a puppet for those who appointed him.

[jbg]

Tell me about it...

This is what is so frustrating. I can't vote to the left of the CPC, but the CPC themselves are far too left for me. Without a credible party to the right (and being raised that it's my duty to vote), I'm left with a voting choice that IS no choice.

Plug thy nose and cast thy vote.

The NDP isn't far enough left for me. Who should I vote for?

[jbg]

I have said this for a very long time now: The CPC will move left and will gain from it. Not because it is what the "majority" of Canadians want necessarily, but because those on the "right" will not stay home out of fear of the "left" winning and have no one else to vote for, and those that typically vote Liberal will be given an option they can live with.

It's sad but it's true. It's not that the CPC are trying to retain their base, it's that they CAN'T lose them because they're the only game in town.

Back in 1987 Reform didn't follow that dicta. Edited November 17, 2009 by jbg

[Jerry J. Fortin]

So what then is the option for the true conservative voter? There's no one left on the right to vote for. The "left" doesn't stay home during voting time, so if the "right" does, it's all over and we know it.

Why should one be careful about anything? The CPC know people like me will vote for them regardless of how far left they move, as long as they are the "most right" choice. You talk as though there are options available that both satify (or nearly satisfy) my political leanings AND keep the Liberals out of power. If you know of such a party, please share.

Those candidates that you seek are independent. Accountable to the voters instead of partisan pecking orders. they reflect the will of the people. Most people are REAL Conservatives not party hacks.

[Wild Bill]

Those candidates that you seek are independent. Accountable to the voters instead of partisan pecking orders. they reflect the will of the people. Most people are REAL Conservatives not party hacks.

Unfortunately, you are offering a utopian "dream world" solution. In Canadian politics as they are today, voting for an independent is a vote for a powerless representative.

If someone waved a magic wand so that we had enough independents to control the House it would be different and your dream might work. Sadly, that's just not the way it is.

One of the strongest tenets of the old Reform Party was the idea of each MP voting the way the majority of his riding's constituents wanted, regardless of his own feelings. We saw that with Chuck Cadman's last vote, just before he died.

Later, with the new CPC revealing itself to be just a clone of the old PC party, we saw what happened to Bill Casey in Nova Scotia when he voted for his people instead of his party. He won as an independent but it was a powerless victory.

If wishes were horses beggars would ride and if my granny had wheels she wouldn't bump her ass when she hoppped, or something like that!

I respect your dream but do you have any ideas that might WORK?

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Unfortunately, you are offering a utopian "dream world" solution. In Canadian politics as they are today, voting for an independent is a vote for a powerless representative.

If someone waved a magic wand so that we had enough independents to control the House it would be different and your dream might work. Sadly, that's just not the way it is.

One of the strongest tenets of the old Reform Party was the idea of each MP voting the way the majority of his riding's constituents wanted, regardless of his own feelings. We saw that with Chuck Cadman's last vote, just before he died.

Later, with the new CPC revealing itself to be just a clone of the old PC party, we saw what happened to Bill Casey in Nova Scotia when he voted for his people instead of his party. He won as an independent but it was a powerless victory.

If wishes were horses beggars would ride and if my granny had wheels she wouldn't bump her ass when she hoppped, or something like that!

I respect your dream but do you have any ideas that might WORK?

Sure, fire the guys in office. All of them and elect nothing but independents. Let the show begin! They will have several options, all but one of those would violate the campaign promises to represent their constituents. The only solution is a coalition government, with all members party to. The best and brightest becomes the Prime Minister. He will be the guy able to bring people together. After that it is a freeforall with a one man one vote basis for legislative purposes.

[punked]

Looks like the way to right this ship is to hire more people linked to Adscam?

Stephen Taylor: New Ignatieff aide has sponsorgate links

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/11/17/stephen-taylor-new-ignatieff-aide-has-sponsorgate-links.aspx

Maybe the only people willing to take a chance on Iggy are those already ruined by this thing.

[Wild Bill]

Sure, fire the guys in office. All of them and elect nothing but independents. Let the show begin! They will have several options, all but one of those would violate the campaign promises to represent their constituents. The only solution is a coalition government, with all members party to. The best and brightest becomes the Prime Minister. He will be the guy able to bring people together. After that it is a freeforall with a one man one vote basis for legislative purposes.

Fine! While you're at it, I'd like a pony for Christmas!

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Fine! While you're at it, I'd like a pony for Christmas!

Look folks, the answer is available. It cannot be found within a partisan framework that simply cannot work for everyone. Yet an independent representative can and does work for everyone.

The politicians need to be made accountable and they need to be made to work in our best interests. We need to be able to elect a leader. We need term limits to public office instead of career animals at the public trough. We need recall legislation to handle bad politicians. We need citizen referendums binding on government in order to have the will of the people heard by government. This nation needs many things in addition to the daily business of running government and exactly how that is done.

We have the means to define and limit the powers and authorities of government and we need to use it to clean up the mess we have allowed to be made by wanton self-interested politicians.

[myata]

No, no we don't want a pony. Or in fact, anything new or different that is one microinch away from what we've grown used to in the two hundred years since this country was created. The terrible whine and "misunderstanding" of coalition - or that semi micro proportionate experiment in Ontario (really - it must be indeed so mentally tough to come to understand that two, three, five parties can actually form an accord and govern in agreement - something folks pretty much everywhere else have figured out decades back) has shown it very clearly. So let's finally be honest with ourselves - we don't really want anything new, debatable or resembling of movement or change. All we want is comfortable and smug retirement in the same smug old house built decades and generations back. And therefore we'll have nothing to complain when our only two "governable" parties offer us just that, without any real contest, or difference between them. After all, this what we want - collectively - and it's exactly what we get. The ramblings about "lack of choice" are only customary venting. What's the point of having a choice, when one doesn't really want, or need any?

[Jerry J. Fortin]

No, no we don't want a pony. Or in fact, anything new or different that is one microinch away from what we've grown used to in the two hundred years since this country was created. The terrible whine and "misunderstanding" of coalition - or that semi micro proportionate experiment in Ontario (really - it must be indeed so mentally tough to come to understand that two, three, five parties can actually form an accord and govern in agreement - something folks pretty much everywhere else have figured out decades back) has shown it very clearly. So let's finally be honest with ourselves - we don't really want anything new, debatable or resembling of movement or change. All we want is comfortable and smug retirement in the same smug old house built decades and generations back. And therefore we'll have nothing to complain when our only two "governable" parties offer us just that, without any real contest, or difference between them. After all, this what we want - collectively - and it's exactly what we get. The ramblings about "lack of choice" are only customary venting. What's the point of having a choice, when one doesn't really want, or need any?

The need is to "fix" government so that our children are not buried in tax debt and are made to kowtow to partisan politics.

[myata]

The need is to "fix" government so that our children are not buried in tax debt and are made to kowtow to partisan politics.

That depends fairly and squarely on what we want (no actually, what we are). Thriving, live political contest can only exist in the society that is politically savvy, looking forward and not afraid of change. In other words, alive. Otherwise, we're bound to keep that tweedle duo forever, they'll stand by for each other in cases of major screwups, but otherwise would follow exact same (with miniscule, barely noticeable variations) policy, ie. "do nothing unless your back is firmly and squarely against the wall". If that's what we want / are, we have achieved our ideal, and have nothing more to ask or desire from this (political) life.

Edited November 18, 2009 by myata

[Jerry J. Fortin]

For me, this democracy is a long way from being the enlightened society of my dreams. In my view we have much to do to get to that point.

[myata]

And yet, without curiousity to invent or see new, and intelligence to understand it, as well as courage and will to act, we'll be stuck exactly where we are forever.

[Wild Bill]

Look folks, the answer is available. It cannot be found within a partisan framework that simply cannot work for everyone. Yet an independent representative can and does work for everyone.

The politicians need to be made accountable and they need to be made to work in our best interests. We need to be able to elect a leader. We need term limits to public office instead of career animals at the public trough. We need recall legislation to handle bad politicians. We need citizen referendums binding on government in order to have the will of the people heard by government. This nation needs many things in addition to the daily business of running government and exactly how that is done.

We have the means to define and limit the powers and authorities of government and we need to use it to clean up the mess we have allowed to be made by wanton self-interested politicians.

Nobody's arguing about needs, Jerry. The problem is the "how"!

I've yet to hear you offer a method of getting the changes made that you envision, except for your long lists of "needs".

More simply, how do you get enough people on side with you to actually accomplish your goals? Don't tell us what you think should be done, tell us how you intend to get it done!

Anybody can make a wish.

[Anacoluthe]

The problem with the LPC is that they doesn't have a vision of the Canada anymore. They were the "natural governing party" in the past because of that. They were the one who were used to know where to go and bring their values and the country along with them. The conservative were there to act like a break on a car: to slow them down a bit when most of the people thought that the changes were going too fast.

Now, the LPC doesn't have much ideas, nor vision, they don't even have a program that you can read to know what they want to do. To make everything worst they are a lot disorganized.

I think it will take sometime for this party to reorganize, find new and younger faces with new ideas.

We've seen it with the "Green shift". There's a saying something to the extent that "staying still is going back". So obviously, majority of Canada is in no way interested in going anywhere (like environment friendly, sustainable economy, social policies, like meaningful child care, accessible college education, investment in modern city infrastructure, urban transit, high speed trains, etc), just staying where we are and enjoying what we have.

1) The "Green shift" was, at least in french, clearly explained as a reorganisation of the tax: the more CO2 you produce in a province, the more you pay. Of course, when in Quebec you produce about 11 tons of CO2 par person (wich is extremely minimal compared to the world average) and in Saskatchewan and Alberta it's about 5 to 6 time this... I could understand that it was explained more obviously in french than in english. The point of the "Green Shift" was to create a very strong incentive toward provinces with lot of pollution to make less (and I guess that a 500% tax raise is a good incentive to reconsider the benefit of exploiting the tar sands... though the changes in taxation were'nt that dramatic and more progressive than that).

2) What you described, looks a lot like what we see here in Quebec and that is defended by the Bloc... Unfortunately for you, they are separatist and doesn't run MP in the ROC. So I guess they won't do for you.

The problem is that many of the things you think are going forward are what I would call wastes of money that I shouldn't have to pay taxes for. I DO NOT think that I should have to pay for other people's child care. I DO NOT think that I should pay extra for social programs. I think the cities themselves should pay for urban infrastructure and transit and do NOT think that's a provincial or federal responsibility. If the city wants these things, they should raise their taxes and pay for them. Then maybe we wouldn't have half our population living in the GTA/Montreal areas.

What YOU call 'moving forward' I consider unfair and wasteful spending towards have-nots.

I guess so... But you know... those stuff you paid for people living in big cities also provide a lot of benefit to you: it's the price to pay for the rural Canada to have a market to sold their stuff and earn that money. Without those people working in cities who need all those things that you don't want to pay for... you wouldn't have job nor money. At best you would be a farmer barely able to grow enough stuff to feed his family the way it was 200 years ago.

And about welfare... well, you also benefit a lot from it. It's the best tool to reduce crime rate. Where welfare is decent, people manage to avoid doing crime. When you don't have that what do you think will happen? Hint: look at the Zaire permanent riot/civil war since the last 20 years to know. You may think that people qill quitly starve in the street but truth is: they will fight for surviving whatever if it mean to broke the law: someone hungry and desperate will commit crime to survive. Just look how the crime rate is 4 time higher in Calgary than in Montreal. Yeah, may be people in Quebec are a bunch of social-democrat-leftist, but there's 4 time lower chances for them to see their child raped or get murdered.

You don't live in a bubble. That money that is used to solve problem far away from you KEEP THOSE PROBLEMS FAR AWAY FROM YOU.

Oh... and by the way... the market is faster and smarter than you... if you cut the taxe by 10%, very soon the prices raise up by .... 10%! So the only result of a tax cut is more money in the pocket of the big company that hold the biggest share of the market. High tax mean higher redistribution... wich is the only way for 99% of the citizen to effectively receive a biggest share of the common wealth of the country. The only way you can benefit from low tax in the long run is if you are part of the 1% wealthiest population. Otherwise you're only shooting you in the foot.

What happened to the LPC in Quebec?

Very simple - same thing as in the ROC. With CPC moved toward the mainstream "center", there isn't anymore enough political room for two in the same electoral bed of aging, apathetic, focused above all else on preservation of status quo and self gratification "average" voter. The Conservatives are better suited to capture that segment due to their long time concept of "little government" (plays into aging "average" voter's aversion to change) and natural propensity to stoke fear, like e.g. that non-existent crime wave (plays into aging "average" voter's perception of golden old times).

Nope. What's happen in Quebec is that even the PQ have ceased to call for a referendum and instead move for an autonomist path. In Quebec, there's two kind of sovereignist: urban and rural. Urban sovereignist are social-democratist-leftist while the rural sovereignist are much more conservative. So now, we see that under the very high pressure of many millions promises, some of those conservatives sovereignist start to move toward the CPC. It started in Quebec city area but could eventually reach most of the Quebec rural area (save the Beauce wich is usually liberal... though Maxime Bernier is the exception). The Bloc have kept the conservative at bay by keeping out of reach of the conservative a lot of sovereignist voters... now that seem to be less true up to some extent.

On the other hand, the liberals don't manage to get back the leftist sovereignist voters. They probably would have to admit that the way that 1982 events took place was unacceptable before the Quebecois could ever start to trust them again. They also have a bit too much of a "centralized Canada" ideal, without room for an asymetric federalism, to make the Quebecois feel really confortable, especially the leftist.

That's why the CPC may expext to win up to 30-35 seat in Quebec (under the best circumstances), while the LPC is totally unable to win the 40-45 seat they could expect in Quebec (save for the dozen of stronghold they already have) if they manage to cut with their Trudeauist past and get a way to proove that they are a better alternative than the NPD.

Right now, in the eventuality of a collapse of the bloc, the 75 seats of Quebec could looks like (accordingly to the right/left division of the vote by seat): 15 LPC, 30-35 CPC and 25-30 NPD.

The problem of the liberals in Quebec is quite simple: Trudeau did great at first, until he was commonly recognized by the francophone as a "treator"... and they seem to cling on the Trudeau heritage... while Pierre Elliott Trudeau is probably the most despised politician in history by the Francophone (most of them will know that Hitler or Staline were worst, but they will HATE Trudeau more). All this because of the way he manage to make the new constitution without Quebec in 1982 (doing it sneakyly by night).

To argue that quality of living should be a universal standard is pretty much agreeing with communism.

Quality of living or egality of living isn't the same thing as egality of chances.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Anacoluthe

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Nobody's arguing about needs, Jerry. The problem is the "how"!

I've yet to hear you offer a method of getting the changes made that you envision, except for your long lists of "needs".

More simply, how do you get enough people on side with you to actually accomplish your goals? Don't tell us what you think should be done, tell us how you intend to get it done!

Anybody can make a wish.

I will suggest the "how" exists within the parameters of the largest demographic inside this nation , and that is the apathetic voter. Now the question of gaining their support becomes the question du jour. The key to that equation is displaying the one single issue that citizens agree upon, and that is their dislike for income taxes. A vast majority of Canadians believe they pay to much tax. There are three levels of taxation plus the various forms of sales taxes and consumption taxes. All of these things detract from disposable family income and that pisses off the citizens. Hoist that flag in front of the voters and you will get their attention at least if not full blown public support.

Of course we all know that those taxes pay for all of the programs and services that we desire. Cutting any of those programs will prove detrimental to acquiring the support desired. Therefore an alternative form of revenue stream generation for public expenses must be found to replace the existing framework. One way to do that is to eliminate income tax altogether and replace it with a consumption tax based on a percentage designed to be revenue neutral to the existing framework. This can be calculated by using the posted GDP and dividing it by the federal budget. Those number vary day to day, but you get the idea. Call it GST on roids if you like, but it would get the feds out of our pockets and only be taxing us on what we spend, not what we earn. This is similiar to how tax is calculated on business, not on earnings but on profits.

[madmax]

No, no we don't want a pony.

Some of us do. I am not alone in wanting a pony. But that was along time ago and he got away too many times.

[madmax]

The problem with the LPC is that they doesn't have a vision of the Canada anymore.

Quality of living or egality of living isn't the same thing as egality of chances.

Nice Post... Welcome to MLW.

[myata]

Some of us do. I am not alone in wanting a pony. But that was along time ago and he got away too many times.

Can't have it all. Somebody else will have a pony, and we'll have our comfy, quiet and uneventful retirement in this old age of democracy. To each, their own.