Canadian Political Polls

[msdogfood]

What numbers would you be talking about there, Ms. dogfood?

The numbers that count are the ones at the ballot box.

Just as a comment, it is not popular among special interest groups, who tend to be very vocal, to downsize government in any respect. Note the very vocal issues of the gun control registry and the cancellation of the long form census. Special interests wish to keep them alive. I think Harper believes they are somewhat unnecessary federal government intrusions.

The uproar over these two issues, especially the long form census, tells us how important big government is to some people and to what lengths they will go to maintain it. It is so odd that there is such opposition to the abandonment of the long form census. There was nothing but complaints about it when there was no concern of losing it - with the threat of it's loss...all of a sudden it's Armageddon.

I think you have gotten bad information!!?.

I am guessing you got it from The CPC?? you need to do some closer research!.

[Dave_ON]

Dave, if this was a more normal situation I would agree with you 100%! The difference is, the Liberals have been no more successful at being perceived as a good choice than Harper.

Agreed but in all honesty the onus is on the incumbent to stand on their record. The longer they are in office the more difficult it is to prove you've done a good job and that the alternatives can't do any better.

I predict that the CPC will pick up a couple of seats but not quite enough to reach a majority. The Liberals will also pick up a few extra. I don't expect many to agree with me but I think those few Liberal wins will be in Quebec! I think the trend in Quebec is that as younger voters get more active they will turn to the Liberals. The Bloc is an old man's party, fighting a stereotype of Quebec's relationship to Canada that hasn't been true for decades.

I have to strongly disagree with you on this point. I don't realistically see the CPC picking up any seats based on the trend of the last year. They've lost a lot of ground. Many of the ridings they took were very close calls and I think honestly those seats will be lost. Based on current circumstances, short of a stroke of political genius, it appears the CPC will squeak out a weakened minority, or what would be more advantageous to them the LPC may pull off a slim minority.

The loser will be the NDP! The few seats each of the other two gain will come from them. Like the Bloc, they too have been slowly looking more and more old-fashioned. The Greens stole the sense of "now" away from the NDP, yet the Greens also don't have enough support in any specific riding to yet win some seats. So I see them as a spoiler in some ridings for Jack and his crew. They will increase their share of the popular vote, of course. If by the next election they get some experienced people and a leader that doesn't appear to be a flake they may well reach the magic threshold and send a few members to Ottawa.

That's difficult to say, the Bloc with their current leadership campaign extremely well. Poll numbers aside, the Bloc under Duceppe has never failed to surprise. The NDP is somewhat of a wild card at this point and it's difficult to say how their fortunes will change next election. They certainly haven't gained any ground, but again, they haven't really lost any either.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Dave_ON

[punked]

What would you consider under educated? High School diploma only? High School drop out? College Degree, community college? OR does educated mean University doctorate in philosophy?

Liberals use that term a lot, uneducated. I really don't get it, I have 2 university degrees, and working on a third while working. My father dropped out in grade 9 yet is a smarter man then I will ever be. I really don't understand the Liberals use of the term uneducated.

[Wild Bill]

Liberals use that term a lot, uneducated. I really don't get it, I have 2 university degrees, and working on a third while working. My father dropped out in grade 9 yet is a smarter man then I will ever be. I really don't understand the Liberals use of the term uneducated.

It is deceptive, Mr. P! Not all Liberals are that arrogant but it does seem like that view is more popular in that circle.

What they're really saying is FORMAL education! The premise is that education only comes from schools and is only true and useful if there is an accredited diploma involved.

This is a relatively recent idea. Older generations took it for granted that you never stopped learning! Most labour jobs required only a grade school education and office jobs perhaps a few years of high school. Universities were for teachers, scientists, engineers and the like.

Over the decades I saw three factors that perhaps contributed greatly to today's situation. First off, we had some high unemployment periods during the 80's. I still recall my boss putting an ad in the paper for a new hire to the order desk. He got a stack of resumes 3 feet high. He told his secretary to change the ad to require at least two years of post secondary education. The next pile of resumes was much smaller and it was an easier job to peruse them. It didn't make any difference to what really was needed for the job. It just made HIS job easier for a new hire!

Second, schools started really selling the idea that industry and business should support post secondary schooling because the schools would be providing them with a "pre-trained" employee, reducing a firm's training costs. Also, if you needed an electronics technician to keep your factory motors running you could assume that the higher marks he had received the better a technician he would likely be.

Third, hiring became almost exclusively the province of the Human Resources Dept. Formerly, HR (or Personnel as it used to be called), filed the paperwork. Now they did the interviews. The Department Manager rarely did interviews anymore. An HR person (who had no experience at all with the job in question!) would conduct interviews and fill out forms. Instead of a personal conversation with someone knowledgeable to assess an applicants skills and aptitudes we now have take the academic credentials as gospel instead.

Not surprisingly, now we often hear grumbles and complaints from Department managers asking "What kind of idiots do they keep sending me??"

To get back to your original query, many Liberals have thrived under this new scenario. They've gotten good jobs due to academic qualifications. Many are teachers themselves. Since their perspective is so narrow, they tend to get arrogant sometimes and believe that ONLY those who followed their path can be educated!

Me, I tend to judge a person's education not merely by his schooling but also by the size and type of library he keeps at home! A truly educated person would have achieved such by having a passion for his field. He would have kept buying and reading relevant books long after his school days were over. Even more impressive is when the titles show he's kept up some breadth to his education, with books from different subject areas on his shelf.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Perhaps this would warrant its own thread.

Edited September 7, 2010 by Wild Bill

[punked]

It is deceptive, Mr. P! Not all Liberals are that arrogant but it does seem like that view is more popular in that circle.

What they're really saying is FORMAL education! The premise is that education only comes from schools and is only true and useful if there is an accredited diploma involved.

This is a relatively recent idea. Older generations took it for granted that you never stopped learning! Most labour jobs required only a grade school education and office jobs perhaps a few years of high school. Universities were for teachers, scientists, engineers and the like.

Over the decades I saw three factors that perhaps contributed greatly to today's situation. First off, we had some high unemployment periods during the 80's. I still recall my boss putting an ad in the paper for a new hire to the order desk. He got a stack of resumes 3 feet high. He told his secretary to change the ad to require at least two years of post secondary education. The next pile of resumes was much smaller and it was an easier job to peruse them. It didn't make any difference to what really was needed for the job. It just made HIS job easier for a new hire!

Second, schools started really selling the idea that industry and business should support post secondary schooling because the schools would be providing them with a "pre-trained" employee, reducing a firm's training costs. Also, if you needed an electronics technician to keep your factory motors running you could assume that the higher marks he had received the better a technician he would likely be.

Third, hiring became almost exclusively the province of the Human Resources Dept. Formerly, HR (or Personnel as it used to be called), filed the paperwork. Now they did the interviews. The Department Manager rarely did interviews anymore. An HR person (who had no experience at all with the job in question!) would conduct interviews and fill out forms. Instead of a personal conversation with someone knowledgeable to assess an applicants skills and aptitudes we now have take the academic credentials as gospel instead.

Not surprisingly, now we often hear grumbles and complaints from Department managers asking "What kind of idiots do they keep sending me??"

To get back to your original query, many Liberals have thrived under this new scenario. They've gotten good jobs due to academic qualifications. Many are teachers themselves. Since their perspective is so narrow, they tend to get arrogant sometimes and believe that ONLY those who followed their path can be educated!

Me, I tend to judge a person's education not merely by his schooling but also by the size and type of library he keeps at home! A truly educated person would have achieved such by having a passion for his field. He would have kept buying and reading relevant books long after his school days were over. Even more impressive is when the titles show he's kept up some breadth to his education, with books from different subject areas on his shelf.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Perhaps this would warrant its own thread.

It seems to come up a lot. People say Conservatives are supported by the uneducated, and while I think the Conservatives are bad for many reasons it support base not always having a formal education is not one of them. Like I have said I have been to school, I am still in school, I work a well paying job that however does not make me better OR smarter then someone with out even a high school education. End of story.

[Alta4ever]

Me, I tend to judge a person's education not merely by his schooling but also by the size and type of library he keeps at home! A truly educated person would have achieved such by having a passion for his field. He would have kept buying and reading relevant books long after his school days were over. Even more impressive is when the titles show he's kept up some breadth to his education, with books from different subject areas on his shelf.

Anyhow, you get the idea. Perhaps this would warrant its own thread.

I agree with you 100%.

[nicky10013]

Edmund Burke? Disraeli? William F Buckley? A google will give you quite a list but you have to specify 'classical conservatives'. Today, popular usage has Americanized the term conservative and it means something very different. You'll get Sarah Palin, hardly an intellectual! There will also be confusion with religious groups. Some of this re-definition is journalistic confusion. Some of it is a deliberate propaganda technique, in order to make conservatism appear less of an intellectual philosophy and more of a "hick" lifestyle.

Actually, true intellectualism seems on the decline with both Liberals AND Conservatives! Too much ad hominem name calling and not as much logic and reason.

But the reasons for that would be another thread entirely!

As someone who has read Burke and Disraeli, the notion that he would approve of today's conservatism is laughable. As for William F. Buckley, isn't he the guy in the stetson on TV commercials arguing for green solutions to the oil problem?

[Bonam]

Me, I tend to judge a person's education not merely by his schooling but also by the size and type of library he keeps at home! A truly educated person would have achieved such by having a passion for his field. He would have kept buying and reading relevant books long after his school days were over. Even more impressive is when the titles show he's kept up some breadth to his education, with books from different subject areas on his shelf.

A good notion. Perhaps getting a bit outdated, however. I learn something new in my field or related subjects almost every day, but not by purchasing and reading physical books. I think that most people these days, especially the motivated and technically savvy, get an overwhelming majority of information via their computers. [

[Jack Weber]

As someone who has read Burke and Disraeli, the notion that he would approve of today's conservatism is laughable. As for William F. Buckley, isn't he the guy in the stetson on TV commercials arguing for green solutions to the oil problem?

No...William F. Buckley is dead...He's the former editor of the National Review conservative magazine...

Smart guy,but I was never a fan of his adherence to neoliberal economic theories..

The guy you're talking about(I think)....Is T. Boone Pickens...

[waldo]

from today's Nanos poll:

National

* Liberals: 33%

* Conservatives: 33%

* NDP: 16%

* BQ: 12%

* Green: 6%

Ontario

* Liberals: 43.2%

* Conservatives: 36.2%

* NDP: 13.2%

* BQ: -

* Green: 7.4%

Quebec

* Liberals: 27.3%

* Conservatives: 15.6%

* NDP: 10.8%

* BQ: 40.7%

* Green: 5.5%

[charter.rights]

from today's Nanos poll:

National

* Liberals: 33%

* Conservatives: 33%

* NDP: 16%

* BQ: 12%

* Green: 6%

Ontario

* Liberals: 43.2%

* Conservatives: 36.2%

* NDP: 13.2%

* BQ: -

* Green: 7.4%

Quebec

* Liberals: 27.3%

* Conservatives: 15.6%

* NDP: 10.8%

* BQ: 40.7%

* Green: 5.5%

With Quebec numbers that high for the Liberals it could spell doom for Harper.

[Keepitsimple]

I would think the Libs would be getting ready to pull the plug.....very, very soon.

[Wild Bill]

It seems to come up a lot. People say Conservatives are supported by the uneducated, and while I think the Conservatives are bad for many reasons it support base not always having a formal education is not one of them. Like I have said I have been to school, I am still in school, I work a well paying job that however does not make me better OR smarter then someone with out even a high school education. End of story.

Then you have a bit of something just as valuable as education, Mr. P! You have some perspective! Even perhaps, wisdom!

This will stand you in good stead all your life. You are one of the few Canadians who doesn't automatically believe someone with extra degree initials on his name tag or who wears a white lab coat.

[Wild Bill]

As someone who has read Burke and Disraeli, the notion that he would approve of today's conservatism is laughable. As for William F. Buckley, isn't he the guy in the stetson on TV commercials arguing for green solutions to the oil problem?

As I said, today's idea of conservatism is NOT the classic one! It is an Americanized version confused with fundamentalist Christianity and deliberately portrayed as a philosophy of rural hicks as an ad hominem tactic of the liberal media.

It is a caricature limned by an adolescent juvenile and bears no relation to reality.

For that matter, modern Liberalism has the same lack of connection to its classical roots. It is simply a mechanism of brokerage politics, buying votes in order to acquire or stay in power. It seems to have little or no underlying philosophy or values in practice, although it always proclaims such to the heavens when challenged!

If it walks like a duck...

Actions speak louder...

[nicky10013]

As I said, today's idea of conservatism is NOT the classic one! It is an Americanized version confused with fundamentalist Christianity and deliberately portrayed as a philosophy of rural hicks as an ad hominem tactic of the liberal media.

It is a caricature limned by an adolescent juvenile and bears no relation to reality.

For that matter, modern Liberalism has the same lack of connection to its classical roots. It is simply a mechanism of brokerage politics, buying votes in order to acquire or stay in power. It seems to have little or no underlying philosophy or values in practice, although it always proclaims such to the heavens when challenged!

If it walks like a duck...

Actions speak louder...

I think it is mostly a rural philosophy. Hicks is your choice of word.

As for modern Liberalism, the stance for greater individual Liberty has always been there and always will be. I've said this before but on all the modern issues regarding individual liberty - gay marriage and abortion - it's always the liberals on the side of more freedom. As for the rest of it, I think people seem confused. Firstly, people see brokerage politics as a bad thing. Well, Harper and the CPC are as much a brokerage party as the Liberals. We all know how far to the right Harper leans with his writings from the NCC or whoever the hell he worked for. We also know how right wing a lot of his caucus are. Yet, he's shut them up and has had for the most part the Conservatives running on a Liberal platform with Liberal budgets just to win power.

Secondly, I think people are getting confused with the Liberals and their no stance on nothing. The party is more pragmatic than it is ideological. Thats not to say it isn't partisan, of course it is. However, being partisan and ideological are two different things altogether. I think pragmatism says we need to try to implement what we know works best. We have to develop our own solutions but not be afraid to try and go where other nations have successfully gone. Those things change because society evolves. I think that's a good thing. I don't want a government that claims to have all the answers because no government does.

[nicky10013]

I would think the Libs would be getting ready to pull the plug.....very, very soon.

When I said fall, people called me crazy...

[Oleg Bach]

Relative to alcohol and nicotine addiction?

No the addiction to instituional pandering...rule by poll is a disgrace..Thats like saying - I want to stay in power - no matter what - so if I run a poll where to men want to bang each other and call it marriage..then I will support those two leachers..after all two more votes is two more votes..

Where are the leaders that will do what is right and good for the people? Those who do not worry abour re-election and having EVERYBODY like them...

Polls should be banned and a benevolent dictatorship should take the place of democracy - it would be an easy switch - from malevolent dictatorship to a benevolent one - besides...why to the haters get to have all the power?

[Wild Bill]

I think it is mostly a rural philosophy. Hicks is your choice of word.

As for modern Liberalism, the stance for greater individual Liberty has always been there and always will be. I've said this before but on all the modern issues regarding individual liberty - gay marriage and abortion - it's always the liberals on the side of more freedom. As for the rest of it, I think people seem confused. Firstly, people see brokerage politics as a bad thing. Well, Harper and the CPC are as much a brokerage party as the Liberals. We all know how far to the right Harper leans with his writings from the NCC or whoever the hell he worked for. We also know how right wing a lot of his caucus are. Yet, he's shut them up and has had for the most part the Conservatives running on a Liberal platform with Liberal budgets just to win power.

I would expect you to think that conservatism is "mostly a rural philosophy". The superiority of the urban thinker is implied.

As for brokerage politics, the fact that Harper is just as bad as the Liberals doesn't excuse anything. It simply means they BOTH commit the sin! You cannot excuse a bad action by pointing out that someone else does it to!

I guess I'm referring to the difference between politics and statesmanship. One is for the good of the party. The other is for the good of the country.

[nicky10013]

I would expect you to think that conservatism is "mostly a rural philosophy". The superiority of the urban thinker is implied.

As for brokerage politics, the fact that Harper is just as bad as the Liberals doesn't excuse anything. It simply means they BOTH commit the sin! You cannot excuse a bad action by pointing out that someone else does it to!

I guess I'm referring to the difference between politics and statesmanship. One is for the good of the party. The other is for the good of the country.

I don't think so. Urban or Rural, neither is better than the other. One's philosophy can be based in rural or urban settings and still be pragmatic. If it is, I don't have a problem with it.

As for brokerage, it isn't a sin. I just find it funny that the people who do think it is, support the party that's best at it.

[Wild Bill]

I don't think so. Urban or Rural, neither is better than the other. One's philosophy can be based in rural or urban settings and still be pragmatic. If it is, I don't have a problem with it.

As for brokerage, it isn't a sin. I just find it funny that the people who do think it is, support the party that's best at it.

And I find it funny that you could support a party that has stolen money from us and keeps putting ridiculously expensive programs in place that never actually seem to work but rather are just a vote grab!

I watched the Liberal party do such things for several decades. If they ever show signs of changing their ways and becoming a bit more classic Liberal "laissez-faire" I might vote for them again.

However, Ignatieff and his present crew just don't impress me as a good choice for the next election.

I miss the Rhinos!

[Dave_ON]

I would think the Libs would be getting ready to pull the plug.....very, very soon.

I'm not convinced Ignatieff has the nads to do it though I may be wrong and he'd be a fool to let such an opportunity pass him by. After all the CPC has never been more vulnerable. I guess we'll see what the first full fall poll shows.

[capricorn]

I'm not convinced Ignatieff has the nads to do it though I may be wrong and he'd be a fool to let such an opportunity pass him by.

I don't think Ignatieff has the political savvy to determine whether or not the time is right to pull the plug. Whichever way he leans will be wherever the Liberal brass takes him.

Right now, we're at a place where either of the two major parties could win a minority government. I doubt Harper is interested in another minority so I expect the Conservatives will play nice in Parliament for a while to avoid an election.

[nicky10013]

I don't think Ignatieff has the political savvy to determine whether or not the time is right to pull the plug. Whichever way he leans will be wherever the Liberal brass takes him.

Right now, we're at a place where either of the two major parties could win a minority government. I doubt Harper is interested in another minority so I expect the Conservatives will play nice in Parliament for a while to avoid an election.

It doesn't take a stroke of genius to take down parliament. Unless given prior notice, the Bloc and NDP will always vote against the government knowing the Liberals will be supporting the CPC. All Ignatieff has to do is show up to a vote, say we can't support this as it's another thing in a long succession of slights toward parliament. The writ is dropped, the nastiness starts and even the next day people forget how or why we're in an election, they just know we're there and that's that.

[capricorn]

It doesn't take a stroke of genius to take down parliament.

Maybe not. But it takes political skills to know when the time is right for the take down, even when others disagree.

Chretien had called elections as prime minister in 1997 and 2000 despite the objections of what he called "nervous Nellies" in his caucus, "but in the end, he was proven right," said Lapierre.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/QPeriod/20080217/qp_elxn_080217/

Ignatieff is nowhere near that skill level and is still being led by the hand.

[punked]

It doesn't take a stroke of genius to take down parliament. Unless given prior notice, the Bloc and NDP will always vote against the government knowing the Liberals will be supporting the CPC. All Ignatieff has to do is show up to a vote, say we can't support this as it's another thing in a long succession of slights toward parliament. The writ is dropped, the nastiness starts and even the next day people forget how or why we're in an election, they just know we're there and that's that.

If you think people will forget or not blame you are silly. If you think that Ignatieff can say 10 minutes before a vote on a money bill "Yep we will support it" to a camera then go in a vote it down, you are the worst political analyst in the world. I would love to have Ignatieff on record Lying to the Canadian people 10 minutes before an election is called. It would the Liberals biggest down fall.