Conservative Minority in View

[normanchateau]

Should be interesting to watch Harper campaigning for the No side in the next Quebec referendum. Let's see now. Question: Where exactly is he in the polls in Quebec? Answer: In fourth place after the BQ, Liberals and NDP. Question: How many seats is he projected to win in Quebec? Answer: Zero, which is why some Quebec CPCers want him replaced. Question: How many party leaders in the history of Canada have become Prime Minister without winning a single seat in Quebec? Answer:

[scribblet]

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Harper will probably give a sincere look about what to do with Quebec. He will not get a majority government without a few seats in this province, but it is likely he would offer a fresh prospect without spending taxpayer dollars like an alcoholic with a blank cheque at a liquor store.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, certainly nothing from anyone else has worked, so why not give him a chance. IMHO it wouldn't matter what the rest ROC did, the same people who want to separate will still want that. I don't have an answer, but throwing more money their way and trying to buy them off hasn't worked. So how about laying the cards on the table as to what would actually happen if they did separate. e.g. they have to take their portion of the national debt, their own currency etc. etc. I wonder how many who vote yes, fully realize the economic implications.

[daniel]

If Harper is going to be honest with himself as well as to his Reform roots, he's going to let the Separatists have their way and not get involved at all.

If Harper decides to defend Canadian Unity, his "No" campaign is going to be more shallow than Powell's UN presentation about WMDs in Iraq - it won't come from the heart since his position is that there's so many things wrong with Canada and a centralized government.

[scribblet]

If Harper is going to be honest with himself as well as to his Reform roots, he's going to let the Separatists have their way and not get involved at all.

If Harper decides to defend Canadian Unity, his "No" campaign is going to be more shallow than Powell's UN presentation about WMDs in Iraq - it won't come from the heart since his position is that there's so many things wrong with Canada and a centralized government.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I disagree, I'm sure defending unity would be with his heart, but there's only so much we can do. If we care about unity then we should care about Alberta too, not just Quebec. Personally I'm getting tired of Quebec whining and moaning, sometimes I feel like saying, for pete's sakes, just let them go and get it over with. Defeatist I suppose, but ...

[politika]

So the Conservatives are definitely in minority territory now. A mere four point lead for the Liberals means a Conservative minority given the number of votes cast for the Liberals in Quebec, with very little chance to win.

Hello PM Harper!

Poll link.

23% support for the Liberals in Quebec?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The conservatives can make it in to office they have enough seats in the praries's but all they need to do is smarten up in Ontario, impress Ontarians and they have themselves a government, hopefully majority. Don't get me wrong I want to see a Conservative government in power, but they are going ot have to work 10x's as hard to impress people in Ontario enough to vote for them.

[normanchateau]

I'm sure defending unity would be with his heart, but there's only so much we can do.  If we care about unity then we should care about Alberta too,  not just Quebec.  Personally I'm getting tired of Quebec whining and moaning, sometimes I feel like saying, for pete's sakes, just let them go and get it over with.  Defeatist I suppose, but ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Harper certainly does care about Alberta. Didn't he propose putting a firewall around Alberta before he became CPC party leader? Does he really think that Canadians are so stupid that they'll forget about every one of his bizarre ideas? Does he really think that Canadians will forget why he quit the Reform Party then came back to lead the Alliance Party? This is not the kind of man I'd ever, ever want negotiating with Quebec on behalf of Canada. No wonder he's dead last in the Quebec polls after the BQ, Liberals and even NDP. CPC supporters are deluding themselves if they think no-win Harper will do any better in 2006 than in 2004. He's the same Harper, with the same social conservative baggage, that he was last time. I know this is difficult for many Albertans to accept but outside of Alberta, he has little credibility.

[daniel]

...Personally I'm getting tired of Quebec whining and moaning, sometimes I feel like saying, for pete's sakes, just let them go and get it over with.  Defeatist I suppose, but ...

This is exactly the same position of the Reform Party in which Harper was a co-founder.

Put yourself in that position, with this defeatist position how are you going to convince Quebecers to vote "no"?

[scribblet]

...Personally I'm getting tired of Quebec whining and moaning, sometimes I feel like saying, for pete's sakes, just let them go and get it over with.  Defeatist I suppose, but ...

This is exactly the same position of the Reform Party in which Harper was a co-founder.

Put yourself in that position, with this defeatist position how are you going to convince Quebecers to vote "no"?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your probably right, I would and so would Harper still campaign to keep them in confed. after all, nobody in their right minds would really want to see Canada break up, least of all Stephen Harper.

[shoop]

Hmmm, didn't Martin go on record opposing SSM, supporting the war in Iraq, actually use a private health care clinic in Canada and supporting continental missile defence before changing his views on all four? Are you really sure you want to get into a battle of *what he said in the past*. Were they bizarre ideas when Martin favoured each of them?

[Harper certainly does care about Alberta.  Didn't he propose putting a firewall around Alberta before he became CPC party leader?  Does he really think that Canadians are so stupid that they'll forget about every one of his bizarre ideas?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[Biblio Bibuli]

Hmmm, didn't Martin go on record opposing SSM ...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not wanting to start a whole new thread about it, I was HOPING that somebody would bring up same-sex marriage.

Thanks, Shoop!

Isn't Sir Elton John soon to "marry" his Canadian beau, David Furnish?

Where will they tie the knot? In Canada? Holland? Belgium?

Couldn't be in England. Could it?

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/ed...5a-bdb74d62d4ac

"Important difference about Elton's nuptials

Published: Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Re: Sir Elton To Wed His Canadian Beau, Nov. 25.

Under a front-page picture of Elton John and his Toronto-born partner David Furnish, the caption states they will be married on Dec. 21, "the day same-sex marriage becomes legal in Britain."

The related article comments on the "civil partnership ceremony."

So, which is it, "same-sex marriage" or "civil partnership"? I want to know what kind of greeting card I should send.

Alex Hercaniuk, Mississauga."

[Biblio Bibuli]

the election hasn't even been called yet, there's plenty of time for things to change. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Exactly!

I will bide my time and wait to see what they all have to say, then choose accordingly.

You never know, Harper might actually come up with something that sounds like common sense, in which case, I may give him a shot.

BB

"Common sense is not so common." - Voltaire

[shoop]

Andrew Cohen, prof at Carleton, had a beautiful piece today on what Harper needs to do to win.

Cohen is dead right with this one. Let Martin attack, it will come across as increasingly desperate as the campaign goes on.

Harper will have to convey that he likes Canada and thinks it has a future. He must appear sunny, thoughtful, reassured. Canadians don't like sour politicians. This may not be easy for the mercurial Harper.

If he wants to lead, he has to be as tolerant and compassionate as Canadians see themselves, whatever his instincts. He must stress the progressive rather than the conservative, avoid talking about gay marriage, capital punishment, abortion and Iraq, making accusations of the Liberals and "organized crime" that will strike many as shrill.

If Stephen Harper can do all this, he will be elected prime minister in January. If he can't, he doesn't deserve to be.

Random Andrew Cohen Article

[Leafless]

normanchateau

You wrote- " Didn't he propose putting a firewall around Alberta before he became CPC Party leader."

How many prime ministers have we come out of FIREWALLED QUEBEC?

You can not expect that Quebec is the only province in Canada worthy of being firewalled as it rubs off on other provinces who also want the same powers Quebec has wragled from federal authorities.

It's insulting to insinuate a prime minister from Alberta is not competent to run the country.

I've felt the same way about Quebec prime ministers and they have proven what kind of Canada they want and I say nix to that and am willing to give CPC the chance they deserve.

[shoop]

It's that kind of condescension that is the reason the Liberals have to fall. You don't vote for us, so f**k you Alberta and anyone who comes from Alberta.

normanchateau

It's insulting to insinuate a prime minister from Alberta is not competent to run the country.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[BHS]

normachateau:

- Hate crimes legislation is a particularly ironic farce. It proposes that some crimes are worse than others based soley on motive, making motive a more important consideration than result. If some guy decides he doesn't like the look of me and takes a swing for no other reason, he ends up convicted of assault. If the prosecutor can prove that he thought I was gay/Jewish/(fill in the blank), he's convicted of a hate crime. The problem is, proving what someone was thinking just before or during the commission of a crime is difficult, and in the case of a hate crime relies on the actual status of the victim. If in the illustrated case I'm not actually gay, it makes the prosecutor's job a lot more difficult if he's trying to prove a hate crime was committed, and that the assault that I suffered was that much worse because of it. Which means essentially that some victims receive a different level of justice than others, based soley on their personal status indicating the classification of their victimhood.

The ironic bit is that the same people who favour this two-tiered system of justice are the same people who have argued most fervently against two-tiered healthcare on the grounds that it isn't right to allow different categories of citizens to receive different treatment.

- So, if I'm reading you correctly, you propose that a party without support in Quebec shouldn't be allowed to argue Canada's case in a Quebec referendum, as if the rest of Canada doesn't have an interest in the question of seperation. Quite wrong. Let's ignore that the concept of Quebec seperation based on a referendum solely with in the province of Quebec is illegitimate and not really worth discussing. The federal government's role in such a referendum is to present the interests of Canada to the people of Quebec, and to remind them of what they'll be losing when they (try to) seperate. Being from Quebec is not at all a necessary pre-conditition for representing this viewpoint. If it were, there would be no legitimate reason for the federal government (representing all Canadians) to intervene at all, making your argument moot.

[scribblet]

Excellent post on hate crimes and Quebec.

I too wonder about hate crimes and what they really are. If an old lady is stabbed to death its murder. If a gay person is stabbed to death its called a hate crime and given a higher status, murder is murder. Why, we don't know what a person is thinking when they commit that act. Does this mean that the old lady is a less of person and less worth of justice - or what ? Aren't all murders and attacks hateful ?

[Black Dog]

Hate crimes legislation is a particularly ironic farce. It proposes that some crimes are worse than others based soley on motive, making motive a more important consideration than result.

That's already the case. You kill someone, the motive and intent is considered. If it was accidental, you could get a charge like negligence causing death or manslaughter. If intentional, you'd get a stiffer sentence.

If some guy decides he doesn't like the look of me and takes a swing for no other reason, he ends up convicted of assault. If the prosecutor can prove that he thought I was gay/Jewish/(fill in the blank), he's convicted of a hate crime.

No, the prosecuter would have to show he hit you because of your race or sexual orientation.

Which means essentially that some victims receive a different level of justice than others, based soley on their personal status indicating the classification of their victimhood.

So, just to be clear, spray-painting swastikas on a synagogue is really no different from any other act of graffiti?

[BHS]

Hate crimes legislation is a particularly ironic farce. It proposes that some crimes are worse than others based soley on motive, making motive a more important consideration than result.

That's already the case. You kill someone, the motive and intent is considered. If it was accidental, you could get a charge like negligence causing death or manslaughter. If intentional, you'd get a stiffer sentence.

Motive is not intent. The difference you've illustrated lies strictly within the realm of of the perpetrator's intent and doesn't touch on his motive. Another example: you sleeping with my wife prompts me to pick up a gun and shoot you. Your sleeping with my wife is my motive, my picking up the gun and hunting you down shows my intent to kill you. It's the intent that's taken into consideration, not the motive, in this case making my crime a first degree murder. A defense lawyer will probably try to bring motive in as part of his defence, as a mitigating factor, but it's up to a judge or jury to decide how much of a factor the motive was when deciding my sentence.

What hate crimes legislation does is automatically make motive an important factor for the purposes of sentencing. As I said in my previous post (and which you neglected to address) it's easier to persuade the jury that the motive involved a component of hate when the victim actually possesses the attributes alleged to be the motivating factor, the end result being that punishment varies not only according to the severity of the crime but also according to the status of the victim. Ergo, two-tiered justice. It's no different from saying it's less of a crime for a black man to rape a black woman than a white woman.

If some guy decides he doesn't like the look of me and takes a swing for no other reason, he ends up convicted of assault. If the prosecutor can prove that he thought I was gay/Jewish/(fill in the blank), he's convicted of a hate crime.

No, the prosecuter would have to show he hit you because of your race or sexual orientation.

So, if I read your rebuttal correctly, it's only a hate crime if it's committed with malice of foresight and foreknowledge of who his victim is. So if some young thug goes out on the town and attacks people who he believes are gay, it isn't really a hate crime if he doesn't have proof ahead of time that his victims are, in fact, gay?

Which means essentially that some victims receive a different level of justice than others, based soley on their personal status indicating the classification of their victimhood.

So, just to be clear, spray-painting swastikas on a synagogue is really no different from any other act of graffiti?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Clearly, any reasonable person can see that their is a vast difference of motivation between defacing a house of worship with symbols indicating a clear hatred of that religion, and tagging a stop sign with your gang's logo. But the whole point of my argument is that motivation shouldn't take precedence. I'm not saying that swastikas on the side of a synagogue aren't reprehensible - clearly they are. What I'm saying is that defacing public property is not more virtuous merely because it lacks a component of hate. There's an ugly element of contempt in both cases. I'd like to add that where one is tolerated, the other will follow, almost as a matter of course.

Another problem, that I haven't really touched on (intentionally), is the hierarchy issue inherent in the definition of what constitutes a hate crime. It occurs to me that the most vigorous prosecutions of hate crimes will occur in high-profile cases with fashionable themes and charasmatic victims. I have a feeling, for example, that neo-nazis spraypainting swastikas on the walls of a synagogue will be dealth with more severely than PETA protesters writing "FUR KILLS!!! in their own blood on the side of a store selling mink coats, despite a comparable level of negative emotion motivating each group of perpetrators.

[normanchateau]

normachateau:

- Hate crimes legislation is a particularly ironic farce. It proposes that some crimes are worse than others based soley on motive, making motive a more important consideration than result. If some guy decides he doesn't like the look of me and takes a swing for no other reason, he ends up convicted of assault. If the prosecutor can prove that he thought I was gay/Jewish/(fill in the blank), he's convicted of a hate crime. The problem is, proving what someone was thinking just before or during the commission of a crime is difficult, and in the case of a hate crime relies on the actual status of the victim. If in the illustrated case I'm not actually gay, it makes the prosecutor's job a lot more difficult if he's trying to prove a hate crime was committed, and that the assault that I suffered was that much worse because of it. Which means essentially that some victims receive a different level of justice than others, based soley on their personal status indicating the classification of their victimhood.

BHS

You have provided strong arguments as to why we should not have any crimes legislation in Canada. You might want to inform Stephen Harper of your arguments. He has no problem with hate crimes legislation as long as it's based on criteria such as race, religion, ethnicity, gender, disability, etc., ad nauseam. He ONLY has a problem with the inclusion of sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation. That's why he voted against C-250. If Stephen Harper had merely argued that he opposed all hate crimes legislation, he might not today be perceived, rightly or wrongly, as homophobic. Merely opposing C-38 can be rationalized by Canadians as support for traditional marriage but opposing C-250 cannot.

[sharkman]

BHS you make good points. Hate laws are silly, if our liberal justice system would just start punishing people for breaking the laws already on the books, there would be no need for further degrees of wrong hate laws.

Instead of disagreeing with BHS, Norman, who never saw a hate law he didn't love, shows his hate for Harper.

[normanchateau]

BHS you make good points.  Hate laws are silly, if our liberal justice system would just start punishing people for breaking the laws already on the books, there would be no need for further degrees of wrong hate laws.

Funny how you fail to acknowledge that Stephen Harper favours hate laws EXCEPT when they include gays and lesbians.

But then it's not surprising given that he had no problem making a homophobic comment about Svend Robinson in the House of Commons. To his credit, Harper subsequently apologized.

[sharkman]

That's because I've found you to be so biased I don't just accept everything you say. You obviously hate Harper, but I'm not sure of his voting record on hate laws. But since they are not a big deal to me, I can differ with him on them. What you fail to understand about this gay hate law is that it doesn't protect religious people to speak their conscience on it. Your bias prevented you from realizing that when Kimmy gave it to you straight from the wording.

As for Svend, he never apologized for the ring, for ripping a sign out of a priest's hands, and many other incidents, it's nice to see Harper was big enough to apologize.

[normanchateau]

But since they are not a big deal to me, I can differ with him on them.

Differ from Harper in that you believe there should be no hate laws or differ from Harper in that you believe that sexual orientation should be included in hate crimes legislation?

[sharkman]

I believe you were inferring that Harper supports some hate laws, just not gay hate. I don't think we need any. We need judges who punish people.

But if there is to be gay hate laws, then they should not be written to menace religions.

[normanchateau]

But if there is to be gay hate laws, then they should not be written to menace religions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree completely. That's why after C-250 was first tabled in the house, numerous amendments were inserted that were proposed by a wide cross-section of religious groups. The Liberals, NDP and BQ would not have unanimously passed C-250 had those amendments not been added.