Canada election watch

[Jeff]

Because if the budget is defeated in March we're having one, and because of this:

Conservatives looking at a majority, new poll shows



Those Ontario numbers for the Conservatives are truly distressing. A third of the seats are here, and Ontario and Quebec have thus far meant the difference between disastrous and catastrophic misrule. (Quebec is still not playing. The poll has the BQ at 39% and the other three well back.)

The budget hasn't been released yet, but I don't want to have to hope it will pass. I really don't.

[Nordic]

Looks like maybe the branding thing is working there like it did in the U.S.

What's the equivalent of NASCAR in Canada?

[Jeff]

What's the equivalent of NASCAR in Canada?

Sorry to say, it's become hockey.



Don Cherry signs heavy artillery during a Christmas Day visit to troops stationed at outposts in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Dec. 25, 2010.

Coach's Corner came to Kandahar for Christmas.

Hockey commentator Don Cherry helped spread some seasonal cheer to Canadian soldiers at outposts across southern Afghanistan.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/afgh ... n-kandahar

Hockey Fans for Peace

Millions of Canadians enjoy hockey - and we also oppose the war in Afghanistan. A new Facebook group, "Hockey Fans For Peace", urges the NHL and the mass media to recognize this reality, by ending the practice of using hockey games and broadcasts to promote the view that full support for the war is the only acceptable position for any genuine hockey fan. Failing this, we call upon the NHL and the mass media to provide equal access to hockey fans who oppose the war and want to bring the troops home immediately. We also encourage other sports to refrain from promoting support for the war in Afghanistan.

http://www.newsocialist.org/index.php?o ... &Itemid=68



PM coaches with Don Cherry for charity hockey game

Don Cherry rips ‘left-wing pinkos’ at council inaugural

“Put that in your pipe you left-wing kooks,” hockey commentator Don Cherry told a shocked inaugural meeting of the new city council, blasting “left-wing pinkos.”

Cherry was Mayor Rob Ford’s pick for a “special guest” for the pomp-filled ceremony. Cherry turned up in a pink-and-white silk jacket and patterned tie that was eye-popping even for the famously flamboyant TV star.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/201008 ... ry-100812/

Dear Ron McLean. Dear Coach's Corner.
I'm writing in order for someone to explain
to my niece the distinction between
these mandatory pre-game group rites of submission
and the rallies at Nuremberg.
Specifically the function the ritual serves
in conjunction with what everybody knows is,
in the end, a kid's game.
I'm just appealing to your sense of fair play
when I say she's puzzled by this incessant pressure
for her to not defy collective will and yellow ribboned lapels,
as the soldiers inexplicably repel down from the arena rafters.
Which, if it not so insane,
they'll be grounds for screaming laughter.

Dear Ron McLean, I wouldn't bother with these questions
if I didn't sense some spiritual connection.
We may not be the same, but it's not like we're from different planets.
We both love this game so much we can hardly fucking stand it.
Alberta-born, and Prairie-raised.
It seems like there ain't a sheet of ice north of Fargo I ain't played.
From Penhold to the Gatinaeu, every fond memory of childhood
that I know is somehow connected to the culture of this game.
I just can't let it go.

I guess it comes down to what kind of world you want to live in.
And if diversity is disagreement, disagreement is treason.
Well, you'll be surprised if we find ourselves
reaping a strange and bitter fruit that that sad old man beside you
keeps feeding to young minds as virtue.
It takes a village to raise a child, but just a flag to raze the children
till they're nothing more than ballasts for fulfilling
a madman's dream of a paradise. Complexity reduced to black and white.
How do I protect her from this cult of death?

[norton ash]

Mild alarm here. I think it's time to press the idea of a Liberal-NDP-Green coalition that opens the door to the BQ on foreign policy and social justice issues. Push anyone-but-Harper strategic voting along these lines.

And I believe it's time to go negative on the Conservative's affection for American fascist/plutocrat/theocrat tendencies. A Canada more diplomatic, human-rights, knowledge economy, environment, social justice and UN-style globalist.

Ignatieff and Rae have to summon the spirits of Trudeau and Pearson. (Of course, they were CFR creeps too, but intellectuals in a similar vein to Iggy and Rae.)

Ah, Christ, now I feel like throwing up. Ontario's got its own election coming in October. I'm slipping back into cynicism, because whatever happens, it won't be pretty and I won't be happy.

Hope and Change!

Stupid fucking FOX-watching, SUN-reading Canadians voting for stupid mercantile militaristic Christian assholes whose hearts are really in Omaha, Branson and
Colorado Springs.

Nordic, I really don't think there's an equivalent to NASCAR here, unless your NHL hockey is spiked with pride and hatred a la Don Cherry. In my neck of the woods it's just snowmobiles, swamp truckin' and fishin' and huntin' and killin'. They vote Tory, as does the guy who owns the mill that laid them off..

EDIT- italics written before I'd seen Jeff's post.

[Jeff]

Mild alarm here. I think it's time to press the idea of a Liberal-NDP-Green coalition that opens the door to the BQ on foreign policy and social justice issues. Push anyone-but-Harper strategic voting along these lines.

The Conservatives seem prepared to run on that, too, since they've been framing the prospect of coalition as undemocratic since their ungodly prorogation of parliament.

Somewhat better, and more interesting, numbers here:

Conservatives 38%
Liberals 23%
NDP 19%
BQ 11%
Green 9%
Other 2%

(Ontario 39/29/18 and 11 Green)

[82_28]

At least you guys have like a lot of different parties and shit. Just like America has more sports! And your National Hockey League is shared with our National Hockey League.

[DevilYouKnow]

[justdrew]

At least you guys have like a lot of different parties and shit. Just like America has more sports! And your National Hockey League is shared with our National Hockey League.

a lot of different parties that hands government to the so-called conservatives.

"stand together or fall apart"

[82_28]

At least you guys have like a lot of different parties and shit. Just like America has more sports! And your National Hockey League is shared with our National Hockey League.

a lot of different parties that hands government to the so-called conservatives.

"stand together or fall apart"

For the record and not to be misconstrued, that is exactly what I meant.

[redsock]

It feels like Harper has had a majority for several years anyway. Ignatieff might be the worst politician I have ever seen. Clueless and utterly worthless. They have a mountain of facts on Harper they could hammer away at every single day and yet they are actually down 15% in the polls. Boggles the mind, it does.

[justdrew]

someone needs to organize a meeting

get the people of:

Liberals 23%
NDP 19%
BQ 11%
Green 9%
Other 2%

together and agree on a common platform, replace the leadership of those parties if necessary.

[norton ash]

It feels like Harper has had a majority for several years anyway. Ignatieff might be the worst politician I have ever seen. Clueless and utterly worthless. They have a mountain of facts on Harper they could hammer away at every single day and yet they are actually down 15% in the polls. Boggles the mind, it does.

It's eerie, is what it is... why the opposition is so paralyzed. The media and general pop are equally complacent.

someone needs to organize a meeting

get the people of:

Liberals 23%
NDP 19%
BQ 11%
Green 9%
Other 2%

together and agree on a common platform, replace the leadership of those parties if necessary.

But that would be sort of like getting Bluedog Democrats, Greens, Alaskan Separatists, and Socialists into the same tent in the USA. But I do hope to see much more cooperation and strategic voting between the Libs and the NDP.

[Peregrine]

I've always voted Green, but gotten shit from folks telling me it takes away from the Liberal or NDP parties. I can understand wanting to vote for the lesser of two evils, but really, I've pressed forward for the party of my choice, even if it means "taking votes away" because I feel I cannot compromise on this.

[Jeff]

I've always voted Green, but gotten shit from folks telling me it takes away from the Liberal or NDP parties. I can understand wanting to vote for the lesser of two evils, but really, I've pressed forward for the party of my choice, even if it means "taking votes away" because I feel I cannot compromise on this.

I'm an NDPer, and we get the same shit from Liberals all the time about "wasted votes," even in ridings we stand a better chance of winning than they do.

First-past-the-post is no way to run a multi-party democracy.

[redsock]

It's eerie, is what it is... why the opposition is so paralyzed.

They are not stupid. They did not get where they are by being unable to point out the obvious. So why do I (or thousands of other people) have a better idea of how to point out Harper's many failures than the Libs seem to do?

When I lived in the US, I used to wonder that about the Dems. Then I realized they had no desire to point it out. It wasn't part of the script. But Canadian politics hasn't become the complete theatrical presentation it is in the States, so I dunno.....