Canada election watch

[lupercal]

Those numbers are striking, you bet. But renewing Canada, qu'est-ce que c'est (not familiar with the term sorry), do you mean by not seceding and was that an option in this election?

Layton spoke the unmentionable truth that after 30 years, Quebec is still not a signatory to the constitution and that Canada needs to recommit to a process of correcting that. Quebeckers responded to this, and to the shared values of the NDP, by one of their generational demonstrations of collective will. The hope of that is now, at best, deferred four more years. I don't know that Canada has that much time.

Thanks Jeff, this is très intéressant and all best wishes for the next four years. Thanks also Feilan, Volin et al. for hashing it out here, long live RI! But I hate to start a fresh page without a fresh thought so I might as well toss in my hairbrained theory: since as you say Toronto is the most Anglophilic part of Canada (which accords perfectly with my impressions of UT as compared to UQAM) it would not surprise me if part of the deal letting Obama pull the plug on the long-running but ever-profitable bin Laden franchise -- and even France had lately gotten into the act, with recent threats emanating from the bearded one aimed at boosting Sarkozy's participation in Afghanistan -- was to do it in a way that would prop up the Anglo-Canadian connection.

Dumping that dumb fairy tale was one of Obama's better moves, but I don't think he could have done it if he didn't have his ducks in a row, namely Panetta temporarily heading up the CIA and the Pentagon. So poof goes Osama and who cares how much make-believe it took. Unfortunately I can't imagine those ghouls in the royal family, and don't try to tell me they're "figureheads," having any of it without a fat consolation prize and thus we get Osama's demise the day before your elections. That's my theory anyway, with apologies.

[hava1]

You are rubbing it in...

Well, it appears that military show-ops are a new form of "election strategy":, this one was coming, (as was "cast lead" during election times which were crucial in terms of economy and social rights).

Harper is also considered Israeli strategic asset, given he was the only supporter, except the USA, in all those UN sitautions, and so forth.
so that would add to the choice of date.

I've noticed though that people really dont want to consider those scenarios ahead of time, people generally prefer to "believe"...as in believing "things have changed", but in fact if the opponent is such a bad man, or gov, why would they go under without an underhanded stunt ?

(if that was indeed a consideration in this operation). There are always carefully "numbing" strategies, such as over optimistic predictions and polls, and distractions from any warning sign.

Those numbers are striking, you bet. But renewing Canada, qu'est-ce que c'est (not familiar with the term sorry), do you mean by not seceding and was that an option in this election?

Layton spoke the unmentionable truth that after 30 years, Quebec is still not a signatory to the constitution and that Canada needs to recommit to a process of correcting that. Quebeckers responded to this, and to the shared values of the NDP, by one of their generational demonstrations of collective will. The hope of that is now, at best, deferred four more years. I don't know that Canada has that much time.

Thanks Jeff, this is très intéressant and all best wishes for the next four years. Thanks also Feilan, Volin et al. for hashing it out here, long live RI! But I hate to start a fresh page without a fresh thought so I might as well toss in my hairbrained theory: since as you say Toronto is the most Anglophilic part of Canada (which accords perfectly with my impressions of UT as compared to UQAM) it would not surprise me if part of the deal letting Obama pull the plug on the long-running but ever-profitable bin Laden franchise -- and even France had lately gotten into the act, with recent threats emanating from the bearded one aimed at boosting Sarkozy's participation in Afghanistan -- was to do it in a way that would prop up the Anglo-Canadian connection.

Dumping that dumb fairy tale was one of Obama's better moves, but I don't think he could have done it if he didn't have his ducks in a row, namely Panetta temporarily heading up the CIA and the Pentagon. So poof goes Osama and who cares how much make-believe it took. Unfortunately I can't imagine those ghouls in the royal family, and don't try to tell me they're "figureheads," having any of it without a fat consolation prize and thus we get Osama's demise the day before your elections. That's my theory anyway, with apologies.

[Canadian_watcher]

There is one serious problem with your cunning plan. For purely ideological reasons, the Conservatives will spend the next four years blindly and self-destructively anihilating our carefully crafted, lovingly husbanded and protected campaign finance laws. In an unrestricted bidding war for the House of Commons, the NDP will get completely destroyed. In that fight, I would put my money on the Bay Street Boys rather than the Calgary oil men. Worse, it means that the Canadian establishment will have to compete directly with American interests for control of the government.

I'm afraid that this is exactly what I believe. Any talk of "after Harper" is more like reminiscence, since any talk of after Harper is really talk of the way things used to be. At least, that's my fear.

--------

Side Note: did anyone else find it suspicious that SUN News network (Canada's Fox New North) finally made it on to the airwaves just at the point of the NDP surge and mysteriously got yanked YESTERDAY? Allegedly they did not pay their bill and now there is a banner on their station telling viewers that Sun News is no longer available.

[Canadian_watcher]

personal aside:

Remember 'just paint?'

Yesterday I got accepted into the prize winning round of that Juried Exhibition. My first one.
I also sold a large painting through my web site. That's the first time that has happened without outside promotion.
Third, I got a notice that I may sell my day of the dead pieces at a popular music festival here.

Glad I listened!

[Jeff]

Way to go! That Cosmos knows its shit!


A note about Toronto. I don't believe it was Anglophilia that triggered the collapse of the Liberal vote.

Here's the 2008 result. Red = Liberal, Orange = NDP. For our purposes, imagine virtually everything beyond the city boundary to be Conservative Blue:



Here's 2011:



The big swath of blue in the top centre is thanks largely to Harper, Friend of Israel. That's the difference made by pandering hard to a traditionally Liberal, though small-c conservative Jewish constituency.

The other gains came from an alliance of the "Ford Nation" angry and confused underclass and the conservative values of new immigrant communities, particularly Indo-Pakistani. Immigration Minister and Opus Dei Jason Kenney - who bears an uncanny resemblance to Martin Bormann - has been working a strategy on them to "vote your values" (code for anti-gay, anti-women, anti-Christ make them stop!) Even though there was a flap about a campaign organizer's condescension in trying to drum up "ethnic voters in ethnic costume" for a photo op, it worked.

The Toronto NDP vote has usually been characterized as a cadre of latte-sipping intelligentsia. Well, there's some truth to that, especially during the party's nadir in the '90s, but a lot of the orange there also represents traditional working class communities. (The remaining red in the centre of 2011 are the ridings of Carolyn Bennett and Bob Rae, both on the liberal wing of the Liberal party. They had been considered safe seats, but both faced surprisingly strong challenges. Bennett by the Conservatives and Rae by the NDP.)

As for Obama screening Weekend At Bin Laden's to tip the scales for Ol' Steve. I wish an NDP government would represent such an existential threat, but I don't think we factored into the calculations on that one.

Stephen Lewis (among other things, Naomi Klein's father-in-law) and Judy Rebick on Democracy Now.

Election night tweet:

Hair-raising shock doctrine coming our way folks. Better to have NDP in opposition than Libs but real power will be in the streets.

[JackRiddler]

As for Obama screening Weekend At Bin Laden's

For a sophomoric joke, that's pretty rewarding once you get the full implications.

C_w -- Congratulations.

.

[lupercal]

^ thanks, I can always tell I'm onto something by an uptick in your bufoonery. But give yourself a hernia trying to hide the elephant..

p.s. to Jeff and others: yeah it's pretty facked but if it's any consolation welcome to under the bus.

[Jeff]

There is one serious problem with your cunning plan. For purely ideological reasons, the Conservatives will spend the next four years blindly and self-destructively anihilating our carefully crafted, lovingly husbanded and protected campaign finance laws. In an unrestricted bidding war for the House of Commons, the NDP will get completely destroyed.

Yes, there's that.

Private donations, including first quarter of 2011:



Eliminate public financing and the cap on campaign spending, and manage an economy that squeezes working peoples' discretionary spending, and - I don't want to think about it.

[Jeff]

Okay, again with me and the new Quebec MPs.

Here's Alexandrine Latendresse, who defeated Conservative cabinet minister Josée Verner in the Quebec City riding of Louis-Saint-Laurent:



The Star snorts at them, particularly Codename "Vegas," the single-mom holding down two jobs who put her name forward, and left on vacation, never expecting to win.

MP Pat Martin hits the right note: “People like that deserve to be represented because there’s a hell of a lot of them out there. Anybody who thinks that that’s somehow a bad idea doesn’t get our party.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/poli ... p-mps?bn=1

[Jeff]

Conspiracy theory: NDP deputy leader Mulcair doubts U.S. has bin Laden photos

OTTAWA - The first burst of controversy from the next crop of MPs came not from a raw NDP rookie but from the party's experienced deputy leader who said he doesn't believe the United States has photos of Osama bin Laden's body.

Thomas Mulcair struck a conspiracy theory note Wednesday when he told CBC TV that U.S. President Barack Obama's version of the death of the terrorist mastermind is incomplete, if not untrue.

Obama said he has seen photos of bin Laden's corpse but releasing those photos would be akin to peddling gruesome trophies. Mulcair was doubtful.

"I don't think from what I've heard that those pictures exist," Mulcair said during an appearance on Power and Politics.

"I think that if there is something that went on there, it requires a full analysis, and we have to understand whether or not there was an action where there was an action in self-defence or whether it was something that is more in the style of a direct killing. And that has to do with American law and international law as well."

The U.S. says bin Laden was shot dead on Sunday by American commandos during a raid on a compound in Pakistan.

Some family members of those who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks thought it important to document bin Laden's death, as did some skeptics in the Arab world who doubted his demise in the absence of convincing evidence.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/conspiracy-the ... 11645.html[/quote]

[Canadian_watcher]

The NDP would do well to just hold firm in the face of criticism on their individual MPs' personal beliefs, etc. They hopefully will not parade these people out and make them spout off some long-winded explanations.

I think holding their heads up and just being themselves would be ballsy. I think it would be fearless. I think that sort of ballsy, fearless attitude attracts people.

[Jeff]

The NDP would do well to just hold firm in the face of criticism on their individual MPs' personal beliefs, etc. They hopefully will not parade these people out and make them spout off some long-winded explanations.

I think holding their heads up and just being themselves would be ballsy. I think it would be fearless. I think that sort of ballsy, fearless attitude attracts people.

I agree.

Clip at link if you haven't seen it:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2 ... osama.html

Mulcair adds some clarity beyond the lifted quote. He says it's not important whether photos exist or not, because they wouldn't reveal whether Osama (though, regrettably, he makes the "Obama" gaffe) was holding a weapon. That's the point the media is missing. The point of law.

Of course, everything an NDP MP says now will be given the worst possible interpretation. They need well-chosen words, but not weasel words. Fatigue at the Liberal use of the latter is, I believe in part, why the NDP has eclipsed them. When the media pushes I don't believe the correct response is always an "I misspoke" backpeddle.

Remember, Canada's new folk hero Jack Layton was Taliban Jack not long ago. He was right then, didn't waver, and here we are.

[Feilan]

:

Harper gallery leaves MPs speechless

Citizens who really want a national portrait gallery in Ottawa can rest easy. The government already has one.

BY THE OTTAWA CITIZEN - JANUARY 29, 2008

All you need to get in is a Commons security pass, a Conservative party membership and a keen desire to view exclusive pictures of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, exclusively...

... Ms. May and Ms. O'Malley were surprised and a bit speechless when they saw the exhibit recently as guest Commons Speakers during a youth Parliament.

"When you walk in the door, all you see are pictures of Stephen Harper," said Ms. May

"I'd say between every window, in every available space of the wall, at eye level, every available space has a photo of Stephen Harper."

"You've got photos of Stephen Harper, but not of previous prime ministers," she added. "Photos of Stephen Harper in different costumes, in different settings, dressed as a fireman, in Hudson Bay looking for polar bears, meeting the Dalai Lama, even the portrait of the Queen had to have Stephen Harper, but in a candid, behind her."

A press aide to Mr. Harper said he would get back with an explanation, but didn't...

... - hate to paste and run -but- can't talk just now. trying to stay sane

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=9c6b53f6-f0a2-4eca-93bb-559023144731

[Canadian_watcher]

It is a mere babe at the moment, but I am going to see where it goes.
If anyone wants to write anything I'm glad to post it.
http://thesixtypercent.blogspot.com/

[Jeff]

It is a mere babe at the moment, but I am going to see where it goes.
If anyone wants to write anything I'm glad to post it.
http://thesixtypercent.blogspot.com/

Thanks, C_w; bookmarked. All the best with it!

Mulcair did well with his clarification today, re-stating his point which had been lost in the gotcha! moment: the dubious legality of the US killing.

Mulcair said he was actually referring to whether any photo could prove bin Laden was reaching for a gun, because he believes the way in which he was killed raises questions regarding U.S. and international law.

“The Americans are saying ‘We have these pictures of the cadaver of bin Laden and we won’t release them,’” said Mulcair, whose office provided a transcript of that portion of the CBC interview. “I said that’s the decent thing to do, but on the other hand, it doesn’t get rid of the fact that if there are other things that can prove or disprove whether or not there was a weapon and whether or not there was an issue of self-defence as opposed to a direct killing, then that also becomes germane with regard to international law and American law."

You'd never have heard a Liberal say that.

The media is already framing the NDP's rejection of the Washington consensus as loony and, seen more than once, not ready for prime time. I'm encouraged by Mulcair's statement today that the NDP will meet intimidation with courage. Because you know the media will call them loony regardless, but Canadians won't be able to call them cowards.