We need a new system that does a better job reflecting those commonalities. And one less likely to leave us feeling that if we vote for our favourite, we’ll just end up helping our least favourite win.
Source: Editorial: Electoral status quo fails us all | Edmonton Journal
October 21, 2015 Andrew Phillip Chernoff Just Saying….
Sean Kennedy did not like the 2015 Federal Election result.
He is all sad and crying tears for the nation of Canada, after years of having a man crush on Stephen Harper.
“The downfall of the Harper government is a defeat for a conservative admired by many on the right in U.S. politics,” according to Kennedy.
Who is Sean Kennedy? Sean Kennedy is a writer based in Washington. Previously, he was a U.S. Senate aide, television producer and a fellow at public policy think tanks. He lived in Canada and observed the last federal election in Canada firsthand., according to CNN.
I think his head was in the cloud on some wacky-tobacco, and in reruns of his favourite Richard Nixon home movies, when he coined his dribble.
In his article for CNN, titled “Justin Trudeau victory in Canada is bad news for U.S. conservatives”, Kennedy let’ it all hang out, not flattered in the least about the Canadian election outcome; sulking over the Harper conservatives loss and his disdain for the Canadian voters for getting his man in Canada, “…booted out of office after nine years of steadily manoeuvring the ship of state.”
Steadily manoeuvring Canada? Maybe, over Niagara Falls.
On how and why Canadians voted for Justin Trudeau and the Liberals in resounding fashion, Kennedy explains it this way:
The fickle Canadian voters were tired, though. Tired of the scandals and unforced errors that come with years of unchecked power (Canada’s parliamentary system is a unitary executive-legislative branch). Political appointees and friends of Harper’s couldn’t resist feeding at the taxpayers’ trough. Though the trail never led directly to Harper, the scandal only fed a public perception that the cool-to-a-fault, calculating (and yes, even Nixonian) Prime Minister was up to no good.
We fickle Canadians…..The majority of the Canadian electorate punted Harper to the sidelines, and did not vote for the Lord and Saviour Stephen Harper. Canadians instead were: patriotic, tried, responsible, true, pertinacious, tenacious, secure, staunch, incorruptible, nationalistic, unalterable, sure.
Kennedy just can not understand it. His American peanut-sized brain just can’t put his head around it.
Harper was defeated by, “ the unprepared, gaffe-prone but well-coiffed son of a former prime minister, Justin Trudeau.” , Kennedy writes, probably after another puff of his wacky tobacco.
How is that possible? How was it that the Harper punch bowl just did not have enough of that elixir to make us all Harperites and submissive to his voting will at the ballot box from coast-to-coast-to-coast?
After all, look what what Harper and the Conservatives did for Canadians,eh:
Canada under Harper’s leadership was a conservative wonderland with balanced budgets, increasingly low taxes and a robust foreign policy aimed at taking on terrorists and bullies the world over.
Harper’s fate is all the more shocking when you consider how well Canada weathered the 2008-2009 financial crisis under his watch. He didn’t bail out anyone (except the U.S.-based auto industry), no financial institutions failed and the Canadian economy hummed along.
With sky-high oil prices and other resources reaching record highs, Canada got rich as other industrial powers paid top dollar (or top loonie, if you will) for the raw materials they needed to grow. As oil prices fell off a cliff, the Canadian economy slowed, even briefly dipping into recession this year. But Harper made the necessary cuts and kept taxes low. Amazingly, he balanced the budget ahead of schedule as the commodity markets nosedived.
When Harper introduced anti-terror legislation called C-51, or “Canada’s Patriot Act,” after prominent attacks inspired by radical Islam, the wing nuts of Canada’s left came out of the woodwork, painting the Prime Minister as a tyrant in the making.
Harper took a stand for an inclusive, but fully Westernized and assimilating Canada — banning the niqab, or face veil, from being worn at citizenship swearing-in ceremonies.
Canada is in for it now. Prepare for end times. The world will now turn its back on Canada.
According to Kennedy, Harper and the Conservatives, were the authors and implementers of, “Canada’s Miracle”, which was:
….surviving the financial crisis, balancing budgets, slashing red tape and taxes while maintaining a healthy welfare state….
According to Kennedy, “The Conservative Party’s loss is to the detriment of its neighbours to the south and the world at large…”
Well, in the Great White North, in a country called Canada, on October 19, 2015, the Canadian voters took back Canada from Stephen Harper and the Conservatives.
Stay within your borders United States and Global community; or be prepared to suffer the consequences of challenging Canadian sovereignty, if you dare; upon which every disobedient nation will be subjected to the unleashing of hundreds of thousands of hockey pucks.
My advice to Kennedy, the United States of America, and the rest of the Nations in the world, who have issue with democracy at its finest, as demonstrated by the massive, historic, resounding landslide of Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberal Party: Most unlearned reviewer! fortunate would it be for your own sakes and ours, could you but fix your eyes upon the stifling smoke issuing from your own home, instead of keeping them busy with your spy-glasses in watching our motions across in Canada.{Note: thanks be to Louisa Susanna Cheves McCord, and her book Political and Social Essays for assistance in the advice}
Just Saying…..
October 13, 2015 Andrew Chernoff
The headlines have the Harper Conservatives on the ropes; the election all but over:
‘There’s a real chance that Justin’s Liberals could form government’: Conservatives warn-National Post-Oct 12, 2015
Liberals within reach of strong minority: poll-Toronto Star – Oct 10, 2015
Conservatives On Defence In Several Urban Man. And Sask. Ridings-Huffington Post Canada-Oct 13, 2015
Harper Tries to Fend Off Trudeau in Last Week of Canada Vote-Bloomberg-Oct 11, 2015
No room for ambition or contenders in ‘party of one’ –Waterloo Record-Oct 13, 2015
“The Conservatives will have only themselves to blame when the votes are counted next Monday” says Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph.
Say it isn’t so? Gentle my heart….Proof that Santa Claus exists…..Must get that Lotto 649 ticket NOW!!!
As a British Columbian, since the provincial election of 2013 (2013 B.C. election: The post-mortem), forgive me for being once bitten, twice shy. The BC NDP were to win by a landslide. The polls said so. The electorate said so. The province had enough of the Liberals and it was time to strike them down and put an end to that totalitarian government once and for all.
Yeah, right. The polls lied. British Columbians lied.
When it came to actually putting their vote where it counted, too many British Columbians committed hari kari and drank the BC Liberal juice.
Once again proving that too many British Columbians are ineffectual and timid to affecting real change. They are pussies: B.C. election: Christy Clark pulls off an upset for the ages: Defying all pre-election polling and prognostication, Liberal Leader Christy Clark retained power in British Columbia Tuesday night-Tim Harper.
On Monday, October 19, will Canadians from coast-to-coast-to coast make the pollsters right? Will there be at least a federal Liberal minority government, if not majority government, in place on Tuesday, October 20? Or, will it be a minority NDP federal government? Or, dread the thought, more of the same?
Both Stephen Harper and his government were supposed to be regulated to the opposition last election. Remember?
“Harper finally wins majority as NDP surges into Opposition”-Globe and Mail-May 2, 2011:
Canadian voters have radically redrawn the country’s political landscape, handing the Conservative Party its long-sought majority in an election that decimated the Bloc Québécois and humbled the Liberals.
For the first time in history, the New Democratic Party will form the Official Opposition after an extraordinary breakthrough that propelled the party to more than 100 seats.
The extent of the transformation is startling. The Liberals now hold just four seats west of Guelph, Ont. The Conservatives, formerly shunned by Toronto voters, won nearly half of the seats in that city, twice as many as the Liberals. The Bloc Québécois, which defined Quebec federal politics for two decades, no longer qualifies for official party status. And Green Party Leader Elizabeth May won the party’s first seat, and the right to a place in the next election’s debates.
Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe lost his seat and resigned. Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff lost his riding. Both defeated leaders were squeezed, like many of their candidates, between growth in Conservative support and Jack Layton’s surging New Democrats.
The night belonged to Stephen Harper, who put his party over the top after five years of minority government and becomes just the third Conservative leader since Confederation to win triple victories.
Federal elections are much tougher to win, I must admit and the NDP did make a strong showing, to become the official opposition.
But……Canadians are like teenage girls drawn to “bad boys”……they are drawn to Harper and the rest of the Conservatives “bad boys…and girls”. Whatever the bad boys do opposes the book of rules which they rewrite for their own needs and purpose and that’s how they succeed to trigger an adrenaline rush in the Canadian electorate and draw them in for four more years.
I mean, how else do you explain the sado masochistic tendency that occurs every time Harper leads his Conservative party into a federal election. Between elections Canadians complain about everything and swear on everything including the Bible that change must occur: we must get rid of Harper and his Conservatives and elect a different federal party to be the government of Canada.
The polls prove it…..remember 2011…..and those trusting polls…..the Conservatives on the ropes….the NDP support….the Liberals.
The lesson from the 2011 federal election….the lesson the provincial BC NDP learned the hard way in 2013, repeating the history of the 2011 federal election….is that most polls aren’t worth believing: Canadians love to hear themselves complain and do nothing about it when it counts. Talk talk. Talk talk.
10. Most polls aren’t worth more than a glance of Canada’s political future through a crystal ball.
Most polling firms underestimated the Tories’ strength and overestimated the Liberals’ influence. So what did Canadians learn from the raft of fluctuating numbers and contradictory public opinion polls?
According to Harris-Decima chairman Allan Gregg, not much. “[They learned] that sometimes it’s better to be uninformed than misinformed,” he said.
Mr. Gregg says methodological issues are skewing results of telephone and online polls, including a dwindling number of landlines and people not answering their home phones to avoid telemarketers.
“The industry is going through a transition, and as a result our work is more imperfect than it is at the best of times,” he says. “We cannot predict behaviour, predicting turnout is impossible, and answers are only reflections of the questions that are asked.”
Ipsos Reid proved to be the most accurate of the country’s data slingers, posting poll results that closely mirrored the final tally. But Ipsos Reid’s Darrell Bricker says he doesn’t count on results purely from the so-called “random sample.”
“The real issue is coverage and making sure you have an adequate representation of the population in the sample,” he said. “What it comes down to is good science and being skeptical by your own numbers. The job of good social science is you never take anything from one source.” Ten lessons to learn from the 2011 election National Post (blog)-May 3, 2011
So what will it be? C’mon I have to know right now. What’s it gonna be? Harper’s Conservatives, Trudeau’s Liberals or Mulcair’s New Democrats?
I know….I know….the same ole tune, right. Let me guess…..
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby, let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I’ll give you an answer in the morning
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby, let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I’ll give you an answer in the morning
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby, let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I’ll give you an answer in the morning
My prediction is….more of the same….the Harper Conservatives are the federal party Canadians love to hate, and the majority of Canadians are too far-gone on that Harper Conservative cocktail. It’s an obsession you just can’t quit. Defies all logic and common sense.
In the end, you disavow any personal responsibility. Harper made you do it. That bad boy.
Like the song says:
I couldn’t take it any longer
Lord I was crazed
And when the feeling came upon me
Like a tidal wave
I started swearing to my god
And on my mother’s grave
That I would love you to the end of time
I swore I would love you to the end of time
Just saying….
http://thechronicleherald.ca ralph Surette May 16, 2014
Three little-tent parties suit Stephen Harper just fine, because small, dirty and divided is his game, writes Ralph Surette. (ADRIAN WYLD / CP)
Watching Stephen Harper envenom not only the politics of the day but hammer at our deepest societal framework — the rule of law, democratic process — is to wonder what will be left of our self-respect as a nation if he wins the next election, thanks to a splintered electorate.
Once the light of the world on many fronts, Canada is now denounced regularly on environment, foreign aid and other things. Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation, which rates governments every three years, has Canada slipping fast in “good government” ratings. Of the “high-quality governance structures” Canada once had in place, it said in its most recent report, “the actions of the Canadian government . . . have jeopardized this situation.”
Harper is a genius at totalitarian-style manipulation that feeds on the divisions that it has itself created, and at keeping the public confused. The fact that his party is still in the game at all according to the polls, despite one anti-democratic binge after another, attests to that.
Despite everything, he comes out with only a few light scratches over his scandalous attack on Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin on a trumped-up accusation.
This is not just a nasty spat. The Harperists have been attacking the courts from Day 1, and their problem is not with this or that judge — it is with the rule of law itself. The PMO’s reported fury at a string of setbacks suffered at the hands of the Supreme Court tells us ever more clearly that the Conservatives see the law as their plaything, to be bent to their purposes.
Harper is a clear-headed ideologue — all the more dangerous for that. Having bragged to the effect that “you won’t recognize Canada after I’m through with it,” his stated goal is to destroy the Liberal party and turn his own into the “natural governing party.”
The time for natural governing parties is probably over, but he can take some satisfaction in the reduced state of the Liberal party. The Harperists’ one telling argument is that Justin Trudeau “is not ready for prime time.” As regularly as Harper assaults democracy, Trudeau puts his foot in his mouth. And the recent signal given by its exclusion of pro-life candidates on the abortion issue is that the Liberal party is no longer a “big-tent” party. Three little-tent parties suit Harper fine, because small, dirty and divided is his game.
One would hope that by the time the next election rolls around in a year and a half, the game will be absolutely clear to the electorate. The idea of Harper in power another four years to rip up treaties, pervert the electoral process, pass manipulative omnibus bills, deepen the hold of oil and other resource companies over government, rig the tax system for partisan purposes, politicize the bureaucracy, plus attack environmentalists, scientists, civil society groups and parliamentary watchdogs, among others, should give us pause indeed.
Actually, many people get it now — the Harperists linger at some 20 per cent in the polls in Atlantic Canada and at 13 per cent in Quebec, raising the prospects of election night opening with fewer than a half dozen Conservative seats east of Ontario, and maybe none at all. The Prairies won’t budge much, despite some Conservative libertarians objecting to Harper’s iron grip, leaving Ontario and B.C. to decide. There, the Harperists are behind the Liberals, but not by much.
Harper’s argument there is that he’s going to heroically balance the budget and cut taxes. That is, he’s going to slash at everything, like services to veterans, and, especially, dump costs on the provinces. (Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer doesn’t know what exactly is being cut — that’s hidden in the last omnibus bill.)
With these savings, he’ll propose to cut taxes aimed at key voting groups in the money belts around Toronto and Vancouver that can be counted on to put self-interest above country.
If only Canadians saw what the outside sees. Once the light of the world on many fronts, Canada is now denounced regularly on environment, foreign aid and other things. Germany’s Bertelsmann Foundation, which rates governments every three years, has Canada slipping fast in “good government” ratings. Of the “high-quality governance structures” Canada once had in place, it said in its most recent report, “the actions of the Canadian government . . . have jeopardized this situation.”
Meanwhile, last November, with the media saturated with the Senate and Rob Ford scandals, Canadians heard nothing of the thrashing we got at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, where several studies put us down with Saudi Arabia, which flares off oilfield gas, and a couple of others as one of the dirtiest nations on Earth per capita, thanks mostly to the tar sands.
Meanwhile, the opposition Liberals and NDP, which two-thirds of the electorate would like to see come together to put an end to Harper, instead are locked in their own frenzied combat, making it more likely that the Conservatives will slip through in those contested areas. And another Harper victory, even in a squeaky minority, would kill any chance that this country can retake its place as a positive force in the world.
Harper is a genius at totalitarian-style manipulation that feeds on the divisions that it has itself created, and at keeping the public confused. The fact that his party is still in the game at all according to the polls, despite one anti-democratic binge after another, attests to that.
Ralph Surette is a freelance journalist in Yarmouth County.
E-Mail: rsurette@herald.ca
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail Tuesday, May. 13 2014
An overhaul of Canadian electoral law is one step closer to being in place for the 2015 campaign after the House of Commons passed Bill C-23 despite ongoing calls for changes.
The Conservative government’s divisive Fair Elections Act passed third reading in the House on Tuesday evening by a vote of 146 to 123. It will now be sent to the Senate, where a quick approval is expected. The government hopes to make it law by June.
Bill C-23 overhauls many of the rules for election campaigns in Canada. Chiefly, it will boost ID requirements on voting day and place limits on what Elections Canada can do publicly. It creates a registry for robocall rules, albeit one some fear will be toothless, and boosts penalties for certain offences while adding an extra day of advance voting.
Critics have warned its effect could disenfranchise some voters, reduce voter turnout and tilt the electoral playing field in favour of the Conservatives.
Facing widespread calls for change, the Conservatives last month were forced to back down on certain proposals and amend the bill. The government, however, voted down more than 200 opposition amendments – all but a few minor, technical ones – aimed at further reforms.
The man spearheading the effort, Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre, brushed aside ongoing calls for changes and said it’s time to push the bill to become law.
“Now we move forward to decision day, having had all these debates [and] considered modest but fair changes. It is time for people to decide. This bill will allow Elections Canada to focus on its core mandate of running elections fairly and efficiently,” Mr. Poilievre said in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
House Leader Peter Van Loan said the bill will be in place in time for the next election and it’s not expected to be delayed in the Senate.
“All indications are the bill does have a lot of support – not only among elected officials in the House, but also in the Senate,” Mr. Poilievre said.
The bill continues to have opponents. A long list of non-partisan experts called for changes, including some that weren’t made. In return, the Conservative government attacked the motives of some critics, such as Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand, before abruptly announcing amendments.
Mr. Poilievre offered no contrition Tuesday when asked if he had any regrets about the process. “I’m very happy with how it went about,” he said.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has said the bill would “weaken our democracy and make voting harder across the country,” and NDP MPs continued to outline their problems with the bill in the waning hours of debate Tuesday.
The NDP had asked 19 specific Conservative MPs – those with an independent streak – to oppose the bill. They included Harold Albrecht, Jay Aspin, Maxime Bernier, Peter Braid, Michael Chong, Rob Clarke, Robert Goguen, Bal Gosal, Laurie Hawn, Bryan Hayes, Gerald Keddy, Ryan Leef, James Rajotte, Lawrence Toet, Brad Trost, Susan Truppe, Tim Uppal, David Wilks and Stephen Woodworth. In the end, none voted against it.
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has pledged to repeal the bill if elected prime minister, a pledge he reiterated Tuesday.
“The changes that have been made aren’t good enough, and if we form government in 2015, we will establish a much fairer principle around elections and repeal C-23,” he said.
Andrew Phillip Chernoff 