Harper Is Going To Call An Election, or, The Official Canadian Election Thread (NO AMERICANS ALLOWED)

Yeah, that's why politicians are so greasy. But it does seem like a tough job though, but damn, I hate how nothing seems to get accomplished.

I really don't give a shit anymore unless:

1) There's another minority government
2) The NDP wins, they would fuck up our whole country

Personally, I thought the budget was fine. We're recovering from a recession that hit numerous countries around the world. It's not the time to be dropping millions of dollars into an election that will probably come out with the same results. It's a battle of egos. Layton nips at the heels of the Liberals and Conservatives, but he'll never become Prime Minister. And how long was Ignatieff in the U.S.?

My province is dealing with a possible flood crisis. We have OTHER things to worry about than a battle of egos, some stupid war over who gets the keys to 24 Sussex Drive and the title of "Prime Minister." Are things REALLY so horrible that we need to drop millions of dollars on an ELECTION? Screw that.

I'm hoping Cons will get a majority government so that the Liberals/NDP/Bloc will shush. I don't want to see ANOTHER cluster fuck with the forming of a coalition either. No thank you.

Well I'm pretty sure they can't use Tax Dollars in elections. I think most of the money comes from private donars. The big thing is that it is a big fucking waste of time.

I personally believe that a hybrid American-Canadian system would be great. You know, just because a bill gets defeated it doesn't mean the government fails and people can actually vote the way they want, they don't have to stick to party voting. I do like that the Prime Minister is not decided by bullshit electoral votes but rather (at least usually) by the popular vote. (More votes means more seats, more seats means your the PM).

Yeah, we need a majority, so shit can get done. People give harper a shit time, but seriously... I can not see Layton or Ignatieff in office. It would be a shit show.

My problems with the budget were the plans for fighter jets and all the spending on his crime bills (which he refused to give up any details on the spending of, even after the House Speaker said that they had to). And it wasn't the budget that caused the fall of the government (entirely), it was a vote of non-confidence, which came after they voted the budget down, and that vote was voting the Harper government in contempt of parliament (for the aforementioned refusal to give up details), which is something that has never been done before. I understand that much of it was simply politics, but still, the fact that no previous government has been found in contempt of parliament is something that I think is worthy of calling an election over.

And I don't think that a coalition is such a bad thing, as much as Harper may whine and get worked up about it, at least it would get something done in the event of a minority vote. And Harper, himself, claimed that in the last Liberal minority that the leader wasn't necessarily to become the Prime Minister. It's all just Harper's relentless attacks against other parties. I understand that the other parties do this, as well, but Harper's certainly the worst for it. Which is why Elizabeth May is awesome:


I honestly think that a coalition would be better than getting a Harper majority. With his record spending; the contempt vote, and previous episodes of similar secrecy (see: Canadian military interrogations in Afghanistan); the overspending (and allegations of using government money on promoting partisan purposes) on election campaigns (the in-and-out scheme used to get more funding for his 2006 campaign from representatives), and the issue of Bev Oda and the "not" and lying to parliament, it would kill me to see Harper come out of this with a majority.

tl;dr version, fuck Harper, I'd rather see a coalition, and the reason for calling an election was just.

In my opinion.

ETA: I think Harper's just bitter that nobody wants to form a coalition with him, anymore.

My only problem with the Green Party is they made fun of attack ads with an attack ad

I think that was supposed to be the irony, that you can't make yourself heard unless it's something dramatic like an attack ad.

STEPHEN HARPER was visiting an Ontario primary school and the class was in the
middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asked
Mr. Harper if he would like to lead the discussion on the word 'Tragedy'. So
our illustrious leader asked the class for an example of a 'Tragedy'.

A little boy stood up and offered: If my best friend, who lives on a farm, is
playin' in the field and a tractor runs over him and kills him, that would be a
tragedy. Incorrect, said Harper. That would be an accident.

A little girl raised her hand: If a school bus carrying fifty children drove
over a cliff, killing everybody inside, that would be a tragedy. 'I'm afraid
not', explained Harper, that's what we would refer to as a great loss''

The room went silent. No other children volunteered. Harper searched the room.
Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy? Finally, at
the back of the room, little Johnny raised his hand and said: If a plane
carrying You, Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Layton and Mr. Duceppe were struck by a
'friendly fire' missile & blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy.
Fantastic, exclaimed Harper, and can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?
Well, said Johnny, it has to be a tragedy, because it certainly wouldn't be a
great loss, and it probably wouldn't be a f---in accident either!

HAHAHA

Yup, our politicians are buffoons

Just voted. I was torn between NDP, Green and Liberal, but ended up voting Liberal solely due to them having the best chance of defeating the Conservatives in my riding. As much as I hate all the other parties, I just hate the (Harper) Conservatives just that much more.

I voted NDP...even though my riding (province actually) has been Conservative for-fucking-ever.

Sigh.

Funny as hell to see the conflicting facebook statuses on my news feed.

I'm actually glad that Conservatives got the majority. Alberta is Conservative, mostly because the Liberals fucked them hard a while back, and we haven't forgotten.

The way I saw the election go: All the right wing Liberal's voted Conservative, and all the left wing Liberal's voted NDP. In my opinion, Ignateiff would be a terrible choice. (I guess so did everyone else in Canada)

Ugh, I'm moving to Europe. I would have rather had Ignatieff in power. At least he has some sense of democratic process, it seems.

He did have a terrible campaign though. He campaigned for the Liberal/NDP coalition, basically telling his voters it didn't matter if you vote for him or NDP. He wasn't very popular, so everyone turned to NDP instead.

I'm just it was a majority and the NDP didn't win. People don't realize how fucked our country would be with the NDP in power. Honestly the Liberals and Conservatives are so close in party platform/policy it would not change your day-to-day at all if one or the other was in power but if the NDP gained control, all bets are off.

Honestly, none of us can really say whether NDP would fuck our country up or not, considering we've never seen them in power federally. They do fine in Saskatchewan.

Plus, I'm pretty sure Harper's out to turn us into America, which is something I definitely don't want to see. We don't need more fighter jets (I don't care who came up with the idea, Harper's the only one that still wants them). We don't need even bigger corporate tax cuts. We don't need bigger/more jails. We don't need harsher criminal law. In fact, we need rehabilitation, considering that actually works to get people off drugs/crime, while prisons only seem to make things worse (as shown by many studies). I sincerely believe that the Harper Conservatives are the worst of the three main parties for this country. I just hate how good he is at attack ads. And the fact that most people actually respond to them more than intellectual debate.

What we do need is an actual plan on climate change, government aid for post-secondary education, and clean water for Native reserves (despite what he may believe, clean water is a right, not a privilege). We also need transparency. We can't debate over things we don't know the details of, so democracy can flourish. I'm utterly shocked that people don't seem to care about that one.

About the corporate tax cuts... At first glance it sounds bad, I mean, rich big CEO's get richer, poor mama and pops hardware stores suffer. But big corporations are a very big source of tax revenue for the government. Also, big corporations offer tons of jobs. By giving tax cuts to corporations, it allows them to not have to lay off workers (less jobs lost) which is beneficial.

Also, with climate change. It's kinda ridiculous to hear someone say "Stop climate change". Also it's ridiculous to hear someone say "Climate isn't changing". Climate is, always has, and will continue to change. The politics involved in this have skewed so many scientific studies, so it's really hard to tell what is true and what isn't. Though climate is warming, if humans were to disappear tomorrow, and all fossil fuels cease to be used, Earth would still see warming for the next 100-200 years (until the next ice age). So we should really be asking how we should prepare for global warming, not how to prevent it.

I don't agree with Harper on everything, but he is competent at repairing the economy, and frankly, that's really the biggest issue we have right now in Canada.

My name is Ignatieff.

I came from the States to try and win the spotlight in Canada, jumping on board the coalition band wagon and eager to pull the trigger on another election. I participated in the attack ad war and called Harper a dishonest man, a liar, someone you can't trust, and a bunch of other things that attacked him personally in the same way they did to me. During the debate I repeated a number of these phrases. I said that I would try to continue being the Liberal party leader even after the election if we lost.

I lost the election. I complained about the personal attack ads that Harper and the Conservatives released that targeted me. I resigned.


















Hmm...

raptorsaurus wrote:

About the corporate tax cuts... At first glance it sounds bad, I mean, rich big CEO's get richer, poor mama and pops hardware stores suffer. But big corporations are a very big source of tax revenue for the government. Also, big corporations offer tons of jobs. By giving tax cuts to corporations, it allows them to not have to lay off workers (less jobs lost) which is beneficial.

Also, with climate change. It's kinda ridiculous to hear someone say "Stop climate change". Also it's ridiculous to hear someone say "Climate isn't changing". Climate is, always has, and will continue to change. The politics involved in this have skewed so many scientific studies, so it's really hard to tell what is true and what isn't. Though climate is warming, if humans were to disappear tomorrow, and all fossil fuels cease to be used, Earth would still see warming for the next 100-200 years (until the next ice age). So we should really be asking how we should prepare for global warming, not how to prevent it.

I don't agree with Harper on everything, but he is competent at repairing the economy, and frankly, that's really the biggest issue we have right now in Canada.

To an extent. Right now, our corporate tax rates are lower than that of even the US, which is alright, but I don't want to see a continuing decline in their tax rates, as Harper intends to do.

Also, I'm not expecting Harper to stop climate change, but I do expect him to try to do something about it. It was, at one point, called upon for Canada to be suspended from the commonwealth for our dismal climate change policies. He's entirely abandoned the idea that we can do anything to respect the earth we live on.

Finally, Harper's the one who took our near-$20 billion surplus into a near-$60 billion deficit. I understand that he's done this under a minority government, and debt is pretty inevitable in minority governments, but this still seems pretty ridiculous. And he's done this all while stopping funding for so many social programs and aid to Africa.

Raccoon wrote:

My name is Ignatieff.

I came from the States to try and win the spotlight in Canada, jumping on board the coalition band wagon and eager to pull the trigger on another election. I participated in the attack ad war and called Harper a dishonest man, a liar, someone you can't trust, and a bunch of other things that attacked him personally in the same way they did to me. During the debate I repeated a number of these phrases. I said that I would try to continue being the Liberal party leader even after the election if we lost.

I lost the election. I complained about the personal attack ads that Harper and the Conservatives released that targeted me. I resigned.

Hmm...

He didn't come from the States. And who gives a shit, he taught there for a while, how in the world does that disqualify him from the PM's office? Also, what's wrong with a coalition? Four other commonwealth countries are in coalitions, and it hasn't caused any of this instability Harper's talking about. And Harper wanted a goddamn coalition back when Paul Martin had the government. Yes, he participated in the attack ad war, but Harper definitely started that. If he were to get on the defensive instead of fighting back, he'd probably have lost even more seats. Harper wanted this election just as much as anyone else, if he didn't he might have given Layton his demands. Harper is a dishonest man, and someone you can't trust, his track record tells us exactly that - he simply isn't transparent. During the debate, he was the ONLY party leader to actually give figures for how he would afford his promises.

Ignatieff... He didn't come back for you.

Well, the attack ads, both sides, we're probably quote mining the hell out of each other. I couldn't take it seriously.

Anyways, I'm hoping now that Harper has a majority, he will change his attitude a bit. I guess we'll find out in the next few years...

raptorsaurus wrote:

Ignatieff... He didn't come back for you.

Well, the attack ads, both sides, we're probably quote mining the hell out of each other. I couldn't take it seriously.

Anyways, I'm hoping now that Harper has a majority, he will change his attitude a bit. I guess we'll find out in the next few years...

It's all I ask.

That, and him signing the UN declaration that clean water is a human right.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/liberals-cool-to-idea-of-merger-with-ndp/article2009049/