What's wrong with the Conservatives?

My theory

NorthReport wrote:

What Harper's thinking

 

 

http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/28/what-harpers-thinking/

What a terrible, fawning article.

I am an awful writer and even I can tell you that doesn't even deserve to be in a poorly Xeroxed newsletter.

Even with a united 'left', another election won't change much. The presence of the Bloc Quebecois will always warp the electoral process, to the extent that ANY Anglo-Canadian party is unlikely to win a majority. The Conservatives, New Democratic Liberal Green Party, or whatever will always be the 'Anglo' party to many Quebecers, including non-separatists. Neither the NDP-Liberals, nor the Tories will ever make great inroads in Quebec. And, unless they totally lose interest in even campaigning (e.g., Rahim Jaffer), the Conservatives are guarranteed a majority of seats in the West and rural Ontario. Meanwhile, the Lib-Dems are essentially assured seats in the GTA and certain ethnic ridings. And so it goes.

The current Conservative party is actually to the left on Trudeau's Liberals, on issues like immigration numbers (constant at 250,000 annually, whereas Trudeau lowered the immigration intake substantially during a recession) and gun control (the Conservative government is intent on keeping the firearms licensing scheme, which even PET didn't consider introducing). The Harper Tories are also to the left of Chretien-Martin, on the issue of running deficits. The 1990s Liberals simply cut government spending by downloading programs on lower levels of government, a trick copied by Ontario and Alberta PCs (Harris and Ralph). PET gets the blame from right wingers for things like immigration policy, intrusive gun control and letting the military rot, but these things really got underway in the Mulroney-Campbell era. And ALL politicians, including Bob Rae, have had unsavory ties to wealthy business interests. Peel away the rhetoric and you'll find that the New Liberal-Democrats and the Red Tories are barely different from each other.

What ISN'T wrong with the Conservatives?

"Agent666, Your first paragraph at post #8 is not well informed. How do you explain the Liberal majority governments since 1991 (almost 20 YEARS ago) when it was formed? Stop the Quebec bashing NOW."

The solid majorities came BEFORE the Sponsorship mess blew up in the Liberals' faces. After the stunning revelations over Adscam, Quebec's non-separatist voters dumped the Liberal party in droves. Voting Bloc, for them, was a way of expressing Quebec's interests (equalization payments and the like), without necessarilly supporting sovereignty. This isn't 'Quebec bashing', but reality. Albertans supported Reform/Alliance, for the same reason. Vlaams Blok/Belang was/is a right-wing version of this process, in Belgium--a quasi-separatist, nationalist party, articulating the interests of a large ethno-linguistic part of an uncomfortable federation. The SNP and Plaid Cymru are left-wing versions of this, in Great Britain. Given the choice, (Quebecois) people inclined to vote for a small-l liberal party in Quebec will ALWAYS pick Bloc, especially now that they're not pushing for sovereignty. (Quebec is a defacto sovereign state, anyhow: its own pension plan, immigration policy, blood supply...and even official, Federal recognition of nationhood, so the sovereignists got most of what they wanted.)

Places like Outremont are 'Allophonic' enough for a 'New Liberal-Democratic Party' to make inroads. Conversely, the Conservatives can get a few seats in rural Quebec, on issues like the Gun Registry. The rest of Quebec will be solidly Bloc for some time. Most of the West is a lost cause. The NDP were able to win that seat, simply because Rahim Jaffer was such a beery fool. Northern Ontario is probably a lost cause for the Liberals & NDP, too. The Lib-Dems' base is primarilly major metro areas in the East and the West Coast, parts of the Maritimes and the North. The regional fracturing of Canada's political landscape started in the early '90s, but has only gotten worse. No majority will ever come of this, nor will any coalition be tolerated, or stable.

My Theory.

The NDP will keep those seats if Layton keeps his promise and doesn't whip the vote on the Gun Registry. And the Bloc have broadened their base, to include other than 'pure laine' Quebeckers and separatists. After that Jaques Parizeau foot-in-mouth thing about the 'ethnic vote' costing the Referendum, the Bloc purged its xenophobic elements and made big inroads in Francophone Arab, Haitian and North African communities. Separation is, essentially a 'Non'-issue (pardon the pun), making the Bloc more appealing to non-separatist Quebec nationalists. People in Quebec and Alberta, Saskatchewan like Provincial autonomy. The NDP and Liberals, however, both share a centralist ideology that alienates many in Quebec and Western Canada, alike.

The 'left' has to dump its centralist tendancies if it wants to score more seats. New Labour did this, when it smartly devolved some governmental functions to Scotland and Wales, which probably cost the SNP and Plaid Cymru some seats. Moving Britain away from a unitary government was likely Labour's best legacy, out of an otherwise spotty record. 'Ottawa' is still a dirty word in much of Quebec and the West, and the NDP/Liberals have to realize this.

It should read what have the Conservatives done right?  Approve drilling off the coast of Newfoundland as I was listening to the American news and boy are we lucky the spill didn't happen in Canada.  Its what CNN had to say in a recent broadcast when talking about the Gulf spill and how it was very lucky it happened in the Gulf and not in Canada in Newfoundland where  the deepest wells are located and Canadians don't have the ability to clean it up.  And lets not forget Harper's hated sales tax no little thing as 75% of British Columbians agree its got to go.  And it was cute,real cute how Harper says he is going to call in the RCMP on Guergis to distance the party from controversay but I wouldn't be surprised if the RCMP where already on the case.  Harper's got Oil running through his veins instead of blood and has Canada knee deep in Oil as the Tar Sands is an abomination for certain. And torture in Afganastan is no small thing as peace loving Canadians go in for the kill.

Point being is that Faux News USA has a huge following.

I read somewhere that Rupert Murdoch was asked if he'd have a left leaning news network and he stated that if there was money in it,he would.

ALL open mouth radio shows are hosted by raging right wingers and it is the right that gets unlimited soap boxes to preach their myths,urban legends,sexist,homophobic and xenophobic ideologies.

This is something that has been going on for years in the states and has mutated in the last 10 years...There are NO counter opinions or arguements to level the playing field...Talk radio and cable news channels are tantamount to the same relentless and continuous propaganda machine the Nazis perfected all through the 1930's into the 40's...This is why you have so many Americans believing that health care and social justice is Nazism...The United States is MORE conservative now than they were 40 years ago.

How did this happen?...Simple,the Reagen Republicans followed up on an agenda to 'Conservatize' the populous...It started with an agressive effort to kill the sexual revolution by ignoring the AIDS 'epidemic' and perpetuating a hysterical paranoia amongst the populous...They identified the new social 'enemy' as the gay community..And it didn't stop there..Then came the 'war on drugs'..And with the full complicity of the media,they succeeded in convincing the American public that not only were these lifestyles 'immoral' BUT these lifestyles were a direct threat to the country.

What the Reagan administration started,King George I made stricter and all through this,the mass media went along with lock step with no questions and no worries...Where was the media's questions about the Gulf War?...Complicity.

That was the 80's and 90's...They had an agenda to change American culture,American attitudes and American opinion...It may have took 25 years or so but...Mission accomplished.

And that's what the Reform Party is painstakingly putting in place--a change in Canadian,attitudes,opinion and culture and this Faux News North project is precisely the vehicle they need and desire to do so.

As is with the case of a cult or any other organization headed by a madman,if you saturate the psyche of a person or a group with any mantra,idea or opinion relentlessly,they will believe anything you tell them...And The Harperites know that like the back of their hand.

this is why this project is a direct threat to Canadians and to Canada. 

CBC is 'Liberal'?...I guess my CBC station is different from yours.

Is it just me or did some neo-con get access to North Report's account?

No it is not just you, he has always been inconsistent in that manner, only thing that is consistent is his dislike of the Liberals.

Everything is wrong with them, they are delusional for starters, and then when you add sociopathic on a mass scale well......then they enter the territory of people and planet destroyers.

Plus they are lying liars...

Chester Drawers wrote:

alan smithee wrote:

I will have to agree with Tommy_Paine and not buy any good or service from any company sponsoring this wildly despicable anti-Canadian 'news' channel.

Well I hope you do not buy any item from any corporation or business that has Chinese slave labor goods in it.  That is anti-Canadian also.  But since you are here I guess your computer was 100% Canadian manufactured.  If you're gonna talk it walk it.  I find the CBC offencive, but do not demand my service provider remove it or I'll walk, I just do not watch it.  No one is going to pin your eyes open and force you to watch it Mr. alan smithee.

What I don't understand about the neo-conservatives in Canada is that everything you hope for and dream of is just a short drive south.

You want private health care,you want to carry guns,you want a corporate for-profit prison system,you want a police state,you want eveything to revolve around 'me',you want a greedy and selfish society who gets their kicks kicking people in the head when they fall down,you want a free market utopia which benefits the rich exclusively,you want to be part of a country which is a war machine and you want a country where your government takes their orders and makes their foreign policies through the word of 'god',then do yourselves a service and move to the U.S.

It's not difficult to get a work visa,if you have a specialty,a trade that is in high demand,it's very easy. My brother did it,you can too.

Harper's Reform Party will go down in history as the Party that changed Canada...Because the deep wedges this regime is creating and the alienation of a large portion of the populous,don't be surprised if a seperatist movement pops up outside of just Quebec.

As a matter of fact,maybe Canada can become a country of independant republics...All the loons from the far right can have a homeland,eh?

You're kidding right? If your idea of being behind involves not poking sticks at people with the lowest common denominator - I'll stick with the left.

The right have no idea they are on a mission unless they are told, a thousand times over by their propaganda machine, that they are in fact, on a mission. The right is united in hate. Not sense, not compassion, and certainly not empathy. They unite in a shared feeling that everything is wrong and conveniently they all need as many scapegoats as possible.

I am old school. I don't believe the left needs to resort to the dirty tactics of the screaming, obsessed right.

And since when did this become a Con cheer-leading board? I find your defence of the right offensive. 

And you might want to double check your assertion above that the cons have been scandal free.

Also, I fully agree with alan above - the last thing this country needs are corporate political freaks spewing right wing crap 24/7. It will destroy what little moral compass we have left and that compass is what separates us from the screaming teabaggers down south.

Thank you Remind. Thank you Stargazer. Thank you both for your last posts.

I totally agree with Smithee. The Centre-left look like bumbling partisan fools, and in fact are bumbling partisan fools (or corrupt), when they refuse to use natural political instinct and universal, common sense cooperative strategies to attempt to form government.

There's a huge difference between the "dirty tactics" of personal nasty attacks on Chretien's crooked smile, for example, and "clever tactics" where a smaller party circumvents FTPT and temporarily unites with one's competitors, with the all important goal of gaining power to institute legislation (PR, for example) that could lead to a proportionally representative government, so that all future elections would be played on a fair playing ground, and where each party, once again, fights for its own ground.

thorin_bane wrote:

NR the left tried to purchase  bell or ctv(one is part owner of the other anyway) it was the teachers union. Wiki

The Ontario teachers' pension plan. Which doesn't really count as the left as teachers don't actually control it.