If people don’t turn out to vote today, I hear that they will Stephen Harper will take it as a mandate to cancel hockey and double the tax on beer.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.
Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
Not all heroes wear capes.
It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.
It’s the corruption, stupid.
When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”
This really is a full service blog.
Come on, man.
Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.
“But what about the lurkers?”
Battle won, war still ongoing.
Second rate reporter says what?
When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.
gene108
Many Canadian NHL hockey teams have moved to the USA and not only to the USA. They’ve moved to hockey mad towns like Phoenix. I really do wonder why Canadians are still obsessed with ice hockey.
The sport, at its highest level, doesn’t seem to love you back.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Read the Book of Job.
Comrade Javamanphil
I signed the petition to end the Polar Bear hunt in Toronto so I’ve done my part.
Comrade Mary
I’m at a polling station right now and it’s DEAD. Where the hell is everybody?
MikeJ
@Comrade Javamanphil: They hunt polar bears in Toronto?
Yutsano
@Comrade Mary: Crap. Why do I get the feeling that doth not bode well for removing the tool?
I have issues with Baltimore
I’ve yet to hear Michelle Bachmann deny running in any of the canadian elections today.
Peter
This election’s turned into a hell of a thing. For the first time in my lifetime “Prime Minister Jack Layton” is a thing that could conceivably happen.
Alex S.
Good luck Canada, don’t take the right road…
Lol
There was a guy waving a giant Canadian flag outside the White House last night.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Comrade Mary: You mean liberals don’t turn out to vote in Canada either? (ducks) Do they think they have already won it?
Martin
@gene108: I think that’s because Canada is less willing to take taxpayer dollars and build new arenas at the drop of a hat. The US is the king of pro sports welfare.
KG
@Alex S.: I thought there was only one road in Canada?
/obscure South Park reference
gex
Is this an OT, or are we really discussing Canadian politics?
Cathie from Canada
@gene108: Yes, we are still obsessed with hockey.
Canada has five NHL teams (Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal) in a country one-tenth the population of the US, and there are at least five more cities that want and could likely support a team — Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Hamilton, Halifax, Quebec City — except the NHL won’t let these citis get teams started.
The Phoenix team is in trouble financially and groups of investors in Winnipeg and in Hamilton have wanted to buy it for several years but the League doesn’t want it moved. The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t want a team in Hamilton, either.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@gene108:
@Martin:
And the Coyotes are very likely on the way back to Winnipeg anyhow, from what I heard.
lamh34
Oh Lord,
The end of days is upon us guys:
Read more: http://thepage.time.com/2011/05/02/donkeys-fly-3/#ixzz1LDicXxKC
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Cathie from Canada:
Does anyone take the Leafs seriously anymore? Aren’t they like the Raiders of the NHL at this point?
Tom
The way I see it, there are several possibilities for tomorrow
Stephen Harper as PM at the head of a:
Majority (unlikely, but possible if there are some nasty vote splits)
Minority
Coalition (I know what he said, but if politics make strange bedfellows, then expect to hear the phrase “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soir)?)
Jack Layton as PM at the head of a:
Minority (again, vote splits required)
Coalition
Michael Ignatieff as PM at the head of a:
Coalition (sorry Iggy, you’ve been ranked YANGB (You’re A Nice Guy, But…))
Linnaeus
@Cathie from Canada:
Slight correction: there are six NHL teams in Canada (the five you mentioned plus the Ottawa Senators).
Definitely more Canadian cities could support NHL teams. Hell, both Winnipeg and Quebec City had teams (the Jets and the Nordiques, respectively) that were competitive before they moved to Phoenix and Colorado.
Silver
@Cathie from Canada:
I know the Sens might not be considered an NHL team, especially this year, but Canada actually has 6 teams.
lamh34
damn blockquotes:
Oh Lord,
The end of days is upon us guys:
MikeJ
BTW, will there be a thread on the 5th for the AV referendum?
It’s surprising how little you hear about it in the US.
geg6
Well, I sure hope all you Canucks dump that rightwing idiot Harper today. Seriously. And, yes, I know that a Canadian rightwinger is nothing compared to an American one, but still…I like to think well of Canada and the whole Harper thing has me wondering if I should re-think that.
KRK
I was listening to a Victoria-based radio station on my way into work today and was very amused at how the 2 deejays were getting tripped up trying to exhort people to vote (“but not if this is the first you’ve heard that there’s an election today”) and be amusing and yet not inadvertently run afoul of Canada’s laws about (I presume) endorsing candidates or parties on air. One of them makes a joke about voting for Don Cherry; the other one asks in an aside “did we just violate the law there?”; the first one replies, “Don Cherry isn’t on the ballot, so I think we’re okay.”
Steve
I hear Harper plans to deport Geddy Lee as well if he wins re-election
TooManyPaulWs
@gene108:
About all the hockey teams moving to the US from Canada: it had something to do with lack of adequate revenue sharing to keep teams in small-population media markets, whereas larger populated places like Dallas, Denver, Charlotte, and Phoenix could build ice palaces in the 1990s as relocation bait.
Comrade Javamanphil
@MikeJ: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_to_Americans
Southern Beale
Check the kerning!
And a Bush-era internet meme receives new life. Who says RWNJs don’t believe in recycling?
ppcli
@lamh34: Limbaugh is being heavy-handedly sarcastic, suggesting that Obama is claiming credit for things that other people did. Listen to the whole thing.
Don’t worry, Limbaugh is as much of a douche as ever.
Mark
@Cathie from Canada: As already pointed out, Canada has six NHL teams. There are also AHL teams in Hamilton, Winnipeg, Abbotsford and Toronto, an ECHL team in Victoria and 51 Tier I junior hockey teams.
Don’t worry – either Atlanta or Phoenix will move to Winnipeg in the offseason.
ppcli
@geg6: After watching the metastasis of the hard-core right in the ‘States, I am very troubled by the prospect of a Harper majority. He’s not an old-style conservative like Stanfield or Clark or even Mulroney who basically accepted the Social Compact as it stands and disagree on fine-tuning. Harper and his people want to dismantle things – they are reading from the same playbook as American rightwingers – and it is only the political imperatives of governing from a minority position that have stayed his hand. Give him a majority government and Canada’s politics might be unrecognizable in four years.
JenJen
@Mark:
Exactly. During one of the Red Wings playoff games against the hapless Yotes, Ron MacLean even commented, “Well, Phoenix didn’t have the jets tonight, but don’t worry, Winnipeg… soon you’ll have yours.”
Thing is… 7 Canadian teams? That’s really gonna put a wrench in Hockey Day in Canada next season. ;-)
Seebach
JAKE TAPPER: “[I]n March, President Obama authorized a plan for the U.S. to bomb Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound with two B2 stealth bombers dropping a few dozen 2,000-pound JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) on the compound but President Obama ultimately decided against that. “The helicopter raid was riskier. It was more daring,” an official said. “But he wanted proof. He didn’t want to just leave a pile of rubble.” Officials also knew there were 22 people living there, and Obama wanted to be sure not to kill all the civilians. So he ordered officials to come up with an air-assault plan. The forces held rehearsals of the raid on April 7 and April 13, with officials monitoring the action from
PurpleGirl
My favorite knitting blog is written by Canadian Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She mentions in today’s posting that the voted in the advance poll because she knew she would be traveling for business today.
So maybe — here’s hoping — that many people voted in the advance poll.
Davis X. Machina
@Seebach: The original plan seems to have been
rm -rf /bin/ladinmightygodking
About two million people did, which is about 33% more than average.
Roger Moore
@Davis X. Machina:
No, no. The problem is that the original plan was:
rm -rf /bin/*Obama thought that might be a bit excessive and toned it down to:
killall -9 ladenComrade Javamanphil
@ppcli: Exactly. It’s Limbaugh’s entire schtick and the only tool he really has against a guy who embodies all of the GOP’s sacred values: Paint the successful, hardworking black man as arrogant and uppity. Sully’s fallen for it in case anybody wants to continue defending his rhetorical brilliance. I assume Halperin actually gets Limbaugh is sarcastic because he scare quotes everything but maybe he is unsure and is simply maintaining plausible deniability.
Svensker
@lamh34:
He’s snarking.
Svensker
@Tom:
Iggy seems to be Canada’s version of John Kerry, but with smarts.
Jane2
@Comrade Mary: We’re at work, waiting to vote and then watch with delight as the media talking heads explode.
canuckistani
@Comrade Mary:
I’ll be voting on my way home from work, but I’ll have a hard time cancelling the votes of my conservative rural relatives. Hopefully, they’ll be lazy.
polyorchnid octopunch
Hi folks!
Well, as I understand it, voting in advance polls broke all previous records. I can say that here in my riding voter engagement is at a high that I’ve not seen for years.
There are a few major things that are coming out of this election. Here’s a link to a major Canadian election poll site, being run out of Simon Fraser University in BC: http://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/elections/polls.html. It looks like the Liberals are facing decimation, as it looks like a lot of their voters have defected to the NDP. This is an interesting story… so a wee bit of history for you.
The NDP is the socialist party up here. It started as the CCF in Saskatchewan back in the forties. Their original leader was a guy named Tommy Douglas, who, I might add, is a direct ancestor of Jack Bauer; yep, Kiefer Sutherland is his grandson. They are the people who brought us medicare, implementing the first public health insurance system in the country. However, they’ve always been relegated to third party status, with their greatest seat total ever being fifty seats back in the eighties under the leadership of Ed Broadbent.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. At the beginning of the election nobody expected much movement towards the NDP. At best there was an expectation they’d end up in the same place, +/-5 seats or so. However, that started to change after the leadership debates. Folks in the English media are giving the credit to the English debate, but I think they’re wrong. I think he did it in the French debate. The zinger that the anglo media are crediting with his turnaround is his pointing out that Ignatieff (the Liberal leader, and yes, /that/ Ignatieff from Harvard) had the worst attendance record in Parliament of any Member of Parliament. However, that’s not really what got it going, imho.
The stunning rise is being referred to as the “Orange Crush” up here in Canada, and it started in Quebec. The reason why was because of something that happened in the French debate, which I assume most anglo reporters (we’re having many of the same problems with media up here you folks have down there) didn’t bother watching, or only watched via translation. Fortunately for me, I spent some years living in Montreal, where I learned to speak French. The turning point was the exchange between Duceppe (leader of the Quebec only party the Bloc Quebecois) and Layton (leader of the NDP). I’ve mentioned in before here; basically, Duceppe said something along the lines of “but of course, only the Bloc can truly represent the interests of the Quebecois” followed by Layton saying “I’d like to take exception to that.” There was some crosstalk, and then Layton was given the floor, and he looked right at the camera and said “you know, there are many people in English Canada that agree with the kinds of policies that you would like to see enacted. However, since the Bloc doesn’t run candidates in English Canada “as a matter of principle” they can’t vote for your party. The NDP, on the other hand, runs candidates in Quebec as a matter of principle. Take a look at our platform and join us so we can work together to enact the kinds of changes we’d all like to see in Ottawa.”
That’s when the poll numbers started to climb in Quebec… and they climbed fast. When it soon became apparent that they might end up sweeping the province other people started looking at them too. The non-stop negative campaigning undertaken by the Liberals towards the NDP (don’t vote for them, only we can win elections) and some of the absolutely insane dirty tricks that have been being seen here (the Cons are importing a lot of Repo tactics, but it’s backfiring on them bigtime) have got a lot of people considering sending both the “mainstream” parties (Cons and Libs) to the corner for a timeout.
The other really really big news about this election is that the Quebec electorate has decided after seventeen years to reengage with the Rest of Canada, via the NDP. This is really big news, and this election if it goes as predicted is going to seriously redraw Canada’s political map. Big changes are coming up here….
RedKitten
Yeah, the prospect of a Harper majority scares the bejeezus out of me. I really hope that it’s not given to him via a Liberal/NDP vote split. Right now, threehundredeight.com (our version of Nate Silver’s site) is projecting a Tory minority with the NDP as official opposition. I’m really, really hoping ’twill be the other way around, and that the Tories realize that far-right politics just do NOT play well up here.
Mind you, my riding is as blue as a sexually frustrated Smurf’s nutsack, so my vote is basically wasted. (I’m still voting anyway — if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch. And I love to bitch.)
Mark
@JenJen: Hockey Day in Canada shall be:
Vancouver-Winnipeg
Edmonton-Calgary
Montreal-Ottawa
Toronto-Buffalo
Until such time as Hamilton or Quebec City gets a team.
giltay
I expect polling stations to become very busy after working hours. I had to register at the polls, so I took a half vacation day this morning in case there was a lineup later.
Ab_Normal
@Davis X. Machina: I had that on my office door on about 9/13/11, I do believe. Left it up for quite a while, too, though it garnered many confused looks from my co-workers.
sven
I saw this rundown of the NDP platoform online today and was struck by how refreshingly liberal it is!
Double the pension fund
national cap and trade
thousands of new doctors (costs down, service up!)
credit cards capped at prime rate + 5%
cut new jet fighters
increase corporate tax rates
Progressive government sounds awful doesn’t it?
Southern Beale
@Mark:
All I can say is, Thank GOD Jim Balsillie didn’t move the Nashville Predators to Hamilton, or we might have missed out on the most amazing hockey game I’ve ever seen. Nashville gave Vancouver a spanking Saturday night and man was it incredible.
cynickal
What’s a canada?
JenJen
@Mark: Hey! Hamilton has the Bulldogs. And I LOVE the Bulldogs! Not enough room in that town for the NHL. ;-)
Good prediction that Buffalo would be the US team in an odd-year HDiC though.
@Southern Beale: I wouldn’t call that game a spanking, but I am SO loving the Preds right now. Once you get in Luongo’s head, it’s just a matter of follow-through…
Ecks
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
The Leafs have had a hard time of things recently, and no doubt about it (though not as hard as the Dead Wings of the 80’s, let us not forget)… but the new GM has been slowly assembling young talent, and to a significant extent they’ve been sunk by goaltending that was history-grade TERRIBLE… Which is a matter of finding just ONE better player (whom they may just have found, though it’s early days… Plus the Leafs have a large and rabid following no matter how bad they are. Unlike the bandwagon city of Montreal, Toronto fans know something about loyalty :)
So let’s say we can round that down to 5 then… :P
@ppcli: On a serious note, yeah, I worry about this too. He is not the type of “conservative” Canada has ever known before, he’s very much intent on total partisan warfare, at all times, regardless of the stakes, and with total dedication to an ideological vision that modern US Republicans would feel fairly well at home with. He can’t undo the universal healthcare, true, but the Republicans wouldn’t be able to here once it got entrenched. See their failures to chip away at medicare.
Svensker
@sven:
Doesn’t that sound sweet?
Southern Beale
@JenJen:
ME TOO!
We’re season ticket holders so needless to say this has been one helluva hockey season for us. We’ll be at the arena tomorrow night screaming our fool heads off.
Southern Beale
And in other hockey news it appears San Jose really has the Red Wings’ number. I think I’d much rather play San Jose than Detroit, just because Red Wings fans can be such assholes. But they’d squash us like a bug, I’m afraid.
HyperIon
question for @RedKitten
I see Jack Layton and Michael Ignatieff on CBC (which is included in the Seattle cable service). Layton always seems a bit goofy and Ignatieff comes off as an upper class twit who “cares”.
Do have any insight about either/both?
I tried to watch a recent debate…but Mansbridge put me to sleep before any of the candidates could. I sort of like the green party person but don’t know much about her.
ppcli
@sven: I do have a nagging worry that the NDP won’t have enough MP’s with the kind of experience needed to run the cabinet effectively. That was a big part of why Bob Rae’s surprise Ontario government in the 1980s was such a catastrophe and resulted in the decimation of the Ontario NDP for decades. It might be better in the long haul if they can fall just short this time but establish a solid presence as the left-wing alternative in Québec (which will weaken the Bloc to the point where it is a separatist version of the old Creditistes). Then they can stock the bench for the next election.
JenJen
@Ecks: Ooooh, fightin’ words! Calling Montreal a bandwagon hockey town is nothing short of ridiculous.
Of course, being a Habs girl myself, this video cracks me up.
“I cut two holes for eyes, I cut two holes for eyes.” ;-)
A friend of mine is fond of saying that the Leafs will win the Cup the same year he has sex with Megan Fox…
polyorchnid octopunch
@polyorchnid octopunch: Hmmm… I wonder why I’m in moderation.
MikeJ
@Comrade Javamanphil: Hah! I read the original as, “In Toronto, I signed a petition against hunting polar bears.” Mine was language snark.
I do like Rick Mercer’s stuff, but I don’t often see it.
Comrade Javamanphil
@MikeJ: Aha! Well played sir, well played.
Katie5
I voted. Got into an argument with the polling station people over the wording of the documents advertising the types of IDs you have to bring. That was somewhat fun.
Also, I live in the heart of the Bloc so it was fun to vote NDP since they’re actually threatening to topple old Blue Eyes this time.
sven
@ppcli: As an American I will take your word for it. My reaction was simply that if a Democrats attempted to increase Social Security, increase corporate tax rates, and cap credit cards at Prime +5%, DC would simply melt into the ground.
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
There was a big advance turnout (myself included) – citytv said turnout today was big
Dream On
As long as the tar sands are making lots of money for a powerful few, and then getting funneled back in to the Conservative party, I would be stunned if Harper doesn’t get what he wants.
Sad right-wing times.
canuckistani
@RedKitten:
I would bitch whether or not I voted, but so far I’ve always voted. And I’m going to steal your smurf imagery. There’s so much Harper in it.
Tom
@Mark:
Other alternatives are
Montreal-Boston
Toronto-Detroit
Don K
@Steve:
Considering Geddy is a big Ayn Rand fan, Harper might appoint him Governor-General.
Splitting Image
And somewhat less facetiously, to dismantle Medicare, privatize the Canada Pension Plan, break the public services union (maybe or maybe not including the police), ban abortion, repeal gay marriage, abolish any and all environmental standards, and eliminate public education.
In other words, everything they are currently doing in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and New Hampshire, plus they’ll probably ban the niqab.
I’m not a New Democrat, but I think the growth of the party in Quebec at the expense of the Bloc is very encouraging.
Also, I had my ballot challenged when I went to vote this morning because I brought two pieces of ID specified by the Elections Canada website instead of the photo ID the person at the booth thought I ought to have. He got overruled by the guy sitting next to him, but I “wonder” what the guy’s own party preference was. I guess I should have printed out the instructions from the website and brought them with me.
Splitting Image
@Don K:
I could be wrong, but I’m not sure Geddy has ever been interested in Objectivism. The Rush lyrics that were based on her books were written by Neil Peart.
Jane2
@Comrade Mary: Update…I heard people are lined up out the door in Moose Jaw. That doesn’t bode well for Steve.
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
@RedKitten: Layton may get a chance in the end. Emperor Steve has said that he will introduce the same budget that triggered this election – if the government fails another confidence motion, the governor general could ask Layton to form a government instead of calling new elections
Silver
@Splitting Image:
Both were influenced in younger days, Peart probably more. Both have long since moved on.
RedKitten
I think that Layton is a lot smarter than he lets on. He’s very ambitious, and he played this election very well — he was pretty much silent at the beginning of the campaign, letting Iggy and Stevie kick each other in the shins. And then came the debates. I don’t know if he anticipated the incredible boost he would get from that, but he certainly didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it and carry it through to the other provinces.
Ignatieff? I honestly don’t know how to read him. Like his predecessor, Stephane Dion, I think he’s a bit of a cipher — he’s done a shite job defining himself, and has let the opposition (i.e. the Conservatives) define him instead. I think if the Liberals want to ever have another shot, they’re going to have to pick someone with good name recognition and a lot of charisma. I’m pretty sure they’re just waiting with bated breath until Justin Trudeau has enough experience under his belt, and then they’ll trot him out as the Second Coming.
Amanda in the South Bay
Well, isn’t this what you get when you have the left fractured, and only a single right wing party? Having more than two parties is nice, but not when your side fractures and allows the opposition to prevail.
Wolprog
@polyorchnid octopunch
The NDP isn’t a socialist party, not in the traditional sense and not unless you consider social democracy to be a part of the broader socialist movement. The original Cooperative Commonwealth Federation founded in the 1930s may have used the democratic socialism of the Regina Manifesto as its primary political document, but that was a long time ago. Since then the party has broadly shifted towards the centre of Canadian politics, especially so under Layton. At this point the Liberals and NDP mostly just disagree on semantics policy-wise and most of the partisan battling between the two is more related to their sense of history and tradition, rather then distinct ideological differences. They aren’t the same party, but looking at the platforms there isn’t a significant amount of difference.
If you want differences between the two, a comparison to the two primary sections of the Democratic party in the US works I figure. The Liberals are the Canadian manifestation of the centrist establishment Democrats who control much of the party leadership and hold sway, while the NDP represents a sort of Canadian form of the Progressive faction of the party.
Calouste
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Only if you have a 18th century voting system like first-past-the-post. Under proportional representation or single transferable vote having multiple parties on one side and only one at the other makes very little difference.
RedKitten
Well, originally there was a far-right party (Reform/Alliance), a centre-right party (the Progressive Conservatives — quite the oxymoron, no?), a centre-left party (the Liberals), and a far-left party (the NDP).
But, the two right-leaning parties were concerned about the same thing you mentioned: vote splitting. So, even though that lying bastard Peter MacKay had promised at the last Progressive Conservative convention that the two parties wouldn’t merge, they merged, forming the Conservative Party of Canada.
So right now, we have a party that has been drifting further and further right under Stephen Harper, a Liberal party that has become basically centrist, and the NDP party which is still pretty lefty.
And yeah, there is that risk of vote-splitting, but we don’t usually have SUCH a polarizing right-wing figure that the Libs and N-Dippers would get into bed with each other anyway. It tends to usually be the Bloc whose alliance flits from party to party, depending on what has been promised. But, with the Bloc taking an epic shitkicking, they will no longer be a power player — not for the immediate future, anyway.
So yeah…it’s definitely interesting. But even with all of this risk, I still wouldn’t want just two parties. I like having the far-left NDP around…they’re very good at keeping the Overton Window from moving too far right.
polyorchnid octopunch
@RedKitten: Another aspect of it is that most of the really popular Liberal policies of the last thirty or forty years were basically cribbed from the NDP.
@Wolprog: I’d disagree. I have a lot of hope that an NDP government would act to reverse the regulatory capture that’s apparent at a lot of the federal agencies that are supposed to regulate industry. That’s definitely NOT in the (recent) history of the Liberal party at all.
Fred
I’m Canadian and I voted today. Most Americans probably don’t have a clue we are having a federal election and I don’t blame them. It’s rather boring since all 3 parties are more or less on the same page.
While Americans are fighting over whether to have gov’t run healthcare, the 3 major Canadian party leaders were fighting over who loves our gov’t run healthcare more!
So politically speaking, we are on a WHOLE other planet up here. A much farther left planet!
Harper is the closest thing we have to a right wing douche bag. And by right wing I mean about where Obama is more or less. That is what passes for right wing up here.
Hope the Bin Laden news doesn’t boost Harpers chances of forming a majority. I can’t stand the guy.
The Tragically Flip
Fred @82:
If you think Harper isn’t right of Obama, I’m afraid you’ve not been paying enough attention.
Think of him as the Canadian Nixon. Sure Nixon started the EPA, but he wasn’t a liberal. He did what he had to in a liberal political environment, while laying the groundwork for the far right takeover by a combination of dirty tricks, and policy landmines that undercut the foundations of the New Deal consensus. Nixon mostly did this on racial grounds, which lets Reagan come along and wink and nod about cadillac driving welfare queens and off we go.
Look at Harper’s attempt to gut our public election financing, so that the parties would become more reliant on corporate funding. Look at the attempt to remove our version of the fairness doctrine. Muzzling scientists, stacking the courts with wingnuts, firing the Nuclear Regulatory commissioner for doing her job, all the hallmarks of Bushism are there.
He used to state his agenda publicly back before he was in office, and even a bit while he was an obscure Reform backbencher. The stuff about Canada as a “norther european welfare state” and the infamous firewall letter written to Premier Klein.
Our politics constrain him from going the full Wisconsin, but he works to corrode the chains.
TheColourfield
Conservative Majority means we are truly fucked. They will run up major deficits while cutting taxes for the wealthy then will say we can’t afford our safety net. And our right wing media will cheer them on and call them fiscally conservative.
Tom
@Tom:
Boy, can I call it or what :(
Tom
Boy, can I call it or what. ‘Unlikely’ indeed.
The BQ out of the way isn’t a bad thing, and I would hope that Duceppe would join the NDP.
But the Conservatives with a majority is not something I was hoping for. I’m crossing my fingers that with a majority the cabinet & the backbenchers will start to speak up.
The Greens are on the board! Liz May made it!
The NDP has reached triple digits, 2.5 times more seats than their previous best
And the Liberals. Canada’s natural governing party, is down to less than 3 dozen seats. Can they recover?
Wolprog
@Tom
In a word, no. The Liberals will not recover from this, the question will be whether they should merge with the NDP in some way or try to go it alone, and the latter is unlikely to work outside of a few seats in Atlantic Canada.
JenJen
Bruce Arthur tweet:
Sorry, my Canadian friends. Really surprised by the results.
Le sigh. :-(
Yutsano
@JenJen: My Communist Mountie friend is gonna be swearing up a storm tonight. To say he hates Harper with the fire of a thousand suns is a radical understatement.
Wolprog
@JenJen: Over 50% of the country didn’t vote for the Conservatives, and the major swing was in the Greater Toronto Area. I suppose another reason to loathe Toronto.
polyorchnid octopunch
@Wolprog: Yeah, the GTA fucked us for sure. Oh well. After four years of the kind of behaviour we can expect from these guys with no restraints on them, that will change.