Si, tel que l’avait prédit Lucien Bouchard, le Bloc est devenu en quelque sorte la police d’assurance des Québécois, est-ce que l’élection d’un gouvernement minoritaire est désormais celle du ROC? À l’heure où le tiers des Canadiens se dit prêt à voter de façon à empêcher un parti d’être élu, la question mérite d’être posée.

What does Canada want?

Selon un sondage Ipsos Reid réalisé à la veille du déclenchement des élections, 37% des Canadiens étaient en faveur d’un gouvernement minoritaire, mais plus de 64% disaient s’attendre à ce résultat. En Ontario, là où plusieurs votes du NPD se sont envolés en direction du Parti libéral à la fin de la dernière campagne – au moment précis où les conservateurs semblaient destinés à former un gouvernement majoritaire –, ce chiffre s’élève à 68%. Il atteint même 70% dans les provinces de l’Atlantique.

Dans le même ordre d’idées, on apprenait récemment qu’Élections Canada enquêtait sur le mouvement « Anti-Harper Vote Swap Canada », un groupe créé sur Facebook par l’Ontarien Mat Savelli, ayant comme objectif d’éviter que le Parti conservateur mette la main sur une majorité de sièges (concrètement, les internautes sont appelés à échanger un vote dans une circonscription perdue d’avance en faveur d’un vote dans une autre où leur parti a davantage de chances de l’emporter). Bien qu’il s’agisse là d’un groupe marginal, il est néanmoins symptomatique d’un phénomène de plus en plus populaire : le vote stratégique.

Pris en otage entre le Parti libéral encore marqué par le scandale des commandites et le Parti conservateur qui à ses yeux n’a peut-être pas suffisamment fait ses preuves, il semble que le ROC voit l’élection d’un gouvernement minoritaire comme un moindre mal. Un gouvernement sans vision à long terme certes, mais dont il peut se débarrasser en un claquement de doigt.

Pendant ce temps au Québec, si 55% des Québécois croient que Stephen Harper mérite d’être reporté au pouvoir (sondage Léger Marketing-Le Devoir-Globe and Mail du 2 septembre dernier), ils sont divisés quant à l’étendu du pouvoir à lui confier. En effet, 28% des Québécois lui accorderaient un mandat majoritaire contre 27% qui pencheraient pour un mandat minoritaire. Chose certaine, 58% des Québécois considèrent toujours que le Bloc est toujours utile à Ottawa, et ce, peu importe leur allégeance.

En définitive, bien que les derniers sondages soient plutôt encourageants pour les conservateurs, le seul fait que le tiers des Canadiens soit prêt à empêcher l’élection d’un parti laisse planer le doute quant à la volonté réelle du ROC de se doter d’un gouvernement majoritaire. Même son de cloche au Québec où, à moins d’un revirement spectaculaire, le Bloc sera cette fois encore le parti remportant le plus grand nombre de sièges.

Deux nations, deux polices d’assurance différentes, mais semble-t-il, une même volonté à garder le gouvernement fédéral à l’œil.

Although the Conservatives are likely to keep many of their Saskatchewan seats, there is no question that my riding is completely up in the air.  The incumbent MP Carol Skelton is retiring after representing this riding since 2000.  The Conservative Party representative Kelly Block is new to the federal political scene.  I will have a number of questions for her if she shows up at my door.  Nothing warms my heart more than making political candidates squirm by asking them uncomfortable questions.  But no matter what she says, she won’t be getting my vote.  While my political affiliation is listed as non-partisan, I am very unhappy with the Conservatives and I am not afraid to say so.  I have not forgotten that this election is illegal and that the Conservatives love to campaign with tax dollars.

In the last election, I voted for NDP candidate Nettie Wiebe. She is well-liked by many people in my riding and I know that many of my friends will be voting for her and many people have already said that I should vote for her. She is a farmer, which should appeal to the rural vote. While I usually choose to vote for a candidate first and a party second, I am quite disgruntled with the NDP. They talk a good game about electoral reform but they never made any move towards reforming our electoral system in the 16 years they held a provincial majority. There are many things that need to be fixed provincially but I don’t think the NDP will ever deliver on that promise. I will have a number of pointed questions for her if she ends up at my doorstep.

I am seriously considering voting for the Green party. I love what they have to say about the environment, electoral reform and drug policy. I just heard Elizabeth May say that she thinks that the poppy crop in Afghanistan should be legalized.  I am continually frustrated by the fact that drug policy is generally overlooked as an election issue.  But here she is on the agenda saying on the teevee that she thinks it would be a good idea to legalize drugs. That made me very, very happy and I can’t imagine any other leader saying that.  Jack Layton doesn’t mind going on Pot TV and telling an audience of cannabis consumers that the prohibition of pot should be repealed but I have never heard him say it to a national audience.  Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.  The Green Party candidate for my riding is Amber Jones.

The liberal candidate for my riding is Roy Bluehorn and there doesn’t appear to be much information about him available on the internet.

Finally we have the Libertarian Candidate Kevin Stricker. I was lucky enough to meet him when we had a barbecue at the beginning of the summer. While there are many planks in the Libertarian platform that I like, the general philosophy of the party does not agree with me. I am unable to over come my socialist leanings and my belief that the government should help people out. I believe in public education and public healthcare. So while I admire the efforts put forward by the small parties and I appreciate all the barriers that they face, I will not be voting Libertarian in this election.

I look forward to sharing my ideas about electoral reform, drug policy, the environment, the housing crisis in Saskatoon and anything else that comes to mind in the days ahead. I am really happy to see that there is a category devoted to marijuana on here, even though the term cannabis is more accurate.

That Stephen Harper is quite a sly fox. They should call him the “Teflon Prime Minister”, because nothing seems to stick to him or faze him. After the first week of campaigning for the election on October 14, which saw a number of gaffes and slip-ups by the Conservative team, the polling numbers seem to be either holding steady or increasing.

His opponent, Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, meanwhile, has had a hard time selling his Green Shift plan, the main – some say only – plank in his platform, amid problems getting his campaign plane off the ground. In a number of key battleground ridings in Ontario, Québec and British Columbia, the Liberals are slipping further and further behind. It was in those key ridings that the Liberals won just barely in the last election in 2006.

Seat projections indicate that the Conservatives will win either a much stronger minority, coming within a whisker of a majority, or an outright majority. Either way, Mr. Harper seems well on his way to a second term as prime minister, while Mr. Dion may face almost guaranteed ouster as party leader. The Liberal Party has already cancelled its convention in December, with insiders saying that the hard-up-for-cash party wants to save money, as it will face yet another costly leadership race to replace Mr. Dion.
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Thornhill may not turn out to be much of a race. Afterall Liberal Susan Kadis won the elections in 2006 and 2008 by margins of approximately 10,000 votes. Conservatives are going with former journalist Peter Kent who is likely the Tories’ highest profile candidate in the Toronto area.

A member of the Green Party for over three years, candidate Norbert Koehl won the nomination contest over the previous election’s Green Party candidate to earn his first spot on the ballot, while NDP candidate and president of the Thornhill NDP riding association, Simon Strlchik gets his second chance to represent Thornhill in Ottawa.In the past 2 elections the NDP received about 7% of the votes and the Green Party only 3%.
The riding has one of the highest average family incomes in the country at over $100,000 and close to 50% of the riding is Jewish. In the past Jewish voters in the riding have affected the outcome in elections. The 2007 Ontario election saw the Conservative go down to defeat over the issue of public funding for private religious schools. However in Thornhill Conservative Peter Shurman beat the incumbent, Mario Racco as a result of the school funding issue. So you will see lots of pandering to Jewish voters during the campaign.

With the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah three weeks away, greeting cards from the prime minister began arriving this week, bringing with them the same sort of questions that accompanied last year’s mailout. However, there was some displeasure from the community on the choice of the election date. It falls on the Jewish holiday, Sukkot. Meanwhile Susan Kadis had introduced Bill C-547 in the spring which if passed would create a Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. Around the same time Harper’s Jewish New Years cards were arriving at home in the riding, so were cards from Kadis asking whether residents supported Bill C-547.

Susan Kadis has been an elected representative in Thornhill since 1988 when she was elected as a school trustee. She moved on to Vaughan council in 1997 and Parliament in 2004. Peter Kent ran for the Conservatives in 2004 in the Toronto riding of St. Paul’s where he lost to Liberal Carolyn Bennett by 13,000 votes. There has been some grumbling about Kent’s residency. He had bought an historic home in Markham 2 years ago but he didn’t actually move in until the past August after some lengthy renovations.

Jean-Pierre Blckburn a obtenu une majorité de plus de 6 000 votes à l’élection de 2006, alors qu’en 2004 le candidat Conservateur n’a obtenu que 2 000 voix en tout. Au cours d’une visite dans la région durant la campagne, Harper lui a promis un poste de ministre. Et les les électeurs se sont mis à rêver de participer au pouvoir.

La rumeur veut que suite à des dissensions au sein de l’organisation du Bloq, une bonne partie de leur machine électorale se soit rangée derrière le candidat Conservateur. De plus Gilles Savard, le candidat libéral, très impressionné lui aussi par la possibilité d’avoir un ministre dans la région, est allé jusqu’à recommander aux électeurs de voter pour Blackburn. Les libéraux sont donc passés de la deuxième position à la quatrième, derrière le NPD et tout juste devant les Verts. Et le Bloq a fini deuxième… Dans un chateau fort souverainiste!

Depuis Harper a tenu sa promesse et Blackburn est devenu Ministre du Travail et ministre de l’Agence de développement économique du Canada pour les régions du Québec. Et ce dernier ne manque pas une occasion de souligner combien il est avantageux de voter “du bon bord”.

On ne voit donc pas comment Chantale Bouchard, la jeune avocate qui représente le Bloq cette fois-ci, va pouvoir renverser la vapeur.

Le Parti Libéral, lui, vient tout juste de choisir Marc Dupéré pour le représenter. Un inconnu dans le comté. Peut-être que les Libéraux ne réussiront même pas à devancer les Verts (qui n’ont pas encore de candidat).

Pour un portrait du comté et les résultats exacts voir Wikipédia .

I come from an old NDP riding. So every election the old local warhorses trot out Tommy Douglas’s fable about Mouseland. Personally, I feel the story has become cliche. Not only are its proponents dating themselves, but it’s far from how most Canadians view Canada’s electoral landscape.

So let’s update the story a little, to bring it into conformity with today’s world.

***********
Grouseland (As told by Pete Vere in 2008)

It’s the story of a place called Grouseland. Grouseland was a place where all the little grouse lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Parliament. It was called the ‘barnyard council’ and every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little grouse used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, incompetent, blue turkeys.

Now if you think it strange that grouse should elect a government made up of turkeys, you just look at the history of Canada since Confederation and maybe you’ll see that they weren’t any stupider than we are.

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John Crosbie former conservative minister under Brian Mulroonny, and now Lt governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, said of the NDP,” they’re everyone’s choice between elections. If there were elections between elections then they would be in great shape.” Well for Skeena- Bulkley Valley MP Nathan Cullen he is living Crosbie’s prophesy. Three elections in over four years and is seemingly getting stronger and stronger in a unorthodox riding.

The riding  is one of the largest in BC if not all of Canada covering such wide ranging communities as Prince Rupert home of a  newly modernized and expanded container port, Terrace and nearby Kitimat which has benefited from the to be billion dollar Alcan nickel processing plant expansion. Along with Smithers a alpine themed community that is the hub for the increasing mineral exploration activity.

In addition, the riding boasts a aboriginal population that is well above the average of other races in the country. One of the more noteworthy first nations peoples being the Nisga of the Nass Valley which were  the first in British Columbia to be granted self government and has been a template for other first nations agreements across Canada.

Along with the crippled forest community that can be seen in various communities like Houston, Burns Lake, the riding poses a vast array of issues and people that rival many large urban centres .

From that backdrop the candidates, all five of them, have a tough task in delivering a narrative that can encompass as many voters as possible. This riding has a Liberal Candidate Corriane Morhart who is so unknown that the Smithers Interior News Newspaper failed to mention her in the list of candidates. The Green Candidate Hondo Arenot is a Prince Rupert political science instructor  whose likely voter is being squeezed by the NDP’s Cullen who just happens to be the parties very capable environment critic.

With regards to the right leaning candidates there are two interesting choices. Rod Taylor is a local standard-bearer of the far right Christian Heritage Party, and is a candidate for its national leadership. Taylor is a likable guy but running for the wrong party is the majority view as that stature is aimed at earning as many votes from the conservatives as possible. In this election, that result may produce a greater degree of success as the conservatives counter with Houston’s Mayor Sharon Smith. She is a contender, however her success hinges on her ability to garner support in the coastal regions and first nation community that have been primarily supporting Cullen.

From personal observation the conservatives have a uphill challenge to unseat Cullen, all bias aside. Upon driving  from Smithers to Terrace on Friday past Smithers Airport I failed to see a hwy campaign sign for anyone other than Nathan Cullen  and the New Democrats. In a large spread out riding as Skeena-Bulkley Valley a strong party  organization thoughout the entire region is key, and the Cullen’s team is as strong as it gets. Either that or nobody told the other candidates that there was a election between elections.

Palliser is a mixed urban rural riding that covers the south west corner of Regina, the entire city of Moose Jaw, and the towns of Briercrest, Rouleau (aka. Dog River), Avonlea, Caronport, Drinkwater, Mossbank, and Wilcox.

This riding features two former mayors of Moose Jaw, Don Mitchell and Ray Boughen, and a former Regina city police chief Cal Johnston. This riding has had by far the most drama out of any riding before the election was called. The first nominated candidate for the Liberal party had to step down and the incumbent, Dave Batters, stepped down at the last possible moment because of anxiety, depression and addiction issues.

This race has been close between the NDP and Conservatives/ Reform/ Canadian Alliance for years. So a little bit of controversy for any party could turn this seat to the NDP or even the Liberals.

And controversy we have folks. Because Dave Batters stepped down shortly before the writ was dropped the Conservative Party did not have time to run a formal nomination and instead had to pick a candidate. Needless to say not everyone is happy with the decision.

Since Boughen has been active in civic and provincial politics in Moose Jaw he has some baggage. Most notably there is a controversy with the building of a multimillion dollar multiplex in Moose Jaw. Boughen is the co-chair of group trying to raise funds for the venture. Normally civic issues don’t come into play in a federal election since people are voting for the party and the party leader as much as the candidate. However this riding is so tight that a factor like this could be a big deal.

I have not seen a lot of campaign signs so far in my district. So I decided to go for a walk and play the “spot the campaign sign” game. I did a little Google Map mash up of the results. No exactly the most scientific experiment, I’ll grant you that, but it does give an overall idea of the ground strength of each party.

I must start by voicing my deception with the Liberals and the NDP who have yet to place any campaign signs one week into the election. The NDP absence is understandable, considering that they never had much support in the area. But the Liberal no-show is little bit disconcerting. They use to be pretty strong in Pontiac.

On the other end, the incumbent Conservative has been pretty busy with 17 campaign signs. Also, his signs were up on Monday morning.

The Bloc’s operation is also up and running, but definitively not on par with the CPC, with only 8 signs. Although, I must give them extra points for their nicely located campaign offices, right in the middle of down town Buckingham.

The big surprise came from the Greens. They’ve placed about the same amount of signs as the Bloc and they have placed signs on secondary roads as well.

Also, those Green Party signs are made of biodegradable materials; on October 15, they will fall to the ground where they will begin to decompose into a rich and eco-friendly fertilizer … the perfect supplement for your backyard organic garden. It’s true!

Stephane Dion was the only candidate to get their campaign off the ground, this first week of the campaign. He brought his entire Quebec team to Buffet Crystal to introduce them. Buffet Crystal is always where Dion goes to do fundraising. I did not attend, and the local paper did not report on whether attendance was successful or not.

There are many signs up in the riding, but compared to the last two elections, two parties’ signs have not yet appeared, those being the NDP and the Greens.

In the case of the Greens, it is because this is one of the two ridings in the country that has been affected by the Liberal-Green “deal”. So, sadly, for all potential Green Party voters here, there will be no signs and no name on the ballot come October 14th. My own sister-in-law is fuming about this deal and planning to vote for the Conservatives in protest. I am not sure how voting for a party that is doing the worst on the environment score will translate into punishing the Green Party, but nevertheless, this is my sister-in-law’s logic. Perhaps there is some logic, afterall, but certainly not for those of us who want a government to do better on the environment issue.

As for the NDP, the candidate was supposed to be Carole Haddad. Her candidacy seems to be in question now. As former Official Agent of the NDP candidate in the 2004 election, I can only say that the history of the NDP in this riding can be classified as a bit unstable.

This is a difficult riding for all candidates who are not Liberal. Dion won with 66% in 2004 and 59.9% in 2006. The Bloc came second to Dion in both elections. What changed between the two elections, was that the NDP came third in 2004 with 6.25% , with the Conservatives at 6.19%. In 2006, the Conservative vote increased to 13.2% putting that party ahead of the NDP, whose vote improved to 7.7%.

All the candidates running against Dion are new this time. The Conservatives running a young lawyer, Dennis Galiatsatos, look stronger than they did last time. The Bloc, after several elections with William Fayad as their candidate have a new one.

Shocking news! Who would have believed that the Bloc candidate, Jacques Lachaine, would have his campaign signs showing him against a GREEN background instead of the traditional BQ blue! One wonders if this has anything to do with the fact that there is no “GREEN” candidate running here, due to the Liberal-Green deal….. Also, perhaps to intimate to voters, that the Bloc are as GREEN as the Liberals with their “Green Shift”. Or is the sign background colour designed to confuse the more non-politcally aware voter as to who is who?

I wait for news on the Orange campaign. Which I feel is the best green of all… But this is just my opinion…

Would love to hear from other St-Laurent-Cartierville voters to discuss the campaign!

LM

I took in some NDP free pizza and an information session at the UofR campus on Friday September 12, at noon. In attendance were 3 federal NDP candidate including Stephen Moore who is contesting the riding I live in — Wascana (Regina south east corner). Of course, Ralph Goodale has long held onto this riding, and will no doubt be the favourite. I spoke with Stephen briefly as we bumped into each other walking to work, and I asked him, “I hear you’ve got a shot this election?” to which he replied something to the effect that he’ll be working hard to win it.

I found it interesting that there were about as many provincial NDP MLAs and nominees there as there were federal nominees. The questions covered mostly education and poverty, with touches upon agricultural input costs which are skyrocketing with few profit returns on the same scale. Here’s a YouTube vide of McCall:

Former Education minister Warren McCall made a good point (I thought) about the voters in the province apparently rewarding Stephen Harper with votes despite a broken $800 Million equalization promise for which McCall’s government launched a (now canceled) court challenge over. He seemed incredulous that voters would choose to do that, and I admit I feel the same way. It certainly feels like the Conservatives knew they could take Saskatchewan’s seats for granted, so they could spend our promised equalization money elsewhere, to curry favour in battlegrounds like Quebec.

The NDP candidates promised to increase corporate taxes, and decrease taxes on the average Canadian person. They also stressed a desire to ensure small farms can compete in the world market without intimidation from Cargill or any large corporation they view as bullying the Canadian Wheat Board into non-existence. There was criticism for Harper’s attacks on the Wheat Board, which they called “illegal”.

Stephen Harper’s hopes for a Conservative majority will be tested in ridings like Simcoe North, a sprawling seat north of Lake Simcoe that switched to the Tories in 2006, but by fewer than 1,200 out of nearly 60,000 votes.

I’ll be tracking the campaign in this pivotal central Ontario riding, likely to be a bellweather of the dozens of potential swing seats across the province.

It’s a very traditional riding — 93 per cent white and 90 per cent English, nudged against the Muskoka resort country, its small towns dependent largely on public service jobs plus whatever the tourist industry can bring in during the summers. This past summer was not agood one for the riding’s resort keepers.

No one knows that better than the Conservative incumbent, Bruce Stanton, who runs The Cottages at Port Stanton. It’s been in his family for five generations.

Stanton took the seat away from the Liberals in 2006, defeating a feisty woman opponent, Karen Graham. By local measures, Stanton’s done well as a “constituency man” in his first, truncated term.

This time, the Liberals have nominated Steve Clarke, who’s also tourism-related as the owner of the Brewery Bay Food Company, a popular restaurant on Orillia’s main street. He’s well known in the largest town in the riding, and looks to be running a strong campaign.

A sidelight to Clarke’s campaign is that he’s a strong advocate of preferential voting, which he calls “instant run-off.” Rather than plumping with an X, voters would mark their ballots in order of their preference. It’s not new — B.C. tried it back in 1951.

When I dropped into the Clarke campaign office, I was told they’re getting a great response to Clarke, but that Stephane Dion is arousing mixed feelings. A couple of hundred people turned out last Thursday midday for a visit by Michael Ignatieff, the deputy Liberal leader.

The NDP’s not a factor in this riding, nor are the Greens likely to be. They’ve put up a credible candidate, Valerie Powell, a gerontologist. She could pick up votes on the coattails of Elizabeth May if her leader does well in the TV debates.

I’ll be doing some mainstreeting and will pass on what I hear.

Ray Argyle

www.wildaboutwriting.com

During the first week of the federal election campaign NDP Leader Jack Layton took a lot of heat from ordinary Canadians who were livid about his attempt to block Green Party Leader Elizabeth May from the TV Leaders’ Debates.

Truth is Layton desperately did not want May in the TV Leaders’ Debates because he is afraid May will “rain on his parade” by being a much more effective advocate for a carbon tax, as well as a more devastating critic of the NDP’s environmental alternative, than Liberal Leader Stephane Dion – especially in the English Language Debate.

In the last federal election, there was not one all-candidates debate in Toronto-Danforth because Layton refused to take time from his leader’s tour to address and answer questions from the people in his riding who he is suppose to represent in Ottawa.

Already rumours are flying that, once again, Layton will not agree to attend any all-candidates debates in Toronto-Danforth during this federal election campaign.

I may be a little naive, but I thought a fundamental principle of democracy was to allow voters the opportunity have the candidates address them and answer their questions so they can better make up their minds who to vote for on election day.

I guess avoiding substantive debates is what the New Democratic Party is all about.

It may be old-fashioned, but I like the traditional democratic process of holding substantive debates with all of the candidates present.

If Jack Layton’s performance during the first week is any indication of the type of democratic reform that the New Democratic Party will bring to Canada if Layton becomes Prime Minister, then you can count me out of marching in lockstep to the Layton parade in Toronto-Danforth.

Why is West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast an important riding in this election? Well, because it’s one of those “swing” ridings, that every news agency in Canada is keeping tabs on in the majority yes or no sweepstakes. However, what marks West Vancouver apart is that its incumbent MP is running for the Green Party. In the coming days what you will find here is a profile of each of the major local campaigns and the impact of the national campaigns. In the meantime, a brief thought on Blair Wilson joining the Greens (only two weeks after the fact, but still moderately imporant)…

For those of you unfamiliar with Blair Wilson and wondering if he offers the Greens a shot of winning the riding, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Realistically, he may offer a top result for the Greens nationally, but there’s a reason the Liberals didn’t want him back after questions about this election financing and personal finances came to light. Despite being cleared of serious allegations, the damage had been done. The story was played to death in the local media and the history of Blair Wilson is now common knowledge across the Lower Mainland and his short term political career at a very likely end. However, that is not to say that the Green Party and Blair Wilson are a bad marriage, quite the contrary in fact. Wilson has already paid a small dividend, given his part in getting the Green’s into the debate (though, Jack Layton is deserving of some thanks for that too).

The medium-long term benefit, though, may be much greater. In Eastern Canada, where this story has never been ‘water cooler talk’, he offers some legitimacy to the party as a sitting(albeit for a week) Green member of parliament. Combined with participation in the debates, this has the potential to offer the Greens more votes across the country which, in turn, means more federal funding. For a party the size of the Greens, that’s important. For Wilson, it offers a better funded campaign and a built-in base from which to start and grow. Expect a much stronger Green result than in 2006 – though Blair, quick piece of advice, don’t use water soluble markers for your ‘authorized by’ lines on your campaign signs, it’s Vancouver, it gets wet here.

What I’m trying to say is that despite only sitting for a week as a Green member, Blair Wilson may have provided his new party, at least in part, with the means for their long-awaited breakthrough next time around – because this time it seems dubious, not impossible, much stranger things have happened. Though even if all he does is help get the Greens into the debate, that’s a legacy that goes well beyond anything he was able to do in the Liberal cuacus. In the meantime, however, his candidacy means that West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country is John Weston’s and the Conservatives to lose, but more on that next time.

Before I go, I would like to express my best wishes for a speedy recovery to Liberal incumbent Don Bell of North Vancouver. On Monday September 8th he suffered a heart attack and though he was released from hospital Friday the 12th, the campaign trail is not the ideal place to get healthy again. Here’s to a speedy recovery.

When the election campaign started, I issued a call to all bloggers to conduct themselves professionally:

Both members of the mainstream media and politicians tend to get overly personal, irrational and partisan during elections. Let’s not make the same mistake and show them all instead that we are better than them.

The public, I am sure, will also be impressed by such professional punditry and, therefore, more inclined to listen to our arguments (one way or another).

Let’s make this happen. Let’s establish the blogosphere as the number one place for Canadians to go when they want to read quality opinion pieces.

Unfortunately, one Liberal MP didn’t get the memo — or he simply proves the point I was trying to make about the media and politicians:

“You can put a sweater on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”

- Nova Scotia Liberal candidate Robert Thibault telling the Halifax Chronicle Herald about Stephen Harper’s image.

Maybe he thought he was particularly funny, following the false accusations against U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama over one of his recent remarks. While I tend to believe Obama that it was not his intention to call Sarah Palin a pig, there is no doubt whatsoever that Thibault referred to the prime minister as a pig.

As it happens, that’s the same Liberal MP who also suggested that people over 60 are not good for anything and that women should limit their activities to serving tea.

Columnist Lawrence Martin has it right when he writes in a recent column that the 2008 election is void of any grand ideas. There is absolutely nothing that excites voters to the extent that they would follow candidates around like obedient puppies and fawn all over them, including Stéphane Dion’s Green Shift.

Who really cares if the price of diesel is dropped by a measly few cents? In the final analysis, things like that matter less than the proverbial drop in the ocean.

For years, I have urged our political leaders to consider open and universally accessible education at all levels, from kindergarten to post-graduate studies. This is very common in many other countries, including those that are a lot less prosperous than Canada. It has always been my contention that government could be reduced quite substantially if education were opened up like that, because it would give everyone the means to look after themselves, even at the worst economic times, without having to rely on welfare and other taxpayer-funded handouts.

Now this would be the kind of grand project for Canada’s future that Martin and I find lacking in this election. And what are our politicians doing? They allow themselves to get bogged down in trivialities (and bird excrement).

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s latest attack on the Liberal Green Shift plan:

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper says the proposed Liberal carbon tax would plunge Canada into a catastrophic recession and reignite the battles over national unity.

In a way he is right in his analysis, but in another he is also wrong.

The Green Shift plan in its current form, as thought up by Stéphane Dion, is not a workable solution in my view. It might work if Canada were a different country, perhaps.

A carbon tax is not necessarily a bad thing, but such a consumption tax, and that’s what it is, can be implemented only where taxes don’t already gobble up at least 45% of households’ income.

It would actually be a great thing if the system underwent a major shift, from income to consumption taxation. Most economists agree that income taxes are highly unfair and that consumption taxes should be used instead to fill the government’s coffers.

The Green Shift plan should be discarded for now. It does not benefit the environment and is nothing more than the same old wealth redistribution scheme that is so typical of the far left.

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Since the mid-90s, Canada’s Urban Voters have taken refuge in the bosom of the Liberal Party of Canada: a Fiscally Conservative, Socially Liberal outfit that won brownie points from the citizens of cities by offering an intoxicating combination of tax cuts and progressive social policies. With a divided Right and no credible threat on the Left, the Liberals moved into the vacuum at the Centre-Right and dominated for a decade.

Unfortunately for the Party, it moved the entire Canadian Electorate with it, to the point that even the NDP acknowledges that budget deficits are a non-starter. With a rebuilt Right-Wing party and two credible Left-Wing outfits, the Liberals are now effectively in No-Man’s Land. In 2006, only Urban Voters’ fears of a secret Social Conservative agenda prevented the complete destruction of the Liberal Party. And with voters’ increasing familiarity with Stephen Harper, even these fears are being dispelled, albeit slowly.

The race in Vancouver Centre represents a microcosm of the Federal Election. An unpopular MP representing a strong brand (at least locally) in incumbent Liberal Hedy Fry going up against personally popular Lorne Mayencourt of the ‘not-to-be-trusted’ Conservatives. Also bringing strong challenges from the Left are former BC Green Party Head Adrienne Carr and respected UBC professor Michael Byers.

The last election demonstrated the strength of the Liberal brand in Urban Canada as Hedy Fry easily held her seat against a determined Svend Robinson of the NDP.

Vancouver Centre 2006 Election Results

Candidate	Party	Vote Count
Hedy Fry		25013
Svend Robinson		16374
Tony Fogarassy		11684
Jared Evans		334

Mayencourt obviously believes that he has a realistic shot at winning the seat as he vacated a cushie MLA job to pursue the Federal equivalent. And if he’s right, it could spell a long election-night for the Liberals.

We’ll be following this one closely.

My home riding is represented by Diane Ablonczy (Conservative). In the last two elections, Ted Haney ran for the Liberals. This time, the former Red Tory must have decided that two defeats were enough, because the new Liberal candidate for the riding is Anoush Newman.

The NDP will hold its nomination meeting on June 17, with the sole contender being Stephanie Sundberg, who also ran for the Alberta NDP in the last provincial election.

Article removed at author’s request.