There will be a Tory majority. Yes, that’s my prediction. Not based on any polls, although they help to confirm what I already know, but my yardstick is money, because money talks.

People will part with their hard-earned cash and give it to a party only if they believe in what the party stands for.

By contrast, talk is cheap, such as in answering a pollster’s questions. And if you participate in Maclean’s polls, your name will be entered into a prize draw for $500 as an added incentive – however, I doubt that any money is actually ever won. The names of “winners” all look highly generic, like “John Smith, Ottawa”, so there is no proof that anyone has actually been paid the $500.

According to Elections Canada, the three main parties collected the following donations in 2007:

Total amount of contributions ($)    16,983,629.73 (Conservatives)    4,471,903.46 (Liberals)    3,959,451.24 (NDP)

The Conservatives received about four times more than the Liberals, and the Liberals and NDP are clearly within “the margin of error”. The number of donors makes this even clearer:

Total number of contributors    107,492 (Conservatives)    23,442 (Liberals)    23,303 (NDP)

The Liberals and NDP had essentially the same number of donors in 2007, which would confirm the recent poll that shows Liberals and NDP neck-and-neck at 21%, with the NDP having a real chance of forming the Official Opposition.

Also look at this (Q1, 2007):

The Liberal Party has long based its fundraising on large donations from corporations, unions, special interest groups, and a small number of wealthy individuals. The loss of these funding sources has dramatically reduced contributions to the party.

By contrast, political contributions show broad-based support for the Conservative Party, receiving 10 times the donations from 10 times as many contributors as the Liberal Party. Similarly, the NDP received donations from 3 times as many contributors as the Liberals.

And in Q2, 2008:

The Conservative Party continues to dominate political fundraising in the second quarter of 2008, collecting 65% of the total fundraising dollars, more than all other political parties combined. The Conservatives are also the only political party to raise more money from their own efforts than from public subsidies.

The Liberal Party failed to attract as many donors as the New Democratic Party but received more total donations due to higher average individual contributions. The NDP continued its recent fundraising success, attracting donations from more people than the Liberal Party, while the Green Party’s donations remained steady.

Here’s another aspect to consider: Stéphane Dion has been unable to clear his debt from his leadership race, despite numerous fundraising events, including those thrown by his former opponents. If party members felt confident about their leader, they would have thrown their cash, cheques and credit cards at him, but it has not happened. What is more, even the “top tier figureheads” of the Liberal Party have donated zero dollars to their own party, or only small token amounts.

Again, money talks. Follow the money, and you’ll get a better picture of things to come than any poll could ever provide.

I’ve observed that the NDP has dropped in the polls in Quebec, from 14%-16% to 10%-12%. With such a movement, I decided to do a seat projection for Hull-Aylmer based on the system I’ve been using on my blog, Sovereignty en Anglais.

As we can see, Pierre Ducasse has dropped to third place, and Raphaël Déry has moved to within 1,800 votes of Marcel Proulx. I expect the trend to continue in this manner, and the margin between Déry and Proulx to shrink. I don’t think we’ll see Ducasse back on top, but I could be wrong.

Hull-Aylmer Riding

Marcel Proulx* – Liberals – 15,886
Raphaël Déry – Bloc Québécois – 14,100
Pierre Ducasse – New Democrats – 12,668
Paul Fr̩chette РConservatives Р9,510
Fr̩d̩ric Pouyot РGreens Р3,627

Cross-posted to http://sovereigntyenanglais.blogspot.com

Nuclear energy has been one of the primary election issues this year in the northern Alberta riding of Peace River. Peace River is the proposed site of the first new nuclear power plant in Canada’s west. The project, initially started by Energy Alberta and now spear-headed by Bruce Power, would see a twin reactor built on the shores of Lac Cardinal, near Grimshaw and Peace River in northern Alberta.The project has been controversial, sparking the revitalization of the Peace River Environmental Society (PRES) and the creation of several new groups, such as Citizens Against Nuclear Development (CAND), a group of over 250 landowners in the Grimshaw area fighting the project, and Stop Poisoning Our Communities (SPOC) in nearby Grande Prairie. A new province-wide coalition of all related groups has also been formed to keep Alberta nuclear free. Most of those opposed are concerned about potential contamination of the Grimshaw Aquifer, and the problem of nuclear waste.

Nuclear was a big issue in the recent municipal elections, and several municipal politicians in Peace River and surrounding municipalities were elected–or run out of office–over the issue. Now it’s shaping up to be an issue in the federal election as well.

At the recent election forum in Grande Prairie, always the biggest in the riding, nuclear was one of the top issues raised. The local daily paper reported that the forum was “dominantly green” with big issues being nuclear power, greenhouse gases, and alternative sources of energy. Nuclear power is also sure to be a hot topic at this week’s upcoming forum in Peace River.

Incumbent Conservative MP Chris Warkentin so far claims to have no position on nuclear energy, although the Conservative government recently signed the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership with the U.S.

Green Party leader Elizabeth May summarily rejected nuclear power in Alberta during a stop in Edmonton on her cross-Canada tour, and Peace River Green candidate Jennifer Villebrun has spoken out on the issue during her own campaign.

NDP candidate Adele Boucher Rymhs, meanwhile, is running expressly to stop the nuclear power plant. She is a secretary of CAND and a vice-president of Nuclear Free Alberta (NFA), and previously placed second behind Conservative MLA Frank Oberle in the provincial election running on the same issue.

Of course, it remains to be seen how much opposition to nuclear affects election results in the Peace, a long-time Conservative seat. However, the emphasis on environmental topics is certainly new, since it didn’t play nearly as strong of a role in the last election, and that might give non-Conservative candidates a boost.

Buckets has a twelfth question for Peter Kent. Now let’s pluck a few more statements from the bubbling stew of extremism that is the “Canadian Coalition for Democracies,” on whose Board the Conservative candidate for Thornhill sits:

• Islam and the terrorism it promotes must be religated [sic] to the ash bin of history, much like what we had to do with National Socialism in Europe in the last century. –Naresh Raghubeer, CCD Executive Director [NB: This quote was subsequently taken down by CCD--presumably the mask slipped just a tad too far--but nothing disappears entirely on the Internet. --DD]
• Just by looking around the world, who could be blamed for concluding that Islam is a savage, barbaric, primitive, cruel, despotic religion… –Alistair Gordon, CCD President*
• Maoists, Muslims – small minds, big ideas, no humanity. Interesting how Canada kowtows both to the Muslim world and to Mao’s China, while marginalizing those who should be our natural allies… — Alastair Gordon, CCD President**
• Louise Arbour – Islamist mouthpiece at the UN … When you thought Canada’s unprincipled foreign policy, based primarily on being anti-American, could not sink any lower, we have the idiotic statements of Canada’s own Louise Arbour… — Alastair Gordon, CCD President
• There are all sorts of things that one cannot do on an airplane, including push-ups in the aisle and yoga. If these imams are so devout and pious, then it is their duty to avoid travel if it interferes with their piety. It is not the duty of the traveling public or airline operators to accomodate their rituals, especially when thier own safety is at risk. –Alastair Gordon, CCD President [The imams in question were praying in the airport, not on a plane. --DD]
• Well, it looks to me like Sid Ryan [the President of CUPE Ontario] just confirmed that CUPE’s boycott of Israel is plain, old fashioned Jew-hatred, not unlike that of his socialist mentors, the National Socialist (Nazi) Party of Germany. –Alastair Gordon, CCD President

There you have it. The religion of Islam is “primitive” and “barbaric,” and should disappear from the earth. Respected jurist Louise Arbour is an “Islamist mouthpiece.” CUPE’s Sid Ryan is a Nazi.

Thirteenth question: Does Kent, a member of CCD’s Executive Committee, endorse these extremist statements by his fellow CCD executive members?

[H/t Canadian Observer]

_____________
*There seems to have been a little judicious housecleaning over at CCD Central. This quotation no longer appears at CCD, but is quoted here. Readers who are interested will be able to find a message numbered 8319.shtml with an indicated follow-up by Gordon that has been removed. The next message is 8321.shtml.

**Another message down the memory hole. This was once message 2429.shtml. Message 2428.shtml still exists, as does message 2430.shtml. Gordon’s missing words are quoted here.

When talking about who they believe in an TV interview a voter once said “I was always taught, that when I want to evaluate someone I don’t know that well I should look at their friends.”

Well, since I don’t know Stephen Harper that well (because he hides from the media most of the time.) I thought I would evaluate his advisers, and some of the people he has appointed to the Prime Ministers Office to see what they say about him. When you look at these names prominent names in the intellectual community jump out at you. Names such as Ted Morton, Ian Brodie, Barry Cooper, David Bercuson, and Tom Flanagan.

What do all of these people have in common with each other and Mr. Harper? Well they are all products of the infamous Calgary School. These are a group of prominent Canadian political scientists and economists who share a common neo-conservative and straussian belief system.

As a primer for what a Straussian is basically : Strauss had a deep antipathy towards liberal democracy and its supposed moral relativism. He had a number of jarring beliefs: that society had to be governed by a small intellectual — and male — élite who would use “noble lies” to keep the rabble in check, that religion and fear must be used to control the masses and that perpetual war is humanity’s natural condition.

This belief system sounds familiar? Well yes, it is indeed the belief system that guided George W. Bush and a number of his top advisers for many years. But this of course isn’t the central point, so I shall gloss over this.

Of course secrecy has often been said to be paramount for Straussian to work. However, this is just a paranoid fantasy because Stephen Harper is always open and transparent with the media, really.

Ok so let’s see what do we know about these people..

Ian Brodie : Former Chief of Staff to Harper, quit due to stress from the job. Also many believe due to pressure from various people due his involvement in a certain Obama leak about NAFTA. Replaced by former Mike Harris chief of staff Guy Giorno. His most famous work is “Friends of the Court” in which he said the Canadian Supreme tended to prefer special interest groups, and minorities over the will (tyranny?) of the many.

Ted Morton : Minister of Sustainable resource development, current MLA in Alberta. Quite famous for his private member bills Bill 208 : 1. information about G/L/B/T not be allowed in schools, 2. marriage commissionaires could opt out of performing same-sex marriages, and 3. that a person expressing their opinion/ideas about homosexuality could not have a claim of discrimination brought against them.

Barry Cooper – Canadian Political Scientiest at the University of Calgary. Also known to be one of Stephen Harpers friends, and advisers.  Cooper is involved in the Non-Profit organization – “Friends of Science” which is known to – ‘offer critical evidence that challenges the premises of the Kyoto Protocol and present alternative causes for climate change.’ . Many believe the group is little more than a lobby for Alberta oil and gas industry.

David Bercusson – a Professor and Political Scientist at the University of Calgary. Also known to be a Harper adviser. Famous for his book Canada without Quebec – in which he argued Canada would probably be better without Quebec.

Tom Flannagan – Political Scientist at the Frasier institute, adviser to Stephen Harper. Has been dubbed “The Prince of Darkness” . Has been accused of having possibly racist views of Lois Riel and the First Nations.  Was said to be one of the officials who supposedly approached Chuck Cadman in the now infamous Cadman bribery scandal.

So, what does this say about Mr. Harper. What would Mr. Harper do if he won a majority?

A Canadian Press piece that ran in several places today, including the Calgary Sun, made the claim that “experts of all stripes say there is little evidence to suggest any upsets will occur in this election” in Alberta. Bad news for the progressives in Edmonton-Strathcona, right? Not so fast.

First, let’s have a look at who these “experts of all stripes” are. The Canadian Press interviewed the following three people for the article:

• David Taras, a professor at the University of Calgary
• Conservative MP Peter Goldring (Edmonton East)
• Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer (Edmonton-Strathcona)

The latter two “experts of all stripes” are easily dismissed. Of course Peter Goldring and especially Rahim Jaffer want to downplay any fears the Tories might have of losing Edmonton-Strathcona–any excitement among progressives that they could actually unseat a Tory increases the likelihood of a united progressive front.

But what about this David Taras fellow? He’s a professor at the University of Calgary–that means he knows what he’s talking about, right? Well, he may well know what he’s talking about in general, but he’s also shown an unfortunate propensity in the past for giving interviews to the media that have less to do with available facts and more to do with whatever David Taras feels like spouting off about at any given moment. He is, after all, the same David Taras who claimed with a straight face that an iconic phrase from the Canadian national anthem was a) in the American national anthem and b) printed on U.S. license plates.

So since those “expert opinions” are problematic, let’s have a look at the actual evidence. First, there’s the data from past elections that suggests that if trends continue the way they have in 2004 and 2006, NDP candidate Linda Duncan can actually win handily. And as for the current election, we don’t even have to look beyond democraticSPACE itself to come up with far better data on what’s going on in Edmonton-Strathcona than the mere speculation these “experts” provide. The current democraticSPACE projection, based on a mathematical model that translates regional polling data into seat projections, puts the Conservatives at 35-37% and the NDP at 33-35%. By Greg Morrow’s own estimation, this makes Edmonton-Strathcona the only Alberta riding that’s “too close to call.” For that matter, the ordinarily notoriously accurate democraticSPACE actually underestimated the NDP vote in Edmonton-Strathcona last election by six points. Assuming Morrow is using the same model to calculate his projections this time, there’s every likelihood he’s off by the same amount again, and that would actually put Duncan ahead.

Please note that I’m not saying Duncan will win. In fact, I put a lot of faith in the democraticSPACE projections, and based on the current one, if I had to bet a million dollars one way or the other, I’d bet against her. But I’m also awfully glad I don’t have to bet a million dollars, because if you look at the actual data rather than just talking through your hat, every bit of it suggests that she could win. And for that matter, if the NDP’s numbers continue their current upward trend across the country, this “Conservative win likely but too close to call” riding will quickly turn to “NDP win likely but too close to call.”

If the Canadian Press really wanted to claim that “experts of all stripes” had told them that there is “little evidence” to suggest any Alberta ridings could go anything but Tory, they should have actually a) spoken to experts of all stripes, and b) examined the available evidence.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion has excoriated Prime Minister Stephen Harper for his alleged laissez-faire attitude to the economy. This is a convenient charge to level against one’s opponent, given the current financial climate in the United States, where the subprime crisis has turned America’s economy on its head due to greed and weak regulation.

Since Mr. Dion does not like the laissez-faire approach, he should take a closer look at some of the laissez-faire that has been going on in his party and the major problems that have resulted from it. The Liberal-imposed multiculturalism in Canada is nothing if not laissez-faire, telling immigrants that they do not have to integrate into the host country’s society and can do whatever they used to do in the “old country”. As a result, Canadian cities are now dominated by ethnic ghettoes, with violent crime such as gang activity on the rise, and a growing number of “Canadians” who will never speak either of the two official languages.

What the Liberals have not realized is that their laissez-faire way of dealing with immigration – and crime! – has hurt the very people that the policy was meant to help. People leave their home to look for a better life and more opportunities – for themselves and their children. So many Jamaican immigrants in Toronto regularly complain about the rampant gang crime in the city, which claims the lives of too many of their children almost on a daily basis. They left Kingston and came to Canada, they say, because they wanted to spare their children the violence and crime back home, but now they are faced with the exact same problems in Toronto.
(more…)

The streets are filthy, most students are nowhere to be seen, and all the other Kingston residents seem to be in a terrible mood.

 We just had a man (at least 55) walk past our campaign office while flipping us the bird.

 Now that’s constructive criticism. Maybe it was Don Rogers…

Here are the ones I have been able to find:

Tues, Sept 30th, 7 pm
Joseph J Picinnini Community Centre, (1369 St Clair Ave W at Lansdowne)

Thurs, Oct 9th, 7 pm
Davenport Perth Community Centre (1900 Davenport Rd at Symington)

Accompagné par Gilles Duceppe à l’Université de Montréal, Pauline Marois a prononçé que le Bloc est utile parce qu’il poursuit le même but que le PQ : la souveraineté du Québec. Est-ce le point important dans la présente élection fédérale ? Je suis plus intéressé à savoir le plan l’économique du Bloc et ce qu’il propose de faire pour appuyer notre système de santé. Le NPD et les Conservateurs offrent des options très différentes. En termes pratiques, qu’est-ce que le Bloc nous offre ?

In my visits late last week, I did speak with a worker for the Silva campaign. The issues that he was speaking about as being really important to Davenport were the obvious ones that always come up – immigration, employment and the like. He suggested that others are becoming important in face to face meetings with the candidate.

Some parts of the riding have residents who are aging. They have lived here for decades, but have recently retired and count on CPP and GIS to pay their bills. With changes to the property tax system in Ontario, the increased “value” of their homes (purchased decades ago) makes it very difficult to stay in the riding. They want to stay, but with the decrease in income and the increase in property taxes, it is very difficult to do so.

The Liberal campaign spoke of initiatives the Liberal party was planning  to assist low-income pensioners – an increase in the GIS.

The other big issue coming up has been with the Conservative approach to childcare. Their plan has not created new childcare spaces, and affordable childcare is inaccessible to many workers in the riding. They are promising a national program that will actually address this.

The gentleman in the campaign office was most accessible (and probably would make a good New Democrat, truth be known).

I am looking forward to seeing an All Candidates meeting to get a real feel for how his candidate presents himself.

Bloggers have attracted a bit of teeth-gnashing from some establishment pundits today.

The topic is the recent spate of candidate immolation that has been sparked in some cases by bloggers on the job.

The Ottawa Citizen’s national editor, Andrew Potter, and a former speechwriter for Paul Martin, Scott Reid (not to be confused with the Tory MP of that name) are in a snit. Kady O’Malley, bless her, manages to avoid this kind of thing: “[W]hat are the three things you need to be a blogger? Your laptop. Your basement. And your virginity.”

That’s Scott Reid, setting a new benchmark for lameness.

And here’s Potter:

“What worries me, though, is that we’re seeing the “democratization” of politics, in the most literal sense of the word: The people — the great idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers out there frantically swiping the drool off their keyboards as they Google around for “dirt” — are running the campaigns now. There aren’t war rooms anymore, directed by parties with smart, educated, responsible adults in charge — it’s Hobbes’ state of nature as imagined by Mike Judge.”

Yup, democracy is too precious to squander on the people: that “idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers.” Heaven forbid that the reign of mainstream journalists be threatened by the rabble. I like that notion of war rooms with “smart, educated, responsible adults in charge,” too–the ones who gave us pooping puffins and insults to the family of a dead soldier.

O’Malley makes the glaringly obvious point, in fact, that the press has fallen behind this rabble in nailing down what she calls “candidate eruptions.” But her next comment–that, unlike us, journalists need to worry about “boring, grownup stuff like contributory defamation liability, which is so non-Web 2.0″–is simply foolish and uninformed. One needs to ask where she’s been lately: bloggers are all-too-aware of the sweep of our defamation laws, as some have found to their cost, and we observe precisely the same standards in this respect as the media hacks who miss so many good scoops.

In fact, speaking of standards, here’s Reid piping up again:

“I actually think it’s A-OK for the media to maintain a few measly standards that separate them from the likes of ‘chubbylover69′ and the rest of the self-defined blogosphere press gallery. One of my pet peeves is the habit of mainstream media ‘reporting’ on bloggers who have posted rumours without source or sense of motivation.”

Yeah, that must hurt, Scott–not only do the mainstream journalists miss some great stories, but some of the press–in particular the National Post–actually acknowledge the work we do. And that’s not based upon rumour-mongering, but on hard facts and solid research that you folks are too lazy, too incompetent or too constrained by deadlines and groupthink to investigate for yourselves.

It wasn’t the posting of “rumours without source or sense of motivation” (whatever that latter phrase means) that forced the removal of political candidates like Lesley Hughes: it was a few minutes of research and fact-checking that you were unable or unwilling to do. I never thought I’d say this, but Kate McMillan may be onto something with her “Not Waiting for the Asteroid” series. You folks are just too full of yourselves; you’re the voice of an entrenched institution defending your decaying castle.

You’ve fallen down on the job time after time, and bloggers have had to fill the gap–whether it was police involvement in the Montebello riots, the phoney doctorate of Harper intimate Charles McVety, or the unsavoury comments, behaviour and connections of members of the current candidate pool.

I would suggest, instead of this unseemly moaning and stamping your feet, that we have a symbiotic relationship taking shape, whether we like it or not, and we should all make the best of it. Those who think that bloggers are actually going to replace the so-called “MSM” someday are dreaming in technicolour–the bulk of our material, after all, comes from the media. But not all of it does–nor the connections we are able to make, and the research we are able to do while newsprint waits for the presses and the electronic media processes, cans and delivers information at set times. Nor do we fuss about advertisers and owners, and craft (or spike) our stories accordingly.

And the other thing that rankles the groupthinkers no end, of course, is that we bloggers have a refreshing assortment of intelligent takes on current events, offering a wider variety by far than is what is spoonfed to us by a corporate, lockstep media that serves the status quo so very, very well.

I believe we can help each other in the public interest. But small-minded, petty whining by those who feel their privilege slipping away is not the way to go about it. Truce?

Although Harper dominates the polls, we have to keep in mind that if he scores 40%, it means 60% don’t want Harper in Ottawa.  Some people are talking about changing our voting system in Canada to proportionnal representation which would make a lot of sense in the present context.  Others are saying to vote for anybody but Harper but with a different array of arguments.

For people who say that the anti-Harper fear campaign is exagerated.  Take a look at this information site, A MUST,  that contains a lot of facts about the Harper achievements during his mandate.  There’s also the Freedom Canada Movement  and Dany Williams ABC.

Apart from Albert, nothing is sure for the conservatives if Canadians realize that Harper is standing by corporations and Canada’s wealthy minority while ignoring the majority of ordinary citizens except when it comes to investing millions in populist propaganda to convince the less informed canadian voters.

To those who think nothing can stop Harper, think again.  Canada is not the USA and on election day, citizens might just not want to elect a canadian BUSH.

Dear Peter Kent:

Given your position on the Board of the far-right “Canadian Coalition for Democracies”:

1) Do you support the CCD’s lobbying for diplomatic and economic ties with the Indian state of Gujurat, where rioters, with government complicity, murdered, raped and dispossessed tens of thousands of Muslims, and where schoolchildren are taught to admire Adolf Hitler?

2) Did you endorse the CCD’s position in favour of firing Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, for chairing a meeting that awarded an Order of Canada to Dr. Henry Morgentaler?

3) Do you believe, with the CCD, that “many” Members of Parliament are “apologists for terrorists who celebrate the killing and maiming of men, women, and children?”

4) If yes, who are these Parliamentarians?

5) Do you endorse the smearing of David Suzuki by your president, Alistair Gordon, and his irresponsible retailing of the anti-environmentalist lie that a DDT ban killed millions in sub-Saharan Africa?

6) As a member of the CCD Board, what role did you play in the attempted character assassination of Liberal MP Omar Alghabra in 2005–for which your organization later had to apologize and retract?

7) Do you believe, with your colleague David Harris, that Muslim terrorists have infiltrated the FBI and CIA, the State Department, the U.S. Muslim military chaplain corps, the White House, Homeland Security, the U.S. Air Force, Guantanamo, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons–and in Canada, the Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Quebec NDP?

8 ) Do you take the view, as your colleague Salim Mansour does, that Canada should walk out of the UN?

9) Do you believe that veiled Muslim women at the polls might be engaging in criminal acts including suicide bombing, as a CCD press release suggests? (Are you aware that the current provisions of the Canada Elections Act permit such women to vote without unveiling, so long as they are not relying on photo ID as proof of identity?)

10) Do you support the bombing of Iran, like your colleague David Harris?