Canadian Elections

I'm voting NDP, but it's probably wise to vote whoever is second to the Conservatives in your riding (assuming it's Conservatives).

I don't think it will really matter anyway, we're going to see the same Conservative minority for another few years. Liberals need a real leader if they want to win.

Green can possibly make some moves in Trinity-Spidina, so I'll be watching polling till the day of and if they're close, I'll vote with them. But its an NDP town, so I'm okay.

I'm working in a campaign office...we are going to lose as we didn't choice a candidate till a week in.

Elections? I thought you guys had a monarchy.

Alberta is Texas without the guns and armadillos, and the chances of my voting Conservative are 0.00, so it makes little difference where my vote goes. Strategic voting is all I have. I'd prefer a Liberal MP, but I have no problem boosting the NDP with my vote so they get that much more money and public recognition.

It's a shame my Conservative MP isn't so bad, for a Conservative. Still, the leader of his party is awful, so Prentice won't get my vote. No way, no how.

I am afraid of a Conservative majority and may also vote Liberal...unfortunately, our election isn't all that interesting compared to the Americans'. I've been in far more discussions about Palin and Obama than Harper and...well, whoever happens to say something contrary to Harper in the newspaper that day.

The NDP are basically around to gobble up votes for Liberals, though I do like the NDP more than the Liberals. But I'd much rather the Liberals get in power than what happened before. The Grits were even close to weed decriminalization, and didn't send us to Iraq...but I think many of the voting Canadians wish they Americans, and thereby vote Conservative (though that doesn't mean they approve of Bush). I am reminded of my father's dream to move to Tucson, Arizona ("where dreams go to die", as writ in Hamlet 2).

Same here, a good friend of mine is from Calgary and his father and Harper are friends. According to my friend, Harper is a lot farther right wing than he lets on and so a majority government scares me.

I'm really at a loss right now as in Kamloops we're also having a Municipal election and I'm feeling a bit dazed at all the new faces. Our Mayor is not running for re-election, our MP is not running for re-election. So many new candidates.

I grew up fairly conservative and only in the last few years have drifted back to the middle. I can't vote conservative, I can't stand the NDP after their provincial counter-parts drove BC into the toilet during their decade in power, and the liberals I liked the most but they really became corrupt from being in power so long, also Dion comes across as smart but petty.

On top of all of that, we really need to be looking ahead at several serious issues coming up. There are three big global issues that are going to come up over the next decade or two: #1 Oil, we have a lot of it and are going to deal with sovereignty problems in the North, #2 Water, we have 20% of the worlds fresh water supply, this could give us sovereignty issues to the south, #3 food, we have a large agricultural capacity (though it is an industry in constant upheaval) and that will add to several problems as well. We need a government that will let us take our place in the world.

So in word I'm a little perplexed this election.

Edited to fix quote

Here in Metro Vancouver we also have municipal, provincial and the federal elections trying to get our interest away from down south.

I'll probably vote Green as I don't trust any of the other parties.

I'll be voting Liberal. I'll never vote Conservative and it amazes me that with all the shit that has come out in the past few weeks about the Conservative party and Harper's cabinet Ministers they still have a poll lead.

I really think a lot of people are voting Conservative just because they lowered the GST by 2%. I honestly believe that's the reason.

Since I came back to Canada and started to vote I have voted PC (mostly for Joe Clark), NDP (because I lived in Ed Broadbent's Riding) and Liberal the past two elections. This election I'm working for the Liberal party...it's different.

Sadly I think that's true. I can count on my father to give me the viewpoint of the mainstream Conservative (fuck 'em, I'm spelling their name with a capital 'C'!) voter, and he seems to have wooed many by cutting that tax and speaking in the broadest populist terms - "I don't think Ordinary People would like _____".

And these are die-hard Conservatives, slowly growing in number (though I think we'll end up with a Conservative minority gov't again). My father even voted for them when it would mean less funding to the arts, which directly impacted the lack of work for myself. According to Harper, everybody involved even in the technical aspects of film is a cocktail-swilling dilettante. Luckily I found a decent job outside the film industry just before it crashed in my city...

The main argument against voting liberal is the party's past corruption (which I'm mostly sure involved people not active anymore) and that Stephane Dion is an idiot. But, sadly, the perception that Dion is an idiot merely comes from he being a native french speaker.

I mean FUCK his (Harper) Foreign Affairs Minister LEFT CLASSIFIED GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS at his girlfriends apartment! This girlfriend by the way had former ties to the Hell's Angels. And SHE returned the documents to Foreign Affairs not him. And only when she did an interview saying what he did is when Harper asked (or rather accepted) his resignation. But before all this he defended the guy.

Then another one of Harpers people, the Agriculture Minister, jokes repeatedly about the families and victims of the listeria outbreak. And there has also been quite few more people in Harpers cabinet making dumbass comments and statements over the past few weeks. Some quite offensive and borderline racist. Not too mention Harper has said that the Liberals WANT a recession. Harper has also bent the truth on Dion's Carbon Tax Plan (while I'm not really partial too it I can see what Dion is going for). Harper also wanted to BAN a candidate from the debates.

And then there's the Puffin Poop debacle... hahha....

Dion seems to tackle his people head on. Just this past week he's called for two of his candidates to step down in their riding's for comments they've made.

I've also noticed that the NDP have gained a few percentage points in recent polling this week.

Unfortunately, a lot of what I care about isn't properly understood or even on the radar of most Canadians:

• IP policy like Bill C-61 and ACTA: I'm an open source supporter plus I'm really uncomfortable with the gridlock problems inherent to patenting algorithms/DNA and extending copyright protection/enforcement
• Global Warming: the lack of trust in (or even attempt to understand) the science is disheartening plus the disingenuous commentary all around just pisses me off

Like everyone else I'm interested in efficient tax policy, health care and all the rest. But none of the three major parties have a platform that fully conforms with my two main issues.

No one who hands the environment portfolio to a hardcore libertarian and a creationist gets my vote. The way conservatives want gay people to be regarded as second-class citizens sort of pisses me off too.

Then there's the child-care debacle. Just handing people a little cash solves nothing if they still don't have enough to send their kids to daycare or the local daycare facilities, should there be any, aren't up to snuff.

Then there's the lie about not rewarding floor-crossers.

Then there's the failure to hold the US accountable for kidnaping and torturing Canadian citizens. I can't believe we're still in Afghanistan on behalf of the US.

The best thing I can say about Harper is that he's not as awful as a Republican, and that's only because the Parliamentary system doesn't allow him to be.

Forgot to mention that Harper doesn't give two shits about the arts which includes film, television and theatre. And he wanted to cut funding (tax breaks, incentives etc) to independent movies/television shows deemed offensive or inappropriate by pretty much his lackies. "Young People Fucking" is what got that debate going.

people still think Trudeau is PM because he was the last PM to throw Canada's weight around. We are one of the wealthiest countries on earth, yet we have about as much street cred as Norway...maybe even less.

Let me know how this turns out. I may have to move back there.

Wasn't it also because the wife was doing coke and fucking members of the Rolling Stones?

I live in one of the most conservative ridings in Canada (Airdrie, AB) and my only goal is to get the Green candidate enough votes that she continues to run in the upcoming elections.

I am continually amazed by the voting redneckism in my usually very nice neighbours. These are hard working, decent, blue collar types who have bought into the scare tactics of the Conservatives.

Part of the problem is that a number of them have started to think of themselves as wealthy (construction is huge so tradesmen get paid really, really well) so they buy into the idea that the Liberals, NDP and Green will tax all that wealth away from them. What they don't get is that a household income of $90,000 (the wife usually works part time) doesn't make you wealthy. It makes you hopelessly middle class. The other parties are only after taxing the upper 5% and that ain't the blue collar workers.

While it has nothing to do with the election. Your government sure takes the fun out of Prime Minister's questions.

Your government, on the other hand, is most entertaining. How's that working out for you?

If it makes you feel any better, everybody has been electing jokes to the past few years - French, British, Italians, and of course mi país - to the point where I wonder whether politics has entered into self-satirizing mode the world over for the past few years. Oh well. Good luck from the world's biggest polluter, Canucks!

btw, dreary louse, tell your Pa he's nuts from a native Tucsonan, will you?

According to a press release from CRA that came out middle of last year(unable to find link). The average income in Canada is $39,900, if you make more than $64,500 a year you are in the the top 10% of income earners, I have to think that making 90k puts you in or very close to the top 5%. I know you said household income not individual as the numbers I supplied, but many of the tradesman I know are making close to a 100K right now.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/s...ayton-mtg.html


Typical Harper.

Statscan Income & Earnings Table for the 2006 Census, released May 1, 2008.

• median individual income in 2005 was C$41,401
• median family income in 2005 was C$66,343
• median family after-tax income in 2005 was C$57,178

For Alberta in 2005, trades median income was between C$34,849 (H8 Trades helpers, construction and transportation labourers and related occupations) and C$63,262 (H0 Contractors and supervisors in trades and transportation).

All figures in 2005 constant dollars.

Thank you for providing the link, I was not able to find info on upper percentiles on there, just median.

I was definitely off on my ballpark on the trades. I realize now why I was off, I was going by my friends and former clients( I was a financial planner for 5 years) who tended to have been established in their trade. By that I mean long work history of either owning their own business or being in a union job for quite a while.

The only reason I mentioned it was to put into perpective how low the average income is in Canada and how quickly you can exceed certain levels. I know I was shocked at the time to find out I was just about in the top ten percent when it certainly didn't feel like it at all.

harper is an right wing idiot, who is actually a half decent prime minister (cuts to the arts and culture notwithstanding)

dion is a weenie (they should play up his intelligence rather then trying to get him to compete with harper as a 'rough and tumble' type)

and layton is getting crazier all the time


but hey, as long as we have a minority gov't (which i don't see going away anytime soon) nothing is gonna change

so hopefully i can get my NDP rep a seat

Grouped by economic family types, average income looks like this: two income families averaged C$93,300, in constant 2006 dollars.

The income bins in the summary reports show that total income above C$100,000 for individuals placed them in the top 4%, while above C$75,000 puts someone in the top 10%.

So ... what are these rumblings I'm hearing about the NDP becoming the official opposition? I guess Dion better knock it out of the park in the debates.

See, I don't mind Layton too much. I think he's like a Canadian Joe Biden. He just says whatever 'cause he doesn't care. However unlike Biden, I'd be a little hesitant to vote for Layton just because I'd be scared that if he got the PM position he'd literally just go crazy and start making laws, legislation and bills that make no sense because he'd be so excited that he won.

I hear those NDP rumblings too...but I just can't see it happening. If it looks like Harper might get close to a majority either the Green Party or NDP will quickly lose support to make sure it doesn't happen.

Another thing to add to the list...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/s...ae-harper.html

Considering this plagiarism and Sarah Palin's "verbiage", I can't blame the conservative parties for neglecting the arts. They wouldn't even pass their twelfth-grade English exams. And I haven't delved into what would be a spotty attendance record on the debate team...

I'm watching the French Debates here. I don't know ... I think all this ganging up on Harper is going to work against not having a Conservative majority. Everyone but Harper seems to blend together. Well, except Gilles Duceppe ... he's allll about Quebec and nothing but Quebec.

I don't think it's that simple. Duceppe supports all sorts of progressive policies, was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war - it's a shame he's with the PQ and not a party with a national platform (so to speak). As it is, his platform sets a good example for the other parties.

Exactly. I think Dion said it best that although Duceppe speaks very strongly on important issues ... it's too bad he doesn't speak for a party that represents all Canadians like the rest of them.

The thing about the Bloc is that it's a creation from the Liberals in the 90s to help them win against the Conservatives, who were winning Quebec's vote every time. Right the the Right is represented by a lone party, a union of the old Conservatives the the retards from the Reform party, who are leading the thing.

Want to win? Divide the right. Create a second right-wing party.


And I'm surprised Dion performed so well. He's not bad as a debater and politician, but he has the charisma of a rock and he's a poor campaigner. I'm still for Layton however. The Bloc ain't bad at all, but I'm voting in a federal election for something good for the country, not only Quebec.

And that May retard looked exactly like that. Some poor militant incapable of speaking her mind correctly. And Dion smashed her on environmental issues.

Beer and popcorn? Check!

Start of the English debate is a go!

First impression -- pile on Harper, again.

It's just too fucking bad that Duceppe is a sovereignist.
May is much better in English.
Harper, Dion and Layton are about the same as usual.

Ugh.

Dion isn't effective unless he's pissed off.

May is looking good as are Layton and Duceppe.

The format is just killing Harper -- not enough time for him to respond.

Wow. The sovereignist viewpoint is hobbling Duceppe like a siamese twin with Tourettes.

"... the provinces, and Quebec!"

It's too bad. I like almost everything else he's saying.

I am so disappointed in May. She's a bright person but damn she comes off as clueless when it doesn't relate to the environment.

I got a replay going. I like Harper's smug look everytime May is talking to him. Like he doesn't give a shit about that she's there. Can barely understand Dion and he's not getting himself out there. He seems to be to reserved at the moment. Layton is on the attack but thats not a surprise. Duceppe... haha... "Quebec! Quebec! Quebec!"

Yeah, Duceppe ain't bad at all, but then again, the Bloc's purpose is kinda pointless now. Layton did good, Dion too, and May is worthless. Dion once again smacked her on environmental issues.

Was this the English debate you're referring to?

There were several points about the environment that only May articulated -- especially about the OECD study. I thought Dion was mostly effective defending Liberal policy -- not the specifics about why the policy was in place, e.g., carbon taxes.