CON majority

[George+]

But... the reality is that there is no center right in the current Liberal Party.
If there is who would that be that is close to the Conservatives..no one!


Again...I have voted Liberal and Green. I may be more 'centrist' than you think.
Especially in relation to the current governments policies.

Surely both you and Urbane must recognise that Conrad Black is about as right as you can get.
And actually quite close to C. Clark in cut and whack policies causing tremendous social unrest.

[Glacier]

George, you are contradicting yourself at every sentence. If you think Conrad Black is so right wing why did he give Stephen Harper the cold should in favour of Trudeau? Surely you can't sit here with a straight face and tell me that Black is as far right as someone like Ezra Levant!

If there are no centre-right people in the Liberals why would not consider voting Liberal this time around given the fact that they were way ahead of the NDP in your riding?

[George+]

Hell, everyone jumped on the Trudeau band wagon, including, Urbane.
Often with no rhyme or reason.

In one post he even said U.S Democrats were closest to Canadian Conservatives.
Ah ha ha ha.

And even this...
Urbane wrote:
"Obama has been a huge disappointment and the incompetence in the White House seems to be having a ripple effect throughout the entire bureaucracy. "

Just wonderin how he would be voting in the U.S. next Fall?

[ferri]

back on topic!

[George+]

Dead horse...
But the Liberals have never finished "way ahead" of the NDP in
the local riding or in Urbane's riding.
Go back and look at the results.
We are actually in different ridings.

[Glacier]

Dead horse...
But the Liberals have never finished "way ahead" of the NDP in
the local riding or in Urbane's riding.

They were way ahead in 2004 (along with 2000 and 1997), and given the huge surge in Liberal support in BC, anyone with half a brain could do the math, and figure out who was going to win between the Liberals and the NDP. Why did the Green candidate drop and support the Liberal? Because the Liberal had the best shot.

[George+]

Sorry, i meant under the current Conservatives, who
everyone was hot after dumping.

In actual fact B.C. polls of the three parties were quite close.

Time to unite the center left.

There is no center right in Canada right now.
Sorry for you, Urbane.

[Urbane]

Sorry, i meant under the current Conservatives, who
everyone was hot after dumping.

In actual fact B.C. polls of the three parties were quite close.

Time to unite the center left.

There is no center right in Canada right now.
Sorry for you, Urbane.

There are too many differences between the NDP and the Liberals to bring them together under one banner at this point so your plan to "unite the centre left" is a non-starter. You yourself have been very critical of the Liberals so you wouldn't welcome them to your party with open arms. Therefore, what you really mean by "uniting the centre left" is for the Liberals to give up and join the NDP. Clearly, that isn't going to happen. As for me, I'm a centrist and I'm very happy with the election result. Canada needed a change and we got one. For obvious reasons I wouldn't have been happy with a change to the NDP.

[Glacier]

Here's something that I didn't realize until now. In absolute terms, conservative support in Alberta was up 23% from 2011. Over 1,000,000 people in Alberta voted Conservative. Ontario was the only other province to do so, but they have a lot more people. More Quebecers voted Conservative than BCers. Over 700,000 in each province.

[Glacier]

The free world has lost its leader



The free world has lost its leader. In the absence of a vigorous American foreign policy, Canada's Stephen Harper supplied his own. For the better part of a decade, he energetically championed Western interests. He was serious about fighting terrorism, keen on free trade and prepared to deploy proportionate force in defense of freedom.

His defeat in last week's Canadian general election will be felt far beyond that sparse, chilly country. When other Western leaders fretted about Israel's 2006 Lebanon war, he gave his full backing to the Jewish state. When others dithered over Putin's invasion of Ukraine, he led international condemnation. Obliged to meet Vladimir Putin at a summit meeting, he was admirably curt: "I guess I'll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: Get out of Ukraine."

Canada, like most countries, partly defines itself with reference to what it isn't; but Harper was uncomplicatedly pro-American and pro-British. In his first overseas speech as prime minister, he told a London audience how glad he was that his was a common-law, Anglosphere nation. As a matter of historical fact, this might not seem especially radical; but, my goodness, what a refreshing break from the line taken by previous Canadian leaders, namely that their country was a happy multiculti fusion of First Peoples and Acadians and Vietnamese boat people.

Why did Harper lose so badly? The Canadian Right got its second-lowest share of the vote since 1968, and can't console itself with the thought that it was beaten by opponents whom it had dragged onto its own ground. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair had to meet their Right-wing rivals half way on many policy issues. But Justin Trudeau, the new Canadian PM, is like a depilated Occupy protester: pro-tax, anti-business, pro-pot, anti-America.

From an outsider's perspective, it seems mystifying. Canada was the best-performing major economy in the world, the only G7 state to come through the downturn without a downturn. It's true that the recent drop in commodity prices caused a slowdown, but the big picture remained positive. Taxes were falling more rapidly than at any time in the nation's history. Crime rates were at a record low. Illegal immigration had been curtailed, with the result that legal immigrants were grateful, patriotic and — unusually — happy to vote for the Right.

It won't do to argue that Canada is a naturally liberal country. Conrad Black used to speak of his countrymen as "English-speaking Scandinavians." In fact, both Scandinavia and Canada went through a teenage socialist phase from the late 1960s to the late 1990s, and then snapped out of it.

Until Pierre Trudeau, the new PM's father, Canadian immigration policy was based on keeping combined provincial and federal taxes below the U.S. equivalent, so as to compensate for the rougher climate. Before the goody-two-shoes, pantywaist, demilitarized Canada of the 1970s, Canadians were a famously tough people. Eisenhower used to remark (in private, obviously) that, man for man, they were the finest soldiers under his command. Harper believed, with justice, that he was returning his countrymen to their traditions.

What, then, was the problem? Put simply, Canadians had tired of their leader. Leftists, naturally, called him a hater, a Tea Partier, an Islamophobe, yada yada. But, more significantly, Tory pundits would remark on his "coldness" and "remoteness." A typical column in the right-of-center National Post — the newspaper founded by Conrad Black — blamed the defeat on "the nastiness of Tory politics under Harper, the mindless partisanship, the throttling of backbench MPs."

I'm not sure this is fair. In my scant dealings with Stephen Harper, I found him courteous but shy — a common Canadian combination. But it was widely believed. Not for the first time, a great leader, with immense achievements, stayed on for one election too many. It happened to Australia's John Howard, even to Britain's Margaret Thatcher.

Prolonged executive power is more than most politicians can take. Even the best and wisest leaders — and they don't come better or wiser than the two I've just mentioned — eventually lose touch. The pressures of modern government, the sleeplessness, the security cordons, the constant international summits make it hard to remain grounded.

Perhaps George Washington's single greatest act, in a lifetime of great acts, was to impose a term limit on himself, and thus to set the standard for all his successors (except the narcissistic FDR). Term limits are the surest way to stop your leaders from becoming power-crazed.

Sadly, term limits are no defense against the emergence of political dynasties — a nasty habit that has now spread from the United States to its northern neighbor. That, though, is another story.