Harper fails to sway Canadians

[#juan]

Harper failing to sway country


BRIAN LAGHI
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
July 19, 2007 at 1:05 AM EDT

OTTAWA — Discomfort with Stephen Harper's Conservatives is deepening among women, francophones and wealthier Canadians, according to a new poll that puts the government in a dead heat with the Liberals in popular support.
The survey, conducted for The Globe and Mail/CTV News, finds that both parties enjoy the backing of 31 per cent of the electorate, a drop of three points for the Tories from last month, but not a change for the Liberals. The NDP is supported by 17 per cent and the Greens by 10 per cent.
Compared with one year ago, when they were at 37-per-cent support, the Tories find themselves less popular among women, French-speaking Canadians and voters who earn more than $100,000 a year.
“The gender gap, in particular, is a potential problem for them,” said Peter Donolo of the Strategic Counsel, which conducted the survey. “And it's really pronounced in support for sending troops to Afghanistan.”

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The poll found 46 per cent of men support sending troops to Afghanistan, but only 27 per cent of women.
Mr. Donolo said the drop in support among the more affluent may be due to the decision to tax income trusts and a spate of foreign takeovers of Canadian companies, while the decline among women and francophones is almost certainly due to the numbers of Canadian soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan.
The poll shows that 26 per cent of women would vote for the Conservatives if an election were held today, compared with 32 per cent in June of 2006, while 17 per cent of French speakers would vote Conservative compared with 25 per cent from one year ago.



http://tinyurl.com/3cxgp2

 

[#juan]

Does anyone think Harper will get elected again? Does anyone else think that if Dion was just a bit more electable Harper would be gone now?

 

[Niflmir]

Does anyone think Harper will get elected again? Does anyone else think that if Dion was just a bit more electable Harper would be gone now?

If things keep going in this direction it will just be a coin toss in the end. I think it is hard for the Liberal party to present their leaders as electable since they were hit hardest by the campaign contribution caps. The NDP and the Bloc have enough to gain in this minority environment that the Liberal party cannot force a vote, so I don't think Dion's popularity means much.

 

[#juan]

If things keep going in this direction it will just be a coin toss in the end. I think it is hard for the Liberal party to present their leaders as electable since they were hit hardest by the campaign contribution caps. The NDP and the Bloc have enough to gain in this minority environment that the Liberal party cannot force a vote, so I don't think Dion's popularity means much.

You are probably right. I think though that if the conservatives lose a bit more support in Quebec, a non-confidence vote is entirely possible. At the moment, another minority government, probably Liberal, would be the most likely result.

 

[MikeyDB]

I'm not certain but many folk may entertain the idea that Stephen Harper isn't one of my favorite people. And that's absolutely true.

But I'm not an unreasonable or insensitive person either....

Canadians had our collective faces pushed into the mess that comes about in government when complacency is more comfortable than criticism. While there were certainly lots of issues that irked Canadians, it was the obviousness of the lies and corruption at work behind the Liberal Party that drove Canadians to dump that crop of con-men and opt for the lesser-of-two-evils...or what's known as "democracy"......

The arrogance of King Chretien and the keystone kapers of the Liberal government served to demonstrate to Canadians that government without checks and balances wasn't really a government at all. It was rather a group of petty empire building, greed driven, dis-engaged bureaucrats pretending to form a government.

With Canadians hungry for even a glimmer of integrity, with hope for some light at the end of a gloomy dark tunnel of pay-offs in restauraunts and multi-million dollar waste as "standard", Stephen Harper was given his shot at resurrecting faith in the Canadian government if not at even a more seminal level, the process of government under the Westminster system.

Our current government has committed some of the very same shenanigans that he Martin and the Chretien governments thought they could get away with.

While many may applaud the decision by Chretien not to get Canadians involved in the great American Lie of the Twenty-First Century, the perceptions of the dynamic taking place in Afghanistan could be identified as somewhat similar to peacekeeping missions that had seen Canadian commitment in other locales around the watery orb.

What Canadians weren't helped to understand was that the alms being paid in Canadian blood to the war-machine in America on the soils of Afghanistan wasn't anything like the situations that had seen Canadian troops serving many different causes in many different places.

When the observation is made that the world changed on September 11/2001, it's sometimes forgotten that that change held special significance for Canada and Canadians. No two nations have the intricately interwoven fiscal relationship that exists between the United States and Canada. While we (Canada) enjoy an enormous resource pool, we don't have the population to generate the money and the skills to capitalize on that resource pool. Many might suggest that we don't have what appears to be the unlimited appetites for power and wealth that our American neigbors have....

Despite suggesting to the Canadian people that a Stephen Harper government would redress the obvious lack of integrity and openness in the political system, this government has exhibited the same arrogance and willingness to "closed-door negotiations" and plumb appointments to seats in the House of Commons as has every other government. Nothing seminal has actually changed at all.

Stephen Harper has signed deals with the Columbian government, and maintains that world "terrorism" is a new modern-day fact of life that Canada and Canadians should regard as their responsibility.

This government has elected to hand ship-building contracts to augment the Canadian fleet with the purpose of demonstrating sovereignity over the arctic. While the antecedents to a dark period for the RCMP and CSIS aren't "owned" by this government, I and others I've discussed these issues with don't see any fundamental changes or legislation debated and discussed regarding addressing these basic failures.

Every politician will flip-flop and Harper on "climate change" or the more embattled notion of "global warming" has instead of reasurring Canadians that while the Liberal governments of recent years played with the idea and didn't really serve as engines of change, this government will play the carbon credit game and work to reduce carbon "intensity".....

No politician can hope to placate Washington and the same cabal of neo-cons that tricked every American and every Canadian into accepting the exaggerations and lies that has led ultimately to an increase in terrorism and a heightened potential for direct impact on America and Canada.

In-fighting over transfer forumlas and questions of regional control over petroleum and other resources hasn't diminished if anything it has increased.

Harper is as successful as Paul Martin or Jean Chretien were in demonstrating to Canadians that apathy and complacency will inevitably return to bite us all on the ass.

Harper enjoys a familiarity with world history and geography on par with George W. Bush. An avid pro-American, Harper has and continues to demonstrate that his motivation is that "almighty dollar" just as it is the focus and highest nobility among those of the American administration who are Stephen's heros and champions.

Bush may be on his way out.....

Harper shouldn't be far behind him......

 

[jjaycee98]

Does anyone think Harper will get elected again? Does anyone else think that if Dion was just a bit more electable Harper would be gone now?

When it comes time to choose Harper will stand on his record and what has been accomplished in the time he has been in office. People are really strange in that if everything is not about "them" then they pay no attention. There are huge blocks of voters who have seen Tax cuts that will vote PC. The Military will by and large vote PC because this Government has finally spent some money on them.

Poles mean nothing because most people are too busy to be bothered taking the time to answer their boring questions. Only those who have a current gripe bother to take the time.

 

[#juan]

When it comes time to choose Harper will stand on his record and what has been accomplished in the time he has been in office. People are really strange in that if everything is not about "them" then they pay no attention. There are huge blocks of voters who have seen Tax cuts that will vote PC. The Military will by and large vote PC because this Government has finally spent some money on them.

Poles mean nothing because most people are too busy to be bothered taking the time to answer their boring questions. Only those who have a current gripe bother to take the time.

Well......The Large armed icebreakers that Harper promised have disappeared in favour of smaller patrol ships that can move in a maximum of only three feet of ice. What the hell good will they be?

I haven't seen news of an order for the heavy lift aircraft that the military so desperately needs.

Most of the big spending for our military is off in the future somewhere.

In most parts of the country Harper is seen to be pro-American to the detriment of canadian interests. The softwood lumber giveaway comes to mind.

Harper's promises are as crumbly as pie crust.

Poles? I'm sure you mean polls. If you read the little print at the end of the poll results you will find the words," Accurate to plus or minus 3 percent 19 times out of twenty. If it doesn't say that, throw it away.

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Does anyone think Harper will get elected again? Does anyone else think that if Dion was just a bit more electable Harper would be gone now?

Personally I find Dion a joke. I would have been much happier with Rae or Kennedy. But at least he is not Ingnatiak.

When thinking about Dion vs. Harper, it makes me think of Layton but then sanity returns.

 

[Unforgiven]

When it comes time to choose Harper will stand on his record and what has been accomplished in the time he has been in office. People are really strange in that if everything is not about "them" then they pay no attention. There are huge blocks of voters who have seen Tax cuts that will vote PC. The Military will by and large vote PC because this Government has finally spent some money on them.

Poles mean nothing because most people are too busy to be bothered taking the time to answer their boring questions. Only those who have a current gripe bother to take the time.

Yeah well if Ontario is feeling Liberal again it's goodbye Harpo.

 

[Niflmir]

Harper's promises are as crumbly as pie crust.

Haha, pie crust.

Why no Layton?

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

Well......The Large armed icebreakers that Harper promised have disappeared in favour of smaller patrol ships that can move in a maximum of only three feet of ice. What the hell good will they be?

I don't recall icebreakers been a huge election issue for me last time. I suspect the same is true for most voting Canadians.

 

[Unforgiven]

Haha, pie crust.

Why no Layton?

Wino Layton, and I think that wife of his rocks the Ganja too!

 

[MikeyDB]

So long as Harper's "record" is disseminated fairly and put into context I can live with that.

Is there any point to "negative" adversarial and bellicose adverstising done by political parties?

Sure there is.

If you can get a Canadian stimulated enough to actually get angry at government waste and corruption then there's a good chance enough people will vote to dump them guys....

That's why it's not just the "record" of any government that's important, but the context of the times that leads politicians and political parties to legislate what they do....

It makes great "TV" to see Mike Duffy or some other talking-head focusing on the bad things that some government or some particular individual politician has 'done' but it obfuscates and doesn't serve the greater purpose behind the idea of democratically elected representation.

It may be digital speak certainly...

We've been conditioned to listen for that thirty seconds and if the message during that thirty seconds is "hate the Conservatives" or "hate the Liberals" and that overarching message is supported by evidence confirming the justification for ousting the crud....that's all well and good but it's only a thirty second glimpse into a very complicated game.

If a PC votes for Harper because his government has allocated taxpayer money to national defense while this same government allocates incentives and money to a nation like Columiba, there's a great deal being missed.

This kind of decision...to vote for to elect...to hand power to this or that party and these or those people ought to be more than a single issue decision.

If we really believe it is.....we're even more screwed than anyone thought.

 

[Unforgiven]

I don't recall icebreakers been a huge election issue for me last time. I suspect the same is true for most voting Canadians.

I want my sovereignty! :canada:

 

[IdRatherBeSkiing]

I want my sovereignty! :canada:

I'm not sure what that has to do with ice breakers.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

At the very hieght of ontario's premier Harris hatetred by all....he got in with a majority...and this guy was like the worse of the worse....Some of his best budz are in power. Our minister of health ruined ontario's health care system....well got out the hammer nails and made the coffin....

Nothing surprises me.....I'm voting GREEN

But then again my Liberal gene really is giving me that gnawing feeling for the second time i posted this......

My question is"Who are you voting for Dave?"
GREEN
GREEN
grrrrrr


The thing is if the Liberals have lost me...then they better really have a good think....

 

[MikeyDB]

According to Harper (and others) Canada needs to assert its sovereignty by spending millions to put a bunch of dinkly little "ice breakers" in the north.

If the game is ...."Well there's untapped oil reserves and mineral wealth at stake in the far north and Canada should protect its interests by flying the flag....

That's bullshyte from the get-go.

We already know that Canadian governments will make oil and electricity available to America before its made available to Canadians...so how does spending millions to make sure that Canada preserves the right of the United States to Canadian oil serve the interests of the vast majority of Canadians?

Duh?

 

[#juan]

I don't recall icebreakers been a huge election issue for me last time. I suspect the same is true for most voting Canadians.

I'm glad you think you have a finger on the pulse of Canadian election issues. The protection of our Arctic was, and still is a big issue with me. Obviously, for Harper, and you, it is not.

 

[MikeyDB]

Why is it an issue for you Juan?

Because you like the idea that Canada's business community has demonstrated repeatedly that America comes first...in the name of a dollar of course...?

It's a ridiculous undertaking to pretend that flag flying around and above the arctic circle will have any value to any Canadian.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

Yeah what is this great northern issue anyway?
I saw some blurb in the news awhile back where the USA says it's international?
anyone/