What did we do? Harper Majority!!
- Thread starter YaYiP
- Start date
Benevolent! Ya, right. Harper has an agenda that will prove to be anything but benevolent. His style of governing is proof of that. I am still in shock at the complete stupidity of those who bought the absolute BS of Harper's attack ads. After crucifying Iggy, he went after Jack. That people bought into his tactics leaves nothing to be proud of, let alone gloat over.
UGH!!.. the little stinker has a majority.. with 60% of the population voting against him. Gawd halp us!!..
There is something seriously wrong with the first past the post system, which produces such a clearly unrepresentative outcome.
Proportional representation has been a disaster most places its been tried.. Israel, New Zealand.. but some systems that let voters rank canidates and sequentially eliminate lowest ranks until someone with a clear majority emerges have proved more promising.
As for that little twit Harper.. if he was a secretive, tyrannical arse before.. he has been given free reign to implement the Global Investment Orgamism's agenda of de-nationalization and Free Trade now.
He's a dangerous petty neoconservative ideologue.. without the sense, character or intellect to free himself from the IMF & Co. dictates.
There is something seriously wrong with the first past the post system, which produces such a clearly unrepresentative outcome.
Proportional representation has been a disaster most places its been tried.. Israel, New Zealand.. but some systems that let voters rank canidates and sequentially eliminate lowest ranks until someone with a clear majority emerges have proved more promising.
As for that little twit Harper.. if he was a secretive, tyrannical arse before.. he has been given free reign to implement the Global Investment Orgamism's agenda of de-nationalization and Free Trade now.
He's a dangerous petty neoconservative ideologue.. without the sense, character or intellect to free himself from the IMF & Co. dictates.
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First off, if you weaken the party system somewhat, there is no problem with FPTP in principle.
As for checks and balances, remember that in a FPTP system we vote candidate and not party. As such, any MP can cross the floor or walk out of the party. So controls are still in place.
And as for free trade, heck, even Sweden is pro free trade, and it's hardly a right wing state.
That was a pretty awesome statement DaS. I agree that we should always try and strive for a minority government.
You keep saying that, as with all politicians, it will eventually become true. But for now, you sound like a partisan hack
Harper still will want his party re-elected in four years. I didn't vote for the guy, but I also know that as a politician, he's not going to go against what 60% of the population want in governance and risk losing to Layton in four years time. Tone down the paranoia folks, it's still a popularity contest in the long run.
Harper is petty, and how his constituents voted for him I have no idea. That said, he has but one vote in the House. We don't know yet of the composition of the Conservative Caucus yet. For all we know the new Conservative caucus might have a few more worthy Mps... or so we hope.
What's done is done now and we get to see what will come to pass in the next four years.
I don't think it will be better over all, and I am not at all sure that the moderates in the party can hold the real fundamental aspect within the party at bay on some of the big issues.
I don't think there is going to be a change in the legal status of abortion but I expect there is going to be a steady whittling away or the building blocks of it. Availability and support, that sort of thing.
That will unfold as time passes.
What I want to point out is something that occurred to me last night. While the NDP experienced a huge boost of support, a long with the Conservatives, the came from the NDP and the Liberals. I think that is the real message here.
Like obviously most Liberals, I felt the party had lost something when the shift from Chretien to Martin happened. While the party as long as I have supported them, have always been centerist, there was a shift to more polarized views within the party. No real leadership and an underlaying of contempt for either factions by the other within the party lead to compromise int he leadership race and more leader focused rather than caucus. So the depth of knowledge and ability to bring something to the table was and is lacking in the party. This is highlighted by the election results last night.
Iggy I think has his heart int he right place but has no charisma and a serious inability to speak at the level of his intelligence indicates he can. Like Deon, he just isn't politically savvy.
This election puts a DNR tag on the Bloc. That's clear and I have to say Duceppe had the balls to step up and resign right there. Iggy couldn't do that without looking like the drop in the Conservatives said he was. His offer to remain to serve in any capacity shows an earnest desire to serve, but with the sheer malice in the Liberal party at the moment, he's cold product. So I expect he will have to go back to teaching. A man's gotta eat.
The Liberals have been handed their walking papers and as such, need to retool and rebuild the whole party from the ground up. The youth of the party look promising but they have a vacuum now in elder statesmen that can guide and support them as they grow into taking the party where it should go. I hope they do it right this time and not try to patch up a working model that just can't stand up under the pressure of opposition and an election.
So the NDP, I am glad that Jack won big. He should, he ran a good campaign. He picked up a lot of the votes from those who left both the Bloc and the Liberals. It's going to be a big job getting those new faces into parliament shape and all. Thing is, with a majority, the opposition isn't going to play a big role in how the country is governed. I am sure he will manage to rant and rail against some of the policy the Conservatives will pass, but that isn't going to change anything.
It's a hollow victory in that all the gains he has made for the party, has such little effect on the government. I think the better solution would have been a Conservative minority with the NDP as official opposition. Parliament needs to work together to make sure that all voices in the country are heard. Alas as it stands now, a minority of voices matter.
These will be interesting times.
60% of the population did not vote 'against' him. There is no 'against' option on our ballots.
I don't think they want to 'retool', I think having a tool as leader is what got them into 3rd place.
We've had an incredibly hard working minority gov for the past 5 years. Canadians have voted, and they say that the opposition was too unreasonable.
No, there isn't an against option, but the candidates are mutually exclusive, so a vote against one is a vote against the rest of the candidates. A vote for candidate A is a vote in opposition to candidate B, ie. against candidate B.
But the same argument means that even more voted against Layton, and more still against Ignatieff.
John Ivison: Relaxed Harper misplaces the Secret Agenda | Full Comment | National Post
[FONT="]"In a pre-election interview, Mr. Harper told the [FONT="]National Post[/FONT] that with a majority government he would be more concerned with governing than with self-preservation. And how would he govern? My take is that he will do exactly what he’s been saying he has wanted to do for the past five years — Senate reform, abolish the gun registry, get tough on crime and shrink the size of government. As someone who knows him well put it: “The hidden agenda has been sitting on the order paper in the House of Commons for five years.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]As one of his biographers, William Johnson, has noted: “Unlike most politicians, he almost always means what he says because he has thought long and hard about an issue before he speaks. He is consistent in his thinking and speaking because he is a conviction politician.”[/FONT]
[FONT="]Kelly McParland: Sir John A. would know what to do with Harper’s majority | Full Comment | National Post[/FONT]
[FONT="]Unlike any of his predecessors — going all the way back to Macdonald — Harper has been handed a solid mandate to govern by a population that knows him well and knows what to expect. He has already spent five years in office. He knows how government operates, where the levers of power are and how to use them. He has experienced people, who know what’s possible and what isn’t.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]He isn’t coming in cold, with an enormous backlog of unrealistic ambitions to ram through. Instead, the Tories have a solid idea of what they want to accomplish over the next four years. Having already elected him twice previously, Canadians won’t be looking for sudden miracles. Far from it: such is the level of exhaustion with politics that most Canadians will be delighted if the government just stays out of their face for the majority of the mandate.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]Harper, in effect, has four years to shepherd through legislation that should come as little surprise to anyone, and he has the majority to do it without excessive drama. If he can tone down the ugly atmosphere on the Hill (which shouldn’t be difficult given the demise of the Liberals) and provide four years of quiet, competent government, ending with a balanced budget and healthy economy, he will be able to return to voters with a claim to having fulfilled expectations."
He told us before and during the election just what his agenda was - it is all in our platform. There is no 'hidden agenda' - there never was and now Canadians will get to see our PM as the good and decent man that all of us Conservative supporters have always know him to be.
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Ah, it is good to see someone who is so gracious in defeat. LOL!
Agreed....I still beleive in the old saying......"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty"
I'm still hoping Harper will lead with integrity.......???
[FONT="]"If they’re willing and able to start almost from scratch, they might yet find that there’s still centrist space available to them between the New Democrats and the Conservatives. And if the NDP’s surge is largely about Mr. Layton’s personal popularity, the Liberals may eventually re-emerge as the Conservatives’ main opponents.[/FONT]
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[FONT="]The Liberals have been humbled. They have lost their foothold at the centre – in all senses – of Canadian political life. The party of Laurier, King, Pearson and Trudeau, a party that under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin slew the deficit in the 1990s, now risks falling into complete irrelevancy. Michael Ignatieff said last night that “democracy teaches hard lessons,” and that it was time that Liberals “look at ourselves in the mirror.” They have a daunting challenge ahead to rebuild their grassroots, their finances and their ideas about who they are and what Canada needs them to be. On Parliament Hill, they will need to go in with elbows up, serving as a scrappy, principled opposition, as they did in 1984."[/FONT]
Stephen Harper’s double victory - The Globe and Mail
When wilfull voter ignorance is as high as it is, is it any surprise we got this outcome? To be totally honest, none of the parties present the right mix, though at least the Libs are centre. The right mix is a mix grounded on truth, and the majority of voters don't know what that is. Until there is a more stringent requirement to be allowed a vote, voter ignorance will continue to yield undesirable results.
"Willful voter ignorance?" It is really moving to see the faith you put in your fellow Canadians.
