Canada Election 2011

[Mytiwar]

So unfair I have to argue against the entirety of Canada alone. I feel so lonely.
So let's agree to disagree. I see your point, i guess you won't see mine but whatever :O

Mostly though, I'm not even a separatist so idk where all the hate is coming from, guess I carry on my shoulders the history of a whole people.

Back to eating frog legs.

[aurik]

You're arguing that we should continue to let Quebec rape Nfld on energy because fixing this would harm Quebec, in so far as Quebec would no longer be able to rape Nfld on energy to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

We see your point. We just reject it because it is stupid.

[Hyriu]

Seriously fuck Quebec and fuck the Quebecois.

lol

[Mytiwar]

You're arguing that we should continue to let Quebec rape Nfld on energy because fixing this would harm Quebec, in so far as Quebec would no longer be able to rape Nfld on energy to the tune of billions of dollars a year.

We see your point. We just reject it because it is stupid.

Not at all. I even specifically mentionned I didn't like the whole deal and I'd rather they come to a gentlemanly agreement.

I'm arguing Canada as a whole shouldn't fund a project to boost a province's economy while being harmful to another. Especially when energy should be a provincial jurisdiction and be province funded, which is what Quebec did with the whole hydro electricity infrastructure complex deal, that according to you guys, Newfoundland should be able to use free of charge AND make a hefty profit off of competing for the SAME clients. Really?

I guess either my point is really stupid or you're just too emotionnaly involved in this "let's hate on Quebec cuz it's cool" motto.

Sorry in advance for the shitty english, trying to explain as best I can!

[aurik]

So basically you admit that the current relationship is abusive, but you don't think that the federal government should get involved because rectifying the situation would be harmful to Quebec because they are the beneficiary of the abusive relationship.

As I said. Very dumb.

[Mytiwar]

There's simply no way you'll ever see my point for what it is, trying to have provinces rectify the injustice without having the fed. gov. going all herp derp and throwing money away like it's candy, not caring aboot the consequences. Guess I'll remain one of the big bad frenchmen, who are all a blur in your head but oh so hateable (and dumb).

Just go vote conservative if you want the Newfoundland project to happen, I won't.

[Cadsuane]

according to you guys, Newfoundland should be able to use free of charge AND make a hefty profit off of competing for the SAME clients. Really?

According to anyone with any sense Newfoundland should be able to sell its electricity for reasonable prices relative to the rest of the hydro market as opposed to essentially giving it away for free because Quebec, by geographical accident, has a monopsony. It also goes without saying that Newfoundland has the right to develop its natural resources regardless of whatever Quebec's interests are, and as far as investments go it couldn't be much more fruitful than Churchill as far as the federation of Canada as a whole is concerned (but then again that's the whole crux as I've said). Even so, Quebec will continue to profit at Newfoundland's expense even after the lower Churchill plant comes online because of the renewal clause.

There's no getting around the fact that you're being a moron. We get your point, it's stupid.

[Mytiwar]

There's no getting around the fact that you're being a moron.

At least I'm happy

[Belragga]

Lol seems like typical Quebec attitude to me. Fuck everyone else, Quebec is king and and has the superior culture! Amirite?

[Mytiwar]

Lol seems like typical Quebec attitude to me. Fuck everyone else, Quebec is king and and has the superior culture! Amirite?

Oh wow, this argument was actually positive if you took out the few insults here and there but now we have devolved into pure bottom of the barrel racism. I will leave you for now as I have a feeling I'm only fueling up more hatred for no actual reason.

Superior culture peaces out.

[Belragga]

Before you try and take the moral high ground. How would you feel if the roles were reversed in this hydro situation? It sounds like Quebec is more or less giving Labrador the old "Play by our rules or we're going home and taking our ball with us".

Anyway seems this thread is a little off topic. Does anyone have a good site where I can read up on each parties platform. I'll admit that the first time I voted a few years back it was totally uninformed and I'd like to change that.

[Thoronas]

Most parties haven't released their full platform yet. Liberals will be up soon, NDP in mid April apparently. Conservatives haven't set a time but they say their platform will be very similar to their budget which was defeated.

[Amiricle]

Its hard not to embrace apathy since the only party head who seems like a halfway decent leader is Duceppe, but his party is a big fuck you to the rest of Canada.

Ill still vote though, same as last time, and hope the results will be the same with another minority. Pretty sure a majority conservative OR liberal would be so full of fuck either way.

[Cadsuane]

Oh Rex you're so funny

http://www.cbc.ca/thenational/indept...hy-110328.html

[Anton]

"Cancel All Planned Ads." No kidding, Rex, I'm already sick of them.

Also I'm from Ontario, so I have no idea what happens in your province. But it sounds like good times.

Lol seems like typical Quebec attitude to me. Fuck everyone else, Quebec is king and and has the superior culture! Amirite?

I take it you're not voting Bloc. Let's try n keep the insults tongue-in-cheek, yes?

http://www.postthisinc.com/images/Quebec1.jpg

[Thoronas]

Yeah I'd love for politicians to follow some of Rex's points. Most especially I'd love for the end of the "if you vote for this guy Canada will be plunged into 100 years of unending darkness" hyperbole.

[Kaylia]

Lol seems like typical Quebec attitude to me. Fuck everyone else, Quebec is king and and has the superior culture! Amirite?

The average citizen is retarded everywhere, we just happen to have a retarded political movement that make the stupid more visible than it should be.

There is no place for emotions in politics, and that kind of negative attitude on both side isn't helping at all. It just give everyone a reason to hate each other.

Its hard not to embrace apathy since the only party head who seems like a halfway decent leader is Duceppe, but his party is a big fuck you to the rest of Canada.

Duceppe is the biggest cock gobbler you could have in politics, it's always about petty politics and scare tactics with him. It's easy to demonize others and make promise that you don't have to hold, but that's not what run a country (or province). Sadly, it's very popular with voter.

Imo, the bloc is harmful for the Canada, but it's also harmful here in Québec. Instead of actually talking about important issues we will have to deal with, people are focused on the language/cultural debate, and that shit isn't going to help anyone.

[Thoronas]

This is quite possibly the best summary of the election I have seen so far.

A Guide To The Upcoming Canadian Election For Foreigners

Spoiler: show

So, you may have heard that Canada has an upcoming election! Or not. It’s entirely possible you didn’t hear about it at all. It’s understandable, what with Japan and Libya and Rebecca Black and all. Anyway, a lot of people have asked me to explain this election to them, as I am the only Canadian they know who’s willing to talk about our country’s politics rather than just rattle off a string of obscenities, which is the de facto Canadian answer to most political enquiries. So here we go!

So why are you having an election, anyway?

Traditionally, Canada has an election when one of two things happen: either the current government says “okay, time for an election,” and we go ask the Queen if we can have an election, or the current government loses a vote of confidence, which is when the Members of Parliament all vote and say “this government sucks, we want a new one” and then we have to go ask the Queen if we can have an election. In Canada, most confidence votes are the annual budget vote, but in this case what happened was that a Parliamentary government committee found the government to be in contempt of Parliament for withholding crucial information3 about the costs of various bills and purchases it wished to pass, including a crime bill and the cost of some new fighter jets.

So this means that the current government will be turfed out?

Probably not.

Wait, what?

It’s like this. Canada is basically a four-party system. The Bloc Quebecois make it near-impossible for any party to get a majority since the Bloc will usually get around fifty of Quebec’s seventy-five seats, which means any other party, to get a majority, has to win 155 of the remaining 258 seats. That’s a pretty big benchmark to beat. Secondly, the NDP, our socialist-pinko party, at any time has about 20-36 of the remaining seats. The NDP will never be the head of a government; much like the Liberal Democrats in the UK, their ultimate goal is to reform the electoral system so that they get twenty percent of the seats to match the twenty percent of the vote they usually get.

So basically your options for actually running the country are the Conservatives or the Liberals. The Liberals got turfed out after a scandal in 2006 involving the misdirection of government advertising funds, and the Tories have been in power ever since, mostly because there’s one party competing for right-wing votes and three competing for left-wing votes, and basically the Tories haven’t done anything really amazingly offensive to alienate centrist voters yet because Canadians really don’t expect anything at all out of their government any more, and it would take a screwup of massive proportions for the Tories to really shock the centre out of… “complacency” isn’t quite the right word. Let’s go with “despair.” So far, the Tories have managed to weather proroguing the government, cabinet ministers doctoring reports, a whole lot of ethnic and racial slurs from backbenchers, numerous unpopular spending cuts, misuse of government funds for political purposes and a bunch of other things.

Wait, if they’re so bad, why don’t people vote Liberal instead?

Well, here’s the thing. For Liberal Party leaders, after Jean Chretien retired, we went from “capable right-hand man who’s not very inspiring” in Paul Martin to “intelligent man but boy he talks funny” in Stephane Dion, and got clobbered both times at the polls. Then, for some reason, the Liberal Party decided to shoot itself in the head and put Michael Ignatieff in charge, because what the party really needed was a soulless husk of a man leading it, I guess. Ignatieff has spent the last couple of years mostly knuckling under to any challenge Stephen Harper has put forth, mostly because Michael Ignatieff is a useless limpdick, but also because Ignatieff is firmly on the centre-right side of the Liberal Party and doesn’t really have economic views that are wildly dissimilar from some Tories when you get down to it. People might not like Harper, but generally it looks like we were all willing to wait for Ignatieff to go away. Unfortunately, he has not done this.

Then how come Ignatieff didn’t knuckle under this time?

There are three theories regarding this.

1.) Michael Ignatieff felt the contempt hearing was just too great a disregard of Canada’s political tradition and its public to let slide. This is probably the least likely option.

2.) Michael Ignatieff has been playing political rope-a-dope, or so he thinks, and will attack the Tories with every single scandal since 2006 and make them look really really bad. This is quite possible. I’m not sure how Ignatieff is going to get traction with stuff he couldn’t be bothered to use the first time around, but then again I never went to Harvard.

3.) Michael Ignatieff has realized he is a useless limpdick and wants to bow out of the Liberal Party gracefully so he can go back to college and be revered again, and can do so by getting his ass kicked in an election. This is also quite possible.

So the Tories are going to win?

Probably a minority government, yes.

Wait, don’t they already have that?

Yes.

So they’ll be happy with that?

Oh, heavens no. See, this is the third election where the social conservatives who represent the bulk of the modern Tory party have put up with what they consider a relative moderate as their leader. Never mind that Stephen Harper is easily the most right-wing prime minister in Canadian history: the fact that he represents himself as moderate offends them. But they’ve put up with it because they’ve been told that Harper represents their only chance at a majority government, and then they can pass anti-same-sex-marriage bills and anti-union bills and anti-whatever-they-don’t-like-this-week bills once they’ve got their majority.

But they’re only willing to let Harper have so many kicks at the can, and the grumbling within the party is getting more and more pronounced. For a long time there was a sort of belief that another moderate, like Jim Prentice or Peter MacKay, would take over when Harper left, but the socons have been quite clear that more moderate than Harper is a no-go, which is probably why Jim Prentice recently announced his retirement from politics to go run a bank. The socons want one of their own running the party, a Jason Kenney or the like. And if they don’t get their majority this time around, it’s entirely possible they’ll decide to go for it.

So this is essentially a “which leader would you like to stick around” contest for Ignatieff and Harper?

Probably Jack Layton as well.

Why? Is he unpopular too?

Actually Layton’s quite popular, but he’s been fighting prostate cancer for about a year. If the NDP don’t win – and they won’t – Layton will probably have to step down at some point to concentrate on his health. He will never admit this, because Jack Layton is the political equivalent of a bull terrier, but it’s true. For the NDP, this election probably has quite a bit to do with elevating the bench players so that Layton can step down and not leave the party rudderless.

So to sum up: this election won’t change anything except political organization of the various parties?

Not unless something crazy happens, but then again, part of politics is that you never know when something crazy will happen.

Source

[Cantih]

Thanks for that

[bluefan]

Argh, back to choosing between the lesser of two evils....hmmmm.