Wildroses in Alberta – but the grass is not always greener on the other side

Danielle Smith and the Wildrose Caucus, (R to L) Guy Boutilier, Heather Forsyth, Danielle Smith, Paul hinman, Rob Anderson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In an interesting twist of fate Alberta, long a stronghold for the Conservatives, is going through some family issues. Till death do us part is not the motto for conservatives today. Alberta is going through growing pains. With an influx of Canadians, of all stripes, change seems to be affecting the province as a whole. The Wildrose party has surged in popularity, but will it last? Cracks in the foundation are already apparent; with Wildrose members sounding both intolerant of immigrants and out of step with Canadian values. In some sense we can draw a comparison to the Republican Party in the United States. With forces split between what is seen as moderates, like Mitt Romney and The Tea Party elements of the Republicans. I sense that this is more of a protest vote; similar to the ADQ in Quebec. The Progressive Conservatives are holding true to the name “progressive”, but will the residents of Alberta give them another chance. With the election near Wildrose party members are under close scrutiny. Can the Wildrose Party grow into a sustainable political force? Or will they continue to bloom and show their true colours?

http://www.thestar.com/mobile/news/canada/politics/article/1164711–tim-harper-alberta-s-wildrose-leader-danielle-smith-s-bumpy-road-to-history

Related articles

• What’s behind the Wildrose rising in Alberta? (cbc.ca)
• YouTube video takes aim at Alberta’s Wildrose party as election looms (vancouversun.com)
• Alberta Tory tinkering ruining oil industry, says Wildrose (cbc.ca)
• Alberta election poll shows Wildrose Party ahead (cbc.ca)
• Alison Redford condemns Wildrose party for having ‘small Alberta’ vision (calgaryherald.com)
• ATA angry with Smith’s comments about teachers (cbc.ca)
• Alberta mayors weigh in on Wildrose candidates’ remarks (ctv.ca)
• Alberta election a race between ‘thugs’ and ‘bigots,’ say Liberals (cbc.ca)

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Do the Ontario Liberals want an election?

An interesting game of poker is taking place in Ontario and it seems that the Liberals may have the best hand. Who has the most to lose? At the moment it’s the NDP. No one wants an election and I suspect that if one is called you can kiss all of those NDP seats goodbye. Both the NDP and the Tories cannot afford an election at the moment. In a funny sense if the NDP votes against the budget I am sure the Tories will end up having to support it. The Liberals be in the best position if an election is called. So who will blink first?

Related articles

• McGuinty listening to NDP budget proposals (theglobeandmail.com)
• Why Ontario’s NDP isn’t drawing a line in the budgetary sand (theglobeandmail.com)
• NDP to propose Ontario budget changes, terms to support government (theglobeandmail.com)

NDP Convention: Thomas Mulcair leads the first round of balloting

Français : Thomas Mulcair le 23 avril 2011 à Montréal lors de la campagne électorale fédérale (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Seems that the first round has shown Thomas Mulcair leading in the NDP leadership race. Thomas Mulcair won 30% of the vote on the first ballot. However, can the Quebec MP get enough support to win the race to succeed Jack Layton?

http://www.thomasmulcair.ca/site/?lang=en

 [yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS9jpCMBHUY&feature=related’%5D

First Ballot Results:

Thomas Mulcair: 19,728 votes

Nathan Cullen: 10,671 votes

Brian Topp: 13,915 votes

Peggy Nash: 8,353 votes

Paul Dewar: 4,683 votes

Martin Singh: 3,821 votes

Niki Ashton: 3,737 votes

Update: It looks like Thomas Mulcair is closer to winning the leadership of the NDP. He remains in the lead on the second ballot, but just short of a victory.

Read more:

http://www.canada.com/news/Thomas+Mulcair+remains+lead+short+victory/6354549/story.html

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/

Related articles

• Rae vs. Mulcair (macleans.ca)
• NDP releases first ad featuring Thomas Mulcair (ctv.ca)
• Winning the weekend vs. Winning the race (macleans.ca)

Now Witness the Power of a Fully Armed and Operational Conservative Party

Canadian Election 2011

Everything that has transpired has done so according to Conservative design. NDP and Liberal Canadian’s walked into a trap. It was I who allowed other parties to believe that they could defeat me. My policies are quite safe from your pitiful little band in parliament. An entire legion of my best policy makers await them. My policies are unavoidable now. It is Canada’s destiny! You, like the people before you, are now, mine! I can feel your anger. You did not think I could win. Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your place as a Conservative member.

Conservative Party Policy (5 Key Priorities):

• Creating jobs through training, trade and low taxes.
• Supporting families through our Family Tax Cut and more support for seniors and caregivers.
• Eliminating the deficit by 2014-2015 by controlling spending and cutting waste.
• Making our streets safe through new laws to protect children and the elderly.
• Standing on guard for Canada by investing in the development of Canada’s North, cracking down on human smuggling and strengthening the Canadian Armed Forces.

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The bigger story: Canadian Election is the lowest in history at only 59 percent

CLOSE TO 10 MILLION CANADIANS DID NOT BOTHER TO VOTE!!!

OTTAWA — Early figures indicate Canadians avoided the ballot box more than ever before on election day.

Just 58 per cent of eligible voters visited the polls — from a high of 69 per cent in Prince Edward Island to 48 per cent in Newfoundland, according to preliminary numbers.

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Harper wins again, gaining 16 seats and some in the precious 905 region around Toronto

By ROB GILLIES Associated Press Writer © 2008 The Associated Press

Oct. 15, 2008, 4:05AM

Harper wins big in the election

OTTAWA — Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Wednesday he will reach out to all parties during the global financial meltdown after his Conservative Party won in national elections but fell short of a parliamentary majority.

Harper had called Tuesday’s elections early in hopes of getting his party a majority, and in doing so he became the first major world leader to face voters since the financial crisis.

Instead, the Conservatives will once again be forced to rely on opposition support to pass budgets and legislation — as it has had to since a 2006 election victory.

Harper sought to put a good face on the results Wednesday, pointing to an increased number of seats and pledging cooperation.

“We have shown that minority government can work and at this time of global economic instability we owe it to Canadians to demonstrate this once again,” Harper said. “We hold out a hand to all members of all parties asking them to join together to protect the economy and weather this world financial crisis.”

With nearly all the returns in, Canada’s election agency reported on its Web site that the Conservatives had won or was leading in races for 143 of Parliament’s 308 seats, an improvement over the 127 seats the party had in the previous Parliament.

The Conservative Party needed to win 155 seats to govern on its own.

The Liberal Party, long Canada’s top party, suffered a severe drubbing, dropping to 76 seats from 95 in the previous Parliament, according to the election agency. Bloc Quebecois won 50 seats, the New Democrats 37 and independent candidates 2.

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion, in his concession to Harper, offered his “full cooperation in these difficult economic times.”

The party winning the most seats generally forms the government, with its leader becoming prime minister. The opposition parties could unite and topple Harper if they won enough seats for a majority, but analysts said that was unlikely because the parties have no tradition of forming such coalitions.

The opposition Liberals have typically been the party in power, forming the government for most of Canada’s 141 years. But the left-of-center vote was divided among four parties, giving an edge to the Conservatives.

Dion’s campaign was hindered by his unpopular plan to tax all fossil fuels except gasoline and by perceptions he is a weak leader. A former professor from French-speaking Quebec, Dion also suffered in other regions because he frequently mangles English grammar and his accent makes him hard to understand.

Dion said Canadians have asked him to be their official opposition leader, a signal that he’s not ready to step down at this point.

If Dion was ousted as leader after a loss, he would be just the second Liberal leader to fail to become Canada’s prime minister. The only other was Edward Blake, who led the party to defeat in the 1882 and 1887 elections.

Many Canadians complained Harper was slow to react as the global credit crisis worsened. He hurt himself by saying during a debate that Canadians were not concerned about jobs or mortgages. A few days later, he said stocks were cheap — just before Canada’s main stock exchange had its worst week in almost 70 years.

Harper later said he knows Canadians are worried and stressed that Canada’s economic and fiscal performance contrasts to the more dire situation in the United States.

Voter turnout Tuesday about 59 percent, the lowest in Canadian history. It was unclear how much stringent new proof-of-identity requirements affected the turnout.

Voter turnout is heavy in Durham and York region, the middle class is voting for Harper and splitting the vote to Layton. Dion’s leadership maybe in question?

Update (7:56pm):Just came back from voting and turnout is heavy. I had to wait in line for a long time as it went outside of the High School and into the parking lot. Durham residents are voting, are you?

Update (10:14pm): It will be a Conservative win for Harper. The question is how large of a win? In Durham region there are some tight races in Oshawa. There is no way to declare a winner at the moment. Tonight is definitely a strange night. The Conservatives are doing well across the board. However, the Liberals are actually looking strong in Quebec, which is a definite blow to Jack Layton and the NDP. It will be interesting to see the numbers from B.C as they come in. However, no matter how you  put it, at the moment this is the Conservatives night. Albeit, still a minority at the moment they are picking up seats in Ontario. Dion has helped in Quebec, however strangely they are hurting in Ontario, which is there base. An interesting note is Ontario’s north has gone NDP. I am not sure if this is a pattern for Jack Layton to go on, however it’s an interesting note for the future. The NDP vote is definitely up in percentage, however he must be disappointing with the seat total. Also, the Conservatives are doing well in Thornhill with Peter Kent. Better thank Peter Shurman for that pick up! Dion will definitely have to explain the Carbon Tax to his caucus. Canadians were either in fear (a general lack of understanding) of the Carbon Tax. Or is this a message from Ontario on his leadership?

BIG NEWS: Oh my! Garth Turner has been defeated! Harper must be happy….

Update: Voter turnout may have been heavy in Durham, however across the Country it seems NO ONE CARES. Voter turnout was the lowest in Canadian history at only 59%.

Oshawa must vote NDP to send a message to Ottawa

“There is one leader and one party that tells the truth frankly, doesn’t pretend to be all things to be all people, doesn’t pretend to have perfect answers, but does have answers for ordinary families and that’s Jack Layton and the NDP.”

That was a quote from Mr. Broadbent. Leader of the federal NDP from 1975 to 1989 and led the party to a record 43 seats in the 1988 federal election. He retired in 1989 after 21 years as Oshawa’s MP. With GM on the cusp of bankrupcy and jobs in doubt who will rally for your cause?  If you want change in Oshawa and for the country, vote NDP.  By: Isaac Thomas / G.T.A Patriot Contributor.

An excerpt from Jack Layton:

• We’ll stop tax giveaways to corporations that don’t need them, or who ship our jobs overseas.
• We’ll support companies that provide training to workers here. We’ll invest with companies that are innovating in the new energy economy, and creating new green collar jobs for Canadians.
• We’ll stop the shameful rip-offs and gouging by cellphone giants, banks and credit card companies.
• We’ll shorten health care waiting lists by training more doctors and nurses. Five million Canadians don’t have a family doctor. One million are on waiting lists.
• We’ll face the challenge of climate change – not with Mr. Harper’s idle words or by taxing you and your family – but with tough laws that force polluters to clean up the mess they’ve made.

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The mistakes Conservatives, Liberals, NDP, Greens and Bloc Quebecois made. However there is no mistake when you vote!

Make sure you vote!

In my estimation, these are the errors each leader made during this campaign. They are in no particular order, however I welcome your comments.

Harper and the Conservatives

1. Called the election in the first place, knowing that Canadians wanted the minority government to remain, as is. We wanted everyone to work “together”.

2. The perceived indifference to voters and the electorate during these tough economic times.

3. Hoping to get the election done, before the market meltdown, the Conservatives hoped to get a majority government.

4. Telling Canadians that there were “good deals to be made on the stock market now”.

5. Trying to give leeway, albeit the judges, and more options in allowing 14 year old criminals to be placed as adults in court or placing them in jail for longer periods of time.

6. Cutting off Arts funding and then flip-flopping on that plan. He totally misread the importance of this issue, and the crime bill, in Quebec.

7. The “optics”, no matter how true it may be, of telling Canadians that the “fundementals are sound“. A leader must be able to tell Canadians that he/she will do something, even if nothing is to be done. Canadians need that assurance, however you may feel about that situtation.

8. Offering no ease to the manufacturing section or some kind of plan. People are hurting and loosing jobs in Ontario and Quebec. The perception is that he is uncaring. I know that this is not true, but the the optics are bad.

Dion and the Liberals

1. The Green Shift. You may agree with it, however it needed to be implemented in a different fashion. The economic meltdown has destroyed this plan (albeit unfairly). You need to explain it in layman terms. Just give us the basics. They allowed the Conservatives to control the message. Carbon taxes are not a bad thing and even conservative economists believe it is the best way to deal with taxes. This reminds me of the religious school funding issue in Ontario and how it played out.

2. The unfair perception of Leadership in this campaign. Somehow the Liberals needed to fix that.

3. Not offering clear and precise answers to Canadian voters.

4. Again restoring to “don’t split the vote and vote for the Greens or NDP“. The scaremongering was low! Yes, they just came to my door and told me that and it really pissed me off! This is a democracy, I will vote based on the issues and who “I” feel is the best option for Canada. I do not vote based on fear.

5. The anybody but Harper campaign. I am starting to wonder, can you not offer anything better than that? Old tactics, which makes me believe that they are worried about Jack Layton.

Layton and the NDP

1. Should have “never” tried to stop Elizabeth May and the Greens from appearing in the debate.

2. They should have got their message out even more in the media. Tell people what you are going to do.

May and the Greens

1. Going after a blogger for trying to post a video/audio of her telling Canadians that they were “too stupid”. If you listened to the entire phrase you would understand that she was actually making sense. However, this is a free Country and threatening a mere blogger is a pretty junior mistake. let people decide for themselves.

Bloc Quebecois

1. There biggest mistake is ignoring the NDP in Quebec. They may be in for a surprise come election day.

2. Not running candidates outside of Quebec.

3. Instead of looking for a way to break up the Country, find a cause of unify the country with Quebec culture. I will never understand, if we are a bilingual country, why we were not ingrained in learning French while growing up. Look at some of the European countries and how successful those strategies are.

Conclusion

In the end I cannot tell you who will win and loose. It is too close to call. I know what would happen if people voted how they wanted to. I can only say that Elizabeth May and Jack Layton seemed to perform the best. They had the least amount of gaffs and missteps. The Dion and Harper have not looked good through this election. I sense that the electorate would love to punish both of them and send the NDP and Greens to Parliament in force. However I sense the fear. Even though they want to vote Green or NDP they fear giving the Liberals or Conservatives a majority. The Liberals have done a good job and swaying voters in that manner. That is not a democratic ideal. Our soilders fought in wars for YOUR FREEDOM TO VOTE, so use it! Vote you conscience! Canada will go on no matter which major party is in power. Although I do not agree with his policies, Harper is NOT the devil.

You should not fear making any mistakes when voting. There are no mistakes when you vote based on your conviction and what you believe makes Canada better. If you want to vote Green than do so. If you want to vote for Jack Layton and the NDP, than do so. For the day we start voting based on fear, it is no longer a democracy! it is not longer Canada.

By: Andy MJ
a.k.a The G.T.A Patriot

Layton appeals to Quebec voters

RICHARD BRENNAN
OTTAWA BUREAU
GATINEAU—NDP Leader Jack Layton today urged Quebec voters to turn their backs on the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

“There’s a new choice for Quebec in this election – a choice of hope and optimism,” he said, adding the province would benefit in many ways from a national party, as opposed to one that has no MPs outside Quebec.

Layton pointed out many things that Quebecers hold dearly, such as the environment, that require strong actions across provincial boundaries that can only be offered by a national party.

The NDP is hoping to make a breakthrough in the riding of Gatineau with Francoise Boivin, a former Liberal MP in the Paul Martin/s Liberal government. The riding is now held by the PQ’s Richard Nadeau.

Throughout the election, Layton has been appealing to voters of all political stripes to side with the NDP, promising a New Democratic government would kill the Conservatives’ $50 billion corporate tax cut and use that money to improve child care, hire nurses and doctors, and bring in pharmacare, among other things.

Earlier in the day in Toronto, the NDP campaign turned to veteran New Democrat war horse Ed Broadbent to shore up support.

“It is good news for the NDP in every part of the country,” he told the adoring crowd, adding that the party is challenging in 20 ridings where the NDP have never been a contenders.

“We will bring in new seat after seat and we will have the largest caucus in the history (of the party),” Broadbent, who had a record 43 seats in 1988, told about 400 supporters.

read more | digg story

Jack Layton is the ideal opposition leader

You can’t do your job as Leader of the Opposition. I don’t know what you’re doing running for Prime Minister. It’s a very unusual political situation when every voter knows even before the federal election that Canada’s next prime minister will be Stephen Harper. Like or loathe it, the Conservatives will be returned to power on October 14.

But two other important questions are far from decided – who will be Opposition leader and whether it will be a minority or majority government.

After last week’s debate and two years of Harper government one thing is very clear – the only real federal opposition in the House of Commons is the New Democratic Party. And the only real choice for Opposition leader is Jack Layton.

Liberal leader Stephane Dion is a smart, decent man. But Dion and the Liberals don’t stand up to Stephen Harper – they prop him up.

On 43 separate occasions in Parliament, Dion’s Liberals voted to keep Harper in power and accept his very conservative legislation.

By continually abstaining, the “Official Opposition” has abdicated its important role of serving the majority of Canadians who reject Conservative ideology.

But it wasn’t just fear of losing an election that led to the Liberals becoming Conservative Lite – they actually agree with Harper’s wrong-headed positions on many key political issues.

Dion and the Liberals support Harper’s massive $50 billion corporate tax cuts that reward companies which have eliminated more than 400,000 manufacturing and forest industry jobs since 2000.

And the Liberals and Conservatives want huge tax cuts despite the fact that Canada’s tax rates are already lower than many industrialized nations, including the United States, Germany, Italy and Japan.
And Canada also has a much lower Goods and Services Tax than most countries.

Dion and the Liberals joined with Conservatives to vote to extend till 2011 the deadly mission that sent brave Canadian troops into a hopeless situation in Afghanistan.

Dion and the Liberals say they want a “Green Shift” and carbon tax to protect the environment but oppose a proposed NDP moratorium on new Alberta tar sands oil projects – Canada’s biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

read more | digg story

Jack Layton TV Ads

I am not sure why so many people are looking for information on Jack Layton. So if you need more details, see below:

Jack Layton TV ad: Chalk Talk – Leadership

Jack Layton TV ad: Chalk Talk – The Economy

Jack Layton TV ad – Chalk Talk – Health Care