Elections

Animal House Of Commons – Will We Be Voting This Summer?

Mulder

The simple answer to this question is no.

Despite all the saber rattling the bottom line is that:

a) The Bloc Quebecois doesn’t want to lose seats to the Liberals and right now that’s what would happen.

b) The NDP doesn’t have the money to fight an election and they would definitely lose seats.

c) The Liberals don’t have the money and wouldn’t dare call an election before infrastructure money gets spent.

So this weekend Michael Ignatieff is going to relax, have a cognac while he intellectually debates with hawks like Warren Kinsella and in the end, the conversation will go something like the one between Greg Marmalard and Dean Wormer in the movie Animal House.

Liberal Hawk: But the Tories are already on probation.

Michael Ignatieff: They are? Well, as of this moment, they’re on DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION!

A Little Bird Told Me…

Mulder

Everyone asks me if we are going to have an election. I think it has to do with my interest in politics. And to every person I answer the same way. I tell them to go ask Stephane Dion since it is the Liberals who will decide whether to prop up the Tory government via the old “Sit and Spin”. i.e. they sit on the hands when the bell tolls and they spin the stories to the press hoping to swing the polls….

Well tonight I had the luxury of sitting in some choice seats at the hockey game featuring the Leafs vs. the Senators. (Yeah!! My Leafs kicked butt 5-0). And not two rows back and two or three seats over is sitting Steve MacKinnon, the past president of the Liberal Party and someone who regularly appears on the Mike Duffy Live show doing much of the aforementioned spinning.

So at the first intermission, I turn and yell out “Hey Steve!”

He looks around until he spots who is calling him and I ask “Are we going to an Election soon?”

In a friendly manner, he replies “I don’t think so. What do you think?”

I tell him I don’t think so either and I let him go back to eating his hot dog with his two friends.

So there ya have it. Someone far closer to the fray saying he doesn’t think we will be having a spring election not 24 hours before the budget comes down.

Steve MacKinnon eating a hot dog at a Leavs vs Sens game
(That’s him on the left in the brown leather bomber jacket)

Liberals "In and Out" Of Hypocrisy … But Mostly In

Mulder

After weeks of pummeling the Conservatives in Question Period alleging election fraud, the Liberal hypocrisy on the issue is exposed. When a motion in the house affairs committee is brought forward to expose the practices of all parties for the last two elections, they turn tail and run, preventing quorum and, thus, acceptance of the motion.

Why???

Click the above video once to view. If it does not begin playing shortly, you can try clicking the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRZjXGYaDAQ

Mixed Member Proportional Strikes Out With Me

Mulder

Italy uses a Mixed Member Proportional system and from what I can see, they have one of the most Officially Screwed electoral system in the world.

They have over 40 political parties (Strike 1) of which the majority are tied in to two coalitions.

But because the Italian system incorporates a 4% minimum in order to garner some of the assigned proportionality seats, the coalition with the most votes is not the party forming the government because they have more parties with less than 4% of the vote in their coalition. (Strike 2)

Strike 3 is attributed to the fact that an MMP system will let every small interest group form a party in an effort to garner 4% of the vote and get a representative in the assembly. The proposed system for Ontario would only require 3% making it that much more fringe party friendly. Here is a brief list of some of the party names.

Daisy-Democracy is Freedom Party
Rose in the Fist Party
Italian Radicals
Party of Italian Communists
S.O.S. Italy Party

In reading a few of the other names, I would imagine that it wouldn’t be long before we had political parties dedicated to core unions such as:

“The Teachers Union Party”

or

“The United Auto Workers Party”. (I would give you one guess at who would lead this one.)

Then we have New Zealand. This country had a two party system from 1909 to 1996 when they moved to a proportional system. What would Ontario have to look forward to with an MMP system?

New Zealand has a strong party system in place. The first political party was founded in 1891, and its main rival was founded in 1909 — from that point until a change of electoral system in 1996, New Zealand had a two-party system in place. Today, New Zealand has a genuinely multi-party system, with eight parties currently represented in Parliament. Neither of the two largest parties have been able to govern without support from other groups since 1996, meaning that coalition government is required.

The two largest, and oldest, parties are the Labour Party (centre-left progressive) and the National Party (centre-right conservative). Other parties currently represented in Parliament are New Zealand First (populist, nationalist), ACT (free market), the Greens (left-wing, environmentalist), United Future (family values), the Progressives (leftist), and the Māori Party (ethnic).

I think that MMP will create more headaches in trying to form coalitions than allowing the government of the day to lead the people and the province. Stick to “First Past The Post”. The current system may not always get your favourite party in power, but whomever is in power will be able to run the show without having to make a bunch of back room deals for support.

First Past The Post has my vote on Election Day.

Problem Solved : Just Get Everyone Voting At The Same Time

Mulder

So the Supreme Court Ruled that a publication ban was acceptable in order to ensure west coast voters were not influenced by the east coast results before the western polls close.

This whole situation is ridiculous. We all know that with the internet, American bloggers like Captain’s Quarters kept us all in the loop on Gomery despite a publication ban.

How does the Supreme Court suggest we monitor for those breaking the law? In a day and age of instant information, live, up front, and in your face, there is no way they can lock up every blogger that posts results. Heck, there are people who live blog this kind of stuff on the minute.

This problem does not affect most smaller nations in Europe or Africa because they only have one time zone. But Canada has four. So what are we to do?

My suggestion? Open up the BC polls at 6 am, the Mountain time zone polls at 7am, the Central time zone polls at 8am, the Eastern time zone polls at 9am and the Newfoundland time zone polls at 9:30am. Run them for 12 or 13 hours each and close them all up at the same time. either 9:30pm or 10:30pm.

If society can’t adhere to the rules, then simply adjust the rules so that it doesn’t matter.

Liberals Practicing Reverse Psychology On Canadians

Mulder

If you have ever tried to find a lost receipt in a garbage bag full of coffee grounds, banana peels and loaded diapers, then you know how hard it was to find this quote from the mouth of Mark Holland:

Liberals Denis Coderre and Mark Holland came to Dion’s defence, and blasted Harper and the Tories for spending millions of dollars on personal attack ads to force an election Canadians don’t want.

“I think that the Prime Minister wants the election soon,” said Holland, Dion’s natural resources critic. “Canadians don’t, and certainly we don’t. I think that Canadians want a minority government. They wanted it to work. What instead we have is somebody who has a crass political agenda and sort of shoves everything else aside.”

H/T to Jarrett Plonka.

But the story doesn’t end there.

This morning on CTV Newsnet, there was a news clip with Liberal Jim Karygiannis from Scarborough, taking his campaign signs out of storage for the pending election and Jimmy K. was harping about how an election was coming and blamed the reasoning on Harper’s desire to go to election.

“I think the Prime Minister is certainly misleading the Canadian public. He’s eager to go, he’s rarin’ to go, and I think within 4 to 8 weeks he’s going to pull the plug on us.”

But why would Jimmy move signs out of the garage of his mansion and put them in a
minivan? Where could he possibly be taking them? I think it’s clear who is rarin’ to go and it’s Jimmy K.

JimmyK Signs 1

JimmyK Signs 2

JimmyK Signs 3

So what we have here is three Liberals starting the campaign to make it look like they did NOT call the election. The way this works is they scatter the press with images of themselves preparing for an election and blaming it on the Tories, and then they take the government down on the budget and anyone who decides to not pay attention in two weeks will think the Tories called the election.

Nice smoke and mirrors. Watch the press over this two week March break to see how many more Liberals prepare for an election call and then deflect the blame to the Tories. All I have to say is that if Jimmy K has a sign up on his own lawn and is taking signs out of his garage and posting them

But the truth is, the Liberals are itching. They have an ineffective leader. They are losing more and more ground to the Tories daily, and they are in desperate need to find a reason to boot Stephane Dion out of power so they can find a more capable leader.

Liberals Better Think Twice About A Spring Election

Mulder

The results of a CFRA poll indicate that the Liberals should be thinking twice about taking down the government this spring.

There is renewed speculation about a spring federal election. Please rate the performance of the Harper minority government.
Excellent 34.4%
Very Good 43.6%
Adequate 13.7%
Very Poor 8.05%
Other 5.55%
Total Votes: 1801

This may not be a scientific poll as it was conducted online, but when 91.7% of the 1800 or so respondents believe the government is doing Adequate or better and a whopping 78% feel they are doing Very Good or Excellent, then the opposition parties need to pay attention.

If you take out the Other results, the weighted value of the Adequate or better answers go up to 97% and the Very Good or Excellent total is a commanding 82.6%. These are quite dramatic results and make me very proud to be one of those who think the Harper government is doing an Excellent job.

The environment may be a key issue to the press, but to citizens it is not as important as good government, good leadership and an accountable team that will not squander our tax dollars and this poll shows it.

Ottawa Has A New Mayor But Returns Every Incumbent Councillor

Mulder

Tonight I had the privilege of attending the campaign party for Larry O’Brien, who just happens to be the new mayor of Ottawa.

Larry swept to an early lead taking just under 50% of the vote. The right leaning voters united behind his banner while the left leaning voters divvied themselves up between incumbent Bob Chiarelli and Alex Munter.

Funny, that’s just what I said would happen back in February. Albeit back then the right leaning candidate was to be Terry Kilrea and not Larry O’Brien.

I had the luxury of attending the event with ShamTheToryMan and Matt from A Step To The Right and below are a few pictures that I snapped with my cell phone.

BobConceding

Bob Chiarelli shows up to concede in a classy speech.

Larry1Small

Larry gets the crowd going with his victory speech. Plough those furrows straight Larry. Plough ’em straight.

LisaSmall

Provincial MPP Lisa MacLeod showed up to celebrate with Larry. I seem to run into her everywhere.

MattNLarry

Matt (A Step To The Right) with Larry.

ShamNMatt

ShamTheToryMan and Matt (A Step To The Right)

All in all a surprising evening. We now have a straight arrow businessman in charge but we have returned a left leaning council so it is going to be interesting to see how things develop.

Phew. Hopefully, tomorrow I can stop looking at the sign farms.
signssigns.jpg