Heheh, you're certainly putting yourself out there Dawg, and I hope to god you're right... but am I believe Steve just declared there would be no non-confidence votes in the house until the 8th, am I missing something? Is the government allowed to stop the opposition from bringing forward a non-confidence motion?
It's exciting and I'd encourage all Dippers and Grits to start sending off e-mails and making phone calls to encourage their parties to be serious about this. If this thing succeeded and then fell apart it would be a guaranteed majority for the CPC.
Harper is a radical conservative. Which leaves him helpless to fascist influences. Harper’s handling of democracy feels like the early rise of fascism.
Sadly a lot more people support Fascism and the hateful propaganda on which it is based than we like to admit.
Fascism is corruption based on lies which start out as half truths and grow into deceit necessary to the gain and maintain power to protect against mythical enemies both within and outside the state. Worst still concentrated conservative media feels a patriotic duty to protect the naive public. Lies are not exposed but added on to, until fascism is embraced and suppresses resisters as internal enemies.
Removing campaign funding combined with Harpers abuse of election spending rules will destroy the ability of political parties to compete fairly. And destroy our democracy and replace it with a system buying votes. Sensible political interests which attract the majority of common people will not win, but rather political interest which make the rich richer will win. If anything the current system does not reward sensible political interests which attract the majority of common people enough.
This is a path to economic and political corruption and national destruction.
HOW MUCH has the private sale of the 407 cost the public through increased travel cost either directly or over crowding the 401?
The 407 was sold and is the gift that keeps giving. This corporate monopoly generates the kind of money that can buy a lot more advertising then families trying to make ends meet. But it cost us all and makes us less economically efficient.
Holy Shit! Are you kidding tim?
Taxation to support PUblic political parties is borderline fascism(ok not really, but it could lead to that, in a stranger world).
Another form of guv-intervention is conspiring to overthrow the guv with all opposition parties+slackjaw&eddieboy and that includes Les Blockheads.
So the Liberals will crawl into bed in a spectacular ménage à trois with the Bloc and the NDP.
Who will be on top? Dion? Will we get the Green Shaft after all? Layton? Will the oilsands be shut down, silencing the final sputterings of the failing economic engine of the Canada? Duceppe? It doesn't really matter, does it.
No matter what, Alberta's screwed. The only upside is that the prospects for separation are brighter than ever before. I always said the Conservatives had to have a majority before separation could be taken seriously in this province. I may very well have been wrong.
Hope you are right Dawg. Harper has once more exposed himself as the authoritarian, ideologically-driven bully that he really is.
I don't know Dawg, you seeem pretty sure of this scenario. Care to make it interesting, say, 40 Quatloos that Harper survives?
Dave:
I'll raise that to a hundred Quatloos. It's not like I'm putting my, er, body on the line or anything. 
I'm curious about this so maybe somebody can explain it to me.
re "unite the opposition by threatening to bankrupt it with a well-timed (or so he clearly thought) repeal of public funding"
Given that even the Conservatives are a minority party, and given also that the opposition parties (Liberals/Bloc/NDP) are argued to be such good financial managers, why is it that an election call or a cut in public funding would bankrupt the opposition parties but not the Conservatives?
Tim, since you wrote this: "This corporate monopoly"...
Can you name a single corporate monoply that doesn't maintain its position specifically through State-provided advantages like tariff or market protection, tax breaks or the like? I can't. I think *every* so-called "corporate monopoly" is an example of State monopoly by proxy. Every other true monopoly I can think of is actually even more directly Statist, not private.
But maybe you can point me to an exception?
Ron:
I think you already know this, but the Cons are in very good financial shape, and have a large donor base that came through for them in the last few months.
The Libs and the NDP are not so fortunate. The former, in particular, is really in the red. Donations are substantially down.
You will know that public financing was a trade-off for imposing donation limits. All very well to talk about a different system, but the timing of this proposed retroactive changing of the rules was heavily in the Cons' favour.
This has little to do with fiscal management, much to do with political cynicism that has backfired, badly, on the Cons.
Well I sent of the letter/petition that you provided. I think I also signed another petition. And I am also drafting a personal letter to my MP and cc: Layton, Dion and Duceppe.
I much prefer the $1.95 per vote public funding to unlimited donations by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. The cap works on curving influence peddling imv. It also makes citizen know that their vote does result in financial support for the parties they support. Because not everyone can afford to make a donation.
But equally importantly is that Harper's response to the looming global economic crisis is completely inept. You don't sell off crown goods when the market has bottomed out? You don't introduce policies of slash and burn when you want to stimulate the economy and protect jobs.
Harper is crass and driven by his world view that government should be reduced to next to nothing (except passing out military contracts and meting out harsh punishments) while the free market should have unfettered access to investment and cheap labour. The sooner he is out the door, the better we will all be.
The party financing cuts were politically motivated.
They weren't mentioned in the election campaign. They weren't discussed in the Throne Speech. And they didn't arise in Harper's meetings with the opposition leaders.
They were attached to the economic statement just this week for purely political reasons.
Sure, they should be up for debate but only as part of a more substantial discussion on electoral reform.
Dump the government now.
Dr. Dawg,
"Playing chess with his opposition, Stephen Harper has blundered into zugzwang--a position in which any moves he now makes will eventually be fatal. "
What'll we win if/when you're wrong?
Dawg, with respect:
"Donations are substantially down"
If people like those parties and if the supporters of these parties had a mindset, an ethical understanding, that one contributes one's own money to causes one supports, why would this be? Unless one is of the opinion that the things one wants and supports should be paid for by others instead...
the timing of this proposed retroactive changing of the rules was heavily in the Cons' favour
Quite so, but the vulnerability of the opposition parties to this sort of approach by the Conservatives isn't the Conservatives fault, is it.
Beijing York, with respect as well:
You wrote "You don't sell off crown goods when the market has bottomed out? You don't introduce policies of slash and burn when you want to stimulate the economy and protect jobs"
I understand that when I'm in economically poor shape, it likely means what I sell will not command as high a price as it would if I wasn't a motivated seller, but if I was in poor financial shape, sell assets is exactly what I might do.
What you call "slash and burn" might be exactly a parallel to me doing without cable TV or dinners out or other such frugalities in order to not increase my debt during hard times.
Now, can you explain how what makes obvious financial sense in a household doesn't make sense when writ larger.
http://www.politicswatch.com/hou...pril18-
2005.htm
trip down memory lane. see what harper used to say about delaying confidence votes.
donate to your opposition parties now.
Ron Good - do you do understand that there are thousands of households in Canada where not only is there no cable TV, 'dinner out' means going to a soup kitchen instead of scraping together a meal from groceries provided from a food bank?
Marie Ève at 11:28 - excellent point.
Marie Ève: Sure I understand that. I've been much poorer than you might imagine myself over the years. I've been homeless (luckily only for a period of months), I've been unable to work for extended periods of time due to illness, and I've suffered consequences during past economic downturns (as did my family with me)--all sorts of things...and I'm well aware that I'm not alone in any of those. I also have a background as an employment counsellor, and when I was younger I spent maybe 7 or 8 years working in institutional settings with physically and psychologically disadvantaged people as well as geriatrics from a wide range of economic circumstances.
And I spent a number of years trying to eke a living as a musician, partly because I have (seriously) fairly strong ADD, and that seemed to allow a flexibility other generally more lucrative occupations didn't...
That's *why* I understand what one logically does when things are financially bad.
Now: can you explain how what makes obvious financial sense in a household doesn't make sense when writ larger?
Here's the thing Ron et al, it doesn't matter if you like this system or not. I'm not sure that I do either.
But to quibble about this being a politically motivated move designed to gut the other parties and trap them into looking like they ware blocking moves to solve the financial troubles is stupid.
Anyone trying to pretend that this isn't political is a liar.
See Paragraph 7 on the options available to the Gov Gen in a fresh minority Parliament situation:
http://www.parl.gc.ca/informatio...gov_print-
e.asp
cameron, re: Anyone trying to pretend that this isn't political is a liar.
It's *all* political. But before that, it's supposed to be sensible and ethical.
...which still leaves my question.
Great Post Dawg.
Obviously I am not in favour of the coalition but I am in favour of Canadian politics being done by grown ups.
Harper tipped his hand here: the hidden agenda is that he is not very smart. He has left a rook open and failed to protect his King.
the question is whether the Opposition will take the rook and ignore the King. And that will depend upon who is running the game.
I was interested to see over at the Lying Jackal's Iggy backing away from the events in Ottawa. You lefties may get stupidly lucky and have a coalition lead by Rae rather than Iggy. It will not do much for the party but it would be two months of glory for the Liberal left and the NDP center.
The phrase "Finance Minister Layton" turned up somewhere (I forget where)...and my first thought was "oh my friggin' gawd..."
Funny how Harper spent all that money on those "Not a Leader" ads - turns out now it was simply some expensive psychotherapy designed to help him deal with his self-projection issues.
That, and the fact he's a pathological obsessive and liar.
I’d feel better about a coalition if the Liberals and NDP together had more seats than the Conservatives and didn’t need to rely on the secessionist Bloc. There is a big risk that the current minority government indeed will fall to be replaced by a coalition that ultimately also will fail with another election producing a Conservative majority.
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