There are plenty of threads on specific issues, but none on the election in general. Why is that?
We have:
Manitoba Liberals resign
Wab Kinew will help the NDP
Manitoba Polls
Time for a New NDP Leader?
By election thread
etc.
But no thread about the election generally. hmm ...
Darrell Rankin of the Manitoba CP has a piece in the Communist paper about the Manitoba election. In his view there are 3 neo-liberal parties running, and a mostly neo-liberal Green party that only targets certain sectors (auto, oil and gas) of big business.
One thing that Rankin pointed out ... was that the child welfare system in Manitoba is truly broken. Or works like a charm, depending on how you look at it. It is a child apprehension machine, says the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), ... so much so that ..
Manitoba has the highest number of First Nations children in care compared to the rest of Canada and also has the highest child apprehension rate in the world ...
That's quite a dubious distinction. See "the highest child apprehension rate in the world".
Rankin: a pox on all your neo-liberal houses.
The Reds are running half a dozen or so candidates. Well, at least they're out there. The Greens are much better organized. From here it looks like the milquetoast labour movement isn't going to be conducting any independent labour organizing or action.
Is a change of government likely? We will know on the 19th.
Manitoba Conservatives open the door to privatization
Social service schemes announced this week by the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives to encourage private child care and introduce Social Impact Bonds soften the ground towards privatization. The assumption is that the private sector knows best how to fund and deliver public services. This is false – publicly delivered services are more efficient, accountable and in the long-term public interest.
In “Tories say they would boost private daycare,” Conservative family services critic and MLA Ian Wishart says, “We’d like to leave the money with the parents and perhaps provide more opportunities for licensed privates” (Winnipeg Free Press, June 5, 2015). Manitoba has 12,000 children on the wait list for child-care spaces. In order to create enough spaces to meet the demand, capital grants are needed to build or expand centres and operating grants are needed to make them affordable to parents. New or expanded child-care centres need qualified staff trained at publicly funded institutions. Investments of this magnitude are not going to come from the private sector.....
I am shaking in my boots with the thought of a Conservative government in Manitoba. Is the best we can wish for a Pallister minority? I feel a Michael Harris in Ontario emotional redux coming on. I am so pissed off that those breakaway NDP MLAs took their fight/dirty laundry to the press. What greater good did that serve? Did they want to hand an election victory to Pallister? Sometimes I wonder about these stupid political shenanigans where the good of the citizens is lost is some stupid fight for power. I have never bought into 'change in government = opportunity to improve and renew" way of thinking that some political insiders ascribe to. In the meantime, while the NDP sorts itself out, the Manitoba public will have to endure all sorts of privatization and religious zealotry (abstinence only health eduation among other things) for the next 4 years.
The only chance the MNDP has is to run a passionate, truth-telling "fire up the base" campaign.
But they're still led by the pro-ossification wing of the party, so that won't happen.
A Pallister minority is the best that can be hoped for (the Liberals would likely be glad to support it), but Selinger would use that as an argument for NOT standing down, so even that would almost certainly be followed by an early election in which a PC majority would be a sure thing.
The only Dipper MLA's who can survive will be those who get out their and bring the fire themselves. Blandness means certain defeat this year.
It's not Pallister becoming Premier that scares me so much. The results from Saskatchewan this week are still fresh in my mind. We have watched the BC NDP blow at least 3 elections that were theirs to win. The Ontario NDP has, for nearly 20 years, been burned by the "vote-for-us-because-the-PCs-are-scary-and-the-NDP-are-sellouts" tactics used by the Liberals without being able to come up with an effective response. I'm worried that the Manitoba NDP will become captive to the same forces in other provinces, and will be just as ineffective, and that the PCs will be able to get away with murder in this province.
I'm also disappointed with the "left" in Manitoba, if there is any. So much focus is on keeping the NDP elected in perpetuity. While it matters who sits on the government side, your friends will not always hold the levers of power, so it's important to keep your people organized and engaged at all times. In other words, we're not trying to stop Pallister being elected because we fear he'll sell Manitoba Hydro, we create the political climate where he wouldn't even dare. Unfortunately, the right-wing is much better at this game than the left. That's the reason Rachel Notley didn't touch the royalty rate structure in Alberta. (And hats off to AFL President Gil Gowan for calling her out on that.)
An Insignt Manitoba poll released on April 4th showed a decline in Liberal support in Winnipeg of 3% with the NDP and PCs gaining 3% each. Since the poll was done from March 26 to April 3 before many of the above problems were known to the public, future polls are likely to show a further decline.
i therefore think that the NDP is likely to finish a solid second well behind the PCs, but well ahead of the sinking, chaotic Liberfals, who had two candidates and chief of staff resign at the beginning of March, then had 4 candidates turned down by Elections Manitoba because they did not fill in their papers properly and another one because she violated Manitoba law by being involved in voter enumeration, followed by the removal of another candidate for assaulting his wife. Since the last six candidates left after the final day for candidate registration, the Liberals are down six candidates. Because all of this occurred towards the end of the polling period, the full effect on the Liberals electoral chances is not far frin fully reflected in the Winnipeg poll.
A new poll released by a firm run by three Liberals suggests support for Rana Bokhari's party is on the decline in Winnipeg as election day nears.
Insight Manitoba polled a random sample of 3,454 Winnipeggersbetween March 26 and April 3 and found approval ratings for the Manitoba Liberal Party have slid by three percentage points in Winnipeg since the beginning of March. The party went from a 19 to 16 per cent approval rating in Winnipeg.
The drop coincides with a boost in support for the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats in the Winnipeg battleground. Support for the NDP inched up from 21 to 24 per cent; approval for a Brian Pallister-led government rose from 35 to 38 per cent. The Greens remained steady at five per cent, according to the poll.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-election-liberal-support...
The only chance the MNDP has is to run a passionate, truth-telling "fire up the base" campaign.
But they're still led by the pro-ossification wing of the party, so that won't happen.
It's kind of hard to do that, though, when you've been in office for 17 years. Even if the NDP were to go full Sanders/Corbyn and start promising sweeping reforms, it would raise obvious questions about why this sudden reversal of policy, why now, and are they really serious?
A poll released April 7th has confirmed the decline in Liberal support, but most of it has gone to the Cons.
A new poll suggests that support for the Manitoba Liberals is fragile and dropping, but it is the Progressive Conservatives, and not the New Democrats, who stand to benefit most.
The Mainstreet/Postmedia survey, published Thursday morning, shows the PCs holding the lead with 50 per cent support among decided and leaning voters, compared to 24 per cent for the New Democrats, 17 per cent for the Liberals, and 9 per cent for the Greens.Among all respondents, 22 per cent reported they were undecided, unchanged from Mainstreet's previous poll of March 29.
Voter support, however, has shifted significantly. Brian Pallister's PCs picked up five points from that earlier poll. The Liberals have shed seven points — virtually all of it in Winnipeg, and almost all of it going to the Tories.
In the provincial capital, the PCs were ahead with 46 per cent support against 29 per cent for the New Democrats and 16 per cent for Rana Bokhari's Liberals. The Tories have gained six points in the city since March 29. The Liberals dropped nine points.
There was less movement in the rest of the province, where the Progressive Conservatives hold a wide lead. The PCs were pegged at 55 per cent support outside of Winnipeg, trailed by the Liberals at 20 per cent and the New Democrats at 16 per cent. None of the variations here since Mainstreet's last poll were outside of the margin of error.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/grenier-manitoba-mainstreet-1.352...
Manitobans are split on whethre the PST should be lowered.
The NDP government’s decision to raise the Provincial Sales Tax one percentage point continues to divide Manitobans, a new poll suggests.
For every person who thinks the PST should stay eight per cent, there is another person who wants to see it lowered.
In a poll conducted by Probe Research Inc. on behalf of CTV Winnipeg and The Winnipeg Free Press, 48 per cent of respondents said the PST should remain the same, and 44 per cent wanted it lowered. ...
For every person who thinks the PST should stay eight per cent, there is another person who wants to see it lowered. ...
In a poll conducted by Probe Research Inc. on behalf of CTV Winnipeg and The Winnipeg Free Press, 48 per cent of respondents said the PST should remain the same, and 44 per cent wanted it lowered.
With a margin of error of +/- 3.1 per cent, those groups are almost evenly split.
Another six per cent said they were unsure, and two per cent wanted to see it increased.
The split among poll respondents ran not only along party lines, but also education.
NDP supporters were more likely (66 per cent) to support keeping the PST at eight per cent, while Progressive Conservative and Liberal supporters were more likely to support lowering it (55 and 53 per cent respectively).
http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/manitobans-deeply-divided-on-pst-poll-1.2853248
Free Press web poll currently reporting that Selinger won the leader's debate.
The most striking thing about the post-debate poll numbers is the collapse of the Liberals to only 5% - more likely to be mostly due to their candidate resignations as well as disqualifications by Elections Manitoba for electoral law violations and other unforced errors than the debate itself, although the debate definitely did not help.
The Mainstreet/Postmedia survey, published Thursday morning, also asked people who watched the debate who they think will win the April 19 provincial election. The results were:
- PC 60 %
- NDP 17 %
- Green Party 5%
- Liberal Party 3 %
- Undecided 15 %
Asked who they will vote for, respondents said:
- PC 47 %
- NDP 23 %
- Green Party 8 %
- Liberal Party 5 %
- Undecided 17 %
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/televised-debate-pallister-beddom...
The most striking thing about the post-debate poll numbers is the collapse of the Liberals to only 5% - more likely to be mostly due to their candidate resignations as well as disqualifications by Elections Manitoba for electoral law violations and other unforced errors than the debate itself, although the debate definitely did not help.
That poll has the Liberals at 4% in Winnipeg. They aren't going to win any seats.
So the Manitoba Liberals are going the way of the Saskatchewan Liberals - fighting with the Greens for third place. Brutal.
Well, maybe the Greens will pick up a seat or two.
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/special/provincial-election/bokhari-say...
Pressed further, she said she didn't know whether she had filed a 2014 tax return.
"I would have to look," she said. "I don't know if I filed my taxes. I probably did. I just don't have it on me right now."
Rana continues to be a total disaster. I have no idea what the MB Liberals were thinking or whether they even had anything for her to work with. The "We don't want good jobs - we want innovative and creative jobs" also fell with a thud.
Today's great idea was to reduce Cabinet to nine positions (50% cut to departments/portfolios). Mind you, Pallister will also cut 6 Cabinet positions.
I love how the media reports this - makes it sound like less elected MLAs on the gravy train without ever examining the implications of the freaking departments those Cabinet members are responsible for. Even if it's a case of merging responsibilities under one new head, it still means significant layoffs of public service jobs and a diminishment in the importance of the portfolio cut. Case in point, Harper absorbed CIDA under Foreign Affairs and it's size, mandate and impact are all seriously diminished.
I am very angry right now with the NDP because it has failed to acknowledge that its leader raising an unpopular sales tax after promising not to was going to alienate large swaths of the population. This has enabled a Harper crony to be a main contender after Winnipeg resoundingly voted against Harper 6 months ago. The worst part is, no matter how bad Pallister is, when he lowers the PST to 7% in 2020, he will remind people that the NDP raised it in the first place, and the people will say, "a politician who keeps his promises, what a breath of fresh air" and they will likely re-elect him. The great irony is that the NDP has been successful at hitting the PCs over the head over their broken promise not to sell MTS, but for some reason, we haven't heard about MTS in this election. I wonder why?
But the PST issue is only a symptom. Even when I first joined the NDP when living in Brandon, so many establishment figures told us little people that we had to go along despite our "disagreements," and yet never took our concerns seriously. Well, people get tired of that nonsense and move on after a while. To illustrate that point, I personally know of at least one NDP candidate from 1988 who is now an active supporter of the Greens, and has been for some time. But hey, at least the architects of this campaign don't have to worry, because they'll be fine with their pensions and perks, unlike the rest of us who will have to suffer because of the horrible decisions Pallister is about to make in the likely event that he wins.
May the names of Gary Doer, Greg Selinger, and the names of all others who enabled this disaster never be spoken again in polite NDP company!
I am not looking forward to the Manitoba results next Week. They will continue a dismal recent electoral history. This in the context of the party losing Alberta, Quebec and a strong leader of the opposition, all in one weekend.
But perhaps there is a small silver lining. The Liberal implosion seems to ensure the NDP at least comes second.
I am curious, however, whether our Manitoba correspondents think this will help the Cons or the NDP most in terms of seats.
I've been reading that those disappointed in the Libs are casting their votes with the Cons or else not voting. I fear we will be experiencing the same hell as I had the misfortune to experience in Ontario with two terms of f*cking Mike Harris and his colleagues who went on to have significant portfolios under Harper's federal Cons.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/brian-pallister-spends-nearly-1-i... like our Pal is finally coming under some scrutiny[/url]
Rana can't remember if she filed her taxes. Brian can't remember his vacations. Is there something in the water at the Manitoba legislature?
You would think that those 'stop the gravy train' voters who are all for cutting back public service jobs would have a hard time stomaching Pallister's self-imposed 2.5 months a year worth of paid vacation. I am so sick and tired of hearing how he deserves his entitlements because he is such a successful businessman. Does it not concern any of these "not another dime of my hard earned tax dollars" crowd that Pallister is on a tax payer's paid salary as an MLA and Leader of the Opposition? And his invasion of family privacy excuse doesn't wash - he didn't have to bring spending time with family as an excuse. We all love vay-cay time with family or not. That's not the issue.
I am not looking forward to the Manitoba results next Week. They will continue a dismal recent electoral history. This in the context of the party losing Alberta, Quebec and a strong leader of the opposition, all in one weekend. But perhaps there is a small silver lining. The Liberal implosion seems to ensure the NDP at least comes second. I am curious, however, whether our Manitoba correspondents think this will help the Cons or the NDP most in terms of seats.
The NDP didn't lose anything last weekend. It's not as though Mulcair is the only possible leader who an ever win seats in Quebec(Alexandre Boulerice could win a lot more), and it's not possible for a leader who lost more half of his party's seats to to lead that same party to a comeback next time. Mulcair was beaten because he refused to listen and refused to change. What possible good would it have done for the NDP to run the exact same campaign in 2020(or. worse yet, run one even further to the right, with even more control-freakery and even more removal of good candidates just for committing truth on international issues) Mulcair had nothing more to offer. He was never going to be popular again.
And the NDP can use the values of the Leap to build a new base of support among the environmentally conscious(and among those seeking a sustainable full-employment economy). Alberta doesn't have to have any more pipelines to get its oil to market.
You would think that those 'stop the gravy train' voters who are all for cutting back public service jobs would have a hard time stomaching Pallister's self-imposed 2.5 months a year worth of paid vacation. I am so sick and tired of hearing how he deserves his entitlements because he is such a successful businessman. Does it not concern any of these "not another dime of my hard earned tax dollars" crowd that Pallister is on a tax payer's paid salary as an MLA and Leader of the Opposition? And his invasion of family privacy excuse doesn't wash - he didn't have to bring spending time with family as an excuse. We all love vay-cay time with family or not. That's not the issue.
What really gets me is he said something about being around "politicizing" the flood. Excuse me? Mr. Pallister, your job as a politician is to be there for the people of your province when they need you, and had you actually shown up, this would have been a non-issue and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I can even understand if you were away when a disaster hit and you had difficulty making it back, but why lie to us about where you were?
I've also noticed that these right-wing politicians are good at giving general platitudes about what they plan to do by talking about "consutling" and the details don't come out until after the election. Unfortunately for the NDP, it was Beddome who landed the most effective blows on Pallistar, particularly on points the NDP should have been getting.
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we set out to deceive
http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/pallister-confirms-costa-rica-travel-records-...
I wonder if Pallister's name appears in the Panama Papers
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/brian-pallister-costa-rica-democr...
Ken Burch writes:
"Mulcair had nothing more to offer. He was never going to be popular again."
To the contrary Tom maintained a healthy net positive rating in the polls right up to the convention. Unfortunately his regard in the public at large far exceeded it in those 800-odd delegates who voted against him. Now back to Manitoba....,
I am not looking forward to the Manitoba results next Week. They will continue a dismal recent electoral history. This in the context of the party losing Alberta, Quebec and a strong leader of the opposition, all in one weekend. But perhaps there is a small silver lining. The Liberal implosion seems to ensure the NDP at least comes second. I am curious, however, whether our Manitoba correspondents think this will help the Cons or the NDP most in terms of seats.The NDP didn't lose anything last weekend. It's not as though Mulcair is the only possible leader who an ever win seats in Quebec(Alexandre Boulerice could win a lot more), and it's not possible for a leader who lost more half of his party's seats to to lead that same party to a comeback next time. Mulcair was beaten because he refused to listen and refused to change. What possible good would it have done for the NDP to run the exact same campaign in 2020(or. worse yet, run one even further to the right, with even more control-freakery and even more removal of good candidates just for committing truth on international issues) Mulcair had nothing more to offer. He was never going to be popular again.
And the NDP can use the values of the Leap to build a new base of support among the environmentally conscious(and among those seeking a sustainable full-employment economy). Alberta doesn't have to have any more pipelines to get its oil to market.
While I agree with the first part of the second paragraph, to be fair to Rachel Notley it's not just a question of getting more oil (or bitumen) to market but of getting a better price for it. Although the argument that more oil royalties will pay for more sustainable infrastructure is bogus because it will take years to get a pipeline built and climate change won't wait. I suspect that a significant number of Quebec delegates also voted for a leadership review, and it's quite possible that another Leader could do better in Quebec (hint: another Leader already has).
http://www.mainstreetresearch.ca/manitobas-choice/
Among decided and leaning voters: PCs 55% (+5%), NDP 26% (+2%), Liberals 11% (-6%), Greens 9% (no change).
“What looked like a simple majority last week now looks like a super majority as the PCs gain almost 5 points to 54.5% among decided and leaning voters,” said Quito Maggi, President of Mainstreet Research. “One decrease for the PCs is among the leaning undecided voters where they now stand third at 8% behind the NDP at 11% and the Liberals at 12%. This points to the PCs approaching their maximum potential for accessible voters.”
One might have thought that the collapse of the Liberals would benefit the NDP, especially with such a right winger as Pallister leading the Cons. But the Liberal defections according to this poll are mostly toward the Conservatives. It seems that the antipathy to Selinger is responsible.
The Cons lead the NDP by the same 2 to 1 ratio by which the NDP lost by in Saskatchewan. We can expect similar results.
In '11 the NDP led by 3%. If they are behind by 29 that, on a straight swing, imperils every NDP seat where the margin was less than 32%. In the last election there were only 10 of those (one of which may go Green).
Eric Grenier just updated his projections on the CBC website:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/multimedia/poll-tracker-2016-mani...
PC 42 NDP 11 Lib 4
He seems totally delusional about the Liberals. Even if they could get 12.8%, like he projects, they will probably just keep their one incumbent (former leader Jon Gerrard). But all the polls have the Liberals in the 5-9% range, and doing worse in Winnipeg than the rest of the province, meaning a big goose egg. Unless the polls are wrong.
Eric Grenier just updated his projections on the CBC website:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/multimedia/poll-tracker-2016-mani...
PC 42 NDP 11 Lib 4
He seems totally delusional about the Liberals. Even if they could get 12.8%, like he projects, they will probably just keep their one incumbent (former leader Jon Gerrard). But all the polls have the Liberals in the 5-9% range, and doing worse in Winnipeg than the rest of the province, meaning a big goose egg. Unless the polls are wrong.
There's a concentration of Liberal support in River Heights, Fort Rouge, and Northwest Winnipeg, plus the Liberals are polling second in the traditionally left-leaning riding of Brandon-East. That number seems about right. Other than that, the Liberals are not in contention.
Let's also remember that the PCs waste much of their vote in the rural areas, there's a huge undecided factor, and polls have underestimated NDP support before, so here's hoping the gap won't be that big.
Grenier habitually overestimates Liberal support to the extent it seems he engages in wishful thinking. He gave Ignatieff, for example, 75 seats, and the Alberta
Liberals 5 where they barely won one.
Well, this proves what I said. The only reason Selinger insisted on staying on as leader was to make sure that no one who succeeded him would have anything at all to work with.
If the NDP are reduced to 11 seats, that pretty much guarantees at least a two-term PC governmen, and the destruction of all that remain of social welfare and workers' rights in Manitoba.
Nice work, Greg.
Well, this proves what I said. The only reason Selinger insisted on staying on as leader was to make sure that no one who succeeded him would have anything at all to work with.
I suppose, to borrow criminology terms, he had the means, and the opportunity, but what was the motive? He secretly hated everything he'd formerly supported?
If you're just angry, that's fine. We're all human, right? But what really just got proven?
If the NDP are reduced to 11 seats, that pretty much guarantees at least a two-term PC governmen, and the destruction of all that remain of social welfare and workers' rights in Manitoba.
[url=http://rabble.ca/babble/manitoba-and-saskatchewan/make-pallister-one-ter...'s never too early to do good work for the general public.[/url]
Thanks for starting that thread, Aristotleded24
Well, this proves what I said. The only reason Selinger insisted on staying on as leader was to make sure that no one who succeeded him would have anything at all to work with.I suppose, to borrow criminology terms, he had the means, and the opportunity, but what was the motive? He secretly hated everything he'd formerly supported?
The motive was ego. If Selinger had stood down while the party was still in power with a solid majority, whoever succeeded him as leader would have had a chance to show him up by enacting more effective and popular policies and then possibly winning an election Selinger himself knew he was doomed to lose. This way, he dooms whoever replaces him as the leader of what will now be a pathetically small opposition caucus will have no chance of winning the next election and probably not the election after that. This is about Selinger doing all he can to sell the myth that the MNDP is nothing without him(even if he has to make sure it's nothing WITH him to do so).
This way, he dooms whoever replaces him as the leader of what will now be a pathetically small opposition caucus will have no chance of winning the next election and probably not the election after that.
If Rachel Notley can win an election having only had 4 seats going in....
Pallister owns 2 companies in Costa Rica; NDP wants to know why public wasn't told
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pallister-costa-rica-companies-1....
Pallister owns 2 companies in Costa Rica; NDP wants to know why public wasn't told
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/pallister-costa-rica-companies-1....
Heck, why are we only finding this out now? Why didn't the media call this out at the time?
I suppose it could be worse. It's not much time, but at least it's coming out before the election.
[url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/greg-selinger-steve-ashton-sued-o... and Ashton sued by rail company:[/url]
Just days before the provincial election, OmniTrax Canada filed a lawsuit against the province, NDP Leader Greg Selinger and long-time NDP cabinet minister Steve Ashton alleging they interfered in the sale of the railway to Mathias Colomb Cree Nation by disclosing confidential information to another First Nation.In the lawsuit dated April 15, 2016, OmniTrax Canada says it entered into a non-disclosure agreement with the province around March 17, 2015. OmniTrax provided Manitoba with confidential and proprietary financial and operating information.
OmniTrax alleges in about December 2015, the government of Manitoba, Steve Ashton and Greg Selinger, disclosed confidential financial information about the company to consulting firm MNP LLP and Opaskwayak Cree Nation.
"The unlawful and wrongful conduct of the defendants as aforesaid amounts to a deliberate, high-handed, wanton and outrageous interference with the plaintiffs' rights," the court documents allege.
Now why would a company launch a suit against a government when said government has only a few days in its re-election campaign, when the government neither has time to respond or when it they could be dealing with a change in government? Let's ask someone in charge:
OmniTrax Canada president, Merv Tweed, told CBC on Sunday he still expects the sale to go through and would not elaborate on how the disclosure of the financial information to another First Nation — Opaskwayak Cree Nation — affected the deal.
And who is Merv Tweed? Tweed is a former politician who sat with Pallister both provincially and federally. Could it be this lawsuit has less to do with business and more to do with trying to get Pallister elected?
Heck, why are we only finding this out now? Why didn't the media call this out at the time?
I suppose it could be worse. It's not much time, but at least it's coming out before the election.
This way the PCs have little time for damage control. 
And who is Merv Tweed? Tweed is a former politician who sat with Pallister both provincially and federally. Could it be this lawsuit has less to do with business and more to do with trying to get Pallister elected?
Ding, ding, ding. This was a politcal torpedo launched by Merv Tweed.
OmniTrax knew about OCN and their consultants and Mathias Colombe's original bid well before crunch time in the election. Lots of running around up north to figure out how to make a deal with OmniTrax who purposely set things in motion months ago when they announced they had negotiated a deal with FNs. It was bullshit and just meant to get people mobilizing to make an offer - there is absolutely no deal on the table and all talks so far have been embryonic. The lawsuit is bullshit and the timing is all about sinking Selinger just in case the Costa Rica stuff has any backlash on Pallister.
Ari, I call total bullshit on how the media has handled their election coverage. This Costa Rica dirt could have been uncovered much sooner - or anything hard hitting against Pallister. Why is the media so shy to go after his fundie Christian theocratic beliefs? An Elder I work with told me that Pallister belongs to the same <strikeout>cult</strikeout> church that Harper belongs to - Christian Alliance. I jokingly said to him, "that's not a church, it's an ideological movement". My Elder colleague and friend is hoping for a miracle as am I.
Ari, I call total bullshit on how the media has handled their election coverage. This Costa Rica dirt could have been uncovered much sooner - or anything hard hitting against Pallister. Why is the media so shy to go after his fundie Christian theocratic beliefs? An Elder I work with told me that Pallister belongs to the same <strikeout>cult</strikeout> church that Harper belongs to - Christian Alliance. I jokingly said to him, "that's not a church, it's an ideological movement". My Elder colleague and friend is hoping for a miracle as am I.
You know what the crazy thing is laine? So many parts of the province that were hard hit are in the rural areas that are going to continue to reward these politicians who aren't there for them with a massive majority. There's this image that these people are "nice guys (I'm being gender specific for a reason)" who are there to "help their community," but it's a facade that small-town businessmen use to enhance their power and influence within the community. I'm from Brandon, I know how this works.
Or how about the fact that the NDP has been taking flack for months about the provincial deficit, when Pallister was the only major party leader not to declare when he planned to balance the books?
The crazy thing is that the NDP went into this thing with a platform and record that any governing party would love to defend. But Selinger burned his bridges with the PST increase and the ham-handed way the party shut down any challenge to his leadership, and people could not get past their dislike of him.
I wonder what this will mean for the increased wages, benefits, and pensions that child care workers in this province have been recently granted.
I'm thinking the NDP will win about 15 seats. The rest PC, unless Gerrard survives.
I think the most interesting thing will be which MLAs get wiped out and what the tattered remains of the NDP caucus looks like after -- Will people like Nahanni Fontaine and Wab Kinew be left standing, or will it be people like Andrew Swan? And will Selinger keep his seat (there are a surprising number of PC signs in St. B...)?
I think the most interesting thing will be which MLAs get wiped out and what the tattered remains of the NDP caucus looks like after
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Democratic_Party_of_Manitoba_leadershi...'s a list of who Caucus members supported.[/url] I'd be interested to know how many Selinger supporters survive tomorrow.
The Liberals are a wildcard. I looked at the last four polls of the campaign. Two have them at 10%-11%, and the other two at 18%-19%. The higher numbers are mainly at the expense of the NDP. Hopefully, the voters will think deeply about whether they want a functional opposition.
