A big tent Coalition Party would destroy Harper and the Conservatives

Brunos wrote:

“The highest principle in Canadian democracy is that if one wants to be
Prime Minister, one gets one’s mandate from the Canadian people and not
from Quebec separatists.”

PM Stephen Harper

And don't ignore the fact that the Cons only received 22% of eligible votes. There was a low turnout, largely because Harper went against his own legislation and unnecessarily called an early election. 

Even using the percentage of votes cast, 37%, it's laughable to call that a "mandate from the Canadian people." 

Fucking fascists.

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http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/questions_and_answers/faq7/faq7.html

Ratbert wrote:

 Hmm... the only solution is a direct quote from  Mr. Wells' book is it not? I'll extricate my full price, hard cover copy from underneath the stack of other Canadian political tomes of yesteryear and quote  directly.

I note that Ratbert has yet to make good on his promise. I assume he can't find the book, or perhaps the passage he dreamed about.

Will he come back with a mea culpa and an apology, or will he not be back at all?

Personally, I'm betting on him disappearing just until this thread is buried.... 

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

 Instead let's consider that if Harper is to govern after January 26th at least one other party MUST support his government.  Who will that be?  Some of these pro-Conservatives need to answer this question.  It won't be the NDP I expect.  So that means the Liberals of the Bloq.  It seems unlikely at this point it will be the Liberals, unless they do it through suddens onset of flu system.  This might be a possiblity but the opitics would be terrible.  That leaves those seperatists again.  Harper did everything he could to appeal to their voters in the last Parliament. 

I would normally agree with this line of thinking. It is a natural assumption. But CPC strategy is going for the weakest link, not the strongest.  They are settling down with the possibilities of the LPC supporting them, and the LPC have no interest in demonstrating flu like symptoms. The CPC and LPC are in constant talks, and enough LPC MPs are game to do anything to get away from anything associated with Dions Name. And that is smart politics. It was certainly a huge mistake for the NDP to back that fool. The CPC know that the NDP are entrenched, and are recognizing that they have entrenched the BQ. Only the LPC haven't managed to find a fox hole, some have many haven't. For every Rae and findlay, there are lots of Liberals who believe they can ride with the government for 1 or 2 years and bring them down when the economies a mess.

The CPC are looking for a partner to share in this economic debacle. They do not want to get tarred with it. So if the LPC are with them, they all will carry the same baggage.

The CPC will end their genocidal war with the LPC, and the LPC will be foolish enough to trust the CPC.

The NDP and BQ will then be painted with the same brush and the NDP to be considered bad for BQ association.

 

Ratbert wrote:

Left J.A.B. wrote:

Ratbert wrote:

Left J.A.B. wrote:

Ratbert wrote:

the regina mom wrote:

The idea of western separation is a hallucination of a few right wing extremists in Alberta.  If you look at vote results in the four western provinces, the Cons did not get a clear majority.  There are sane people living here, too.

 

As for a big tent coalition party, bah!  We need more parties and we need some form of PR.  Someone somewhere in babble said that a coaltion government would be like a dry run for PR.  Bring it on.

 So, how many MPs did the sane people elect? Dismissing western alienation as a "few right wing extremists in Alberta" speaks more to your lack of analysis than it does the real alienation felt by generations of westerners from the arrogant dismissiveness of PET's one-finger salute to the arrogant suggestion by Jean Chretien that if the west wanted in, they should elect Liberals.

I live in BC and while the political class that depends upon government spending for their income is not particularly alienated, the ranchers, loggers, business people certainly are. We don't want to return to the days of arrogant eastern control.

 

What a load of horse manure.  "political class that depends upon government spending"  You are proving to be hopelessly foolish

Paul Wells, in his book about Martin and Harper makes the point that class in Canada revolves around whether one is dependent on government funding or not, with the leftists more dependent on funding and the rightists not.

 

Hallucinate much.  Wells makes no such point at all.  Not even close.  You might be able to buffalo people who don't read with that crap, but some of us actually read books including Right Side Up.  (Look he even knows the name without looking it up- pretty impressive huh?) If you want to actually look at facts I would bet it is the exact opposite of what you claim.  I am involved in a farm organization for instance.  That farm organization is constantly calling for farmers to be able to make a living from the marketplace.  It would not be correct to call it left wing, but it is certainly progressive.  On the other hand farm organizations that are decidedly right wing are always the one calling for government bailouts because their vaunted free market is dysfunctional due to the market power of the agri-business corporations.  Most of the farmers in the organization I belong to never take a government cheque unless things are really bad, or don't qualify because the discrimination in the system against the family farm.  Yet the big free market guys are always bellying up to the public trough and eating up their share and the shares of many others.  So don't give me any more of your very stupid hogwash ratfart.

 

Hmm... the only solution is a direct quote from  Mr. Wells' book is it not? I'll extricate my full price, hard cover copy from underneath the stack of other Canadian political tomes of yesteryear and quote  directly.

 

Paul Wells, Right Side Up. Page 12:

 The second interesting thing is Harper's insight into the nature of that core audience. Flanigan, paraphrasing Harper, says it would be stitched together from "those parts of the urban middle class, urban working class, and rural population that can agree on an agenda of market economics and traditional values." Compared to traditional conservatism, this version would be substantially down-market.

"The older model of a conservative party based largely on the upper and middle classes is no longer viable," Flanigan writes "because so much of the urban middle class (for example teachers, nurses, social workers, public sector administrators) is now part of the 'new class' or 'knowledge class', as it is sometimes called, and is thus a political class dependent on tax-supported government programs. Political coalitions now divide less along class lines than on the question of public sector dependence."

As we will see, Harper would later execute a hairpin turn in the manner of his political action, from critiquing other actors to becoming,himself, an important actor. But to a great extent the ends of his political action are already visible here: to build a broad coalition aimed not at swells, fat cats, and less-affluent voters who nonetheless depend on assorted grants and subsidies, but at a lunch-bucket crowd of cabbies, skilled tradesmen, young families, and modest entrepreneurs.

[END QUOTE]

So, there it is: coalitions form along the lines of those who depend on government funding and those who don't. Or, to put it another way, those who benefit from higher taxation and those who do not.

 

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

I'll let leftjab and others speak for themselves.  But I have to say you completly misrepresented in your intial post what you then quoted above.  Your premise completely misses that those cabbies are depended on a viable health system and good roads and so on.  You might want to take a reading for comprehension course before trying this tactic again.

Bullshit! Quit whining and accept the fact that dependence on government spending is germaine to political allegiance.

It doesn't take a PhD to extrapolate root causes regarding the need for government services by all individuals but Mr. Wells addresses the narrower argument that political allegiance is determined by personal dependence on the public purse.

Every individual must pay their share of taxation, but the recipients of government largesse are much more likely to vote for increased government taxation and spending, if they personally benefit. Conversely, those that do not personally benefit are much more likely to oppose increased taxation and spending.

Quote:

Bullshit! Quit whining and accept the fact that dependence on government spending is germaine to political allegiance.

Bullshit yourself. The entire Conservative mindset is based on a self-told lie. Everything you use in your life is publicly subsidized. Everything, including if you were born in Canada, your very existence. The essential difference between the right and the left in Canada, is the the left, in general, supports an equitable use of public  dollars. The right wants all public dollars supporting only them, and their pet projects. Conservatives are the political equivalent of toddlers.

     Mr. Harper is riding the tiger just like the Republicans do in the U.S. , appealing to the ignorance of their base like at a Sarah Palin rally.  Conservative supporters seem to have accepted Mr. Harpers' words en masse but will ultimately be defeated by the truth...which is that we have a parliamentary system of government and the government rules only with the support of the house of commons.  Mr. Harper himself is unable to govern without the support of the Liberals, the NDP or the Bloc.  That's a fact.

     Mr. Harpers' deliberate lies will be his undoing.   

Lard Tunderin' Jeezus wrote:

It's been posted elsewhere, but I think this needs very wide distribution: An American view of the situation in Canada

Why? It's just a video of yet another loudmouth American who pretends to understand something about Canada. And it's not at all funny. 

Brunos wrote:

Harper is the only guy with the sense to understand that the coalition with the bloc wont work. That's why he's won this battle. Like Michael Ignatieff said the coalition is a poisoned chalice for the Liberals. The coalition can't defeat Harper on Jan 26th, for who will be their PM? The hapless Rae or the less than perfect Ignatieff? The accusation of treason against the Libs will still stick. I think Harper will be PM for another year anyways.

And the underlying reason? Canadians trust him. He's the only guy who seems to remember the 1995 referendum and the coalition should recognize this fact and regroup and strategize for a few months.

 

Can someone please explain the logic, if any, in this series of words?  I'm having difficulty making sense of it, let alone following it's ferocious leaps.

The Liberals are dead in the water if they provide any support to Harper.  The NDP won't.  And the Bloc is fed up.  Harper is hopeless and he knows it, thus his shameful actions last week and his deflection of that into a national unity crisis.  It will take but a short time for Canadians to see through his smokescreen.

Doug wrote:

It looks as though a coalition at the polls next time would only be good for six more seats based on what people's second choices were.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Little+chance+coalition+polls+analysis+show... 

 

Bad link there, Doug.  And right off the top I'd have to guess that at least 3 of those were in SK.