Because of our ridiculous and highly undemocratic first-past-the-post system, the party that most Canadians do not want is forming a government. According to Fair Vote Canada, this stupid, stupid system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low […]
Canadian politics
Stephen Harper wins small
The Conservatives may have been re-elected last night, but Stephen Harper lost. He coulda been more than a contender; he could have been the leader of a majority government. But he lost it by being small-minded; his silly, captious comment about artists torpedoed the Conservatives’ momentum in Quebec, and here we are. Over on bobalicious, […]
Throwing one to the Greens
We’ve invited backofthebook.ca’s chief bloggers to let us know how they plan to vote in the federal election, and why. Below, Eric Pettifor reports in from Vancouver. If we used the Australian system of preferential voting, I would vote on Tuesday as follows: Green NDP Liberal Satan and his Minions Party Conservative Note: #4 assumes […]
Voting Liberal, without hope
Well, very little time left to make a decision and I don’t have a favourite party. I have been very interested in listening to Green Party candidates and I believe that they ought to have a voice in parliament. So if I lived in a riding with a very strong Green Party candidate, I would […]
Has Harper blown it?
It is striking how Stephen Harper has bollixed this election campaign. In 2006, he ran a model opposition party assault, not only decrying the squalid condition of the Liberals after their long run in power, but also staying a step ahead of them by announcing nearly every day a new initiative, policy, plan. Two years […]
May endorses strategic voting — or not
Poll from Nanos Research The G&M; has Elizabeth May endorsing strategic voting for close-race ridings again today, mentioning both VoteforEnvironment and DemocraticSpace as sites to go to for advice/info. VoteforEnvironment is still endorsing May in Central Nova against Peter MacKay, even though the Ekos, Decima and Nanos polls listed there all show her running a […]
Artsy-not-so-smartsy
So, having declared that “ordinary working people” don’t care about the arts, Stephen Harper now announces a new tax credit worth $150 million aimed at families who want to enroll their kids in arts programs. But who can those families possibly be, given that the “ordinary” ones are apparently too busy playing parcheezi and watching […]
Stephen Harper, panicked child
Stephen Harper reminds me of a panicked child, surrounded and overwhelmed in the schoolyard, red-faced and flailing at every perceived enemy and striking not a one. It would be nice if our issues could be solved with quick fixes, but they can’t. For instance, more people in jail does not reduce crime — just glance […]
Will Canada become bank bait too?
I still haven’t made up my mind how to vote. But I do think that if any leader is going to beat Harper, who is still doing astonishingly well in the polls despite ample evidence that his party is populated by boorish ignoramuses, he or she has got to quit reacting and start providing a […]
Mallick vs. Palin. Or is that Feylin?
By Frank Moher It’s hard not to sympathize with the Yanks who are upset with Heather Mallick. The former Globe and Mailer, now writing for cbc.ca, is so resolutely humourless, even when she’s trying to be funny, and so intransigently snooty (she wears white pearls in her website photo, for cripe’s sake), that I too […]
