Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘liberal party’

The polls are only a few hours from opening. I won’t make any definitive number “predictions”, which, in my opinion, are worth about as much as polls (that is to say, not much) other than to say that I think that the polls are overrated. But I do have a few thoughts on how things are likely to turn out:

• Don’t count out the Liberals just yet: I know all the polls have Harper ahead, but the gap has been narrowing over the past week and the latest polling data is at least 48 hours old. Vote distribution is a matter of interpretation, and the people doing the interpreting are just as guilty of bandwagon-jumping as the next person. Furthermore, what people answer in polls always differs from what they actually do on election day at the ballot box. I’m not saying Harper will lose, I’m just saying it’s not a lock that he’ll win either. If tomorrow ushered in another Martin minority government, I wouldn’t be shocked.
• Predictions of a Tory breakthrough in Quebec are premature: On the same note, I’m simply not convinced of polls that have the Conservatives picking up multiple seats in Quebec. While their support numbers are higher than the Liberals, the Libs’ support is concentrated here in Montreal and the Tory support is spread out all over the province. One Tory seat? Maybe. None, most likely. Certainly not eight or ten. Won’t happen. Not this election.
• The Bloc will likely hold the balance of power: That’s the most likely scenario in a Tory minority government. The Liberals will rarely support the Conservatives, and the NDP almost never. If Harper wants to govern, he’ll need the Bloc. That won’t be good for Canadian unity no matter how they spin it. And if Harper refuses to deal with Duceppe, it will be a very short time until we’re right back at the polls.
• Paul Martin’s dusting off his resume: If the Tories win tomorrow, Paul Martin can kiss his political career goodbye. If nothing else, that would help the Liberals move past the sponsorship scandal and start with a clean slate, so to speak. As for Martin, what do ex-Prime Ministers do nowadays when they’re not testifying at federal enquiries? Anyone heard from Kim Campbell lately?
• There will be a January 24th: Whoever wins the election, life will go on. The sun will rise in the east. Canada probably won’t be all that different from what it is now.
• A little perspective: We can quibble all we want over sponsorship scandals, constitutional reform, healthcare or tax cuts, but remember that whoever wins will be democratically-elected, relatively moderate, and won’t be killing people in torture chambers. Even those of us holding our noses and voting for the “best of the worst” would do well to pause for a moment and appreciate the momentous significance of having the right to vote at all. Because I look around the world and I realize that it’s no small thing.

Vote early, vote often, vote your conscience. Stay tuned for liveblogging of the results tomorrow night.

Stephen Colbert mock-saluted Paul Martin for “taking negative campaign ads to the next level”, based on the Liberal ad attacking Harper for being best friends with Bush.

Hey Paul: When even the American comedians are mocking your ads, they have to be really awful.

Then again, I suppose we should cut the Liberals some slack for how bad their campaign advertisements have been this time around. After all, their ad agencies all went and got themselves indicted in the sponsorship scandal.

(By the way, Colbert also had Andrew Sullivan on the show as his guest tonight. True to tongue-in-cheek form, his first question was “what is a blog?”)

If you still can’t figure out who to vote for, but you want to vote for one of the four major parties, check out this quiz. It claims to be able to tell you who to vote for based on 12 simple policy and issue questions.

Apparently, according to the quiz, I should vote Liberal. How convenient. But I’m disclaiming any responsibility for your results.

(Hat tip: Elena).

An NHL star is suing your MP:

Phoenix Coyotes captain Shane Doan filed a lawsuit against Liberal MP Denis Coderre on Tuesday, alleging the former sports minister falsely accused him of making a slur against francophones during an NHL game.

Doan also demanded that Coderre make a public retraction in the motion filed in Quebec superior court.

Doan is heading to Turin as part of the Canadian Olympic team that will hopefully bring home the gold. Coderre, meanwhile, is fighting to keep his seat in a much closer race in his home riding than last time. Which of these two men would you rather be right now?

Thought so.

In a democracy, I have an absolute right not to discuss how I intend to vote with anyone. However, I’m choosing to waive that right, because politics is such an important topic on this blog, to discuss why, despite the corruption, scandals and aggravation, unlike so many Canadians, I won’t be switching my vote from Liberal to Tory this time around. This is the first time I’ve ever felt the need to explain my vote, and maybe that makes the vote all that much more important.

So why vote Liberal, you may ask?

Is it because I think the Liberals have done such a great job? Not really.

Is it because I buy into the scare tactics about Stephen Harper being George W. Bush reincarnated, prepared to turn us into a far right-wing theocracy? No, I find those ads amusing at best and ridiculously disastrous for the Liberals at worst.

Is it because I think that the culture of corruption that has set in amongst the Liberals is worth rewarding? Definitely not.

Is it because I’m voting strategically, in a riding where a Liberal vote would prevent a Bloc or NDP candidate from getting elected? Nope, my riding has been solidly Liberal since 1968 and even the sponsorship scandal won’t be changing that anytime soon. I could safely lodge a protest vote with little impact.

Is it because Martin convinced me in the debates? Not at all; in fact, he’s probably one of the worst debaters I’ve ever seen, and he got his butt kicked all the way to Ellesmere Island and back.

Is it because I agree with the majority of the Liberal policies and platform issues? Not even.

Is it because I believe that a Liberal victory represents the best chance to keep Quebec in Canada and to fight sovereignty? On the contrary, I think it will probably hurt a great deal.

So, you’re probably asking yourself, why on earth would I vote for this party?

Good question.

The answer is simple: Despite all the scandals, despite all the corruption, despite the promises I don’t believe and the policies I don’t agree with, the Liberal party still is the “best of the worst” in my mind. On the major things the government has done lately, I’ve been much closer to the Liberal point of view than to the Tory one.

Some examples:

• The economy: Whatever else he’s done, Martin has balanced the budget and improved economic conditions. He did his best to stand up to people like Jack Layton against spending we can’t afford. He even stood up to Bono – and hey, if you can say no to Bono, you can say no to anyone. The Canadian dollar is up, unemployment is down, and while the economy is still plagued with problems, I simply don’t believe that Harper is better equipped to solve them than Martin is. The Tory promises to reduce the GST may play well in the media, but in practice there are plenty of other places worth cutting first.
• Social issues: Gay marriage is probably the most prominent example lately. As I’ve stated many times on this blog before, every Canadian – gay or straight – ought to recognize this as an issue of fundamental human rights. Any of us who belong to any kind of minority should understand that if you can have a majority-rules decision against one minority, the same logic could be used against any of us. Martin and the Liberals were on the right side of this one. Harper and the Tories were on the wrong side. And while I don’t really believe Harper will reverse it, nor do I agree with electing a party that has dedicated so much time, energy and resources to fighting it. I think the Liberals took a courageous position on this one and I respect them for it (if for little else).
• Voting for the candidate, not the party: Cop-out? Perhaps. But I like Marlene Jennings, the incumbent Liberal MP in my riding, well enough. Her voting record is often in step with what I believe (though not always), and she has been especially strong in defending Israel and in working to strengthen Canada’s ties with Israel, which is an issue of importance to me. And I’m comfortable having her represent my riding in Parliament, whether as a member of the government or as a member of the opposition.

So the upshot is, I’m not entirely happy to be voting Liberal and I’m not about to hit the campaign trail for Martin’s team. There are plenty of places where I flat-out disagree with the Liberals on policy, and there’s no doubt the party is about as corrupt as you can get. But I’m not going blue this time, for those reasons and for the reason that I simply don’t believe the Tories have presented enough of a positive platform. They’ve been stronger in attacking the Liberals, sure, but their policy initiatives haven’t won me over.

Okay, bring it on. I’m ready.

Last night’s “top story” on the news was all about how the campaign has taken a “negative turn” with the new Liberal attack ads on the Tories.

Now, there’s very little dispute that the Liberal campaign has been terribly run. These ads are a bit of a running joke, especially to those of us in the business. And they’re fun to parody and are probably hurting the Liberals more than helping them.

But since when is the negative tone of this campaign “news”? The Tory ads have all attacked the Liberals from day one. They were better ads, granted, but they still spoke exclusively of how bad the Liberals were and had nothing to say about the Tories or their platforms. This has been an attack campaign since the beginning; the only difference is that now the Liberals have climbed into the ring. And if these are their “knockout punches”, Paul Martin’s team is in big trouble.

In the meantime, the Tories have their own troubles, with the news that one of their candidates has been charged with smuggling. The Tories claim they didn’t know, which is probably true. But if they’re going to run a campaign attacking Paul Martin’s claim that he didn’t know about the sponsorship money, at the very least they ought to react to this with more than a “it’s not our fault, we didn’t know”.

And as the two parties throw mud at one another, here in Quebec, Gilles Duceppe is using the opportunity to build support for sovereignty. Regardless of the result of the federal election, the news for Quebec looks bleak.

Canadians will be faced with a wonderful choice on January 23rd at the polls.

We’ve got the NDP, who are a bunch of commie rat bastards.
We’ve got the Conservatives, who are a bunch of fascists.
We’ve got the Bloc Quebecois, who are a bunch of separatists.
And then we’ve got the Liberals, who are a bunch of crooks.

Pick the adjective that you find the least insulting and cast your ballot. May the least bad insult win.

The Liberal government is dead.

Date of the election of the next (Liberal) government: January 23. Mark your calendars for the date of the big non-event.

Zzzzzzzzz.

Jack Layton and the NDP have withdrawn their support of the Liberal government, opening the door for an opposition movement that would bring it down and force elections. Layton claims it’s because he’s aghast at the corruption within the party:

“We cannot express confidence in a government that is under the leadership of a party that cannot be trusted to clean up the politics that it tainted,” Layton said in Toronto.

Of course, if that were true, the NDP wouldn’t have spent the last year propping up the Liberals. No, the real reason is that the NDP is no longer able to extract its pound of flesh:

The New Democrats have been the only party willing to keep the government in power and they wrung spending concessions from the Liberals in April in exchange for backing the budget.

But the partnership foundered when the Liberals rejected NDP proposals to limit private medicine. Layton said he was still open to an offer from Prime Minister Paul Martin, but thought this nearly impossible.

“If Mr Martin were to do a 180-degree turn and completely change the position that he gave to us, you always have to be willing to hear somebody out. I don’t think there’s really any possibility of that happening,” he said.

In other words, it’s okay that the Liberals stole billions of dollars of taxpayer money… just as long as they don’t allow privatized healthcare. What shall we call this? The blackmail protocol?

All this to say that I doubt any party will put forth a motion to bring down the government just yet. Nobody wants a Christmastime election. And by the time an election comes around, the Liberals will probably win back enough votes to once again form a minority government, thus making the election an exercise in futility.

Plus ça change…

Justice John Gomery released his first report today on the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal. Here is a link to the report in its entirety.

So now what?

We all pretty much knew what it was going to say. If anything, the report was soft on Martin, putting most of the blame on Chretien and allowing Martin to escape relatively unscathed (though with serious questions as to how competent a finance minister who knew nothing about his government’s finances is at running a country).

Martin repeated his pledge to call an election within 30 days of receiving the final report. The Bloc wants to bring down the government right now, though that may have more to do with fuelling separatist fire in Quebec than with the actual governing of Canada. Whether now or later, an election is almost certain to yield increased Bloc support, similar Tory and NDP votes, and another Liberal minority government. In other words, something pretty close to today’s status quo.

Because the fact remains that no matter how badly the Liberals screw up, no matter how much money they steal from the electorate, there is no alternative. Nobody east of Saskatchewan believes that Harper’s the man for the job… the NDP will remain (thankfully) on the fringe, and the Bloc is a Quebec-only party that can sweep here and still never govern.

Want to break the logjam? De-unite the right. The Liberals look central because the NDP attracts the fringe left. Form a fringe-right party to house all the kooks, and suddenly we might have an electable Conservative party… if they can get off their holy crusades about gay marriage long enough to take the pulse of the nation and actually come up with a reasonable platform.

Until then, the Gomery report will fuel voter frustration and will increase support in Quebec for sovereignty while tying the Federal Government’s hands in a future referendum campaign. But it won’t ultimately have much effect on who leads the nation. Paul Martin could break into all of our houses in person and cart off our furniture; he’d still get elected until such time as a viable alternative exists.