Please give me a brief synapses of what this means in Canada. I should know my neighbor better.
Parliamentary elections and cash-limited campaigns confuse me.
Shouldn't you just vote for whichever candidate seems less shitty?
That's all the money interests who own and operate this country here in the US let us do.
Parliamentary elections are like House of Representatives elections.. every seat is up for election at the same time. Whichever party has a majority or can form a coalition can choose who will be the Prime Minister (speaker of the house) and he rules the country.
So technically Michelle Bachman if she can get elected from Insanity, Minnesota can be the Prime Minister if the US had a parliamentary system.
I'm confused as to why people are upset about the long campaign. If they're upset because the campaign is long and they don't like campaigns, I understand that. But this having anything to do with money makes no sense to me. All parties have the ability to fundraiser and there are very strict laws in Canada about that sort of thing. Really everyone knew a long campaign was possible in may of 2011. Not having sufficient money seems purely the fault of the party. Further, there is an argument that this costs the government too much money, to which I say there is no cost too high for democracy. An election that plays to the strength of a particular party is also no different than days before foxed elections wherein governing majorities would call an election simply when they were polling highest.
Any party that says they aren't ready to go to election now makes me seriously question their ability to understand and cope with even the smallest of unpredictable things. No way do I want my government completely inept to cope with unexpected circumstance. Complaining about the length of the campaign only serves to highlight incompetence.
It sucks because it doesn't address the issues. Instead we get bombarded with Personal attack Ads and other worthless nonsense.
That's true but it doesn't make the election less valid somehow
I have the utmost respect for mulcair. I have no respect for Trudeau. My respect for harper was waning, if it ever really existed. That being said, I don't think I can bring myself to vote ndp until I've heard the platforms.
You're quite lacking in adequate knowledge and common sense then...I'm confused as to why people are upset about the long campaign. If they're upset because the campaign is long and they don't like campaigns, I understand that. But this having anything to do with money makes no sense to me.
Harper flat-out lied to the population at the call to an election at Government House.The Globe and Mail
By launching the campaign six weeks early, he’s increasing the election spending limits, so his Conservative Party can take advantage of the fact that it has more money than the NDP or the Liberals. Conservative officials have whispered to reporters that the tactic will exhaust the other parties’ finances.
After seeing the Governor-General on Sunday, Mr. Harper insisted his motive was to ensure that the parties campaign with their own money, “not from the government resources, parliamentary resources or taxpayer resources.” He needed a sound bite, to cover the tactics. But it doesn’t add up.
Aside from the fact that it was the Conservative government bombarding airwaves with taxpayer-funded prewrit ads, a longer campaign means parties get more public money, not less. Taxpayers reimburse half of the money that parties spend in an official campaign – if they can spend more, they can get more. If the Conservatives spend the new maximum, they’ll get $26-million in public money, rather than $13-million. And if they outspend other parties, they’ll get more from taxpayers’ pockets.
This is no longer simply the past concerns for an early election call, but of partisan fixing of the election in increasing the official campaign length for the desperate party in power to remain in power via the pilfering of tax collected cash.Clearly, Mr. Harper is calculating it won’t form an early theme. It’s still August. Voters will tune in more in September or October, when Mr. Harper will play to his strengths. The Conservatives will reap their money advantage in TV ads, and expect people to forget about the early election call.
This kind of manipulation once outraged Conservatives and their predecessor parties, the Canadian Alliance and Reform Party. The Alliance’s 2000 platform railed about Jean Chrétien’s “cynical motives” in calling early elections in 1997 and 2000, promising fixed dates to allow parties “to plan ahead, thereby ensuring a fairer process.” In 2006, Mr. Harper’s then-justice minister Rob Nicholson tabled the fixed-election-date law, promising it would “improve the fairness of Canada’s electoral system by eliminating the ability of governing parties to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage.”
cbrunny, is that you 'Skippy'? This isn't about democracy, it's about scamming yet more money from country in debt all to keep an extremely statist and undemocratic federal party in power. cbrunny, why do you seem to trust the spin out of weasel such a Pierre Poilievre...?Further, there is an argument that this costs the government too much money, to which I say there is no cost too high for democracy.
I can’t vote for the Harper Conservatives. I just can’t.
Elections are such infuriating spectacles that sometimes one doesn’t know which obscenity to utter first. But I’ve decided to aim my initial outburst at the Harper Tories.
I cannot vote for them. I just can’t. They should be my natural choice but their coarse, vindictive, proudly unprincipled cynicism must not be rewarded with electoral success, regardless of the consequences.
Let’s start with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s first major campaign pledge: to make the home renovation tax credit permanent if he is reelected. If it were economics, it would clearly be bad economics, aiming to “stimulate” one of the few sectors of the economy doing so well it already has the government worried about a bubble.
Worse, it’s yet another “boutique” tax credit, disguised spending cunningly designed to look as though government is getting smaller, while actually making it bigger. The cliche that Harper shrank government suits partisans on all sides, but it is false.
Worse still, it rests on the premise that anything you want should be subsidized. The Tories were already pumping out dozens of press releases a week touting handouts to everyone from bison farmers to door makers, which assumes that nothing good can be produced through unaided private markets, a theory not even the NDP ever endorsed. Now they’ve doubled down, promising to subsidize anything you happen to like.
According to the prime minister, “For most Canadians, the family home is their biggest asset and their most significant investment in their future financial security. I’m therefore very pleased to announce that to help make it more affordable for Canadians to adapt their homes to their changing needs and to maintain and increase those houses’ values, we will establish a new home renovation tax credit.”
There’s absolutely no claim here that such handouts are a legitimate government function. It’s a bribe, plain, simple and naked: vote for us and we’ll give you money. Lots of it.
It was bad enough for them to subsidize my children at other people’s expense through the enriched Universal Child Care Benefit. But my patio? Could it be more crass, or insulting?
If taken seriously as political philosophy, it’s die-hard socialism. And as I’ve said before, if you’re going to get socialism, at least get it from honest socialists. But of course it’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s just the nudge and wink that accompanies the envelope full of cash. And that corrosive dishonesty is the real sticking point for me.
Harper wrote his 1991 master’s thesis on “public choice” theory that, as his abstract put it, “policymakers are motivated by political goals, in particular electoral goals, rather than the social optima assumed by traditional macroeconomic policy prescriptions.” As a Reform MP and National Citizens’ Coalition president, he understood this to be a warning. Now he treats it as an operating manual.
Power has corrupted him and his party. I wrote nearly two years ago that Harper is unfit for office because he lied to Parliament over the Wright-Duffy affair, insolently telling incompatible tales five days apart in October 2013, and lying about having contradicted himself.
Instead of recoiling from this cynical deceit, his party enthusiastically embraced it. If they think him worthy of public trust, they aren’t either.
It doesn’t matter where you look. The Tories talk tough in foreign affairs and praise the military. But they gut defence to fund cynical handouts. They rope in the rubes by feigning concern about traditional marriage, abortion and God. But they do nothing. Indeed, when Health Canada approved the abortion drug RU-486, this administration, which takes credit for every sparrow that takes wing in Canada, suddenly hid under the bed.
Justice Minister Peter MacKay told reporters to talk to Health Minister Rona Ambrose. Ambrose passed the buck to Health Canada. Jason Kenney said nothing. (MP David Anderson condemned the decision but declined to be interviewed.)
These people are not honourable. Indeed, they laugh at honour. They cherish the low blow, the devious tactic, the unprincipled bribe, in a relentless, sneering, partisan tone. People I know and like retweet Pierre Poilievre with vicious glee. I weep for them and my country.
So am I contemplating voting Liberal or NDP? Ugh. Neither of the main opposition parties has recently shown themselves to be dishonourable. They may just be confused. But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will never be ready for prime time and neither will the NDP’s program.
I believe either would be an instructive disaster in power. But I cannot vote for disaster for my country, regardless of its educational merits. So I don’t know what to do. But I know what not to do.
Self-proclaimed “realists” may consider me unreasonably fastidious. But I will not give my vote to a party that disgusts and appalls me. Neither should you.
National Post
So am I contemplating voting Liberal or NDP? Ugh. Neither of the main opposition parties has recently shown themselves to be dishonourable. They may just be confused. But Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau will never be ready for prime time and neither will the NDP’s program.
That's his opinion. Of a previously hard core CPC supporter who's expressing justification not to support the alternatives.Basically they are all idiots, and you get to vote for the least bad. Yay!
so what you really saying, in-spite of all your rhetoric, that after the election we will have a minority PC government and NDP as official opposition?That's his opinion. Of a previously hard core CPC supporter who's expressing justification not to support the alternatives.
Notice for Trudeau, he's using the CPC tagline that's repeating -- verbatim - via ads and soundbites into Canadian's head -- 'he's not ready...'
The guy is in his 40s. Holds a degree that, unlike the current PM, actually applied to an applicable career. The current PM, with an unpracticed economics degree has now racked up consistent deficits for budgets during his term, governed over two recessions, and for deceptive political opportunism can't recognise to the current recession for what it is defined to be.
The facts are, that the CPC will face a decrease in participating support in this election. Not just of Red Tories who will vote for an alternative, but of course supporters who are so dissatisfied with current governance, that they are now motivated not to vote.