- Reaction score
- 1,528
- Points
- 1,160
OK, compared to the previous Conservative provincial government.
Election 2011
- Thread starter Edward Campbell
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 430
Found in today's TO Star:
John Francis Bolan | Visit Guest Book
BOLAN, John Francis - Passed away on Thursday, April 21, 2011 in his 79th year at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre with his family beside him. John, beloved husband of Bernice (nee Hannan) for 49 years. Dear father of Anne and her husband Duncan Bell, John and his wife Pamela, Mary and her husband Chris Bayley and his beloved Patrick. Grandfather of Matthew, Andrew, Brian, Christopher and Charlotte. The family will receive friends at the HUMPHREY FUNERAL HOME - A.W. MILES CHAPEL, 1403 Bayview Avenue (south of Davisville Avenue) on Sunday, April 24 from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be conducted at ST. ANSELM'S CHURCH, 1 MacNaughton Road, Toronto on Monday, April 25 at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please vote LIBERAL. If desired, donations to Sunnybrook Cardiac ICU, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M5 would be appreciated by the family. Condolences and memories may be forwarded through www.humphreymiles.com
John Francis Bolan | Visit Guest Book
BOLAN, John Francis - Passed away on Thursday, April 21, 2011 in his 79th year at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre with his family beside him. John, beloved husband of Bernice (nee Hannan) for 49 years. Dear father of Anne and her husband Duncan Bell, John and his wife Pamela, Mary and her husband Chris Bayley and his beloved Patrick. Grandfather of Matthew, Andrew, Brian, Christopher and Charlotte. The family will receive friends at the HUMPHREY FUNERAL HOME - A.W. MILES CHAPEL, 1403 Bayview Avenue (south of Davisville Avenue) on Sunday, April 24 from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Mass of Christian Burial will be conducted at ST. ANSELM'S CHURCH, 1 MacNaughton Road, Toronto on Monday, April 25 at 11:00 a.m. In lieu of flowers, please vote LIBERAL. If desired, donations to Sunnybrook Cardiac ICU, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M5 would be appreciated by the family. Condolences and memories may be forwarded through www.humphreymiles.com
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
Wow, How can you stoop that low to push politics with the death of a loved one.
- Reaction score
- 4,915
- Points
- 1,160
NinerSix said:
I'd pitch in for this.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 210
Haletown said:
Now wouldn't that be the kick in the butt that Iggy deserves.
E.R. Campbell said:
Poll: NDP moves ahead of Liberals in 'astonishing shift'
http://www.montrealgazette.com/Poll+moves+ahead+Liberals+astonishing+shift/4672517/story.html#ixzz1KaBXIHd8
The NDP has steamrollered over the Liberal party to land in second place nationally behind the front-running Conservatives, results of a new poll suggest.
The EKOS-iPolitics.ca survey of more than 3,000 Canadians finds 28 per cent of decided voters now support the NDP, compared with 23.7 per cent who plan to vote Liberal. The Conservatives hold less than a six-point lead, sitting with 33.7 per cent support, with just one week to go before election day.
Pollster Frank Graves calls it an unprecedented turn and "astonishing shift" for the NDP, which has traditionally trailed the two other main federal parties. Leader Jack Layton's popularity is climbing most dramatically in Quebec, but building momentum in all regions of the country, according to the poll's results.
More at link...
Brad Sallows
Army.ca Legend
- Reaction score
- 8,847
- Points
- 1,040
For its own fiscal and governmental well-being, Canada needs the Liberals to be soundly beaten and the Conservatives to win a majority. The pressing reason for a majority is to render the Bloc ineffectual and unimportant so that Quebeckers are encouraged to resume voting for candidates of truly national parties if they want a voice in Parliament; realistically at this time, that can only be a Conservative majority. The pressing reason for a heavy defeat of the Liberals is so that they stop wasting time chasing a weak minority diluted by the NDP and focus on crafting a platform that will be worthy of their own majority when the Conservatives have had a fair run.
People enamoured of the "ABC" notion are, except for the separatists and sh!t-disturbers, shooting their own feet and reloading.
People enamoured of the "ABC" notion are, except for the separatists and sh!t-disturbers, shooting their own feet and reloading.
Retired AF Guy
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 1,001
- Points
- 1,160
E.R. Campbell said:
Good point. Except for a couple of articles in the National Post, I don't think anyone else (media/CPC/Liberals) has commented on the possibility.
- Reaction score
- 6,145
- Points
- 1,260
And speaking of unsupported assumptions as discussed in the Media Bias thread, see this report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/terra-incognita-poll-projects-100-seats-for-surging-ndp/article1998361/
Now, it's a big poll but it is not clear to me that it is not extrapolating QC support and a general feeling of “love” for Jack Layton into number that cannot and will not materialize on 2 May 11.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/terra-incognita-poll-projects-100-seats-for-surging-ndp/article1998361/
Now, it's a big poll but it is not clear to me that it is not extrapolating QC support and a general feeling of “love” for Jack Layton into number that cannot and will not materialize on 2 May 11.
- Reaction score
- 1,528
- Points
- 1,160
Don't forget, Jack and his Olivia live on a million of tax payers dollars a year.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/25/terence-corcoran-just-a-smiling-jack-in-the-box/
Just a smiling Jack-in-the-box
Terence Corcoran - Apr 25, 2011
What an election! Full of surprises. Two days ago the Tories were said to be heading for a majority. Now everyone’s going gaga over the “surge” in support for Jack Layton. Michael Ignatieff, as a result, has become the Liberal doormat in Mr. Layton’s entry into the halls of power in Ottawa.
The New Democrats’ spin machine, which can usually convince a flock of media types to jump into the wash cycle, has scrubbed up Mr. Layton as a smiling, fun-loving optimistic political good guy, a bright alternative to the deadwood in the other parties, possibly even prime-ministerial. The election, said NDP strategist Brian Topp, is “a choice between three angry, threatened men and a relaxed, smiling, positive national leader — in some ways, the only real national leader running in this election.”
Whatever that means, the Layton makeover as a solid policy optimist is temporarily one of the accepted realities in the election campaign — a notional reality that flies in direct contradiction of Mr. Layton’s actual role in Canadian politics as a policy Jack-in-the-box who has lent his support to a succession of questionable policy balloons.
The latest Layton jump-up is to throw the NDP behind some kind of constitutional fix for Quebec so as to improve Quebec’s standing within Confederation. Whatever that means, Mr. Layton appears to be trolling for separatist support, a leadership gambit that should come as no surprise to those of us who have tracked Mr. Layton over the years.
Exactly how many Canadians actually want to turn over a major power role in Ottawa to one of the most off-the-wall grandstanding left-wingnuts of our time — an opportunistic word machine who couldn’t get himself elected mayor of Toronto when he tried two decades ago?
Mr. Layton is said to be unswervingly positive and optimistic, which may a personal tic that is easy to pull off when your basic political approach is to endorse impractical and economically loopy policies as if they were perfectly logical and doable. Can credit-card interest rates be controlled at 5 percentage points above prime? Big smile: You bet. Can Ottawa rake in $7-billion in revenue from a carbon cap-and-trade scheme by 2014? Big smile: No problem.
Mr. Layton is said to have deep experience in municipal government, a technical statement that ignores Mr. Layton’s record. When he ran for mayor of Toronto in 1991, Mr. Layton famously produced 300 election promises with a price tag of $1-billion. His backers attempted to scale down his campaign excesses with claims that, at heart, Mr. Layton remained an all-round good fellow who would maintain racial harmony and uphold environmental standards. He lost.
As a Toronto city councillor, Mr. Layton tracked consistently to the NDP left. A good indicator of Mr. Layton’s political ethics shows up in his role as a creator of Toronto’s notorious Tent City protest. In 1998, Mr. Layton convinced a group of youths who were living in a derelict building in the city’s old port lands to move to a vacant lot next door that was slated for retail development by Home Depot. A few months later, Mr. Layton delivered some donated tents to the site, launching Tent City, a three-year occupation that grew to include hundreds of politically and emotionally distressed people — all to prevent a big-box retail development near Toronto’s waterfront.
Opposition to real estate development is one thing. Using and manipulating lost souls to achieve that objective suggests a dubious willingness to take advantage for political gain. Just flash a smile.
Mr. Layton, from his first days in politics in the 1980s, maintained a classic left-wing anti-corporate and ultra-green political stance and a sterling record as a promoter of the unworkable and impractical. Over the years he has proposed exports taxes on oil to the United States, price controls on gasoline in Canada, using the Canada Pension Plan to fund infrastructure, and pushed for new government spending on day care, drug care, tuition care, windmill care, house care — nothing is outside the scope of government expansion.
The NDP’s flimsy 25-page election platform contains at least 16 pictures of Mr. Layton in a grin bigger than Brian Mulroney’s chin. Few people have looked at the platform, a Laytonian laundry list of plans and schemes that would lock Ottawa into decades of expanding programs. The green initiatives alone number 17, including $50-million for something called “Local Food: From Farm to Market.” Total cost by 2014 is $6.2-billion per year for the green package alone, to be paid for with $7.4-billion in revenue from a fantasy federal cap-and-trade carbon control scheme.
Mr. Layton’s team now admits that there is no chance such a cap-and-trade plan will be brought in soon, for economic and constitutional reasons. Other revenue-grabbing plans — higher corporate taxes and something called a “Tax Haven Crackdown” are expected to be generating another $15-billion for Mr. Layton’s coffers by 2014. Unworkable? Not according to our smiling Jack-in-the-Box.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/25/terence-corcoran-just-a-smiling-jack-in-the-box/
Just a smiling Jack-in-the-box
Terence Corcoran - Apr 25, 2011
What an election! Full of surprises. Two days ago the Tories were said to be heading for a majority. Now everyone’s going gaga over the “surge” in support for Jack Layton. Michael Ignatieff, as a result, has become the Liberal doormat in Mr. Layton’s entry into the halls of power in Ottawa.
The New Democrats’ spin machine, which can usually convince a flock of media types to jump into the wash cycle, has scrubbed up Mr. Layton as a smiling, fun-loving optimistic political good guy, a bright alternative to the deadwood in the other parties, possibly even prime-ministerial. The election, said NDP strategist Brian Topp, is “a choice between three angry, threatened men and a relaxed, smiling, positive national leader — in some ways, the only real national leader running in this election.”
Whatever that means, the Layton makeover as a solid policy optimist is temporarily one of the accepted realities in the election campaign — a notional reality that flies in direct contradiction of Mr. Layton’s actual role in Canadian politics as a policy Jack-in-the-box who has lent his support to a succession of questionable policy balloons.
The latest Layton jump-up is to throw the NDP behind some kind of constitutional fix for Quebec so as to improve Quebec’s standing within Confederation. Whatever that means, Mr. Layton appears to be trolling for separatist support, a leadership gambit that should come as no surprise to those of us who have tracked Mr. Layton over the years.
Exactly how many Canadians actually want to turn over a major power role in Ottawa to one of the most off-the-wall grandstanding left-wingnuts of our time — an opportunistic word machine who couldn’t get himself elected mayor of Toronto when he tried two decades ago?
Mr. Layton is said to be unswervingly positive and optimistic, which may a personal tic that is easy to pull off when your basic political approach is to endorse impractical and economically loopy policies as if they were perfectly logical and doable. Can credit-card interest rates be controlled at 5 percentage points above prime? Big smile: You bet. Can Ottawa rake in $7-billion in revenue from a carbon cap-and-trade scheme by 2014? Big smile: No problem.
Mr. Layton is said to have deep experience in municipal government, a technical statement that ignores Mr. Layton’s record. When he ran for mayor of Toronto in 1991, Mr. Layton famously produced 300 election promises with a price tag of $1-billion. His backers attempted to scale down his campaign excesses with claims that, at heart, Mr. Layton remained an all-round good fellow who would maintain racial harmony and uphold environmental standards. He lost.
As a Toronto city councillor, Mr. Layton tracked consistently to the NDP left. A good indicator of Mr. Layton’s political ethics shows up in his role as a creator of Toronto’s notorious Tent City protest. In 1998, Mr. Layton convinced a group of youths who were living in a derelict building in the city’s old port lands to move to a vacant lot next door that was slated for retail development by Home Depot. A few months later, Mr. Layton delivered some donated tents to the site, launching Tent City, a three-year occupation that grew to include hundreds of politically and emotionally distressed people — all to prevent a big-box retail development near Toronto’s waterfront.
Opposition to real estate development is one thing. Using and manipulating lost souls to achieve that objective suggests a dubious willingness to take advantage for political gain. Just flash a smile.
Mr. Layton, from his first days in politics in the 1980s, maintained a classic left-wing anti-corporate and ultra-green political stance and a sterling record as a promoter of the unworkable and impractical. Over the years he has proposed exports taxes on oil to the United States, price controls on gasoline in Canada, using the Canada Pension Plan to fund infrastructure, and pushed for new government spending on day care, drug care, tuition care, windmill care, house care — nothing is outside the scope of government expansion.
The NDP’s flimsy 25-page election platform contains at least 16 pictures of Mr. Layton in a grin bigger than Brian Mulroney’s chin. Few people have looked at the platform, a Laytonian laundry list of plans and schemes that would lock Ottawa into decades of expanding programs. The green initiatives alone number 17, including $50-million for something called “Local Food: From Farm to Market.” Total cost by 2014 is $6.2-billion per year for the green package alone, to be paid for with $7.4-billion in revenue from a fantasy federal cap-and-trade carbon control scheme.
Mr. Layton’s team now admits that there is no chance such a cap-and-trade plan will be brought in soon, for economic and constitutional reasons. Other revenue-grabbing plans — higher corporate taxes and something called a “Tax Haven Crackdown” are expected to be generating another $15-billion for Mr. Layton’s coffers by 2014. Unworkable? Not according to our smiling Jack-in-the-Box.
This story from today's National Post, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act, notes differeent accounts by Mister Ignatieff of an incident he was involved in while in the Balkans. The differences may be in the telling, with the earlier account less favourable to the UN and the CF, but that is a matter for interpretation.
Ignatieff gives conflicting reports on time in Serbia
Sarah Boesveld Apr 25, 2011 – 6:11 PM ET | Last Updated: Apr 25, 2011 10:01 PM ET
Michael Ignatieff has given conflicting accounts of an encounter with Serbian paramilitaries in the Balkans during the 1990s; the one recounted during a town-hall meeting on Sunday starkly different from the one in his 1994 book Blood and Belonging.
“I’m not sure I was ever in big deal danger, I don’t want to overdo this, but it is frightening to be shot at,” the former BBC war correspondent said at the Sunday event, before describing how a Canadian soldier bravely rescued him and his documentary film crew from drunk paramilitaries. “That peacekeeper from Moncton, N.B., who maybe saved my life, is my example of how Canada ought to be in the world,” he said.
The story also appears in Blood and Belonging, but with stark differences: The Canadian soldiers are “anxious adolescents” who were “breathing heavily” when they tried to stop one of the Serbians from hijacking Mr. Ignatieff’s car.
A Serbian militaryman arrested them all anyway and Mr. Ignatieff presumed a local Serbian warlord had bailed them out — not the Canadian peacekeepers.
“Mr. Ignatieff is telling the same story about how a Canadian soldier stopped a van from being driven off by Serbian paramilitaries. The retellings have a slightly different emphasis as they are seeking to make a different point,” said Liberal Party spokesman Marc Roy.
Mr. Ignatieff had a long and distinguished career as a journalist before accepting a job at Harvard University. He worked for the BBC as a war correspondent and later as a general broadcaster for the network, introducing human rights documentaries and other programs. His official biography says he witnessed the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide as a journalist, documented the “chaos” of the former Yugoslavia and “the shadow of tyranny” in Iran.
Mr. Ignatieff was also accused on the campaign trail of giving separate stories to different audiences earlier in his career. At a campaign stop in southeastern Ontario earlier this month, Mr. Ignatieff was asked to clarify whether he voted in the United States or in Britain, a question born from a 2004 quote from Mr. Ignatieff in which he said “I am an American Democrat. I will vote for [John] Kerry in November.” The quote was unearthed by the Conservatives in this election in their efforts to suggest his personal ambitions trump the interests of the country. Mr. Ignatieff insisted he voted in the British election as a Commonwealth citizen, noting that he cannot vote in the U.S.
Mr. Ignatieff’s account on the televised townhall:
I spent the 1990s mostly as a war correspondent working for the BBC and the CBC. I’m not sure I was ever in big deal danger, I don’t want to overdo this, but it is frightening to be shot at. I had one experience also of crossing a checkpoint and just after I came past the checkpoint, this was in the Balkans, a bunch of paramilitaries all liquored up and drunk as skunks grabbed me out of the van, grabbed my crew out of the van, they were going to take us away. And just as they were about to drag us out of the van, a Canadian soldier appeared out of nowhere, he had been at the checkpoint. He rushed up, put his hand through the window of the bus, pulled out the keys and said ‘We’re going to do this my way.’ I’ve never forgotten that and then he clicked his carbine so there’d be no mistake. Paramilitaries let, let us go. But that peacekeeper from Moncton, N.B., who maybe saved my life is my example of how Canada ought to be in the world. We oughta be out there on the front lines making sure people don’t kill each other. It’s a good thing for Canada to do. We’re respected, we’re trusted and we’re darned good soldiers. That’s the kind of vision I have for the country.
.
Mr. Ignatieff’s account from his 1994 book Blood and Belonging:
The UN checkpoint was a sandbagged Portakabin manned by two Canadian infantrymen guarding a road barrier between the Croat-and-Serb-held sections of Pakrac, in central Croatia … the UN had just waved us through into Serb-held territory when fifteen armed Serbian paramilitaries surrounded our van. They had been drinking at a wedding in their village. The drunkest one, with dead eyes and glassy, beaded skin, forced the van door open and clambered in. “We watching you,” he said, making binocular gestures with his hands. “You talk to Ustashe,” and he pointed back at the Croatians hiding in the grass. Then he took the pistol out of his belt. “You fucking spies,” he said. He ordered the driver out at gunpoint, took the wheel, and began revving the engine … The Serb put the van into gear and it was moving off when one of the UN soldiers yanked open the door, grabbed the keys, and shut off the ignition. “We’ll do this my way,” the UN soldier said, breathing heavily, half pulling, half cajoling the Serb out of the driver’s seat. Another young Serb in combat gear pushed his way into the van and shook his head. “I am police. You are under arrest. Follow me.” This was the moment, in my journeys in search of the new nationalism, in which I began to understand what the new world order actually looks like: paramilitaries, drunk on plum brandy and ethnic paranoia, trading shots with each other across a wasteland; a checkpoint between them, placed there by something loftily called “the international community,” but actually manned by just two anxious adolescents; and a film crew wondering, for a second or two, whether they were going to get out alive … The paramilitaries took us to the police station in the village, where the chief spent an hour establishing to his satisfaction that because our translator’s grandfather had been born on the Croatian island of Krk, he must be a Croatian spy. But then a telephone call arrived, instructing the chief to release us. No one would say who had given the orders. It appeared to have been the local Serb warlord.
.
Ignatieff gives conflicting reports on time in Serbia
Sarah Boesveld Apr 25, 2011 – 6:11 PM ET | Last Updated: Apr 25, 2011 10:01 PM ET
Michael Ignatieff has given conflicting accounts of an encounter with Serbian paramilitaries in the Balkans during the 1990s; the one recounted during a town-hall meeting on Sunday starkly different from the one in his 1994 book Blood and Belonging.
“I’m not sure I was ever in big deal danger, I don’t want to overdo this, but it is frightening to be shot at,” the former BBC war correspondent said at the Sunday event, before describing how a Canadian soldier bravely rescued him and his documentary film crew from drunk paramilitaries. “That peacekeeper from Moncton, N.B., who maybe saved my life, is my example of how Canada ought to be in the world,” he said.
The story also appears in Blood and Belonging, but with stark differences: The Canadian soldiers are “anxious adolescents” who were “breathing heavily” when they tried to stop one of the Serbians from hijacking Mr. Ignatieff’s car.
A Serbian militaryman arrested them all anyway and Mr. Ignatieff presumed a local Serbian warlord had bailed them out — not the Canadian peacekeepers.
“Mr. Ignatieff is telling the same story about how a Canadian soldier stopped a van from being driven off by Serbian paramilitaries. The retellings have a slightly different emphasis as they are seeking to make a different point,” said Liberal Party spokesman Marc Roy.
Mr. Ignatieff had a long and distinguished career as a journalist before accepting a job at Harvard University. He worked for the BBC as a war correspondent and later as a general broadcaster for the network, introducing human rights documentaries and other programs. His official biography says he witnessed the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide as a journalist, documented the “chaos” of the former Yugoslavia and “the shadow of tyranny” in Iran.
Mr. Ignatieff was also accused on the campaign trail of giving separate stories to different audiences earlier in his career. At a campaign stop in southeastern Ontario earlier this month, Mr. Ignatieff was asked to clarify whether he voted in the United States or in Britain, a question born from a 2004 quote from Mr. Ignatieff in which he said “I am an American Democrat. I will vote for [John] Kerry in November.” The quote was unearthed by the Conservatives in this election in their efforts to suggest his personal ambitions trump the interests of the country. Mr. Ignatieff insisted he voted in the British election as a Commonwealth citizen, noting that he cannot vote in the U.S.
Mr. Ignatieff’s account on the televised townhall:
I spent the 1990s mostly as a war correspondent working for the BBC and the CBC. I’m not sure I was ever in big deal danger, I don’t want to overdo this, but it is frightening to be shot at. I had one experience also of crossing a checkpoint and just after I came past the checkpoint, this was in the Balkans, a bunch of paramilitaries all liquored up and drunk as skunks grabbed me out of the van, grabbed my crew out of the van, they were going to take us away. And just as they were about to drag us out of the van, a Canadian soldier appeared out of nowhere, he had been at the checkpoint. He rushed up, put his hand through the window of the bus, pulled out the keys and said ‘We’re going to do this my way.’ I’ve never forgotten that and then he clicked his carbine so there’d be no mistake. Paramilitaries let, let us go. But that peacekeeper from Moncton, N.B., who maybe saved my life is my example of how Canada ought to be in the world. We oughta be out there on the front lines making sure people don’t kill each other. It’s a good thing for Canada to do. We’re respected, we’re trusted and we’re darned good soldiers. That’s the kind of vision I have for the country.
.
Mr. Ignatieff’s account from his 1994 book Blood and Belonging:
The UN checkpoint was a sandbagged Portakabin manned by two Canadian infantrymen guarding a road barrier between the Croat-and-Serb-held sections of Pakrac, in central Croatia … the UN had just waved us through into Serb-held territory when fifteen armed Serbian paramilitaries surrounded our van. They had been drinking at a wedding in their village. The drunkest one, with dead eyes and glassy, beaded skin, forced the van door open and clambered in. “We watching you,” he said, making binocular gestures with his hands. “You talk to Ustashe,” and he pointed back at the Croatians hiding in the grass. Then he took the pistol out of his belt. “You fucking spies,” he said. He ordered the driver out at gunpoint, took the wheel, and began revving the engine … The Serb put the van into gear and it was moving off when one of the UN soldiers yanked open the door, grabbed the keys, and shut off the ignition. “We’ll do this my way,” the UN soldier said, breathing heavily, half pulling, half cajoling the Serb out of the driver’s seat. Another young Serb in combat gear pushed his way into the van and shook his head. “I am police. You are under arrest. Follow me.” This was the moment, in my journeys in search of the new nationalism, in which I began to understand what the new world order actually looks like: paramilitaries, drunk on plum brandy and ethnic paranoia, trading shots with each other across a wasteland; a checkpoint between them, placed there by something loftily called “the international community,” but actually manned by just two anxious adolescents; and a film crew wondering, for a second or two, whether they were going to get out alive … The paramilitaries took us to the police station in the village, where the chief spent an hour establishing to his satisfaction that because our translator’s grandfather had been born on the Croatian island of Krk, he must be a Croatian spy. But then a telephone call arrived, instructing the chief to release us. No one would say who had given the orders. It appeared to have been the local Serb warlord.
.
- Reaction score
- 6,352
- Points
- 1,160
Kalatzi said:
Kalatzi,
Once more, you can't expect people to discuss your points, if they can't figure out what your question is.
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 360
- Reaction score
- 6,145
- Points
- 1,260
A big shift is projected, today, in this report, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from ThreeHundredEight.com, and it's bad news for the Conservatives:
http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/
Holy shift, Batman; the Dippers are doing a real number on the Conservatives – who, as I mentioned before – need to hold on to all the 150± seats in which they had a lead last week and take away another half dozen or so from the Liberals and NDP.
But: see Harold Wilson, again.
There is almost a “long time” to go before campaigning ends late next Sunday night.
Former UK Prime Minister
Harold Wilson who said:
"A week is a long time
in politics."
http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/
CANADIAN POLITICS AND ELECTORAL PROJECTIONS
April 26, 2011 Projection - Conservative Minority Government
TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2011
NDP gallops forward
Two new national polls were added to the model this morning, along with three new riding polls conducted in Quebec. All of these polls are responsible for some shift in the projection, but there have also been a few changes made to my weighting system.
I realized that the poll-weighting tests I had run for the 2006 and 2008 elections were done slightly incorrectly. Rather than only include complete polls like I am doing in this election, my tests included each day of a daily tracking poll. What this did was fill the model with only newer polls, whereas the system I am using actually includes more older polls.
However, I don't tweak my model arbitrarily or because things "don't look right". I need numbers and evidence to back-up any changes to the model. So, I ran some new tests modeling the 2006 election (which has some similarities with the current election because of the sudden swing in support) and found that the best course of action would be to reduce each passing day's weight by 7% rather than 4%. This ages polls more quickly. I also decided to remove the "correction" that was added to the projection to take into account how the polls had been inaccurate in past elections. In the end, the tests ran better without this correction. The correction was very small, and for the most part the growth that the Green Party has been given today is due to that. The other parties were only marginally effected.
So, while some of the changes in this update are artificially influenced, most change can be attributed to the new polls. Let's get to it!
The Conservatives have dropped 1.1 points to 37.5% and have dropped five seats to 146. The Liberals, meanwhile, are also down 1.1 points (to 26.4%) but are unchanged at 75 seats. The New Democrats are up 1.8 points to 20.9% and six seats to 42.
The Bloc Québécois is down 0.3 points nationally to 7.8% and one seat to 44. The Greens are up 0.6 points to 6.1% but remain seatless. André Arthur is the lone independent projected to be elected.
The combination of increased aging, new polls, and the removal of the small correction has led to some major changes at the regional level.
The Conservatives have dropped a point or so in each region, but they are especially hurt by the drop of 1.3 points in Quebec. They are down to 18.7% there.
The Liberals dropped less out west but a lot in Atlantic Canada. Their drops in Quebec and Ontario are especially problematic.
The New Democrats rose everywhere, most importantly in British Columbia, Atlantic Canada, and Quebec. There, they grew their support by 3.5 points in the projection. They are now at 24.2%, only 8.5 points behind the Bloc Québécois, which has dropped 1.4 points to only 32.7%.
In terms of seats, there have been quite a few changes.
In British Columbia, the NDP candidate Kennedy Stewart is now favoured in Burnaby - Douglas, the seat previously held by retired NDP MP Bill Siksay. The Conservatives had been projected to win it earlier.
In Ontario, the Liberals are projected to once again win Ajax - Pickering (Mark Holland) and Brampton - Springdale (Ruby Dhalla), while New Democratic incumbent Malcolm Allen is the projected winner once again in Welland. These are all pick-ups from the Conservatives.
The Liberals move ahead in the two Toronto-area ridings because the incumbent factor has moved from a penalty (incurred when a party is gaining in a province) to a bonus (added when a party is losing in a province compared to the 2008 election).
But it is in Quebec where the most changes have occurred. The New Democrats have picked up four seats, one each from Bloc and Conservatives and two from the Liberals.
The NDP has picked-up two ridings in the Outaouais: Hull-Aylmer from the Liberals and Pontiac from the Conservatives. Nycole Turmel and Mathieu Ravignat are now the respective projected winners.
On the island of Montreal, the NDP has moved ahead in Jeanne-Le Ber (Tyrone Benskin) and Westmout - Ville-Marie (Joanne Corbeil).
Now, it may be surprising to see the NDP knocking off a star Liberal MP and a Conservative cabinet minister. With the NDP soaring into new territory in Quebec, it is very difficult to predict which ridings will be swept away in the orange tide.
But Lawrence Cannon has never exactly been a consensus choice in Pontiac, and the NDP is leading in Montreal, according to several polls. A minister that has never sought headlines and an astronaut opposition MP are not immune from sweeping change. Recall that even the Prime Minister was defeated in her riding in the 1993 election. And the six seats now projected to vote NDP in Quebec are divided into two blocks of three adjacent seats. It seems relatively sensible that support would spill over from one riding to the other. But there is no doubt that the NDP's rise in Quebec will make things difficult for seat projectors on May 2nd.
Holy shift, Batman; the Dippers are doing a real number on the Conservatives – who, as I mentioned before – need to hold on to all the 150± seats in which they had a lead last week and take away another half dozen or so from the Liberals and NDP.
But: see Harold Wilson, again.
Former UK Prime Minister
Harold Wilson who said:
"A week is a long time
in politics."
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