Election 2015

[Edward Campbell]

Polls will be coming thick and fast now. Here is the Forum Poll, published today:

   

It is still a tight race, but, in its analysis, Forum says:

    "The Conservatives have one third of the vote (33%), compared to just fewer than 3-in-10 votes for the Liberals and the NDP (29% each). Few will vote Green or for the Bloc Quebecois (4% each) or for other parties (1%).
    More than one quarter of those who voted NDP in 2011 will vote Liberal this time (26%) and the reverse is true for those who voted Liberal last time, and will vote NDP this election (28%). Just more than one tenth of past
    Conservatives will vote Liberal this time (13%) but few New Democrats or Liberals from 2011 will be voting Conservative."

And

    "If these results are projected up to a 338 seat House of Commons, the Conservatives would form a minority government with 145 seats, 25 fewer than required for a majority, while the Liberals and the New Democrats
    would split the rest of the House with 97 and 95 seats, respectively. The Greens would seat their leader, and no other parties would be represented ... Voters expect the Conservatives to win the election (31%) more than
    they do the New Democrats (27%), a reversal of findings in recent weeks on this measure. The Liberals are not seen to be the victors by as many (23%) ... After a number of weeks where Tom Mulcair was seen to be the
    best potential Prime Minister, Stephen Harper now occupies that spot (28%) and the other two leaders are matched at about one quarter of the votes (24% each)."

    Copyright ©Forum Research Inc.

 

[Rocky Mountains]

So if she wins, what's the outcome? Does it mean that the debates now have to be open to every registered party?

There is no such thing as a win.  She did the equivalent to calling 911 reporting a crime in process.  She could try to undo it if she gets her way but would likely be ignored.  Accusing someone of a crime and agreeing to drop the charges is normally called extortion and highly illegal.  The lady called the tax department on someone.

 

[thehare]

As far as defence goes, we have the Liberal record.  Trudeau Sr. and Chretien together reduced the armed forces from around 120,000 down to less than 60,000, perhaps closer to 50,000.  What is a promise worth when we have the record?

NDP have always had a strong pacifist commitment so don't look to them for any re-investment in things military.  At best look to be the world's social workers.

None of the parties are very pro military nowadays to be honest. Sure, Harper likes to boast how he and his party supports the troops but we have their record too, and you see the lowest GDP expenditure since the beginning of WW2 along with a nice blemish of how they've handled Veteran's Affairs.

Yes the other parties are not pro military, but it is foolish to think that the Conservatives really support us either. As the old saying goes, support for the military is a mile wide but an inch deep in Canada.

 

[Harrigan]

The tone on this website has changed noticeably since Nanos started showing polls with the CPC in first place (though will all three within the Margin of Error).  Overall, I don't think anything has changed - all three parties remain more or less tied.

I would think that the worst place the CPC could be is in first place in a tight race like this.  If this were to happen, I would expect the ABC contingents of the Liberals and NDP to both coalesce in one or the other party in the last week or so to attempt to prevent a Harper victory.  So I would suggest the best place for the CPC to be in the early October polls is a close second.  That would keep the Liberal and NDP votes split, and the government can hope for a Cameron-esque vote split to work in their favour.

Harrigan

 

[Edward Campbell]

At last, someone is asking some questions about defence spending.

 

[Pencil Tech]

None of the parties are very pro military nowadays to be honest. Sure, Harper likes to boast how he and his party supports the troops but we have their record too, and you see the lowest GDP expenditure since the beginning of WW2 along with a nice blemish of how they've handled Veteran's Affairs.

Yes the other parties are not pro military, but it is foolish to think that the Conservatives really support us either. As the old saying goes, support for the military is a mile wide but an inch deep in Canada.

It's nice to read somebody stating the truth on here but you're wasting your time. Most of the people following this discussion would vote for the Conservatives if they disbanded the military entirely, and then they would still find a way to say that it would be worse for the military with one of the other parties in power. It's all about gut feeling, culture and the dog whistles Harper is always blowing here. It's called "Election 2015" but it's really just somebody's Harper fanboy blog.

 

[jollyjacktar]

It's nice to read somebody stating the truth on here but you're wasting your time. Most of the people following this discussion would vote for the Conservatives if they disbanded the military entirely, and then they would still find a way to say that it would be worse for the military with one of the other parties in power. It's all about gut feeling, culture and the dog whistles Harper is always blowing here. It's called "Election 2015" but it's really just somebody's Harper fanboy blog.

Wow, that's a stretch.  And very "Kilo Jr." like thinking.

 

[Altair]

It's nice to read somebody stating the truth on here but you're wasting your time. Most of the people following this discussion would vote for the Conservatives if they disbanded the military entirely, and then they would still find a way to say that it would be worse for the military with one of the other parties in power. It's all about gut feeling, culture and the dog whistles Harper is always blowing here. It's called "Election 2015" but it's really just somebody's Harper fanboy blog.

go to the liberal party leadership thread. It's more hospitable to those who don't vote conservative.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

It's nice to read somebody stating the truth on here but you're wasting your time. Most of the people following this discussion would vote for the Conservatives if they disbanded the military entirely, and then they would still find a way to say that it would be worse for the military with one of the other parties in power. It's all about gut feeling, culture and the dog whistles Harper is always blowing here. It's called "Election 2015" but it's really just somebody's Harper fanboy blog.

Do you actually believe a word any of the three main parties has said on defence? I don't. The conservatives have their problems on the defence file. At least, with the conservatives, we don't have start all over on 20 Oct by cancelling everything in the hopper, re briefing, and re tendering everything. Call it laziness on my part, but I have lived through way too many cancelled projects...

 

[Pencil Tech]

go to the liberal party leadership thread. It's more hospitable to those who don't vote conservative.

I rest my case.

 

[Remius]

Wow, that's a stretch.  And very "Kilo Jr." like thinking.

It isn't that far a stretch really.  There are some hyper-partisan types here.  However, it must be said that just because they are more vocal doesn't mean that that this is "Harper's fan-boy blog".

I've tried to be as measured as I can in my critisism of ALL parties in this election as I still consider myself undecided but beginning to lean one way.

Mr. Campbell has been providing his opinions and facts in a a measured but biased way (he has been upfront about his biases though, full disclosure).

But...this tread has been derailed a bit by the little bun fight with Kilo vs "Harper fan-boys".  I'd prefer we stick to the issues rather than fight over how each side here presents its case.  If you don't like what they have to say, don't engage or engage but stick to issues rather than name calling.

Pencil Tech says something they don't like and someone takes another jab at Kilo.  Who is trolling who in that case?

 

[MARS]

go to the liberal party leadership thread. It's more hospitable to those who don't vote conservative.

I guess that thread would be your own echo chamber then...  :crybaby:

Anyone who is going to vote based on a party's pledge for defence spending or even more laughable...veteran's issues, or the state of the military is delusional if they think any of the parties actually give a rats ass about any of that.  I can't believe I share the planet with people who believe that pap. 

I also cannot abide any party that promotes or otherwise gives credence to the peacekeeping myth and all of that bullshit either.

:

 

[Remius]

Do you actually believe a word any of the three main parties has said on defence? I don't. The conservatives have their problems on the defence file. At least, with the conservatives, we don't have start all over on 20 Oct by cancelling everything in the hopper, re briefing, and re tendering everything. Call it laziness on my part, but I have lived through way too many cancelled projects...

I don't.  And it is a sticking point.  And they have cancelled things in the hopper and may very well have to restart.

The CPC promised a great many things that they haven't delivered on.  I gave them my vote before.  Why should they get my vote again on this issue?  Mr. Polievre's lackey who came to my door certainly couldn't explain it to me.

So to sum up.  No party is getting my vote in regards to Defense issues.  I don't trust any of them.  On this issue my check marks are all going in the against column for all three major parties. 

 

[Lumber]

I was seriously starting to wonder if the NDP was a good alernative; then they said they would pull 100% out of Iraq/Syria/Kuwait.

I started leading back toward giving the Liberals another shot at it; then they said they'd cancel the New Shipboard Aircraft Project F-35 program.

I started wondering if I should take a stab at voting Conservative for a change; then I remembered the Alamo.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Yep, Pencil Tech. This thread is a veritable Conservative Party "like" session.... 

 

[Edward Campbell]

And here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail, from the 'Civilization As We Know It Is Doomed' department, is Lawrence Martin's latest on "Conservative Canada:"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-toll-we-pay-for-a-bunker-mentality/article26463412/

The toll we pay for a bunker mentality

LAWRENCE MARTIN
Special to The Globe and Mail

Last updated Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2015


If you say too much you are dangerous. If you know too much you are a threat. It’s a mindset that some governments have had and that some, distressingly, still have.

I was reading an article on former tennis star John McEnroe in this newspaper the other day whereupon, from the realm of “You cannot be serious!,” appeared a shining example.

In the election campaign, the Conservatives have barred their candidates in a great many ridings from participating in all-candidates debates. That’s right. The candidates are censored by the leadership from taking part in the most basic, the most elementary of democratic functions. The Conservatives dispute that this is going on but evidence contradicts their half denials.

You might think Tory candidates with even a pinch of pride would refuse to put up with this. You’d think they’d tell the leadership that this isn’t the Canada they grew up in, that this isn’t Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Instead they kowtow.

Another report jumped out of the maze the other day, one which also focused on information suppression by our government. It’s a report in Maclean’s by Anne Kingston called “Vanishing Canada: Why we’re all losers in Ottawa’s war on data.”

It examines the impact of the killing of the long form census, how hundreds of small towns like Melville, Sask., have been turned into statistical dead zones and ghost towns. They are no longer factored into employment numbers, poverty rates, divorce rates.

But the report is about more than that. It tells of the degradation of knowledge across the board in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa and the threat it poses to a functioning democracy. It’s about how studies on air pollution and toxic chemicals containing unwelcome news have vanished. It tells of how credible information about our history is being supplanted by mythologizing historical narratives. It’s about how our data collection system with its emphasis on voluntary surveys is now skewered so that there is less evidence – how convenient is this for the party in power – of a poverty problem in this country. It reminds us that we’ll never find out if there was really a politically-driven crackdown on charities opposed to government policy. Why? Because the Canada Revenue Agency ordered employees to destroy all text-message records.

It’s no secret the Harper government, like the Republican right in the United States, has an anti-intellectual lean. By the party’s base, the erudite are looked upon as elitists. In Harper circles, empirical data isn’t wanted because it can readily contradict ideology, an example being sophisticated studies on crime. They negate the wisdom of Tory policies, driven by gut instinct, that favour increased levels of incarceration.

The remedy is to stop that kind of expertise from getting out, to stop the population from becoming more enlightened. The less people know, the less they challenge. It helps explain why in the Harper years, the public service, the giant bureaucracy in Ottawa, has been all but silenced.

With the transformation to the digital world it is easy for a government, any government, to reconstruct realities, to reinvent the historical record. The integrity of the Access to Information system becomes more and more important. But ours is becoming more and more ineffective. So many roadblocks have been put in place, says Michel Drapeau, one of the leading experts on our system, that “Access to information is on a slow descent into irrelevance.”

In a globalized knowledge economy, the bunker mentality needs be avoided. But phrases like the closing of the Canadian mind are gaining currency. Ten years of a government catering to a right-wing base has had a cumulative impact. Not a closing, but a narrowing.

The Conservatives have taken a lot of heat over information suppression. But it has had little effect. There are few signs of change. Their attitude is stay the course. If you say too much you are dangerous, if you know too much you are a threat.

So, the article by Anne Kingston, which provoked so much discussion here, and was properly debunked by Good2Golf, has some traction, if only because it plays to Lawrence Martin's own conformation bias ... we all have 'em.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don't.  And it is a sticking point.  And they have cancelled things in the hopper and may very well have to restart.

The CPC promised a great many things that they haven't delivered on.  I gave them my vote before.  Why should they get my vote again on this issue?  Mr. Polievre's lackey who came to my door certainly couldn't explain it to me.

So to sum up.  No party is getting my vote in regards to Defense issues.  I don't trust any of them.  On this issue my check marks are all going in the against column for all three major parties.

And I share that view. While I, like most people here on Army.ca, take defence very seriously, I understand that national defence is not a priority for most Canadians and, therefore, it is not an electoral platform priority, either. There are several things that I believe are important: social justice, for all, not just each party's favoured few, matters to me; so does government, itself ~ I think the Government of Canada is too big, too busy at things that don't really matter, too intrusive, and much, Much, MUCH too expensive; foreign policy is important ~ not Syrian refugees, they are just symptoms of a Western failure to look after our own vital interests in the world; and my list goes on quite a way before it reaches national defence.

I find favour with bits of each party's platform, I find more to like, in policy terms, in the CPC's ideas than in any of the others, but I certainly don't approve of all (maybe not even most) of what they propose.

But, sad to say, none of them are worth much on national defence, but that's not the end of the world because we can, when the time is right (when necessity strikes) fix things, as we've done in the past: that's the wrong way to do things, but it's the Canadian way.

 

[Remius]

Well, the election has hit a new low with this...

http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/harper-should-apologize-for-politicizing-terry-fox-mulcair-says-1.2575175

While Mr. Mulcair is probably right (and I think an apology was issed from teh campaign on this) he is just as bad by making it an issue and calling on the PM to apologise. 

 

[Edward Campbell]

There was a "debate," of sorts, on women's issues, the CPC did not participate ... look at the Moderator's introductory remarks video on  Steve Ladurantaye's Twitter feed to see why the CPC declined to join.

 

[Kirkhill]

At last, someone is asking some questions about defence spending.

The take-aways, in my opinion:

Trudeau paraphrased "We will supply the Canadian military whatever the Canadian worker can supply and the military will have to work with that."

Mulcair paraphrased "It is all about the process.  The quality of the answer is immaterial"

Harper paraphrased "They are both wrong"

Trudeau and Mulcair paraphrased "Do anything to upset those union jobs on the coasts?  Shirley, you jest!"