The Canadian Federal Election 2008
As the election1 approaches, I’m starting to get a little frightened. Polls are suggesting we may end up with a Conservative* majority.
George Strombo invited all the party leaders to be interviewed on his show, The Hour. Not surprisingly, Stephen Harper has REFUSED to go on the show. Harper appears to be frightened by the thought of people hearing what he or his party members say unless it’s under very tightly controlled circumstances. He avoids talking to the media (other than handpicked reporters who will ask the questions Harper tells them to) and the public as much as possible. Strombo is an excellent interviewer – he cuts through the bullshit and asks some really direct questions – and I’m sure Harper would be way too terrified to be asked real questions.
If you are at all interested in the federal election, be sure to check out the interviews with each of the leaders EXCEPT scaredy cat Harper (and possibly not Gilles Duceppe):
- Stéphane Dion – Liberal Party
- Gilles Duceppe – Bloc Quebecois – apparently his people are “in talks” with the George’s people. I’ll update this if/when Gilles shows up
- Jack Layton – New Democratic Party
- Elizabeth May – Green Party
And you definitely have to check out this clip of Strombo inviting Harper to come on to The Hour:
[youtube=http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYyjntoifME]
A few random interesting things I learned from these interviews:
- Jack Layton’s great granduncle was a Father of Confederation and his dad was Conservative minister under Brian Mulroney.
- Elizabeth May was an adviser to Brian Mulroney’s government!2
- Elizabeth May is working on a degree in Theology.
- I’ve heard this before from a number of sources, and Elizabeth May and Stéphane Dion both allude to it in their interviews – Stephen Harper is a micro-managing control freak. In response to Conservatives’* accusation that the Liberals plan to raise the GST, Dion said: “Mr. Harper wants to control everything, to the point that he would like to write the Liberal platform.” Dion states that the Liberals won’t raise the GST, nor will they go into deficit. Their plan is to lower income tax and replace the difference with a tax on pollution.
Also worth watching is this video showing Stephen Harper giving a speech that was plagiarized from Australian Prime Minister John Howard, and comparing it to Howard giving the speech:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8YwJC_nBgw]
Astonishing.
Another interesting site worth checking out is Vote for the Environment. As shown there, if people were willing to vote strategically, we could avoid a Harper government at all (let alone a Harper majority):
“If those of us who care about the environment don’t work together across party lines, the pro-environment vote will be split as it was in the last election and Harper will be re-elected.
We are the majority. But our electoral system hasn’t kept up with Canada’s changing political landscape.” (Vote for the Environment)
The site will show you “which candidate in your riding supports action against global warning AND has the best chance of winning”3
Rebecca recently posted a summary of the candidates in her riding, Vancouver Centre, and has inspired me to do the same. So look forward to a summary of the Vancouver Quadra candidates here, probably on Monday. In the meantime, what are your thoughts on the Canadian federal election? Are you going to be voting strategically?
1The Canadian federal one. The US presidential one, Vancouver municipal one and then, not too far after those, the BC provincial one, are all also approaching, of course, but first up is the Canadian feds.
2What’s with all the lefties having ties to Mulroney?
3There’s a video on the site explaining “how it works” and this quotation is taken from that video. To watch the video, go to their site and click on “Vote smart so the majority wins – FIND OUT HOW HERE.”
The * is there in recognition of the fact that Stephen Harper’s “Conservative” party is not the real “Conservative” party… it’s the Reform-Party-cum-Canadian-Alliance-in-Tory-clothing.
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Tags: Canada, Canadian federal election 2008, election, George Strombo, politics, Prime Ministers, The Hour, video clip
Man, George Stroumboulopoulos is such a tosser. Sorry, I have nothing constructive to add, I just wanted to mention that.
Okay, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been attracted to George S.
Stephen Harper would eat the kitten if he received it. I so want pictures of him eating kittens to be leaked to the press. I mean he’s so obviously a closet kitten-eater.
Alongside that happy desire, I’m betting Cylon Number 6, with her inaugural baby-killing on the grounds of SFU–I mean, Caprica–in the Battlestar Galactica miniseries, is Harper’s kinda woman. I mean, she’s supermodel sexy, she kills babies for pleasure, and she’s a robot.
As for elections, got you beat: federal, then by-election because Lorne “sell-out neo-liberal gay Uncle Tom” Mayencourt gave up his MLA seat (thank all the gods) to run in Vancouver Centre as a MP candidate, then municipal elections, around or soon after the US elections, THEN the BC provincial general election come May.
Dion saying he won’t raise the GST or go into deficit is stupid. I mean, raising the GST is probably a bad idea, since consumption taxes invariably impact the poor more heavily, but not going into deficit when times are tough is actually fiscally irresponsible if you think of it. Obviously you don’t want people spending willy-nilly but if you’re trying to keep taxes low to avoid further economic slowdown (and I’m not so sure I buy that but say we go with it), then how can you avoid going into deficit without cutting, oh, social programs? Because you know, what Canada needs now is more Liberal cuts to social programs, because it’s not like they were gutted or anything in the 1980s and 90s, starting with Mulroney but so admirably continued by Chretien and Canada’s (somewhat strangely) most lauded Minister of Finance (yet sucky PM) ever, Paul Martin.
I’m totally voting strategically… ideally I would like the NDP to get in but I’m comfortable voting for Hedy Fry since (a) she’s actually a drag queen and (b) the thought of Lorne Mayencourt furthering his political career makes me want to vomit. I have to walk past his fucking blue-painted campaign headquarters every day on my way to the bus to get to UBC and it just makes me that much more determined to vote Liberal and have Hedy kick his Log Cabin Republican ass out of my riding.
[…] candidates in her riding of Vancouver Centre. And I thought, “Hey, that’s a great idea! I’m totally doing for that my riding too!“ Then I got sick/busy/[insert excuse here]. Anyway. I’m doing it now. So […]