[Thanos]

I don't disagree. It just seems that the Liberals have always been way better at the thievery game than any of the others have.

[EyeBrock]

Lemmy Lemmy:

Thanos Thanos:

Speaking only for myself, I support Prime Minister Harper and the Conservatives for two major reasons:

1) The Liberals are not a friend to Alberta. In fact, most of the time, they've been an active enemy to Alberta.

2) I consider the Liberal Party almost to be a criminal organization. Despite their blather, their first interest once in power is their own enrichment. They're no better on an ethical level than the Mexican PRI still is.

These two reasons alone are enough to disqualify the Liberals as a political party that I could ever vote for. Voting for them, knowing in full what kind of a group they are, would be creepier than taking a bath in a tub full of cobwebs.

That's a fair response. On point #1, I can understand why Albertans support the CPC, just as I understand why Quebecers support the Bloc. But what's good for Alberta (or Quebec) isn't necessarily good for the whole of Canada. On point #2, I disagree that the Liberals are any worse than the Conservatives on an ethics scale. Politicians are what they are, regardless of their party logo. When they aren't kissing babies, they're stealing their lollipops.

I agree Lemmy. The CPC are just less shite than the Liberals in my view. It's been reinforced with this whole UN bollocks.

The Libs have just no moral right to get my vote and the Tories are hanging on by the skin of their teeth to this vote. For now.

[Lemmy]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I agree Lemmy. The CPC are just less shite than the Liberals in my view. It's been reinforced with this whole UN bollocks.

The Libs have just no moral right to get my vote and the Tories are hanging on by the skin of their teeth to this vote. For now.

And that's exactly the same reason why I'm likely to support the Liberals provincially. As much I'm not a fan of McGuinty, Harris nearly destroyed Ontario. The shite Liberals are just less shite than the Cons, provincially. It's really pretty sad when our governments are chosen by shite-default (there, I just coined a new term ).

[ASLplease]

2Cdo 2Cdo:

Lemmy Lemmy:

ASLplease ASLplease:

Harper has done an awesome job.

An awesome job of what? Name one successful thing he's done since coming into office. I'll give you one: cutting the GST. Name another.

So bad that as a minority government he has far outlasted any other.

bang on! Harper has the longest running, most successful minority government in the total history of Canada. It makes no matter to me if you credit Harper, or blame the Liberals.

[Lemmy]

ASLplease ASLplease:

bang on! Harper has the longest running, most successful minority government in the total history of Canada. It makes no matter to me if you credit Harper, or blame the Liberals.

"Successful" how? What has he done that is a success? You're dodging. To call his government a success, doesn't he have to do something successful?

Lester Pearson's minority government established universal medicare. It created the Canada student loan program and the Canada Pension Plan. His government introduced the maple leaf as a national symbol, the Canadian flag and EXPO '67. He negotiated the Auto Pact and introduced and the 40-hour work week. Pearson's government introduced points-based immigration and a number of Royal Commissions on social issues, such as the status of women, that led to legal equality among genders. He introduced official bilingualism to Canada. And he kept Canada out of Vietnam.

What has Harper done that makes his tenure as PM a more successful one than, for example, Pearson's?

[EyeBrock]

Lemmy Lemmy:

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

I agree Lemmy. The CPC are just less shite than the Liberals in my view. It's been reinforced with this whole UN bollocks.

The Libs have just no moral right to get my vote and the Tories are hanging on by the skin of their teeth to this vote. For now.

And that's exactly the same reason why I'm likely to support the Liberals provincially. As much I'm not a fan of McGuinty, Harris nearly destroyed Ontario. The shite Liberals are just less shite than the Cons, provincially. It's really pretty sad when our governments are chosen by shite-default (there, I just coined a new term ).

It is! Oh to be inspired eh?

Both sides of the political divide are poorly served in Canada.Left and right are united in the fact that our leaders are shite.

[ASLplease]

first off,he united the right with the center, and prevented canada from suffering at the hands of the single most corrupt single party state government in all the history of canada. another 10 years of old boys liberals would have screwed us royaly.

i shiver to think how fucked up and impotent our healthcare system would be - has become - under the typical 'no gst....thats unfair' lip service of the liberals.

can you smell what alan rock was cooking?

what about 'national unity', what about it? it was a joke to the liberals, "lets steal tax money in the name of 'national unity'" they crossed the line, they screw the taxpayer, they screwed they military, they screwed our childcare benefits, they drove our tax free day forward by almost 20 days.

everyone wants their problems solved by everyone else. the liberals used this, and abused this. and its a damn slap in the face when they said 'we are going to solve ontario's hangun problems by threatening alberta longgun owners with jail sentences" wtf????? how more fucken retarded can the liberals get?

like i said, first off, they saved us from those bastard liberals

[1Peg]

ASLplease ASLplease:

first off,he united the right with the center, and prevented canada from suffering at the hands of the single most corrupt single party state government in all the history of canada. another 10 years of old boys liberals would have screwed us royaly.

i shiver to think how fucked up and impotent our healthcare system would be - has become - under the typical 'no gst....thats unfair' lip service of the liberals.

can you smell what alan rock was cooking?

what about 'national unity', what about it? it was a joke to the liberals, "lets steal tax money in the name of 'national unity'" they crossed the line, they screw the taxpayer, they screwed they military, they screwed our childcare benefits, they drove our tax free day forward by almost 20 days.

everyone wants their problems solved by everyone else. the liberals used this, and abused this. and its a damn slap in the face when they said 'we are going to solve ontario's hangun problems by threatening alberta longgun owners with jail sentences" wtf????? how more fucken retarded can the liberals get?

like i said, first off, they saved us from those bastard liberals

Well said!

[Lemmy]

ASLplease ASLplease:

first off,he united the right with the center, and prevented canada from suffering at the hands of the single most corrupt single party state government in all the history of canada. another 10 years of old boys liberals would have screwed us royaly.

like i said, first off, they saved us from those bastard liberals

Well, if your point was "The Chretien-Martin Liberals were corrupt motherfuckers and we needed a different party running the show for that reason alone" I'd say "Bravo, I agree with that". I voted CPC in the last federal election for that very reason.

But your claim was that Harper's administration has been the most successful minority admininstration in Canadian history. You're talking out your ass if you believe Harper's minority government has been more successful than Pearson's. That's retarded. Where's Mustang1 when we need him? What would a 10th grade history essay on ASL's thesis rate?

[ASLplease]

who the fuck is pearson?

[Khar]

I would most definitely agree with Lemmy. Pearson was the most successful minority Prime Minister, through and through. His accomplishments and social platforms took Canada forward many steps into making many of the positive aspects of Canada what they are today. While these days and the days of Pearson are very different and the environment around these decisions has changed, I would find it hard to look at many other Prime Ministers and consider them as important to our heritage as Pearson was, but that's my own opinion. I know he's not perfect, none of our leaders have been, but he had a significant impact which I think was positive in the long term, and long term positive impacts seem to be out of focus these days. This is just my opinion, though.

We also have to look at what has changed since then, especially when it comes to polarization. Things have changed quite heavily when it comes to the House of Commons these days. I thoroughly regret I cannot post the source (I literally searched for an hour for it) but the amount of laws passed through the House even back in the sixties were a lot higher than today, in the 90% or above range. In the past couple of decades, though, that has slid down to less than half with the current government, with the previous government not being much better. I'm not saying that this is in spite of Harper, I do feel that all the political parties are part of the problem. The Liberals seem to have very much of an everything against Conservative feel, the Conservatives seem to have very much of the same response to the Liberals, the NDP talk about reducing polarization at times but don't seem interested overly when it matters, the Bloq have separatist leanings and the Greens are not a factor in the House itself currently besides lobbying the parties. Add in a ton of aggressive rhetoric, attack advertisements, poor choice of words and mass partisanship of the dug-in groups supporting one party or the other and it all results in a beautiful gong-show which slows anything going through parliament which might be significant to Canadians. I feel like it's very much like the forums -- use enough strong language and animosity and no matter your position, eventually someone will oppose you (or take an extreme position) out of spite. We seem to encourage this by watching our politicians flinging verbal dung at each other like monkeys in fancy suits by dancing around the edges of their cage, tossing cheers at the ones we like and the jeers at the ones we dislike. It's someone disturbing how you can go from one thread about the UFC (better known as the Ultimate Hugging Challenge) to a thread about political discussions on other forums (and the odd time, this one) and see some lines about favourite politicians mirroring those of favourite fighters. Drawing parallels between sports and politics always makes me feel a little edgy, like one winning a fight is more important than standing up for party positions or negotiation to an acceptable arrangement. Plus, the general international climate politically has changed quite a bit since then, as has Canada's position in it -- even if we don't change much or go the same direction, nations around the world are swirling in a miasma of disruption, chaos and change, for better or worse, and our position changes with it, whether we adapt or not. This, like it or not, especially with increased globalization, is going to impact Canada domestically, and I don't know if it's made things better or worse when it comes to politics (and I'm also not saying globalization is good or bad because I don't want to drag the thread off topic with another four paragraphs of my inane tangential ramblings).

In other words, to shorten it down, with the current political atmosphere I don't see any of the political parties getting the numbers they need to actually do something, and I don't see it for some time, because for all the holier-than-thou comments coming back and forth across every portion of the House just about everyone is incapable of simple negotiation, which was by far more prevalent in governments thirty or more years ago. Not only that, but it seems that right now no matter what happens no party can do right in the eyes of each other. If there's a disagreement, neither side can back down because either way it's a negative result, a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of deal. To be honest, with the way the parties perpetuate this, I'd prefer to keep a minority government and stagnate politically for a while rather than have a party possibly drag us off into the wrong direction.

Especially since right now the majority of parties have some sort of geographic leaning (we can't help but have some politically dissimilarities geographically, but this feels like it's well beyond that). The conservatives have the rural areas of Ontario and the West. The Liberals have Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, and some of the surrounding area. The Bloq has most of Quebec, and the NDP are scattered around the three major cities, the North and out East. The focus of these parties in recent years (likely partly out of necessity for some voters) has become far more geographically bound than I am comfortable to it. As an Albertan, I too have to look at whether any other political party as the government is a good one because, even if it's not as good as Canada, if I don't vote for them I could have repercussions (since, as Thanos has said, the Liberals seem to be an active enemy of the West-minus-Vancouver) like increasing transfer payments in some form out of Alberta and into other parts of the nation when most older Albertans remember very little help in turn. In that I have to wonder, in relation to Lemmy's response to Thanos, if when we vote for what's good for Canada, are we really going to end up what's good for some particular region of Canada, or Canada a whole? Also, is this the fault of us voters who are digging in, or the politicians for screwing enough people over to give a party the mandate for those voters to vote on? Would this actually be fixed with an elected senate? For the record, if a vote happened tomorrow, I'd have no idea who I'd vote for. I'm fairly serious in most of my questions so far, since I have no problem in admitting that I am clueless and want to learn about this stuff -- better to be more informed or, at least, have the opinion of someone else.

I think it'd be really hard for any politician to do an awesome job in my viewpoint. The atmosphere has changed, and it seems to be self-perpetuating. This isn't an excuse for any leader right now, I guess it's more of a condemnation for them all. I love Canada, but I don't think there's many Canadians who aren't at least a little bemused with the way things have gone for the past decade or two. Or perhaps this doesn't make sense, because I wrote this late on medication which makes me drowsy, in which case, do ignore my crazed ramblings.

[ASLplease]

minority prime minister? thats funny.