Election 2015

[Altair]

Nope, minority government. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/stimulus-gamble-how-ottawa-saved-the-economy-and-wasted-billions/article16760149/?page=all

You will also note how hard it is to turn off those stimulus funds, as they turn into entitlements to people.

What's 30 Billion between friends, right? What happens when the richer 1% won't pay more tax? What happens when that $10B for infrastructure grows to $15 or $20B to cover off all their campaign promises? Now you're in deficit for the entire DND budget every year, and you've added $120B to the debt during what's supposed to be an economic upswing.

The Liberals spent time in the wilderness, sure. They also didn't learn anything. They turned their party into a NDP-clone, instead of reinventing as the true Center-Left alternative to the Tories. They took the easy road with a face-without-substance leader in Trudeau, instead of a stable centrist like Garneau so they could get back to power as quick as possible. "Change" should not be their slogan. "We're entitled to run this country, how dare you not believe us" is really what they're selling right now. That's the reason why they're not blowing the Tories out of the water, when they were completely ripe for the taking.

That 150 billion was not all added between 2008 and 2011. The goverment only balanced the budget in 2014.

I'm not getting into what ifs.

If Garneau had turned into a dion or Ignatieff clone the liberal party would be dead today. And to be fair, the CPC has a lock on the center right vote. They would have doubled down and fed their base and the liberals would be stuck between the CPC on the right, ndp on the left and probably would have been squeezed out between the two.

How many CPC voters would honestly consider voting liberals, regardless of leader? Every poll done shows the CPC has the most fanatic supporters. You know who most CPC voters have as their second choice? None. CPC voters would rather not vote than vote for another party.

When you look at the ndp and their mushy supporters, most likely to change their vote, and most likely to vote liberal if they do, the choice is clear.

Going after the ndp supporters makes much more sense. Why you insist otherwise boggles the mind.

 

[dapaterson]

Interesting series of tweets from the Ottawa Citizen's David Reevely, talking about the leaders' plans for tomorrow, followed by his conclusion: "If we assume where the leaders are matters, Trudeau’s on offence, Harper’s on defence, Mulcair is throwing Hail Marys."

 

[jollyjacktar]

That 150 billion was not all added between 2008 and 2011. The goverment only balanced the budget in 2014.

I'm not getting into what ifs.

If Garneau had turned into a dion or Ignatieff clone the liberal party would be dead today. And to be fair, the CPC has a lock on the center right vote. They would have doubled down and fed their base and the liberals would be stuck between the CPC on the right, ndp on the left and probably would have been squeezed out between the two.

How many CPC voters would honestly consider voting liberals, regardless of leader? Every poll done shows the CPC has the most fanatic supporters. You know who most CPC voters have as their second choice? None. CPC voters would rather not vote than vote for another party.

When you look at the ndp and their mushy supporters, most likely to change their vote, and most likely to vote liberal if they do, the choice is clear.

Going after the ndp supporters makes much more sense. Why you insist otherwise boggles the mind.

Not this time and I have voted for Peter Stouffer in the past when I was in his riding (but that was for the man not the party), however, you're correct in that I usually wouldn't vote for any of the other main parties as a 2nd choice.  I'd spoil my ballot or boycott first.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Not this time and I have voted for Peter Stouffer in the past when I was in his riding (but that was for the man not the party), however, you're correct in that I usually wouldn't vote for any of the other main parties as a 2nd choice.  I'd spoil my ballot or boycott first.

Same here. There is only one party, whoever that may be, I will give my vote to. The others, come election day, don't get a second look. I'm not in the habit of voting for 'the second best'.

 

[PuckChaser]

How many CPC voters would honestly consider voting liberals, regardless of leader? Every poll done shows the CPC has the most fanatic supporters. You know who most CPC voters have as their second choice? None. CPC voters would rather not vote than vote for another party.

If they had a real platform, with a real leader, sure. When you drop your platform 2 weeks ago, and don't have the leader actually show up to explain the costing, you have a credibility issue.

The issue isn't with Tory voters. Its with Tory voters not being given a viable alternative between the devil we know, and the devil we don't know.

 

[Remius]

Some light reading on Trudeau's image and branding during the campaign.

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/trudeau+manipulation+behind+most+image+conscious+campaign/11431891/story.html

Interesting how they are trying to portray him.

 

[Underway]

I have the joy of going back to school as a "mature" (their words not mine...lol) student and have been really enjoying this election campaign.  Despite a lack of most students ability to actually do proper research (that comes with age for most) before they vote they seem really engaged at my school.  Early voting line was over 1 1/2 hours long for the last week every day all day.  It's very exciting for many of them, being first time voters and all.

Might not agree with their ideas, positions or what they prioritize but seeing them vote and valuing it gives me great hope for the future.  Makes me proud to live and serve in this country.  Now enough back patting for me.  I return you to your regularly scheduled political discussion.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>would 30 billion dollars in debt by the feds , 2 percent tax changes either way and some infrastructure spending really make that big of a change in a 2 trillion dollar economy?

Regarding the spending: it will not, which is why the chief selling point of the Liberal spending plan - that it will stimulate economic growth - is bullsh!t.  But the word "stimulus" has taken on magical properties since 2008.  I suppose very, very few Canadians are aware that the nature of Canada's economy is such that it is not much deflected by either "austerity" or "stimulus" the way some other countries' economies are.  When Larry Summers beaks off, people pay attention because he is thought to be an expert; but about what works in a Canadian context, I suspect he is not.

It doesn't make sense to gauge the additional debt relative to the size of the economy.  It only makes sense to compare it to federal revenues, expenditures, and debt.  I go further: measure it relative to the kind of revenue/expense imbalance that hits during a recession.  If a country can only take on, say, an additional $400B in debt before no one wants to buy any more, it matters deeply if the country is in the middle of an annual $40B recession-driven deficit with little hope of rapidly improving economic growth, and matters very little if the country is running an annual $5B structural deficit during "normal" times.

Basically, the more debt we acquire, the more we limit our future fiscal freedom of manoeuvre.  Think of it as a principle of fiscal "war".  Regardless, the hallelujah chorus behind the Liberals is basically pinning its argument on Keynesian ideas.  But Keynesian ideas tell us that deficits are appropriate during recessions; we should have surpluses right now (because, prudence dictates that we assume what we currently have is the "good times" for this period of history).  As I've written before here, if the leftward side of the policy agenda is put into effect and a real recession strikes, Canada is going to be caught moving in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

Tax changes influence how people take and use their income.  Responses to change do not have to be linear.  Effects could be much greater or smaller than the tax shift itself.  But Canada's economy looks to me like it will be easy to destabilize (downward).  What significant sector of the Canadian economy can we point to and say, "it's a powerhouse and will hold us up while everything else is weak"?  Manufacturing is weak.  Commodity prices are weak.  The dollar is (I've written this before) about as weak as we can tolerate, but we don't seem to be enjoying a commensurate export boom.  Canadians carry high levels of personal debt (meaning future consumer spending is bound to slide down, meaning future federal revenues are bound to slide down).  Interest rates can't go much lower to take pressure off the cost of servicing government (federal, provincial - good luck there, ON) debt.  There are no foreign trading partners whose economies are about to go red-hot and oblige us by pushing up world prices on our exports.

If people were aware of the fiscal good government we've enjoyed for the past couple of decades, they might get pretty angry with the people trying to con them into voting themselves out of it by making simplistic and misleading assertions.  People who want to make a case or choice on ethics and propriety and policy choices in general should go ahead.  But on finances and economics, the Conservatives are ahead and the competing ideas are not even close.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>Some light reading on Trudeau's image and branding during the campaign.

I doubt it matters as much as he and his supporters would like to think.  The LPC is the beneficiary of anti-CPC sentiment, not pro-LPC enthusiasm.  If it were otherwise, the break in NDP/LPC fortunes would not have been as obvious or occurred when it did.

 

[Altair]

If they had a real platform, with a real leader, sure. When you drop your platform 2 weeks ago, and don't have the leader actually show up to explain the costing, you have a credibility issue.

The issue isn't with Tory voters. Its with Tory voters not being given a viable alternative between the devil we know, and the devil we don't know.

I my opinion,  the instant the center right united, the die was cast.

I would imagine that it would take generations for the liberals or ndp to be able to pry center right voters from the CPC. As evidenced by people on here who still talk about liberal misdeeds from the 90s and even the 70s.

That said, if only 40-45 percent of Canadians would ever vote CPC(harper got his majority with 39) that leaves 60 percent, give or take to fight over.

While I'm no political scientist I don't think going after a hard target is the best plan, especially when the soft target is right there for you to take.

And looking at the liberal party today compared with 2011, 2008 and 2006, I cannot say that they made the wrong decision. They may be gathering a lot of protest votes (CPC did in 2006 as well and look at where it got them) but that protest vote could have gone NDP as easily as it went LPC.

Trudeau and his team have run a great campaign and I really doubt that garneau or any other liberal who ran for leadership of the party would be sitting around 32-35 in the polls 7 days to go to the election under a barrage of CPC negative advertising.

 

[GR66]

Good news ...

Lisa LaFlamme ‏<@LisaLaFlammeCTV> reports on Twitter that:

Elections Canada reports 767,000 people voted on Sunday. Brings 3 day total to 2.4 million Canadians. Up 16% from advance polls in 2011

Dropped by the local library today to return a book (Margaret MacMillan's "The War That Ended Peace"...an excellent book) and was surprised to see the advanced polls open on the holiday.  Grabbed my card and went back with my wife to vote.  A very steady stream of people coming in and actually had about a 30min wait to vote.  Hope it keeps up...however you choose to vote.

 

[Edward Campbell]

In a a new article in the Globe and Mail, journalist Adam Radwanski looks at the "air wars" (advertising on radio and TV) in the last week of the campaign. He says that "After playing a pivotal role in the surge of Justin Trudeau’s Liberals through most of the federal election campaign, television and radio advertising may be threatening their momentum in the race’s final stretch ... [but] ... the most recent such survey, which in the first week of October tested a dozen campaign ads with 2,400 randomly selected voters participating in an online panel, found that recent Liberal ads were having a more modest impact than previous ones. At the same time, most of the other parties’ ads appeared to be chipping away at Liberal support."

 

[Edward Campbell]

I don't know who created this, I found it on a social media site, but it's pretty good ...

 

[Edward Campbell]

No matter who wins or loses, I think a few things are clear:

    Even if he wins a majority (which would be a technical and tactical miracle, in my opinion) Prime Minister Harper must go ... and that, I believe, is a good thing for the Conservative Party and, indeed, for the state of politics in Canada;

    In the event he finishes third (which seems very likely) then Thomas Mulcair will be forced out, too ... that will be a bad thing, I think, because it will signal the ascendence of the loony left wing of the NDP, again; and

    Even if he doesn't win or even if he finished a respectable third M Trudeau is secure, and I think that, too, is a bad thing for the Liberal Party and for the country, because unless there is some brains and some bottom that the Gerald Butts
    and the Liberal campaign team have, cleverly and inexplicably, kept hidden then he may be the weakest leader of a Canadian political party since Robert Manion "led" the Conservatives in the early days of the Second World War ...
    and I think Manion was intellectually leagues ahead of M Trudeau.

If the final results reflect what we all seem to agree we saw over the long weekend then we will have a minority Liberal government and two leadership campaigns which, assuming everyone follows the unwritten "rules," means that the Liberals will have a confidence "free ride" for six to nine months. I expect the real political "battles" will be between a cautious, fiscally conservative civil service in Ottawa and Premier Wynne's government in Ontario. I suspect that a lot of very senior Liberals, including even Jean Chrétien, will advise M Trudeau to listen to his Mandarins, not to Premier Wynne and his campaign team. Why? Because unless M Trudeau wins a solid majority those senior Liberals are going to be worried about extending their political reach beyond Ontario, looking to rebuild the big tent which may mean being cautious and fiscally responsible ... just like the Mandarins will advise. Once again the Liberals will have won by "campaigning left," but they will, comme d'habitude govern from the fiscal centre-right. They will keep enough promises - to revise C-51, for example - to keep their base and many other Canadians happy but, if the NDP leadership shifts, as I expect it will, they will find that they cannot do a "left flanking" again; they will need to win the Canadian political centre that likes balanced budgets and tax breaks.

 

[Edward Campbell]

For those interested in the Constitutional niceties, John Ibbitson has written a good, useful article in the Globe and Mail which includes some references to books on the matter.

 

[Edward Campbell]

A London, ON, man has posted a very nasty Harper Hater™ sign on his front lawn according to a report on CTV News:

Franco + Mussolini + Nixon = Harper


According to the story: "Robert Tilden is making no apologies for his anti-Harper display on his lawn ... "I recognize a fascist when I see one and that's what Harper's been doing to the country. He's been destroying it bit by bit under his image," says Tilden." The story goes on to say that "Tilden says he's had the signs up for more than three weeks now and he says up until now no one has told him to take them down or even expressed concern, at least to his face ... [and] ... "Tough shit. Get used to it. If somebody doesn't protest we're going to have another dictator (Harper) for another four years," says Tilden."

 

[dapaterson]

The riding of Edmonton-Griesbach may be of particular interest come election day.  The Rhinocerous party's nomination of a well-known local celebrity has been blessed by Elections Canada.

Of course, had Elections Canada realized that Bun Bun Thompson is in fact a cat, Bun Bun may not have appeared on the ballot...

 

[Altair]

No matter who wins or loses, I think a few things are clear:

    Even if he wins a majority (which would be a technical and tactical miracle, in my opinion) Prime Minister Harper must go ... and that, I believe, is a good thing for the Conservative Party and, indeed, for the state of politics in Canada;

    In the event he finishes third (which seems very likely) then Thomas Mulcair will be forced out, too ... that will be a bad thing, I think, because it will signal the ascendence of the loony left wing of the NDP, again; and

    Even if he doesn't win or even if he finished a respectable third M Trudeau is secure, and I think that, too, is a bad thing for the Liberal Party and for the country, because unless there is some brains and some bottom that the Gerald Butts
    and the Liberal campaign team have, cleverly and inexplicably, kept hidden then he may be the weakest leader of a Canadian political party since Robert Manion "led" the Conservatives in the early days of the Second World War ...
    and I think Manion was intellectually leagues ahead of M Trudeau.

If the final results reflect what we all seem to agree we saw over the long weekend then we will have a minority Liberal government and two leadership campaigns which, assuming everyone follows the unwritten "rules," means that the Liberals will have a confidence "free ride" for six to nine months. I expect the real political "battles" will be between a cautious, fiscally conservative civil service in Ottawa and Premier Wynne's government in Ontario. I suspect that a lot of very senior Liberals, including even Jean Chrétien, will advise M Trudeau to listen to his Mandarins, not to Premier Wynne and his campaign team. Why? Because unless M Trudeau wins a solid majority those senior Liberals are going to be worried about extending their political reach beyond Ontario, looking to rebuild the big tent which may mean being cautious and fiscally responsible ... just like the Mandarins will advise. Once again the Liberals will have won by "campaigning left," but they will, comme d'habitude govern from the fiscal centre-right. They will keep enough promises - to revise C-51, for example - to keep their base and many other Canadians happy but, if the NDP leadership shifts, as I expect it will, they will find that they cannot do a "left flanking" again; they will need to win the Canadian political centre that likes balanced budgets and tax breaks.

Trudeau started his comeback when he said he would  run deficits.

He has been hammering away at both the conservatives and new democratic party for their "austerity budgets". Unless the opposition forces his hand, which two parties in the middle of leadership campaigns tend not to do, he won't back down on that promise. He will give some small goodies to the ndp for their support, but I doubt he balances the budget. Shift to the center some, yes, maybe. Place his tent there? Doubt it. He would have a minority goverment, he might not even have the most seats. He would be facing the electorate withing 12-24 months and to break so many election promises unforced with the prospect of going into a other election would be suicide. Especially since he has built his brand on honesty and integrity.

I think he tries to pass as much of his plan as the leaderless opposition allows him to do.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Trudeau started his comeback when he said he would  run deficits.

He has been hammering away at both the conservatives and new democratic party for their "austerity budgets". Unless the opposition forces his hand, which two parties in the middle of leadership campaigns tend not to do, he won't back down on that promise. He will give some small goodies to the ndp for their support, but I doubt he balances the budget. Shift to the center some, yes, maybe. Place his tent there? Doubt it. He would have a minority goverment, he might not even have the most seats. He would be facing the electorate withing 12-24 months and to break so many election promises unforced with the prospect of going into a other election would be suicide. Especially since he has built his brand on honesty and integrity.

I think he tries to pass as much of his plan as the leaderless opposition allows him to do.

But I don't think the opposition is the problem after 20 Oct. M Trudeau will have his political transition team, possibly headed by Mr Butts but, I'm guessing, including some veteran Liberal politicians. So will Janice Charette, and hers will be supremely professional. Ditto Paul Rochon, who, like Mme Charette is known, trusted and liked by many experienced Liberals. M Trudeau may, sooner or later, replace both Mme Charette and M Rochon but, unless he's really, incredibly stupid (a distinct possibility) he will not go too far afield and he wil pick people who think very much like those two ... and their thinking is not the same as premier Wynne's. People like Ralph Goodale and Scott Brison know full well that Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne have pursued fiscally foolish, even destructive policies and that Ontario, not Ottawa, is to blame for its economic malaise and that the solutions lie in Queen's Park, not on Parliament Hill. M Trudeau's finance minister will not be happy to pursue all the election promises ... unless he (M Trudeau) is totally deranged and appoints Chrystia Freeland to that post.

Oh, and don't forget the Wall Street Journal and Bay Street factors ... the best thing to do with M Trudeau's promises (Prime Minister Harper's, too) is to wrap them into a roll, perforate them every four inches and put them to good use in the outhouse.

 

[jollyjacktar]

A London, ON, man has posted a very nasty Harper Hater™ sign on his front lawn according to a report on CTV News:

Franco + Mussolini + Nixon = Harper


According to the story: "Robert Tilden is making no apologies for his anti-Harper display on his lawn ... "I recognize a fascist when I see one and that's what Harper's been doing to the country. He's been destroying it bit by bit under his image," says Tilden." The story goes on to say that "Tilden says he's had the signs up for more than three weeks now and he says up until now no one has told him to take them down or even expressed concern, at least to his face ... [and] ... "Tough crap. Get used to it. If somebody doesn't protest we're going to have another dictator (Harper) for another four years," says Tilden."

Guys like this really make my blood boil and shake my head in astoundment.  They howl "Fascist" from the tree tops when they don't really know what it's like to live in a Fascist state under a "real" dictator.  If we did, he would have "disappeared" long ago.  Some people don't know how friggin lucky they are to live in Canada.  In a real police state, these guys would have been taken long, long ago.  That his sign still stands and no one has come to tell him otherwise, proves he's thankfully much mistaken.