Election 2015

[Brad Sallows]

>Personally I think that particular concern with "list candidates" is a red herring - if a Party has a list of candidates that they want as MPs, some of those that don't make the PR cut for "listed" MP seats will still be working for the Party after the election in some way or other, and having an influence on decisions.

Nothing prevents a party from either loading its candidate list with otherwise unelectable hacks, or salting the otherwise unelectable hacks into the candidacies.  MMP is basically the most open form of patronage short of Senate appointments.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I've made some substitutions to illustrate a principle:

"The point of this whole exercise is buying votes, $13.18 a month is nothing. It would be interesting to see what the cost of administering this program is. Giving money to individual Canadians for [one thing] will never be as effective as an actual [one thing] program, with the economy of scale that it would provide."

Left unstated is the important fact that the program delivery scope is much more limited than the broad-based vote purchase.  Basically, the tension here is between a little bit of money for everyone to do with as they please or a lot of money for a favoured few.  Those who do not conveniently meet the criteria for being favoured pay for those who do.  The narrow benefit is, to borrow a timeworn descriptor from Team Orange, "unfair".

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Well I would just invite you to read the articles I posted as they address your points.

I did read the articles and they did not address my points. For the record (and contrary to your assertion), I don't care one way or another that it was on Rabble- I care about content.  In general, the articles gloss over the issue of parents who want to raise their own children. The royal society article isn't even about childcare per se- it is about early childhood development and well being, which leads to good outcomes later in life. Well, duh.

It is not entirely clear how a model of national daycare, enacted by the same bureaucracy that brought you the firearms registry, will not turn out to be a massively expensive crapshow, except the mistakes get played out on kids.

Did we not learn anything from the residential school fiasco? Governments do not do childcare well, at all, ever. They are good at raising armies; they are good at building roads and airports; they are good at police forces and courts of law. I suggest that they stick to what they know.

 

[Jed]

I did read the articles and they did not address my points. For the record (and contrary to your assertion), I don't care one way or another that it was on Rabble- I care about content.  In general, the articles gloss over the issue of parents who want to raise their own children. The royal society article isn't even about childcare per se- it is about early childhood development and well being, which leads to good outcomes later in life. Well, duh.

It is not entirely clear how a model of national daycare, enacted by the same bureaucracy that brought you the firearms registry, will not turn out to be a massively expensive crapshow, except the mistakes get played out on kids.

Did we not learn anything from the residential school fiasco? Governments do not do childcare well, at all, ever. They are good at raising armies; they are good at building roads and airports; they are good at police forces and courts of law. I suggest that they stick to what they know.

As they should.

 

[Harrigan]

>You mean, other than the 'In and Out' scandal?

"In and Out" was the party's own money.  Please play again.

LOL, the 60% refund they tried to get from Elections Canada would have been taxpayer money.

Listen, there really is no point continuing this discussion.  You are never going to waver from the "CPC excrement doesn't smell" argument, no matter how many members get charged or sent to jail. 

Harrigan

 

[Harrigan]

>Personally I think that particular concern with "list candidates" is a red herring - if a Party has a list of candidates that they want as MPs, some of those that don't make the PR cut for "listed" MP seats will still be working for the Party after the election in some way or other, and having an influence on decisions.

Nothing prevents a party from either loading its candidate list with otherwise unelectable hacks, or salting the otherwise unelectable hacks into the candidacies.  MMP is basically the most open form of patronage short of Senate appointments.

You conveniently forgot to include in your quoted piece the suggestion that actually addresses that issue:  When you set up an MMP system, fill the PR portion in order of the number of votes they received in the actual election (of the non-winners in a riding, obviously).  That way, the "unelectable hacks" are excluded, as they would not get enough votes (because they are unelectable), and every member in Parliament would therefore have campaigned, been in the public eye, had to participate in debates, etc.  No soulless backroom operatives would make the cut.

I know you don't wish to find any middle ground on this (or any) issue, but it doesn't negate that fact that solutions to those concerns do exist.

Harrigan

 

[Remius]

Did we not learn anything from the residential school fiasco? Governments do not do childcare well, at all, ever. They are good at raising armies; they are good at building roads and airports; they are good at police forces and courts of law. I suggest that they stick to what they know.

I don't really think they are good at those things either but meh.

 

[Edward Campbell]

There's an interesting article about negative advertising in the Globe and Mail. I agree, broadly, with Clive Veroni's main points:

    1. Negative ads are nothing new, they are as old as the business of politics, itself; and

    2. They work ~ if they didn't there wouldn't be any; but

    3. They can backfire unless they are very well crafted and 'placed.'

I like the recent NDP ad: it's true and it hits hard. I'm a bit surprised it isn't getting more 'exposure' in the media. That's in contrast to the CPC's "Just Not Ready" ad which is still, weeks after it was released, being discussed in the media. "Just Not Ready," is, clearly, a very good attack ad; it doesn't matter that it's not quite as "true" as the NDP's ad, it still tells Canadians something they suspect to be true and, by so doing, it "defines" M Trudeau.

 

[George Wallace]

LOL, the 60% refund they tried to get from Elections Canada would have been taxpayer money.

Listen, there really is no point continuing this discussion.  You are never going to waver from the "CPC excrement doesn't smell" argument, no matter how many members get charged or sent to jail. 

Harrigan

I have to LOL at your comment about CPC members getting charged.  The fact is, an equal amount of Liberals and other Party members are being charged as well.  The CPC does not hold a monopoly on this.  The interesting, perhaps more disconcerting, part of it though, is that only the CPC members make the News.

 

[Remius]

There's an interesting article about negative advertising in the Globe and Mail. I agree, broadly, with Clive Veroni's main points:

    1. Negative ads are nothing new, they are as old as the business of politics, itself; and

    2. They work ~ if they didn't there wouldn't be any; but

    3. They can backfire unless they are very well crafted and 'placed.'

I like the recent NDP ad: it's true and it hits hard. I'm a bit surprised it isn't getting more 'exposure' in the media. That's in contrast to the CPC's "Just Not Ready" ad which is still, weeks after it was released, being discussed in the media. "Just Not Ready," is, clearly, a very good attack ad; it doesn't matter that it's not quite as "true" as the NDP's ad, it still tells Canadians something they suspect to be true and, by so doing, it "defines" M Trudeau.

Along the same vein, (given that these attack ads are attacking the leaders) Eric Grenier in this piece on leader popularity, analyzes some of the trends accross the, specifically leader popularity vs. party popularity.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mulcair-trudeau-approval-ratings-point-to-potential-for-growth-1.3161855

 

[Harrigan]

I have to LOL at your comment about CPC members getting charged.  The fact is, an equal amount of Liberals and other Party members are being charged as well.  The CPC does not hold a monopoly on this.  The interesting, perhaps more disconcerting, part of it though, is that only the CPC members make the News.

Oh come on.  It is hardly "only the CPC members" that make the news - there are always articles on any Liberals and NDP members that get in trouble, particularly in the print media. 

Do you think that the media is being too hard on the CPC when they report members that are carried off in handcuffs (like Del Mastro)?  Were the media too hard on the Liberals when they were in power?

Of course not.  Their job is to report, and government scandals are ALWAYS going to be more sexy than opposition scandals for a simple reason: they have the authority and responsibility that the opposition doesn't have.

Harrigan

 

[a_majoor]

So, quick, name the Liberals who are under investigation, either for election related offences or in the Senate. You can even search the CBC website if you like.

I realized the Senate affair would lose traction quickly when I listened to the news report in the 1 Div coffee room and the reporter only mentioned that Liberal senators were also under investigation by the RCMP at the very end of the piece, and did not name a single one.

 

[Remius]

So, quick, name the Liberals who are under investigation, either for election related offences or in the Senate. You can even search the CBC website if you like.

I realized the Senate affair would lose traction quickly when I listened to the news report in the 1 Div coffee room and the reporter only mentioned that Liberal senators were also under investigation by the RCMP at the very end of the piece, and did not name a single one.

Mac Harb and Colin Kenny and Joe Fontana are the only ones I can actually name.  But they all had fairly significant coverage. 

But I've said this before.  Duffy and Wallin are former reporters and high profile ones at that.  Plus Duffy and the PMO involvement is what is driving that story.

Brazeau is in the news a lot but he's a train wreck.

 

[Remius]

So more stuff that might affect the election.

The CPC was touting the surplus they would achieve but now that seems to be in doubt as Canada is projected to have a deficit.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/federal-government-on-track-for-1b-deficit-pbo-1.2481594

I realise that not everything is black and white but when you are campaigning as the ones that cann steady the economy this does not bode well.

If I were the opposition i would try and spin this as teh result of income splitting and the UCCB (not that that is the case, but it would make for good spin).

 

[PuckChaser]

And the counter for the UCCB spin is that a national daycare program would have caused an even larger deficit than just $1B.

Of course there's a deficit now, the dollar is down, oil and gas are down, and the EU economy has been on the brink for months. It was a razor thin balance we had, I bet it'll bounce between surplus and deficit 15 times before Christmas.

 

[Kilo_302]

So more stuff that might affect the election.

The CPC was touting the surplus they would achieve but now that seems to be in doubt as Canada is projected to have a deficit.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/business/federal-government-on-track-for-1b-deficit-pbo-1.2481594

I realise that not everything is black and white but when you are campaigning as the ones that cann steady the economy this does not bode well.

If I were the opposition i would try and spin this as teh result of income splitting and the UCCB (not that that is the case, but it would make for good spin).

Let's also remember how the budget was "balanced" in the first place, through using a contingency fund and "anticipating" a recovery of oil prices. Relying on these are not the hallmarks of an economically responsible government. At one time, Harper was taking credit for the fact that Canada's economy was "the envy of the world" and now the government is suggesting that we're merely at the whim of the international situation, with Joe Oliver predicting that US growth could help us. That's not much of a plan for a party that sells itself as being good stewards of the economy.

Let's also not forget that this latest revelation comes from the PBO, and is largely based on information provided by the government who, in several instances, has resisted providing that office with the information necessary to fulfill its mandate. Indeed, whenever the news coming from the PBO isn't good, the government doesn't hesitate in leveling accusations of partisanship and incompetence, accusations that have been proven unfounded.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Let's also remember how the budget was "balanced" in the first place, through using a contingency fund and "anticipating" a recovery of oil prices. Relying on these are not the hallmarks of an economically responsible government. At one time, Harper was taking credit for the fact that Canada's economy was "the envy of the world" and now the government is suggesting that we're merely at the whim of the international situation, with Joe Oliver predicting that US growth could help us. That's not much of a plan for a party that sells itself as being good stewards of the economy.

Let's also not forget that this latest revelation comes from the PBO, and is largely based on information provided by the government who, in several instances, has resisted providing that office with the information necessary to fulfill its mandate. Indeed, whenever the news coming from the PBO isn't good, the government doesn't hesitate in leveling accusations of partisanship and incompetence, accusations that have been proven unfounded.

We'll know which guess (and that's all either is at this point in the process) is more correct in the fall of 2016, when the accounts are settled. Until then both Finance and the PBO are just speculating.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I'm glad that people quote Kilo's posts.

It save me the trouble of having to open them and being disappointed yet again.  ;D

 

[PuckChaser]

At one time, Harper was taking credit for the fact that Canada's economy was "the envy of the world" and now the government is suggesting that we're merely at the whim of the international situation, with Joe Oliver predicting that US growth could help us. That's not much of a plan for a party that sells itself as being good stewards of the economy.

At the end of the day, our economy is still largely linked to that of the US, and the rest of the world. Especially since Ontario's recent governments have destroyed the manufacturing sector, making it harder for the rest of the country to drag itself out of a recession. When your largest population province is draining from transfer payments and not contributing to the success of the country, you're going to have a real hard time to balance a budget.

 

[Kilo_302]

I'm glad that people quote Kilo's posts.

It save me the trouble of having to open them and being disappointed yet again.  ;D

I think you mean being confused again.