From NY Times



January 22, 2006

Conservative Party in Canada Appears Poised for Election Victory
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
TORONTO, Jan. 22 - Unless every national poll here is off, what is
perhaps the world's winningest political party is heading toward a
humiliating defeat on Monday.
Stephen Harper, 46, an economist and social conservative who is writing
a history of ice hockey, appears poised to lead his Conservative Party
to victory over Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal Party, something
that seemed highly improbable just a few weeks ago. The Liberals won the
last four national elections, governing Canada for 13 years - as the
party did for three-quarters of the last century.
But whether a Harper victory would represent a seismic shift in a
country that has long promoted itself as a beacon of social democracy
and frequent critic of American foreign policy remains an open question.
If he cannot muster a majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Harper may
lead a weak, unstable government opposed by three left-of-center parties
represented in Parliament.
Mr. Harper - in a campaign largely free of ideology - promised to cut
the national sales tax, grant families direct child care for
preschoolers and introduce mandatory prison sentences. A longtime member
of the House of Commons representing Alberta, he has a conservative
record, but he steered clear in recent months of promising major changes
to the national health insurance program.
The absence of strong ideological overtones would appear to make a
Thatcherite-style revolution unlikely, even in the face of a strong
Conservative showing. Mr. Harper even noted that judges appointed by
Liberal governments and an appointed Senate filled with Liberals would
serve as checks on his power.
"I'm basically a cautious person," Mr. Harper said in a recent speech.
"I believe it's better to light one candle than to promise a million
light bulbs."
A change in Ottawa would almost certainly bring, at the least, a warming
of relations with Washington, which have been strained since the
American-led invasion of Iraq and have worsened over a series of recent
trade disputes and Canadian moves to soften domestic drug laws.
Mr. Harper, while careful not to appear overly supportive of President
Bush, has suggested he would reconsider Canada's refusal to join
Washington's missile defense program. He has also promised to increase
military spending to make a bigger contribution to NATO and peacekeeping
operations in places like Haiti and Afghanistan. But he also said
recently that he had no intention of sending troops to Iraq.
Mr. Martin, a former finance minister and shipping executive, has tried
to emphasize the Liberal government's stewardship of the strong national
economy, marked by low inflation and unemployment, a strengthening
currency and a large federal budget surplus. He has promised to create a
national child-care program, expand aid grants to college students and
ban handguns.
These are not unpopular stances, but the decline of Liberal fortunes is
due less to any shift in Canadian public opinion than to two years of
federal inquiries documenting an embarrassing party money-laundering and
campaign-finance scheme designed to counter separatists after the close
1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum.
Adding to the Liberals' troubles, in the middle of the campaign federal
police investigators announced that they were looking into new reports
of possible Liberal government leaks of tax information to friendly
investors that spurred a flurry of insider trading.
And in Quebec, once a bastion of Liberal support, the party's free fall
quickened with the publication of a book documenting accusations that
the federal government laundered millions of dollars of illegal aid to a
group opposing separatists during the referendum campaign.
"Will you tell us, Mr. Martin, how many criminal investigations are
going on in your government?" was one of many stinging lines Mr. Harper
offered up in four televised debates. "We'll get past the scandals and
establish accountability in Ottawa."
In recent weeks, the Liberals tried to recover votes with attack
advertisements linking Mr. Harper to President Bush, who is unpopular in
Canada, and suggestions in speeches that Mr. Harper would attempt to
reverse the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
"A Harper victory will put a smile on George W. Bush's face," one Martin
commercial said.
"The farthest of the U.S. far right - that's what Stephen Harper means
when he says it's time for a change in Canada," Mr. Martin told a rally
here. "Well let me tell you, Stephen Harper, the United States is our
neighbor, it is not our nation."
Various national polls in the final days of the campaign have shown the
Conservatives about 10 points ahead of the Liberals, but the
Conservatives may still fail to win a majority in the House of Commons.
A last-minute seepage of support from the social democratic New
Democratic Party to the ruling party might deny the Conservatives a
clear victory. Polls at the end of the week showed the Liberals making a
modest comeback, but pollsters said it would take a miracle for them to
win.
Mr. Harper leads a party that only three years ago merged a very
conservative Canadian Alliance Party with the much more moderate
Progressive Conservative Party, and the coalition is marked by regional
differences in social and economic outlook.
"There are different factions and backgrounds and points of view in the
Conservative coalition," noted Desmond Morton, a McGill University
historian. It will not be easy to manage the factions, he said.
"Can Harper control his own ideological instincts or clothe them in
language and concepts that most Canadians tolerate?" Mr. Morton asked.
Mr. Harper's greatest success has so far been his surprising
breakthrough in Quebec, a socially liberal province that has rejected
the Conservatives in the last several elections by taking votes away
from both the Liberals and separatist Bloc Quebecois.
The Bloc had been hoping to attract better than 50 percent of the vote,
which would have been an enormous symbolic victory heading into an
expected third sovereignty referendum in the next five years. Polls now
show the Bloc falling quite short of a majority, to the relief of
federalist forces that have been in retreat the last two years due to
the Liberal scandals.

• Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy
Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back
to Top

No longer poised... the Conservatives here in America are eating it up
i'm su

"See!!! The Canadians want to be "morally and ethically superior
too!!" God bless 'em... we may even save some room for 'em in heaven!"
Kev

"kevnbro" wrote in message
oups.com...
No longer poised... the Conservatives here in America are eating it up
i'm su

"See!!! The Canadians want to be "morally and ethically superior
too!!" God bless 'em... we may even save some room for 'em in heaven!"
Kev


Canada has been morally and ethically superior to America for decades. With
this election they may be on the way to changing that.

And, as anyone who pays attention knows, the main reason the conservatives
won is the disgust over the terrible corruption that has happened under the
liberals.


--
Peter Aitken

kevnbro a écrit :

No longer poised... the Conservatives here in America are eating it up i'm su

My guess is they have no idea what a minority government means because
of the one party system in the US. It works like this. Harper cannot
get a majority of votes in the House to enshrine his objectionable
views as law, so he has to make an alliance with another party to get
at least 154 votes. The only party that can give him that is the Bloc
québécois (a party whose reason to exist is to defend Québec while
it prepares for separation) which is, by and large, social democrat.
The Bloc was the official opposition for two years back in the early
days of the Chrétien government, and was probably the best opposition
party ever. Harper will not be able to dictate any terms of alliance.
It will be the Bloc that will do that, and so there goes the consie
dream. To rule he must compromise and we know how consies see
compromise as failure :-)

Harper's dilemna is that there will be no turning back the civil
definition of marriage, there will be no abolishing abortion or
building up the military for service in Iraq or any of those other
caveman ideas espoused by the right. Down the drain, all those fine
promises he made to George last time they were canoodling at the
bathhouse. He will be lucky if he gets a budget through (that's what
killed Clark in 1980).

Also, if he makes Clark's mistake of behaving as though he has a
majority, he will be eliminated in the inevitable next election.
Basically, the Conservatives are being humiliated, as is just and
correct. They badly needed a slap upside the haid to bring them back
down to reality and to them, although they don't say it, this is worse
than losing the erection :-)

"See!!! The Canadians want to be "morally and ethically superior too!!"

Satire. Good one :-) We didn't lie to start a war so I think we are
already morally and ethically superior :-)

Peter Aitken wrote:

Canada has been morally and ethically superior to America for decades. With
this election they may be on the way to changing that.

And, as anyone who pays attention knows, the main reason the conservatives
won is the disgust over the terrible corruption that has happened under the
liberals.

While we did a little bend to the right, it is only enough for a minority
government, not enough for Harper to do anything stupid like joining Bush in
his unjustified invasion of Iraq. It really hurt to put an X next to the name
of the Conservative candidate but I was ****ed off by years of Liberals at the
trough. We paid millions for an inquiry to find out who was responsible for
$100 being paid to pro Liberal advertising company. It cleared Martin, but
those responsible never went to jail. No one was even charged. The last straw
for me was the proposal of a hand gun ban. The only problem with hand guns in
this country is a bunch of west Indian gangs in Toronto running around shooting
each other. They got rid of the previous police chief because he wasn't
suitably culturally sensitive and replaced him with a PC lackie.

Martin lost my the little bit of faith I had in him when he said that legally
registered handguns in this country were just a break-in away from being used
by criminals. I had to shake my head over that extensive coverage of the fire
arms instructor who has been charged with unsafe storage of his handguns. He
had them in a case so strong that it took the thieves two days to break into
it. Sounds pretty safe to me. The PC crowd wonders how a guy can get a permit
to keep restricted firearms in a neighbourhood that is dangerously rife with
gangs. I wonder how a neighbourhood can be so unsafe and not be subject to
increased police activity.

Peter Aitken wrote:

Canada has been morally and ethically superior to America for decades. With
this election they may be on the way to changing that.

And, as anyone who pays attention knows, the main reason the conservatives
won is the disgust over the terrible corruption that has happened under the
liberals.

Peter Aitken


Are you saying that, "even when under a corrupt liberal government,
Canada was "morally and ethically superior to America"? And that now
that there is a conservative government, that may change?
Maybe I don't see your point, you're basically saying there was
"terrible corruption" under the liberals and although superior (to the
U.S) morally and ethically, there's the possibility that under a
conservative government, there's the chance that you no longer will be.
So are you saying, you may go from corrupt to corrupt and if so, how
does that make you morally and ethically superior? Kev

kevnbro a écrit :

Peter Aitken wrote:

Canada has been morally and ethically superior to America for decades. With
this election they may be on the way to changing that.

And, as anyone who pays attention knows, the main reason the conservatives
won is the disgust over the terrible corruption that has happened underthe
liberals.

Peter Aitken

Are you saying that, "even when under a corrupt liberal government,
Canada was "morally and ethically superior to America"? And that now
that there is a conservative government, that may change?
Maybe I don't see your point, you're basically saying there was
"terrible corruption" under the liberals and although superior (to the
U.S) morally and ethically, there's the possibility that under a
conservative government, there's the chance that you no longer will be.
So are you saying, you may go from corrupt to corrupt and if so, how
does that make you morally and ethically superior?

On November 15 2005, the former leader of what became the Conservative
party quoted Lord Acton:

"Mr. Speaker, the power consolidated in the Prime Minister's Office
would be a dream for anyone who wants total power. The Prime Minister
can and does appoint the Governor General who is also the commander in
chief of the armed forces, all lieutenant governors, senators, Supreme
Court judges, Federal Court judges, the cabinet, key positions on
regulatory agencies and the heads of major boards and commissions. That
is a dream for anyone who is seeking power.

"Lord Acton said that power tends to corrupt and absolute power
corrupts absolutely. Therefore, it is no surprise that judgment is
corrupted when one has that much power. I am not even putting a moral
tinge to it, just judgment itself."

The Conservatives are now in the Prime Minister's office, and if they
don't see the irony in being avowed Christians seeking to become
absolutely corrupt, well...to quote the Joker: What this town needs is
an enema!

kevnbro wrote:

Are you saying that, "even when under a corrupt liberal government,
Canada was "morally and ethically superior to America"? And that now
that there is a conservative government, that may change?
Maybe I don't see your point, you're basically saying there was
"terrible corruption" under the liberals and although superior (to the
U.S) morally and ethically, there's the possibility that under a
conservative government, there's the chance that you no longer will be.
So are you saying, you may go from corrupt to corrupt and if so, how
does that make you morally and ethically superior? Kev

Perhaps it is a matter of scale. We had a lot of political patronage and money
being paid for work that wasn't done. It pales in comparison to launching an
invasion on a foreign country on the basis of faulty information, especially when
more accurate intelligence was repressed, and the awarding of huge untendered
contracts to a company formerly run by the VP to repair damage from a war before
it stars.

Satire. Good one :-) We didn't lie to start a war so I think we are already morally and ethically superior :-)

Hey... "We" didn't start any war... our president did!
Nor do I claim to be superior to anyone in anyway (proclaiming
superiority is pharisaic) but I will say that polls show that the
majority of Americans currently dissaprove of the war in Iraq, feel
they were mislead into this war and no longer trust our government; I
think that speaks volumes for the American mind-set when it comes to
ethics. Kev

kevnbro a écrit :

Satire. Good one :-) We didn't lie to start a war so I think we are already morally and
ethically superior :-)

Hey... "We" didn't start any war... our president did!
Nor do I claim to be superior to anyone in anyway (proclaiming
superiority is pharisaic) but I will say that polls show that the
majority of Americans currently dissaprove of the war in Iraq, feel
they were mislead into this war and no longer trust our government; I
think that speaks volumes for the American mind-set when it comes to
ethics. Kev

And how many innocent people have died getting there? We stayed out of
it entirely. No innocent people in Iraq were killed as a result of
Canadian participation, because there was no such participation.

Pointing out a fact is hardly pharisaic. It may however be jejune :-)

"Dave Smith" wrote in message
...
kevnbro wrote:

Are you saying that, "even when under a corrupt liberal government,
Canada was "morally and ethically superior to America"? And that now
that there is a conservative government, that may change?
Maybe I don't see your point, you're basically saying there was
"terrible corruption" under the liberals and although superior (to the
U.S) morally and ethically, there's the possibility that under a
conservative government, there's the chance that you no longer will be.
So are you saying, you may go from corrupt to corrupt and if so, how
does that make you morally and ethically superior? Kev

Perhaps it is a matter of scale. We had a lot of political patronage and
money
being paid for work that wasn't done. It pales in comparison to launching
an
invasion on a foreign country on the basis of faulty information,
especially when
more accurate intelligence was repressed, and the awarding of huge
untendered
contracts to a company formerly run by the VP to repair damage from a war
before
it stars.


The corruption under the liberal government was of course wrong, but it is
just the counterpart to the Abramoff scandal and the way corporations have
bought most of the government in the US. But these things pale in comparison
to more serious matters. Compared to the US, how many countries has Canada
invaded illegally and without justification? How many innocent noncombatants
has it killed? How many of its own citizens has it killed and maimed? How
many people has it tortured and killed in prisons? How much illegal spying
on its own citizens has it conducted?

Get it?

Peter



--
Peter Aitken
Visit my recipe and kitchen myths page at www.pgacon.com/cooking.htm

We paid millions for an inquiry to find out who was responsible for
$100 being paid to pro Liberal advertising company. It cleared Martin, but
those responsible never went to jail. No one was even charged.

The actual amount diverted has yet to be established. The overall
money involved was 250$ million but a substantial amount of that
appears to have been spent properly and on legitimate projects. So,
what Harper succeeded in doing was to force an election before
Canadians realized that the amount that was actually being discussed
was much less than they could imagine and that they could possibly
start forgiving the liberals (of Chrétien, not Martin as none of the
money was dispensed under his administration) for doing exactly what
they wanted them to do in the first place.

What Canadians are upset about is not that Québec was encouraged to
stay in Canada, but that it wasn't out of love...they had to pay for
it. And it's not like the Parti québécois benefitted financially by
it either. It's like trying to date a woman and then realizing that
her husband expects payment for that.

Well, boo hoo. Personally I fail to see what the complaint is. Those
who wanted this got what they wanted. The part that were kickbacks, I
agree that those should be prosecuted, but not all sponsorship
transfers were criminal. I've been dealing with these files for over
two years now. Quite a bit of it was as innocuous as any other
sponsorship.

What must also be noted is that the entire program was created under
Joe Clark. So perhaps the Conservatives have some share of
responsibility for it, except that Clark has dissociated himself from
Harper, thank the gods.

alsandor wrote:
And how many innocent people have died getting there? We stayed out of
it entirely. No innocent people in Iraq were killed as a result of
Canadian participation, because there was no such participation.

Pointing out a fact is hardly pharisaic. It may however be jejune :-)

I don't deny that many innocent people have died because of our
government's decision to go to war in Iraq; that however has little or
nothing to do with the morality of the masses in the U.S. as we had no
vote in the matter.
I will say that Americans will take aggressive actions toward anyone
who crosses our borders and murders 2,700 of our citizens and you might
be surprised what Canada would've chosen to do had it been 2,700 of
you.
Not being an American citizen, you're in no position to judge. Kev

Peter Aitken a écrit :

Compared to the US, how many countries has Canada
invaded illegally and without justification?

Afghanistan. In fact, we still have troops there.

How many innocent noncombatants
has it killed?

Hard to tell. Obviously much less than the US as we do not tend to
think of ourselves as a god's gift to mankind.

How many of its own citizens has it killed and maimed? How
many people has it tortured and killed in prisons? How much illegal spying
on its own citizens has it conducted?

Well, that last one is currently under investigation. We know of at
least six Canadian citizens who were, based on the colour of their skin
and with the approval of the RCMP, transferred by US customs to Syria
where they were detained and tortured.

As it turns out, the one whose name appears on the investigation, Maher
Arar, was determined to be innocent of any wrongdoing and this was
known by our secret services BEFORE he was deported to Syria. So there
is no overwhelming reason to believe that the others are not similarly
innocent. And the fact that we don't think of ourselves as a target
for terrorists fails to fuel a climate where repressive fascistic ideas
are given credence.

In a climate of paranoia, we must always remember one of Hitler's
primary rules: people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one
(excerpt from the OSS profile on Hitler).

"kevnbro" wrote in message
oups.com...

Peter Aitken wrote:

Canada has been morally and ethically superior to America for decades.
With
this election they may be on the way to changing that.

And, as anyone who pays attention knows, the main reason the
conservatives
won is the disgust over the terrible corruption that has happened under
the
liberals.

Peter Aitken


Are you saying that, "even when under a corrupt liberal government,
Canada was "morally and ethically superior to America"? And that now
that there is a conservative government, that may change?
Maybe I don't see your point, you're basically saying there was
"terrible corruption" under the liberals and although superior (to the
U.S) morally and ethically, there's the possibility that under a
conservative government, there's the chance that you no longer will be.
So are you saying, you may go from corrupt to corrupt and if so, how
does that make you morally and ethically superior? Kev


Well, Canada didn't invade a sovereign country, and justify the action using
an endlessly evolving set of lies.