http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/21/cv-election-ndp-quebec-803.html
The NDP is experiencing a major surge in support in Quebec. They are now leading everyone at 36% support compared with Bloc's 31%. Tories are at 17% while Liberals are sitting at 13%.
Harper's top communications official is embroiled in a conflict of interest scandal. Apparently, in 2007, he had attempted to influence the Montreal Port Authority position to go to a Conservative-backed candidate. It failed. Now, recordings of the incident has come out and Soudas is heard trying to influence the Montreal Port Authority's appointment choice, which is completely illegal.
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/21/cv-election-kent-parachothy.html
A Conservative candidate, Ragavan Parachothy, publicly praised the Tamil Tigers for fighting for Tamil freedom and that their deaths show that it should be gained at any cost. Peter Kent, another Conservative MP, decries his support for Tamil Tigers. The organisation is listed as a banned terrorist group in Canada.
When asked about Parachothy's Tamil Tiger support, Harper responded, "We have taken a strong position against the Tamil Tigers, and we have made them a banned group under the [Anti-Terrorism] Act .… Our position is clear."
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/21/cv-election-harper-interview.html
Harper says that even if the governor general asks him to form the government he will refuse to do so if he is not in first place.
(My opinion which you can ignore)
So then I guess he expects Canada to just simply have no government whatsoever then. Or it goes to third place. His answer makes zero sense. We're not going to have an election after finishing an election. It's ridiculous. Will he block house confidence on the first place winner just to screw Canada and leave it with no government?
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/21/cv-election-call-spoofing.html
The harassing calls to voters appear to be coming from the United States and are spoofing their caller ID with various companies contracted by the political parties (especially Liberals). The same numbers are also reported to have sent out bank scams and other harassing items.
edited 21st Apr '11 7:17:53 PM by breadloaf
NDP as the Official Opposition would be awesome. It would scare the shit out of the Grits and lead to Iggy getting the boot so fast he'd break the sound barrier. And Harper would have to play nice because the Dippers have absolutely no reason to compromise with him; appearing to do so would annihilate their support, and Harper knows it.
Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.It would be interesting to know why they're getting so much support from Quebec, any Quebecers here who can shed some light?
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?Unions wrote an open letter denying that they support the Conservatives as Harper claimed they did in an one-on-one with Peter Mansbridge on CBC.
Other than that, everybody is taking aim at the NDP. According to everyone, they suck for every reason under the sun.
I previously posted it up, here it is again:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/04/10/cv-election-ndp-layton-platform.html
It's fairly broad.
Yeah, I voted in the advance polls just then. This morning, I mentioned the idea to my mom, and she said "oh, that's only for people who won't be around on actual election day" but I asked someone at my local MP's office and the person there said it's for anyone, which in turn was confirmed by the people at the voting booth when I went there.
Perhaps there might be something unfair about using a system for those who CAN'T vote otherwise for your own personal convenience, but it's music to my ears that I can. That it's so much faster a line suggests that most people wait until election day anyway. Is it that the lure of a faster line isn't strong enough to overcome people's thoughts that they might change their minds, and assumption that if so they would be changing their minds for the better?
edited 25th Apr '11 8:17:54 AM by neoYTPism
The derail-everything-to-Finland-machine is here!
So wait, are people only supposed to vote in the advance polls if they can't show up on election day? 'Cause here, no one cares which day you vote on and the only difference is that if you vote in advance, you get to pick the place you vote, whereas on election day, you're only allowed to vote in one place.
I thought one of the major reasons for having advance polls was to have less people vote on election day so that people wouldn't have to stand in line for so long? Also, wouldn't offering more opportunities to vote lower the threshold for bothering to show up in the first place?
I've never heard anyone say that if you can show up on election day, you're not supposed to vote in advance - I thought it was "pick whichever suits you best".
Could be different here, but I kinda doubt it...
Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.It sorta is, but you know it's all run by local volunteers anyway so I think the cost per capita and organisation problems end up being around the same anyway.
I just did advance polls. They're for anybody. It's not so much that it's only for people who can't make it to voting day (I actually personally will have trouble getting to my actual poll on May 2) but it's more that, why waste any administrative costs in checking who should be voting on what day? Just let em vote. Switching to electronic voter registration saved us around 30 million dollars per election.
The idea of voting on the actual election day is just that maybe something happens that changes your mind in the two week span (though I think outside of some massive scandal, it would be unlikely and by massive I mean like Harper is seen stealing bags of money from taxpayer on camera). At this point everyone is just lobbing a million attacks against the NDP, it's becoming quite a gross slugfest. NDP just needs to stay on platform to do fine.

^ Yeah yeah, I know, I was thinking of guns probably because of the silly gun control detour we had.
For today's headlines:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/21/cv-election-parenthood-042111.html
After a Conservative MP candidate publicly stated that they will be cutting funding to Planned Parenthood in response to lobbying from anti-abortion religious groups, Harper stated that he "will not be reopening the abortion debate". However he refused to state whether or not they would fund Planned Parenthood. Bev Oda, the minister responsible for doctoring a government document in order to deny funding to a charity group which led to one of the two issues that caused the tories to be held in contempt of parliament, said that if Planned Parenthood's application fell within the government's priorities it would receive funding.
(My opinion)
Harper's refusal to debate abortion in parliament yet act against abortion is simply undemocratic. You can't on one hand state you won't debate it, as if you didn't want to do anything, yet with the other hand shut down abortion as much as you can.