Interesting , two straight elections with the majority of seats in the house , and yes I know the popular wisdom is that 60 odd % of the people did not vote for him, but the actual count as compared number of seats per party one party at a time shows a considerable majority over any one of the other parties. Smiling Jack can stand there and say 60% of the people did not vote for Harper but 85% of the people did not vote for him.
It's time for Harper to go
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Bring back the guy whjo was brve enough to choke a protester while he was surrounded by his body guards.... pressured the Business development bank to give a loan to a constituant who did not quialify 4 different ways, then had the VP fired who still denied the loan to a guy who owed Chretien money. Bring back the single biggest control freak in Candain political history, yes I am including Steven Harper in this .Ya gotta bring back Jean Chrétien...
He got along with everyone!
Heck Jean Chrétien was even a friend of Dubya!
Woddy you continue to lower the bar for common sense
Please, our conservative GOPers in the USA TRUMPED all that with doofus Dubya!....
'Majority' means 50%+1 as a minimum. Harper's best score have been rocksolid consistant: only gets one in every three votes, two elections in a row. 30% is not a majority and never will be. And as for seats in the House, it's the combined opposition that hold the majority. The word you're looking for is 'plurality'.
To post his own first actual election win—as opposed grabbing what the losing Liberals handed him—Harper's gotta come up with a platform that wins him 50%+1 seats. Given our crappy system he can do that with only around 40% of the vote, but he hasn't yet. And if he sticks to his characteristic puffin poop platform, he never will.
And, after five years, he owes us failure number three about now. Of course since he fixed the Elections Act, who can tell how long a government's term is.
What it comes down to, to be a worthy PM, is not how many voted for the other guys, but how many you can convince to vote for you. Harper's one in three makes him a failure.
I was "trying" to visit a friend near the ACC. Downtown looks like we've been taken over by a foreign power that's wearing Metro cop uniforms. I thought this was a free country? Fuck the G-20 guys for screwing up the world economy and then coming here to party at our expense. Fuck the protesters. Those morons are protesting for the wrong reasons. They want less freedom, nor more. And fuck the politicians for stealing our tax money and spending it on this shit. We should have more infrustructure in Toronto and they spend it of this nonsense. Fuck it...it'll be a long time before I vote again. It's like Southpark. The only choice is between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. OMG!!! I've become as nuts as Gryfin!!!!
yep, Bill Oreilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh..leftwingers all..you really are an idiot..oops sorry i just insulted you..
According to EKOS, Harper gets the majority of his support from the 65+ crowd, men, westerners and people without post-secondary education.
It is also pretty clear that a certain percentage of his support(not sure how much) comes from uninformed former PC supporters who are unaware that there is even a difference between the PC party that once ruled and the Reform/Alliance party that now rules our country.....
Points to ponder.....
It is also pretty clear that a certain percentage of his support(not sure how much) comes from uninformed former PC supporters who are unaware that there is even a difference between the PC party that once ruled and the Reform/Alliance party that now rules our country.....
Points to ponder.....
So it sounds like you're saying a fair number of U.S. Presidents should not have been President because they obtained only a plurality not a majority of the votes?
Yes I realize it is not the same, but the point largely is.
Frankly, so what?! As Benjamin Disraeli wrote "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics," this sounds the same.
Are you implying that the votes of Westerners, Men, those over 65 and those without post-secondary educations shouldn't count as much as those "in the know" presumably: young women from Ontario (forget about the East) holding Advanced Degrees.
Only in your mind. And only if I had said Harper should not be PM. He is, and will be until he resigns, or the GG is convinced he no longer has the confidence of the House. Not that that (or the fact that others are even worse) has anything to do with his repeated, abject failure to get more than one out of three votes. That makes him a failure as the leader of a political party, which is a position that I don't believe exists in American politics. Perhaps you can correct my misperception by naming a President who attained the office, as Harper did, by virtue of being the official leader of his party rather than being voted into the office, as all FPTP candidates are, by plurality.
But back to the topic: Given Harper's his determination to ride roughshod over the preferences and concerns of the majority of Canadians rather than respect, and work with them—a matter of his free choice—I'd judge him a failure as our PM as well as a proven failure as a political leader. That 'failure' is most definitely not the same. But the point largely is.
Time for him to go.
The Conservative Party's number of seats in the House of Commons increased in the most recent election.
I wonder how many of those saying it is time for the P.M. to go in this thread, voted for the Conservative Party in either of the past two elections? I suspect none.
I did. I have no party loyalty and in various provincial and federal elections I have voted for all of three parties, including both voting for and against the Conservatives under Harper. I have never understood why people would commit themselves to a party prior to the election but to each his own. At the provincial level I voted for both Bob Rae back in the day and subsequently for Mike Harris (the first time, but not the second). It's my opinion that at different points in time the country/province benefits from different views and generally I prefer competence to ideology and will frequently vote for the most credible leader regardless of ideology.
Spoken like a true liberal. What a fucking joke. Are you entitled to your entitlements?
Problem is that now it's Harper who thinks he's entitled to his entitlements. All power corrupts. Harper has been thoroughly corrupted by it. He has become much like the Liberals were when he first defeated them.
Meanwhile the Liberals have been humbled by an extended stint in opposition and I expect that's been good for them.
It's good to rotate the guard every now and then, let them know that the only people who are really entitled to anything are the Canadian people. Nothing straightens out a wayward politician like a stint in opposition. It's time for Harper to experience that. It's time to yank his chain and remind him who's really boss in a democracy.
Four years is an "extended stint in opposition"!!! How about 11 years or 16 years being more appropriate!
I'm sure I'm in the minority in this country but, personally, I don't think the next election can come soon enough. I expect that the results would leave things pretty much as they are BUT the knives would be out for both Harper and Iggy. IMHO that would be the best thing for both parties. There doesn't seem to be anyone on either side that would have a clear advantage out of the gate and it would force a new face to bring forward some ideas that would capture the imagination of the country. The polling results over the last year or so seem to be screaming "Give me a reason to vote for you!" but so far no one seems to be listening.
Nope. I have eyes to see, and this is what I've seen:
-- Attempts to enact legislation undermining the viability of other political parties
-- Abuses of Parliamentary process to shut down investigations, even at the expense of the legislative agenda
-- Contempt of Parliament in the form of refusal to subject the Afghan detainee process to political oversight
-- Contempt of Parliament in the form of refusal to allow staff to testify before Parliamentary committees
-- Rampant over-spending on a variety of issues, not only incompetent spending, but pork barrel vote buying
-- Interference in the freedom of information protocols to the point of completely undermining that process
-- Outright contempt for the media and complete disrespect for the public's right to know
That's what I see. I'm not voting for Harper again. I might vote for the C's if they sweep out the cobwebs and install some new leaders who are less contemptuous of democracy but I see it as my duty as a voter not to stand for the above.
At a minimum both Harper and Flaherty have to be shown the door before that party will regain my trust.
