Bizud

And how do you decide who's good and who's bad, and why are terrorists necessarily immigrants?

Or the people of Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and so on.

I have never once been afraid of a terrorist attack, it doesn't even enter my mind. I might as well worry about an earthquake or a hurricane, those are far more likely. Here's how I would improve our immigration system: make it more permissive. And thanks for admitting it's only foreign terrorists you're talking about.

Pierre Trudeau had only been in politics for three years prior to becoming Prime Minister.

The "link" between terrorism and immigration, first of all, rules out Canadian terrorists. Oh, but you meant islamic terrorism, right. Sorry. Second, how about the fact that the vast majority of immigrants are not terrorists? You're not going to be able to compile a complete database of "people with known terrorist ties," stop everyone at the border while you sift through it for them, and then let only the non-terrorists on their way, that's just not at all feasible. Finally, the best way to prevent terrorism is to stop fostering it. Stop participating in things like invading Iraq and we won't be a target. If the US did the same it wouldn't be either, and that whole "western capitalist nation" stuff is BS. The terrorists hate our freedom!!! That would be news to me.

So we're just like we were a hundred years ago, when women couldn't vote, homosexuality was illegal, you could be sent off to fight and die in a war you didn't believe in, etcetera...

Why, because she's attractive?

There is no coalition currently in place. A coalition is when the cabinet contains members of multiple parties. This is what's known as a "support agreement." It's very common, and it just means that one of the opposition parties, while remaining in opposition, will support the government in matters of confidence and supply in exchange for some demand or other. It's perfectly reasonable. NDP budget? The budget in question is a Liberal budget that contains one concession to the NDP, which most people, including Liberal supporters, are in favour of anyway (the Liberals "wouldn't have made it if it wasn't in line with Liberal values," now would they?). Furthermore the budget already was leaning to the right of usual Liberal budgets because it was crafted back when it looked like the Conservatives were going to go along with it, remember? Calling this an "NDP budget" is beyond absurd. Compromise.

The people who voted NDP certainly didn't get an NDP budget, Matt. ;) It's called compromise.

...and we don't have proportional representation...

Federal Liberals are centrist (Paul Martin is usually thought of as on the right, but he's been leaning left because he needed the help of the social democratic NDP). The British Columbia Liberal Party is right-wing economically, but mostly socially liberal.

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/05/10/canada/harphealth040510 And his comments regarding how provinces like BC and Alberta are allowing private for-profit clinics to operate in violation of the Canada Health Act (and getting fined for it) saying that it's basically their choice, not to mention having been president of an ultra-right lobby group that was originally created to oppose universal health care, immigration, and the Canadian Wheat Board, etc. "Most nations?" I think it's pretty clear most nations didn't - the ones that went in were certainly a small minority. Also, doing what the UN decides is a stance - it's called, we're going to obey international law. If your means of achieving this is to limit immigration based on origin, then yes. Still, please don't tell me you buy the American rhetoric about Canada and America being full of terrorist cells. Unless something major changes, the odds of a terrorist attack in Canada are about zero. Hey, guess what, don't care. Not our job to defend the American border. They caught them, right? So where's the problem? Immigration has nothing to do with terrorists, and yeah, I get that you're not talking about white terrorists here, cough cough. People enter Canada from other countries all the time. Any of them could be a terrorist. I could be a terrorist. I know some brown people who speak with accents, maybe they're terrorists!

hee hee boobies

Please, please, proportional representation. I strongly believe that the current electoral system has ceased to function in Canada. The Bloc are not going to go away, and the Right recognizes it has no hope if it isn't united, so it's going to be very hard for any party to get a majority. That would be fine, and normal for a democracy, except that Liberal+Bloc, Conservative+Bloc, and Liberal+Conservative coalitions are pretty unlikely, so what we end up with is a parliament that cannot function and will degenerate into this nonsense at least once a year when any party thinks there's political gains to be made. The solution? A proportional representation system of electing members of parliament. If the Bloc's seat count matched its 12% of the vote it wouldn't be nearly so much of a threat. People could vote for who they wanted. Voters in Quebec would be able to vote Conservative, NDP, and Green, without worrying about "wasting their vote," the two Conservative branches could, if they wanted, go their separate ways without worrying about splitting the vote. We'd all be happier for it, and Canada just might stay in one piece. Otherwise, get used to a loud, angry Bloc stirring up separatist sentiment and doing their best to convince Quebeckers that federalism isn't working for them.

Government holds, 153-152. Lax immigration policies? Are you kidding me? My instinct is to cry racism, but I'll let you defend that one. As for "lazy people sucking the unemployment system," you think that's a bigger problem than people not being able to pay rent or go to school? The incidence of welfare abuse is very small. And as for the Cons being better: Same-sex marriage, war in Iraq, missile defence, two-tier health care, just to name four.

Don't you live in B.C.? Of course i'd vote for someone who can't speak french, but i'm just saying that someone unilingual would have a hard time getting voted Prime Minister. And yeah people cross the floor all the time, but not 2 days before a very close and important vote. What does living in BC have to do with it? I speak French, and I've lived here all my life. However, if it's your assertion that people from the West aren't really expected to know French, and if it's also your assertion that knowing French is key to being a Cabinet minister, then it would follow that Westerners don't make good cabinet ministers, right? I'm actually very glad she did. I don't doubt that opportunism played an important role in this (interesting, however, that no one slapped Scott Brison with the same criticism, and certainly not with the same offensive, derogatory statements her former colleagues have been spouting off these past couple of days), but she's not wrong when she says that an election right now would be playing right into the Bloc's hands, and potentially very damaging to the federalist cause.

During the last French presidential election, when the final round of voting came down to either Jacques Chirac (the centre-right incumbent), who was being investigated for some corruption issue or other, and was enjoying Presidential immunity, or Jean-Marie Le Pen (the far right nutball), one slogan was "Vote for a crook, not for a fascist." I think that applies here. No matter how bad the Liberals are (and, think about it: we'll spend more on this election than they've stolen), it is not worth electing Stephen Harper over. I hate to parrot that tired old slogan, but vote for the NDP, "a positive choice." Latest polls show Jack Layton's approval rating is the highest of the leaders, and the NDP will make major gains this election, count on it, and I'll be voting NDP to turf my local Conservative. But, consider what Parliament will probably look like after this election: Let's guess 100 Conservatives (they might gain some seats, but I can name at least seven specific ones they'll lose to the NDP, where the Liberals won't be nearly as much of a vote-spitting issue this time), 110 Liberals, 70 Bloc, and 28 NDP. No majority anywhere to be found. More gridlock; a separatists dream. Is it really wise to hope the Conservatives get a few more MPs in this scenario? I don't think so. I seriously question the judgement of anyone who votes Conserative "to keep out the Liberals."

A lot of smart people that I'd gladly vote for can't speak a word of French. Also, people cross the floor all the time.

ANYWAY: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/20...ote-050518.html Maybe if we're lucky the NDP will win in 2009, we'll see a referendum in 2013, and proportional representation in 2017! But seriously, glad to hear it's not dead, and glad to hear James supports MMP, a superior proportional representation method IMO.

The low-tax, pro-privatization solution can never work. Name one place where it does.

Where's the flip-flop? I never commented on left- or right-wing parties holding the balance of power. Surely you're not calling the Bloc right-wing. I think this minority situation proves that Canada desperately needs proportional representation. The Bloc are going to win more seats in this next election than the Canadian Alliance did in 2000, do you realize that? They're a really major party now, and when you have three major groups, and none of them can form coalitions (Liberal-Conservative? obviously no, and the Bloc have a policy against being in coalitions), you've got a serious problem. But it's only a problem because the third party is a regional party that would cease to wield this kind of clout in a PR system. In a PR system, they'd have to learn to get along, like they do in most other countries. In this system they could use some lessons in cooperation too, but the nature of the system makes that impossible.

The modified NDP one allocates 4.6 billion to social spending instead of a corporate tax cut.

This is Canada's first experience with a minority parliament in a quarter-century. After the last election, many Canadians were happy with the result. Now, I suspect many would trade the current situation for the days of Liberal dominance, even if that makes the executive less accountable to parliament. What do you think? Second question, for those aware that proportional representation means constant or frequent minority governments, does this affect your support for it? Third, studies have shown pretty conclusively that citizens in countries where coalition governments are the norm are happier with their governments than citizens of countries where one-party majority governments are the norm. Comment. I guess I'll go first. No, it isn't lessening my opinion of minority governments, but it is lessening my opinion of Canadian politicians. However, if parties in most democracies can work together, the ones here can too. The problem lies with the nature of the electoral system, which rewards regionalism and will give the Bloc about 25% of the seats in any election held anytime soon, with about 12% of the vote. Meanwhile, the NDP will get about 19% of the vote, and maybe 9% of the seats if they're lucky. The Progressive Conservatives had the same problem, but Reform didn't; in 1993 the PCs won 2 seats, and Reform 52, with almost the same percentage of the popular vote. Our electoral system rewards regionalized parties and punishes parties with diffuse support across Canada. This is bad for federalism, and it's bad for democracy.

Actually, we're further in debt than we were in 2001, because in the last couple of NDP years we had huge surpluses that the NDP was putting towards the debt, while the first thing the Liberals (like so many neoconservative administrations before them - Harris, Thatcher, Raegan, Bush) did when they came into power was run a huge deficit. And another, and another. We've got a surplus now, but not as big as in 2001, and I'll bet anyone a hundred bucks we see at least one more deficit budget in the next few Liberal years. Here's the part where MAtt enters and responds with "No the NDP was teh debt!!1"

That's called democracy - the majority wins. Think about that for a second - for a party to be holding the balance of power in a PR system, they would have to be representing actual voters. If a PR system elected 20 NDP seats and 100 Liberals, versus 110 Conservatives, in an election that would have otherwise resulted in a Conservative majority, who deserves to lead? The Conservatives? Why? The majority has expressed their preference for the left. The Liberals and the NDP would govern together, with the Liberals rightfully having more clout due to more seats, and the people would get what they voted for. Welcome to the 21st century. Coalition politics is the proper way to run a parliamentary democracy. Single-party majorities are old-fashioned, unfair and tyrannical. Most people continue to vote against the federal Liberals, and they keep on winning by virtue of being the largest party. Should they get the most seats, of course. Should they get all the power? Of course not. It's only a fluke that they didn't this time, because now there's a strong regional party (which is itself a product of Single-Member Plurality) depriving anybody of a majority. The Bloc actually only do so well because they're a regionalized party, which Single-Member Plurality encourages. Under MMP they'd get their rightfully deserved 12% of the seats. Now you know why they never talk about proportional representation.