Canada's next Prime Minister?

[kEiThZ]

I supported Kennedy in the last leadership race and would like to see him run again, and win.

If he can move to the centre, he might have a chance. Otherwise, Dion is proof that the leftward tilt is a dismal failure for the Liberals.

Everyone is still missing the real story here. Half the Liberal seats came from the urban cores of Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal. The only region where the Liberals performed decently was in the Atlantic. I seriously hope the Liberals are looking at this map:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/map/2008/

The need to understand that to win, you need policies that work throughout Canada, not just in TMV. Otherwise, they'll be relegated to the election benches for a long, long time. They won only 8 seats west of the Ontario-Manitoba border. They are quickly losing the status of a national party and ceding the mantle of the left alternative to the NDP out West. And here's a few examples of why:

1) Trying to sell a carbon tax when 6 of 10 provinces have oil and most of their energy sectors are in a nascent stage.
2) Regular rhetoric on gun control and their defence of the long gun registry, which did little to reduce urban crime but plenty to piss off voters outside of the major cities....
3) Too much focus on Quebec to the chagrin of the rest of Canada. At least find a leader outside of Quebec.....

They had some excellent policies, like infrastructure investment, national transit strategy, national daycare, etc. but they have to work to target these programs nationally. Transit investment does not sell outside major urban centres. Neither does child care, which largely means the use of relatives outside cities.

I have no doubt that they'll find their way back to the centre. But they'll be roaming the wilderness for a long time if they don't understand the imperative of building truly national policies.....

 

[afransen]

Why don't you compare his record on the environment to the two Liberal PMs that followed him? Heck, GWB has a better record on climate change than Canada and that's due in large part to Liberal inaction.

I'm going to call bullshit on this one. Strip out the tarsands, and we'll see how bad things look. Now consider whether stopping the development of the tar sands is something <i>any</i> prime minister could accomplish? No offense Kieth, but I don't think this argument is very honest.

I didn't say it was the optimal solution. I said it was the most politically palatable solution. The Liberals sank this time exactly because of the Green Shift. It's hard to sell a new tax during the best of times. It's that much harder during times of economic uncertainty. Why do you think the other countries use cap and trade? Because it's the most politically expedient way to price carbon. And that's exactly why the NDP and the Conservatives support it.

It also doesn't have a lot of evidence of actually working.

The Green Shift could have been sold. It should have been sold as "green tax cuts", and cuts that weren't so tilted toward low-income earners.

 

[lordmandeep]

Liberals are still thinking this is the good old Chretien days, where you can get 100 seats from Ontario.


However Keith before the Liberals think about winning out west, they have to secure Atlantic and the 40 or so seats in Ontario that are Liberal-Tory swing seats. Problem is that a lot of Tories in Ontario won by commanding leads and that makes them harder to defeat.

Liberals in Quebec should take heart as it appears the friction between Harper and the Block will grow.

 

[Brandon716]

Dion isn't too far to the left, he put all his eggs into the environmental basket when people were worried about the economy and other issues.

 

[Long Island Mike]

Did the Conservatives stay in control of Canada?

Everyone: I noticed the proportional representation post on this topic-as posted by Moonmoth-and since I have gotten almost no Canadian Election info was that the final outcome-the Conservatives stay in power with 143 Parliamental seats? Does Stephen Harper remain Prime Minister of Canada? For a recent election good provincial maps were posted showing the outcome for each Riding/District-have any been made up for this election with the results? I look to forums like Urban Toronto for this type of info-I feel the US Media should spotlight important news like this election more than they do. That's my two cents here-LI MIKE

 

[lordmandeep]

Yes the Tory's won a strong Minoirty and will have a defacto majority for at least a year.

 

[adma]

I dunno, I just find something utterly vacuous about the Kennedy/JTrudeau wing of the Liberal party. It's like a David Foster rendition of the NDP, or something...

 

[afransen]

Mike:

This link was posted above, which is a nifty map with riding results:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canadavotes/map/2008/

The results were:

Conservative 143
Liberal 76
Bloc 50
NDP 37
Independent 2

Majority is 155.

 

[lordmandeep]

Kennedy/JTrudeau

The thing is that that Kennedy would have a high degree of personal like ability.

This has helped Layton really grow the NDP.

If such a feeling was with a big party like The liberals, it would do really well.

Kennedy would imo solidify the now rocky immigrant vote for the Liberals for sure. He is incredible popular with the immigrant community.

 

[kEiThZ]

I'm going to call bullshit on this one. Strip out the tarsands, and we'll see how bad things look. Now consider whether stopping the development of the tar sands is something <i>any</i> prime minister could accomplish? No offense Kieth, but I don't think this argument is very honest.

Well, the way the Kyoto accords were written, there is no exemption for the tar sands. Nor are there exemptions for refining oil at a clean facility in Canada instead of piping it to older facilities in the US. You can call bs if you want, but that's what the accord says. It's an absolute cap on carbon emissions. So technically, yes, the US under GWB has a better record than Canada on climate change.

If you want to talk about effort, sure the yanks didn't have to do anything to achieve that. But this is not about effort. We have to meet an absolute target. As a result, a lot of the hard left in Canada wants the entire energy sector in Canada shut down in its entirety so we can meet our Kyoto obligations.

It's too bad nobody read the fine print before Canada signed on.....

The Green Shift could have been sold. It should have been sold as "green tax cuts", and cuts that weren't so tilted toward low-income earners.

Hey, they chose the product and they chose the sales pitch. You can't chide the customer if the product is not something they want to buy. This was the Liberal's election to loose. Sometimes, I wonder if they just lack common sense.... a carbon tax in an economic downturn.....brilliant!

Liberals are still thinking this is the good old Chretien days, where you can get 100 seats from Ontario.

They are actually more vulnerable from the NDP in most of Ontario....especially up north....

However Keith before the Liberals think about winning out west, they have to secure Atlantic and the 40 or so seats in Ontario that are Liberal-Tory swing seats. Problem is that a lot of Tories in Ontario won by commanding leads and that makes them harder to defeat.

This may seem crazy but I actually think that if the Liberals went to a less urban platform they would have a shot out west. It's risky to try and build a base out east. The Maritimers always vote for the highest bidder..... The Westerners at least vote for platforms and principles. If the Liberals made an effort to understand the west, they might regain their shot at the throne.

As it stands now, it's going to be pretty damn hard to get into government if all they are relying on is TMV...and even in those areas they can't seem to lock down the suburbs....

Dion isn't too far to the left, he put all his eggs into the environmental basket when people were worried about the economy and other issues.

This is Canada, like it or not, the public sees environmental issues as a leftist cause..... You are right about putting all his eggs in one basket. That's exactly what I was saying all along.

 

[afransen]

Well, the way the Kyoto accords were written, there is no exemption for the tar sands. Nor are there exemptions for refining oil at a clean facility in Canada instead of piping it to older facilities in the US. You can call bs if you want, but that's what the accord says. It's an absolute cap on carbon emissions. So technically, yes, the US under GWB has a better record than Canada on climate change.

We're talking climate change, not Kyoto. Kyoto is more or less moot.

It's like claiming Russia has done a lot to green its economy. Its economy collapsed, drastically lowering GHG emissions. It's a distortion of the facts. Comparing 'normal' Canadian GHGs vs. America would be a reasonable comparison.

Hey, they chose the product and they chose the sales pitch. You can't chide the customer if the product is not something they want to buy. This was the Liberal's election to loose. Sometimes, I wonder if they just lack common sense.... a carbon tax in an economic downturn.....brilliant!

My critique there was of the Liberals failure to sell, not Canadian's failure to buy.

I disagree that it was the Liberal's election to lose. It was Harper's to win, and he did blow it. Thankfully for him, so did the Liberals.

 

[kEiThZ]

We're talking climate change, not Kyoto. Kyoto is more or less moot.

It's like claiming Russia has done a lot to green its economy. Its economy collapsed, drastically lowering GHG emissions. It's a distortion of the facts. Comparing 'normal' Canadian GHGs vs. America would be a reasonable comparison.

But the yardstick to measure climate change efforts has been the 1990 targets. Regardless of what you or I perceive the effort of individual countries to be, that's the absolute measure of truth. And I am fairly sure, that even if you were to strip out the oil sands, that Canada would have higher GHG emissions per capita. We are a colder country whose population centres are further apart than any other country on this planet.

 

[adma]

The thing is that that Kennedy would have a high degree of personal like ability.

This has helped Layton really grow the NDP.

Yeah, but Layton has no "David Foster" to him. Kennedy has it in spades...

 

[afransen]

From what I could dig up with some quick googling, the tarsands currently produce over 30 megatonnes of CO2 in production, which is about 20% of the increase since 1990. By 2015, if intensity remains steady, emissions will be closing in on 100 megatonnes, or about 12% of Canadian emissions.

 

[kEiThZ]

I found this interesting....even the kids prefer a Conservative minority:

http://www.studentvote.ca/results/english/index.html