Wow. The grit pollster frank graves will be busy crafting new advice to his grit masters. They really must merge with the dippers. The real question now is will iffy survive to fight an election. These are pretty devastating numbers. In spite of grit mud throwing , Tory numbers stay about 35% and grit numbers continue to plummet....
I like this feature on the Aussie Liberal site
You can add policy ideas and people can vote on them. My friend in Oz explains:
"The Liberal Party of Australia website allows members to post their policy ideas for others to discuss and comment on. People can comment, and they can also tick whether whether they "support" the idea, "like it" or "dislike" it.
If 100 people support it, the shadow secretary for the relevent ministry will respond, when 500 people support the idea, the shadow minister will respond, and if over 1000 people support the idea, the leader will respond.
It's really great how the party is an incubator for policy debate."
My friend is going to have his idea commented on.
I think we should have such a system at Conservative.ca. I think you should...
Daniel Hannan Tory MEP admires HM PM Harper. As I have said before I wish that HM PM Cameron would have mimiced our Tories and had a minority government. It's nice to see that our UK Tory cousins appreciate us. After all we are all members of the vast worldwide right wing conspiracy and we should learn from each other.
I’m delighted that my party has caught up with this blog’s hitherto niche interest in Canadian Toryism. Canada is the only truly successful G8 economy, having determinedly lived within its means. George Osborne is reported to be interested in the record of its previous Liberal government, but the record of the excellent Stephen Harper – perhaps the most Anglophile leader anywhere in the world – merits just as much attention.
Harper is a magnificent fiscal...
I suspect that the complaints about the G34 and G8 will fast disappear when the eyes of the world are on Canada.
In a sense, every global summit is a “successful failure.” And the upcoming G8 and G20 gatherings of world leaders in Muskoka and Toronto promise to be no different.
Only progress to which the participants have previously agreed has a chance of being officially ratified. Most of the intractable disagreements will remain so. All that will be reflected in a pallid final communiqué.
Still, it’s a bit surprising that a city that has so often tried and failed to land the Olympics or a World’s Fair would be so out of sorts about Hogtown becoming the centre of world attention for a few days later this month. The week of June 22-27 will see the greatest concentration of...
Nik Nanos thinks grit disunity will be their undoing. I suspect there will be a fall election as well. This will die down once the actual summit. iffy will disappear from the national stage when parliament recesses will HM Pm Harper will be shown on the world stage. Let the grits defeat HM government if they are so confident. I suspect second quarter grit fundraising numbers will be dismal.
And a fall vote remains likely despite the damaging revelations Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) has faced over his government's spending spree for the world summits he is scheduled to host later this month in Toronto and Huntsville, Ont., Mr. Nanos added.
The Liberal strife, exposed and stirred up further by wild-card backroomer Warren Kinsella's declaration last week, backed...
More dispair from uber grit travers. travers understands the mischief of pseudochretien and that the coalition is an advertising bonanza for the Tories. It is nice to see travers so upset. The new network should make his head explode.
Fuelling all of this are reversed priorities that put look-at-me budgie vanity ahead of party stability and national interests. Since Harper sent Martin packing, Liberals have squandered serial opportunities to regroup, rebuild and regenerate the support that made them Canada’s natural governing party. Conservatives are now well on the way to usurping that mantle.
Harper’s relentless progress towards the holy grail of federal politics is greased only by Liberals unable to put aside habitual bickering long enough to explain first to themselves and then...
30 absent grits allowed HM Government to pass the budget with no trouble. It now goes to the Senate for review. The grits are now returning to the dion method of opposition, which is indeed no opposition. This should get through the senate as well. Senator Pitfield has recently resigned. We should an absolute majority by the end of the year in the senate. If iffy dislikes the bill so much, he could have defeated HM Government and there would be an election. I am sure he is afraid rae would oust him and complete the dipper takeover of the grits.
OTTAWA—Stephen Harper’s minority Conservative government has passed its fifth consecutive federal budget with the tacit support of the Liberal opposition.
The 2010 budget bill sailed through the House of Commons by a vote of 138-126 on...
It seems the foolish bank tax has been defeated. It also seems that HM PM Harper has controlled the agenda at the G8 This should be hailed as victories for the Tories but not according to the CBC. So there is no bias at the cbc? We really need to sell off this useless Crown corporation....
So weeks of not discussing the economy at all have the grits trusted by very few on the economy. I guess phiney non scandals don't work. It's the economy iffy....
Meanwhile, the Harper Conservative Party is the preferred party to “rein in the national debt”, according to the poll — 37 per cent compared to 24 per cent for the Liberals. Canadians also believe it is the best party to end the recession — 37 per cent compared to 19 per cent.
Mr. Harper, meanwhile, is leaving this afternoon for London where he will meet tomorrow with the new British Prime Minister David Cameron. The two men have met before but this is the first time they will meet with Mr. Cameron as the Prime Minister....
That's probably not a big surprise. I generally do on most issues. In this case he is quite right. Corporate welfare is bad, foreign aid has generally been an abysmal failure and funding cultural events is probably a bad idea. I do support giving aid in the form of massive tariff cuts. We should also get rid of supply management systems and agricultural subsidies.
Down with big government
If the Conservatives had held to this principle, Rahim Jaffer, abortion and the Gay Pride parade wouldn’t have become issues
Tom Flanagan
Globe and Mail
Rahim Jaffer, abortion, the Toronto Gay Pride parade – these three issues have recently involved the Conservative government in heated debate. There is a common thread to these seemingly unrelated issues. They all illustrate what happens to a...
about the economy. I agree with my friend Hugh MacIntyre. It really is the economy iffy. The grits continue on with their non scandals. They don't seem involved in economic issues. grit maccallum is eeirly quiet these days. I'm not sure he is very happy about grit moves to oppose corporate tax cuts (a dipper idea). Could it also be , that the economy is improving in Canada. Growth is up, jobs are being created in record numbers and the grit inspired deficit is falling faster than anyone thought. The grits were counting on the recession to give them a lift. That startegy has failed utterly.
John McCallum shoots economic blanks for Liberals
Bruce Anderson
Liberals looking to understand why their party has made no headway in the last year could do worse than to focus on why they seem to...
The speaker has ruled and has set things in motion for an election. HM Pm harper may make this am issue of confidence. I don't particularly want an election, but the Tories are ready,willing and able to fight an election on this issue. I doubt the opposition is ready, able or willing. iffy will back down.
The Speaker of the House of Commons has ruled that opposition members have the right to ask for uncensored Afghan detainee documents, and MPs must now decide how to view the records without jeopardizing national security.
It took Peter Milliken roughly 45 minutes to explain his historic decision, citing precedents that dated back more than a century.
He said the House has two weeks to create a system for viewing the sensitive detainee records....
I recently met the Tory candidate for Ajax Pickering. Chris Alexander was Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan. He has an amazing resume. He was educated at McGill, U of T, Laval and Oxford.He was on the varsity rowing team at McGill.
He is multi lingual speaking English, French, Russian, German and Farsi. He was one of Canada's Top forty under 40 in 2006.
He has extensive diplomatic experience at the United Nations, in Russia and of course Afghanistan.
He has extensive training in conflict resolution and leadership.
He has a huge list of awards and accomplishments. He is married to Hedvig Christine Alexander with a one year old daughter named Selma. Given all that I found him humble, easy to talk to and a great person. Our party is very lucky...
This article points out that the Tories are trying to be climate realists. It should also give my libertarian friends a chuckle. I am not at all unhappy about what this aticle says.
While the Constitution treats the environment as a shared responsibility, Conservatives want to rewrite the rules "so the federal government doesn't have a role at all," she says. That fits with Harper's "libertarian" notion that government is largely an impediment to peoples' lives, outside of providing a few basic services.
For evidence, she cites the recent budget, which announced that environmental reviews of major energy projects would now be undertaken by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission --both regarded as pro-industry -- rather than the Canadian Environmental...
Even more good economic news for Canada. The OECD predicts for robust growth indeed. Perhaps iffy should stop reading the newspapers. This appeared in the red star. None of this is good news for the hapless, rudderless grits.
Canada ‘enthusiastic rebound’ best in G7, OECD says
Julian Beltrame, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Canada’s economy is blowing its G7 peers out of the water in terms of the speed and strength of its economic recovery, says a new outlook from a leading international organization.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation says Canada’s economy likely grew 6.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year, well ahead of the 1.9 per cent overall growth estimated for the other G7 countries....
Strong economic growth has already shrank the deficit federally. Very good news. The deficit for 2009-2010 is 20% smaller than forecast. It is still a massive $40 billion dollars, but it is a good sign that it is already shrinking. We need bigger spending cuts to shrink it faster.
The surprising economic recovery last four months will allow the federal government to run a deficit lower than expected when the fiscal year ended March 31, The Press has learned.
According to some economists, the deficit could be 5 billion less than forecast by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's latest budget tabled on March 4. And in 2010-2011, Ottawa would record a deficit of 40 billion or 10 billion less than expected.
In his budget, the great financier of the country expected a deficit of 54 billion in...
I am a long time supporter of the Fraser Institute. I have great respect for their metrics. I am disappointed that HM Government has dismissed the Fraser's most recent analysis of the stimulus package. I am not a fan of deficit spending. The government should read the Fraser Institute's analysis and cut the deficit as rapidly as possible.
There are good things about the last few budgets including corporate tax cuts. iffy apparently wants to eliminate these cuts. So why didn't he support the dippers with their recent proposals .
It looks like republican donolo wants to restart merger talks with the dippers.
L
ast week on these pages we detailed the findings of our study, “Did Government Stimulus Fuel Economic Growth in Canada?” Based on the latest economic data from Statistics...
Angelo Perschillo thinks the grits are run by amateurs, including republican donolo. The ndp takeover of the grits is being encouraged by donolo. I guess donolo only looked like a winner, when the Tories were bitterly divided. republican donolo and iffy are forming new cracks in grit unity which may ideologically destroy the wishy washy centrist grits.
"Our party," a Liberal MP told me last week, "has been taken over by two former NDP premiers, Ujjal Dosanjh, with the Afghanistan issue, and now Bob Rae with abortion."
These sentiments are not new. Last month, Dan Donovan, publisher of Ottawa Life magazine, wrote: "Many lifelong Liberals, like me, are disgusted with Rae and Dosanjh and their antics. Their agenda is to do whatever they can to attack the Prime Minister and defence...
This article urges iffy to roll the dice. I guess the authour didn't realize the grits are having a "big ideas" event at the end of the month. That should further deplete their limited financial reserves. The " big ideas conference probably will be a bust. By all means iffy listen to the media and friendly pollsters. The Tories are ready ready , willing and able to defeat you.Did Michael Ignatieff miss an opportunity to display strong leadership and defeat the Conservative government?Quite likely, yes.It is true that the last time the Liberals tried to push an election, it proved controversial - though in large part because the Conservatives were able to control the political discourse. By passing up confidence votes, the federal Liberals risk being seen as abrogating their role as...
In a letter that appeared in the Montreal Gazette, 13 University Presidents were quite complimentary of the research, innovation and education measures in the recent budget. I am glad that HM Government supports researech and innovation, even in tough times.By way of example, in the midst of wide-ranging austerity measures, the budget promises new funds for basic research through the granting councils and renewed support for research infrastructure. Continued operating and capital support for basic research will help universities and research hospitals support and retain our top scholars and students, and draw talent from other jurisdictions. Some focused investments are also anticipated for talent development. Here, Budget 2010 includes funding to attract top post-doctoral trainees and...
It is my impression that Maxime Bernier's latest speeches are really Tory policy being enunciated. ( At least I always hope that is the case.) I am not alone in this thinking. Chantal Hebert also sees it this way. She thinks that the new budget will shrink the size and scope of government. That is music to the ears of many Tories. She also acknowledges that is really only the Tories who at this point are ready for an election.In his budget, Jim Flaherty did not use the words zero growth. But he froze the operating budget of every federal department and he forecast that the growth of direct program spending would not exceed 1.3 per cent, once his austerity regime is fully in place.More importantly, he put in place a formula he would be free to tweak should his economic forecasts turn out...
I think again, Maxime Bernier's pronouncements are close to government policy. If one wants to decarbonize( and I don't) nuclear power is a good idea. HM Government has not announced huge new spending on climate change. This should all be good news for climate realists.Hamilton: Federal green strategy goes from bad to worseEnergy and Technology ColumnistThud.You hear that sound? That’s the sound of nearly half a billion taxpayer dollars landing on the doorstep of Atomic Energy Canada Ltd.It includes the $300 million that showed up in the 2010 federal budget last week. That money will cover “anticipated commercial losses” and “continued development of the Advanced CANDU Reactor.” It will also help fund “safe and reliable operations at the Chalk River Laboratories.”...
That is apptrently the grand vision of the grits. I heard Don Martin on Cross Country Checkup yesterdsay and he said the grits will get for nasty, because there is not much else they can do. The Tories have pretty much neutered the grits. Some grit MP's can even tolerate an election only in 2012. iffy continues to disappoint many grits. I wonder what massive tax and spend policies the grit thinkers conference will recommend. Inpite of all this I do wish I could see more boldness from HM Government.Tories in control of own destiny, Liberals need scandal to trigger election: NanosLibs need a 'political smash and grab' to boost numbers and pull election trigger, says pollster Nik Nanos.By TIM NAUMETZFormer Liberal MP Jean Lapierre says his onetime colleagues in the House of Commons were...
The second relatively positive column in the red star. walkom like his friend siddiqui are notoriously anti Tory. Even he seems to admit that the economy is getting better and the grits have squandered their opportunities yet again. He does of course take the time to mention the non issues of prorogationand the Afghan detainees, but generally a positive article. h/t That story, sketched out in Wednesday's Throne Speech, is that the bad times are effectively over and that the country can now set its sights on a brighter future – one in which, under the leadership of a far-sighted Harper government, Canadians will be able to replicate the achievements of their Olympic athletes and create a brand new tomorrow. Just how the country gets to this tomorrow is left vague. There are the usual...
An environics poll has grit support at 37%, Tory support at 33% and the NDP at 14%. It is also interesting that most grit gains come at dipper expense. It is also intersting to not that Torie numbers are consistently well above 31% . Our base is pretty solid. Lets hope the grits become confidant and try and defeat the government. It will be interesting to watch and see if the dippers join this suicide pact. Enjoy the temporary lead grits....
While the grist and their allies make attempts at more non scandals. HM Pm harper and the tories will get things done. Juse wait for the Throne speech. Lots of things are going well for the Tories, including the Tory Fundraising Juggernaut. If the grits want to bring down the government let them try. I predict no election for at least a year.Notwithstanding a polling slump, presumably due to media-generated hysteria over Prime Minister Stephen Harper's parliamentary prorogue, he actually began February on a bit of a roll. Polls, like tides, rise and fall. I predict the grossly disproportionate nonsense over 22 fewer sitting days of Parliament will quickly dissipate come the Olympics and the March 3 throne speech.As widely predicted, the prime minister appointed five new Conservative...
JohnIvison says Tories to bet on 'free enterprise, free markets and free trade' I think that is an excellent idea and a very good bet. Canada's markets are far too closed. I would be happy to see dramatic drops in tariffs and foreign ownership regulations. Competition is good whether it is foreign or domestic. I look forward to the speech from the throne. The opposition will have to work hard as the Tories intend to sit many days to discuss and pass this ambitious agenda. And now that the senate is more reasonable, a lot more work is going to get done. Just watch us....
It has been 4 years since the Tories were first elected to power. I started blogging just before that election. I was very tired of grit arrogance and corruption. I was overjoyed to see HM PM Harper and the Tories defeat dithers and the grits. HM PM Harper has now been HMPM for four years. The grits just can't get over that they can't get back to the public trough so easily. There have been 3 leaders since dithers and no grit policy or vision. The grits and iffy will have to get used to it. I don't see an election coming anytime soon and soon the Tories will control the Senate. Congratulations, Best Wishes and Thank you to a team I admire, HM PM Harper, HM Minister of Defense Peter Mackay and the Tory team.It was supposed to be a brief interlude, a twelve to eighteen month minority...
Lefty thomas walkom of the red star is exasperated that the grits won't bring down the government . Iffy has already said he will not bring about another election. walkom seems to believe the real anger is over HM Pm harper not understanding he is in a minority situation and ruling like he has a majority. That's truly funny. Things would be so much better if the Tories had a majority. The reason HM Government is able to crry on its policies is an exceedingly weak opposition who is broke and rudderless. iffy will look even weaker when he has his circus Jan 25, when both Layton and duceppe don't show up and i am sure most of the protests will be pretty small. We will then have the spectacle of the grits supporting the throne speech and the budget. If they don't I assure the grits that...
Senator Housakos Flora Marlow Senator Seidman Senator CarignanCPC Party President John Walsh and CPC Vice president Kara JohnsonI attended the annual Tory Christmas/Holiday Party yesterday in Montreal. It was a great event. It was nice to see many friends like Rebecca Katz, Flora Marlow, Sylvie Boulianne Vincent Geloso, Matthew Conway , Andrew Swidzinski and a host of others. I did get a chance to talk to the new CPC President John Walsh, who flew in for the event. He wants to amke it easier for the grassroots of the party to be involved with national council and the policy making process. This was his first event since becoming president and we were very happy to welcome him to Montreal. Kara Johnson who was the interim president and is now vice president, was also their. It was...