Canada, and US on the same page?

[Bill Moore]

I guess Canada's election means that North America is about to be on the same page. The conservatives won a majority, and the elected left ran farther to the socialist side. Pretty much what happened last year here!
At least we'll have a place to buy oil for a while until we get one more election behind us.

[g-one]

OK, I'll bite. Thought Mark might comment on this, he may have something to add or refute what I have to say entirely!
"the elected left ran farther to the socialist side" implies the previous Liberal opposition was already socialist. Well, I guess it depends on your point of reference. Here they were considered in the center and the Conservatives a little right of center. People on the hard right in the US and Canada don't really consider the Conservatives more than a few millimeters right of center. Glenn Beck would probably call Stephen Harper a socialist. Like I said, it depends on your point of reference.
Mr. Harper has mentioned that he would like the Conservative party to become more mainstream (center) and that is about the only chance of long term success for the Conservatives. In my opinion what they really need for long term success is another party further to the right, as Canadians prefer to stay in the middle.
What really made an impact in the election was the implosion of the separatist party in Quebec. Most of their seats were lost to the NDP which is why they are the new opposition rather than the Liberals.
Elsewhere, there was a lot of vote splitting between the NDP (mild left) and the Liberals (center). This worked out very well for the Conservatives as they gained many seats with less votes than they had previously lost with. So much of the gains made by the Conservatives were due to the misfortunes of others.
Ironically, the new NDP opposition has less power than before, as the Conservatives now have a majority and don't really need to worry about the opposition any more.
The other irony is we still pay more for gas than you, around $4.75 per US gallon and rising.

[Bill Moore]

Things I've read indicate that you may now get rid of the crazy long gun registration scheme, "cap and tax" legislation, and maybe roll back some of the more onerous social programs.
How much is gasoline taxed in Canada? In europe I believe the pump price is mostly tax.

[g-one]

Yes, I believe there is a lot of tax on the fuel, but I'm not sure that accounts for all the price differential.
In order to reduce the deficit without tax increases (which I'm pretty sure were election promises) there will have to be big cuts, like you say, probably to social programs.
Not sure about what you mean "cap and tax", care to elaborate?
The long gun registry thing bugs me a bit, not that I'm hard for or against (and yes I have long guns for varmint control). What really irks me is the idea that the money spent to set it up is somehow going to come back. It's gone, deal with it. Constant harping about the "wasteful" gun registry. Yes it was a boondoggle way over budget and cost billions or whatever to implement. Now it's set up, being used, and no longer costing much to run. Tossing it out seems to me a waste of the money that was used to set it up. Like if someone built a palace of an office and the new order decided to tear it down because it was unnecessary. I have heard many MP's speak about the billion dollar registry and the waste of taxpayers money in a way that seems they are trying to lead the public into thinking they will recoup billions. Not so, the cost is now a few million a year maybe. There are many pros and cons about the registry, I don't want to have to register rifles but I can see some reasons it is a good idea. As far as the privacy issues, we all register our vehicles and no one complains about that.
End of rant. (for now http://music-electronics-forum.com/i...ilies/wink.png)

[Bill Moore]

I had read something like this somewhere.

The NDP platform:

We will put a price on carbon through a cap-and-trade system, which will establish hard emissions limits for Canada's biggest polluters to ensure companies pay their environmental bills and to create an incentive for emissions reductions;


We will work closely with the Obama administration in Washington to ensure a coordinated response to climate change, and we will seek at every opportunity to advance an integrated continental cap-and-trade system that ensures a level economic playing field for North American businesses.

Here in the NM, it is not necessary to register your vehicles, unless you are on a public roadway. Most of the ranchers here have a few trucks that they keep on their own property.

[Mark Hammer]

1) The share of the popular vote garnered by the Conservative Party was up only a little bit this time from the last election. So the majority of voters voted something other than Conservative. The splitting of the progressive vote among 3 and sometimes 4 parties resulted in the Conservatives taking a disproportionate number of seats, often with less than a majority of popular votes in the riding. As some commentators pointed out, the conservative voters had only one party to choose from and tend to be pretty confirmed in teir vote, where the non-conservative voter, often younger and less entrenched in their voting pattern, had a handful of ways to go. The Conservative strategists knew they had this in their favour and worked it. If you have respect for foxes that manage to get into the henhouse and sneak off with the eggs, then you have to have respect for the strategists. Personally, I find the brunt of them, regardless of party affiliation, beneath contempt.

2) It was a stupid stupid vote that was often vote-by-brand in many places. Both the Conservatives and LIberals lost a number of strong capable people to other parties. Our equivalent of secretary of state, one of the more competent people in the Conservative party, was displaced by a karate instructor. Virtually all contenders for the leadership of the Liberal party were wiped out. The big story here is that a young woman who was an assistant manager at the university pub was asked to put her name on the ballot for a riding about 3-1/2 hrs from here, and figured "what the hell". The riding is predominantly French and she doesn't speak the language, and had never visited the place. Moreover, she had booked a nonrefundable trip to Vegas when the election was called, so she was out of country for a chunk of the 5-week election campaign, and never made an appearance there. And she got elected. Four other university students, including a 19-year-old who had just started university, were also elected in Quebec.

3) I was flipping through The Hill Times this morning (our political affairs newspaper, available online at The Hill Times - Canada's Politics and Government Newsweekly ), and noted that a number of the new Conservative faces are essentially small businessmen and women, where a number of those elected in the NDP camp worked in the public sector in some capacity.

4) The gun registry was, and remains, an excellent, if initially mismanaged, idea. But its strongest proponents were always in Quebec, where the shooting massacre of 14 young women in 1989, and several other high-profile shooting rampages by noncriminals (including one involving a shooting within the provinicial legislature), have created a strong gun-control lobby, despite having a lot of people there who make their living by hunting or have the usual rural reasons for gun ownership. The Conservatives have their strongest base in now in the west, where one finds the "usual rural reasons for gun ownership" but none of the urban experience with shootings Quebec has, and in the greater Toronto area, where they have the experience with shootings, but none of the rural reasons for gun ownership. The NDP has a strong base outside Quebec (including the north, where people have the "rural reasons"), but a very strong base within Quebec, now.
So, the Conservatives will likely try and nix the gun registry, against the protestations of the national Police Chiefs association and Quebec, but because they want to put their stamp on things (though dollar for dollar, the registry delivers more public value than the G8/G20 talks did, or the Olympics, or the planned stealth fighter purchase, or the planned tough-on-crime legislation). The NDP often allow free votes among members, but may have to whip the party into a solidarity vote. It will be interesting to see what choice they make. I don't hold out much hope for the registry. The spin-masters will be able to successfully distract the populace from the spending fiascos the Conservatives have carried out, and get the public to confuse how much it cost to get the registry up and running, with the value for dollar it currently provides.

The chickens will eventually come home to roost with respect to the Conservative "tough-on-crime" agenda, which seems to be more "angry-on-crime" than "effective-on-crime" (which, incidentally has been on a steady decline in spite of everything the Conservatives try to get people irritated about).

5) A recent report covering the past 25 years or so (straddling multiple governments) notes that the reduction of business taxes the Conservatives are so anxious to introduce have had pretty much zero impact on employment or the general welfare of the populace. very little of the extra revenue acquired by business from reduced taxes translates into investment in the very country they derive their wealth from. It certainly makes those businesses more profitable, to be sure, but that profit doesn't automatically turn into more jobs for people. Besides, our corporate tax rate is already among the lowest internationally.

6) Much like your own Republicans, Bill, our Conservatives have a strong belief that the solutions lie in the private sector, and also find themselves spending an inordinate amount of money on things while at the same time repeating the mantra of lowering taxes. It's pathetic how cheaply so many citizens can be bought. It's ironic how anti-Maslowian ( Maslow's hierarchy of needs - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) things have turned out. You would think that the hierarchy of motives would suggest people become more concerned with the ethical when their basic needs are met. But it has turned out that acquiring wealth simply makes people more distracted by it. The middle class simply wanted more stuff, and hollow assurances that they get to keep their stuff, not a better more ethical country. That was the Liberals' mistake.

7) The NDP has historically had the freedom to be a little more left of center than the Liberals, if only because they accepted that they would never become the official Opposition, let alone the government. It's like the difference between a 25 year-old with a job, who knows he has to get up for work tomorrow, and the same-aged person who is unemployed and figures there is no reason NOT to stay up half the night watching Youtube. Now, as the official Opposition, and having won a lot of seats in a province that still harbours a lot of fiscally conservative leanings (despite often being socially progressive), they will have to be a lot more common-sense about things.

8) The implosion of the Bloc Québecois is an interesting phenomenon. The BQ were formed from a rib of Brian Mulroney's Reagan-era Conservative government, with its first leader a cabinet minister inthe Mulroney cabinet. They were a bizarre mélange of Quebec's tendencies towards fiscal conservatism and social progressive tendencies. Despite having avowed separatist objectives, many people voted for them because the BQ depicted themselves as being in Ottawa to "defend Quebec interests". So voting for them was a vote "for" Quebec, whether one was a separatist (souveraintiste) or not. After nearly 25 years, though, they hadn't really delivered very much that anyone else couldn't have delivered for the province, and people began to ask themselves "Well why do we need THOSE guys in particular?". The NDP ran a smart campaign there, emphasizing that Québecois "had a choice". The people were not going to vote Conservative (whose social agenda they had little patience for), and while they might agree with the Liberals on policy and fiscal matters, they still had a bitter taste in their mouths from the "sponsorship scandal" ( Sponsorship scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ). So, they voted NDP, often without any thought about the actual candidate (see #2 above). It was also the case that the NDP leader made a vital appearance on "Tout le monde en parle" early in the campaign, and made a huge impression. This is a weekly Quebec talk show that, partly because of the participants, and partly because it is on Sunday nights, has a huge following and a huge social impact. It is pretty much what half the province is talking about on Monday morning. The Liberal leader also made an appearance, and a good impression, on the show several weeks later, but by that point he was like Texas Instruments entering the home computer market several years after the Apple IIe had captured a huge share. People would go "Impressive specs, but I have a computer already, thanks."

[Bill Moore]

Mark, I guess you're guys didn't win!
Thought you're country was becoming more aware like ours! The middle, (T.E.A. Party included), here knows we can't continue the last 2 years of spending, and voted to balance the check book.
Our left had the usual excuses, not enough young folks, or blacks, or illegals voted to win. In some places, they spent unbelievable amounts of money, (Think Harry Reid's district), and barely pulled it off. Our new republican secretary of state here in NM, found 320 votes from illegals in a days search!
Can't see how putting your grandpaw's name on a list will keep the crooks from getting all the guns the want! A lot of appointed LE people here also support gun controls, (more laws to enforce, more people on the payroll=more money for them), the added bonus is people who are legally unable to protect themselves will be crying for more cops. I know, and shoot with a lot of LE types, (and have had several in my family), no one thinks being unarmed will make you safer.
My next hope is that Mexico will let entrepreneurs buy a majority interest in mexican assets, which will launch them into a great employment boom. Then the people can stay home and make a decent living. They may even create a social system that will entice an exodus from the US! Then of course the whole of North America can ignore the rest of the world, and live with trade between ourselves.