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Canada13389 Posts
"We are the only party committed to "rai --- uh lowering tax" 3 mins in.
Awesome.
"household debt is skyrobbeting"
I love when they mis speak its hilarious lol.
also - mulcair has an odd smile.
Awkward zoooooooms
Elizabeth May's strategy seems to be: support mulcair with my experience to tear down his opponents more than him. Maybe siphon some super left environmental leaning people out of ndp?
Conservative Party Line: We have no deficit. I guess all you need to describe about the economy is the fact that the federal coffers are claimed to be balanced.
Wait, breaking news we are in a budget surplus now. Wow.
They guy running this debate is terrible. No spine. Leaving them to talk over eachother over and over and over :/
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Canada11355 Posts
This closing statement from justin is some appeal to emotion shit
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Elizabeth May was the most appealing candidate to me in this debate.
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On August 07 2015 12:37 GGQ wrote:
Elizabeth May was the most appealing candidate to me in this debate.
When you'll never be elected, you've got nothing to lose by calling everyone else out.
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On August 07 2015 13:18 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2015 12:37 GGQ wrote:
Elizabeth May was the most appealing candidate to me in this debate. When you'll never be elected, you've got nothing to lose by calling everyone else out.
Yes, it occurred to me that the smallness or perhaps the 'niche-ness' of her party allowed her to be more clear, consistent and straightforward. But she was also on point with her facts and statistics.
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On August 07 2015 13:18 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2015 12:37 GGQ wrote:
Elizabeth May was the most appealing candidate to me in this debate. When you'll never be elected, you've got nothing to lose by calling everyone else out.
That was my thought, and why I think she did so well. She's not gonna win anyway so might as well do the damage she can to the Conservatives. She certainly did well at that. It's a shame she likely won't be in many more debates.
Also, seeing them all gang up on Harper a few times was interesting. Trudeau and Mulcair did criticize each other's platforms and so on, as was expected, but it seemed like Hearing Trudeau defend all of the parties against Harper's claim that they all want to remove senior income splitting was neat. When I saw that my first thought was "did he just defend the NDP?" and then seeing the clip again, he totally did.
I did appreciate them calling out Harper on cherry picking his data and weird claims about everyone else.
Overall, I honestly think May did the best job. She called out the others at opportune times, and did her best to keep the pressure on. Mulcair did okay, but that was to be expected. He's had 4 years as the leader of the Opposition and has plenty of practice against all of the typical Conservative fact twisting and spin. Trudeau did better than I thought he would. Harper was frustrating to watch as always as most of his points didn't seem grounded in reality, but given the massive amounts of weirdness, spin, and fake issues coming out of the Conservatives lately (the Netflix tax thing is especially puzzling given none of the other parties has said a thing about anything related to that. But then again manufacturing issues to distract people from real issues is a common Conservative tactic), that was to be expected.
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Canada13389 Posts
I think Mulcair did far better in the second half then the first. When he began to forgot what his handlers told him to do.
I'm gonna be honest, he was downright creepy in the first 20 minutes with the way he was smiling.
Trudeau seemed like he was actually the most comfortable speaker - when he was asked directly a question. That statesman like speaking is definitely something he got from his dad. However the moment he tried to interject he was a little too aggressive compared to the rest of the candidates.
Harper was surprisingly underperforming. For someone who has been the PM for so long the fact he actually got dragged in once or twice to speak over others you could tell he was starting to fall apart. Not to mention the gaff about the senate. He outright said that he doesnt NEED to elect more senators (speaking to the fact that senators in the conservatives party are asked to tow the party line) precisely BECAUSE he has a majority in the house. Which IMO was a huge sign of weakness from the otherwise ironclad conservative camp.
May was great. I won't vote for her party, not in my riding, but she did really well. You can see how her strategy is less about growing her own part this election than it is about simply trying to prevent another Harper majority and government at all. She defended the NDP far more than the liberals, so you can see how little confidence she has in Trudeau's camp in the long run. However the attempts at fighting harper were definitely where she was shining. And I think as the debate went on her boldness began to put mulcair at rest - his pitbull-like HoC persona was being used by May taking some of the edge off Mulcair to use a more concilliatory tone.
I think Mulcair's message is well crafted and might do him very very well as time goes on. Whereas the conservatives are running on the history of their platform and trying to say "stay the course, economy is steady, don't rock the boat" and the liberals are all about "change - change from what we have now" the NDP have a more interesting position. It is change - but not necessarily a change in policies so much as a change in thinking.
Over and over Mulcair was saying things about taking things on balance. Look at everything - make an informed decision with the goal of helping as many canadians as possible with those decisions. I think the position that NDP wants to work closely with as many provinces as possible is solid messaging as well - in direct opposition to Harper's insults thrown at Ontario and Alberta this week as well. I think he's subtly going after the muzzling of scientists and the shift away from informed decision making and letting discussion and info drive policy as opposed to pure politics in the harper gov too.
Now how much of this is talk i dont know, but it is I think the defining message that mulcair seems to be trying to push which the other leaders aren't. And while it might not be sexy as a core position I think that if the other parties focus too hard on promising political policies, if it gets messaged well NDP will actually take a lot of centrist undecided votes. I mean a centrist undecided person is exactly the kind of person who wants to wait, get info, and then make a decision based on whatever info is available to them.
Then again, it feels like the NDP are ignoring the liberals. I am not sure how well that will work out for them but its still early days in the election period as well and maybe the goal is just to engage the cons as much as possible when they do make themselves available.
The hardest thing for the NDP is to not bled votes to the liberals and the liberals as a more centrist party traditionally may need to pull votes from both sides. But its funny, to me it feels like the liberals are slowly becoming the new NDP. Not just in size, but in terms of their policies it feels like they are starting to lean more left than the NDP was before and the NDP is reaching into the centrist space a bit more. Then again this may be a side effect of my perception that the NDP wants to focus on balanced informed decision making over time rather than your more traditional party policy platforms that get pushed over and over as speaking points.
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With the latest elections in the UK, the first-past-the-post electoral system is making me increasingly nervous with all these left leaning parties splitting the vote. Really wish we'd get around to fixing that BS.
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Still not sure what Harper is hoping to accomplish by attacking the Alberta provincial NDP. So far his attacks have failed (the response from the Alberta government's finance minister regarding the most recent attack was particularly brutal) and it appears that they aren't going to fall for his crap. All it's doing is making the Conservatives look juvenile. Well, more juvenile than they already look with all their petty attacks.
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This will be the first Federal election that I'll be voting in, and I'm leaning heavily toward the NDP (I always have). I don't want to get sucked into the trap of voting for the party that has the most emotional appeal to me thought. Does anyone know of any good sites that present all the party positions, and their past performance and behavior well and without bias? I skim CBC politics and they have good information, wondering if there's anywhere else.
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On August 14 2015 04:59 Ben... wrote:
Still not sure what Harper is hoping to accomplish by attacking the Alberta provincial NDP. So far his attacks have failed (the response from the Alberta government's finance minister regarding the most recent attack was particularly brutal) and it appears that they aren't going to fall for his crap. All it's doing is making the Conservatives look juvenile. Well, more juvenile than they already look with all their petty attacks.
Well, what do you want them to do besides attack their opponent's policies? Talk about how they crashed the economy by going all-in on oil? Talk about how they're pushing ineffective, rights-destroying "anti-terrorism" policies? Or about the corrupt senate?
Honestly, the entire Conservative campaign this year is going to be "Be scared of terrorism, we care about families", while preaching to the echo chamber that is their established voter base. Hopefully not enough people fall for it, and they've galvanized enough people that we can get a government that will repeal useless policies like c-51.
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On August 14 2015 12:31 goiflin wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 04:59 Ben... wrote:
Still not sure what Harper is hoping to accomplish by attacking the Alberta provincial NDP. So far his attacks have failed (the response from the Alberta government's finance minister regarding the most recent attack was particularly brutal) and it appears that they aren't going to fall for his crap. All it's doing is making the Conservatives look juvenile. Well, more juvenile than they already look with all their petty attacks. Well, what do you want them to do besides attack their opponent's policies? Talk about how they crashed the economy by going all-in on oil? Talk about how they're pushing ineffective, rights-destroying "anti-terrorism" policies? Or about the corrupt senate? Honestly, the entire Conservative campaign this year is going to be "Be scared of terrorism, we care about families", while preaching to the echo chamber that is their established voter base. Hopefully not enough people fall for it, and they've galvanized enough people that we can get a government that will repeal useless policies like c-51.
They aren't even attacking their opponents, though. Alberta's NDP is not running in the Federal election.
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On August 14 2015 15:36 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 12:31 goiflin wrote:On August 14 2015 04:59 Ben... wrote:
Still not sure what Harper is hoping to accomplish by attacking the Alberta provincial NDP. So far his attacks have failed (the response from the Alberta government's finance minister regarding the most recent attack was particularly brutal) and it appears that they aren't going to fall for his crap. All it's doing is making the Conservatives look juvenile. Well, more juvenile than they already look with all their petty attacks. Well, what do you want them to do besides attack their opponent's policies? Talk about how they crashed the economy by going all-in on oil? Talk about how they're pushing ineffective, rights-destroying "anti-terrorism" policies? Or about the corrupt senate? Honestly, the entire Conservative campaign this year is going to be "Be scared of terrorism, we care about families", while preaching to the echo chamber that is their established voter base. Hopefully not enough people fall for it, and they've galvanized enough people that we can get a government that will repeal useless policies like c-51. They aren't even attacking their opponents, though. Alberta's NDP is not running in the Federal election.
I know, which makes it even funnier. The poor android that is Harper must have malfunctioned after the debate. They should get him reformatted. Not that it'll change their shitty policies or anything.
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On August 14 2015 15:36 WolfintheSheep wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2015 12:31 goiflin wrote:On August 14 2015 04:59 Ben... wrote:
Still not sure what Harper is hoping to accomplish by attacking the Alberta provincial NDP. So far his attacks have failed (the response from the Alberta government's finance minister regarding the most recent attack was particularly brutal) and it appears that they aren't going to fall for his crap. All it's doing is making the Conservatives look juvenile. Well, more juvenile than they already look with all their petty attacks. Well, what do you want them to do besides attack their opponent's policies? Talk about how they crashed the economy by going all-in on oil? Talk about how they're pushing ineffective, rights-destroying "anti-terrorism" policies? Or about the corrupt senate? Honestly, the entire Conservative campaign this year is going to be "Be scared of terrorism, we care about families", while preaching to the echo chamber that is their established voter base. Hopefully not enough people fall for it, and they've galvanized enough people that we can get a government that will repeal useless policies like c-51. They aren't even attacking their opponents, though. Alberta's NDP is not running in the Federal election.
This was more what I was getting at. They're picking an unnecessary fight that could easily backfire on them (which would be fine with me of course). He can hardly attack Alberta's NDP on their record when they've only been in office for a few months and doubly so when they have tons of ammo on the Conservatives if they want to argue about economic records (the current Alberta NDP finance minister's statement discussed both the failings of the federal Conservatives and of the PCs in Alberta). It just doesn't seem like a fight worth fighting. The only thing I can see it accomplishing is distracting people from the federal NDP and hoping people are ignorant enough to not know the difference between provincial NDPs and the federal NDP. But even then it still makes no sense.
Though it seems at this point, that the Conservatives are willing to do anything to distract people from the fact that the economy they keep bragging about is not doing so hot, and hasn't done so hot since they came into power, and that their balanced budget (which was basically impossible to actually keep balanced from the start since it was based on overly optimistic growth rates) is no longer going to be balanced. That's not even considering their environmental record or their ice cold relationship with veterans. Perhaps they're picking a bunch of weird fights in hopes of drowning out other headlines in the media.
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the Conservatives attack ads against Justin Trudeau are just pushing me harder towards possibly voting NDP. 
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On August 15 2015 14:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote:the Conservatives attack ads against Justin Trudeau are just pushing me harder towards possibly voting NDP.
I almost want to vote Liberals just so I can say I voted for Trudeau because he has nice hair.
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This editorial in the Guardian does a fantastic job of discussing the damage Harper has done. It somehow hits the nail on the head better than most I've read. I quite enjoyed it. It's mostly about how Canada has lost its identity among the countries of the world and how we used to be known for many things but are not anymore because of Harper.
www.theguardian.com
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Canada11369 Posts
Kind of interesting. Stephen Harper held a rally down my road. And protesters gathered at the end of the road, next to my house so I went out to talk with them before running off to play my final soccer game. Never ever thought I would the PM would come down our little country road- we're not even incorporated into a village.
But I guess it rather makes sense- the Conservatives are very likely to be shedding ridings everywhere, and our riding (or the two newly drawn ridings), ever since I started voting in 2004 has been won or lost by a few hundred votes. They are needing to shore up support in BC, where it is very likely to swing NDP.
It was really hush, hush though. I guess they got word out to certain party faithful, but it was hard to know when or where he was visiting until the day of, and by then it's too late as it is by, I guess, invite only.
Edit
I also thought this was a pretty funny tongue in cheek article by Andrew Coyne regarding the ongoing Mike Duffy trial.
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/andrew-coyne-oh-harper-forgive-us-we-misjudged-you-over-the-duffy-affair
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Disclaimer: American living in Canada. Mostly ignorant of Canadian politics except I've learned to hate everything that comes out of Quebec.
When you buy a house, you are incurring a large debt for the benefit of a house and (to some degree) the promise of greater wealth in the future as a result of your house becoming more valuable faster than inflation. And nobody would call you irresponsible for a buying a house - they might say you're irresponsible for buying a specific house that is a bad investment, but there's nothing wrong in general with buying houses.
But when a government incurs debt to invest in its country's economy, they're apparently irresponsible.
The reality of the situation is that it's often foolish to not run at a deficit in periods of low interest rates. Additionally, if the government is trying to stimulate the economy, it is generally recommended that it operate at a deficit to do so - since the return expected later is significantly larger than the cost incurred now.
It's probably not Harper's fault that the energy sector exploded. Believe it or not, it wasn't a Canadian event, it was a worldwide issue. Was it foolish to all-in on Canada's energy sector? Yeah, it was. World leaders everywhere in every kind of society tend to over-invest in their country's strengths. "Our economy's 60% oil, it seems wrong somehow to short oil or to hedge against an oil crash." This logic is pervasive, and only the extremely rare economics-literate leader does anything different. If you own stock in the company you work for, you are guilty of the same fault. Expecting the Liberals or NDP would have behaved differently is foolishness or naivety.
An easily overlooked point is that Canada's economy is not in an awful state because of government investment in the energy sector. Canada's economy is almost 100% comprised of Finance + Energy + Minerals. If one of those has a downturn in the global economy, Canada is going to suffer. The negative side of the government's investment in the energy sector is that it was a bad investment - i.e. little or no positive returns will come out of it - and that any negative impact will be slightly worse. Investing in something does not cause it to fail.
I hate that I'm defending Harper on these points because I find strong disagreement with the PC in general. But it is ignorant and irresponsible to blame Harper for things he has no control over and/or that no one would have done differently given the same information. There are plenty of things to criticize Harper and the PC for, we don't have to go around saying that he personally held a gun up against a senator's head and told him to steal money and use it to buy baby-skin Bibles.
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EPT
