Also, this seems to make a good open thread for discussing Canadian politics and strategy.
Gable:
James Travers points out how vote splitting is naturally incorporated into party strategy and how it can cause incredibly random and undesired results (like a Harper majority).
Every party is counting on the splits to help them somewhere, somehow. Conservatives, after squandering their Quebec edge, have the most to gain where it still matters most, Ontario and B.C. With a solid base and sophisticated database they are best positioned to take maximum advantage of minimal shifts, notably in Ontario's 905 and 519 area code ridings.
Where Conservatives are poised to be opportunists, Liberals are vulnerable. Stéphane Dion's much improved performance this week, including a confident speech to the joint Empire and Canadian clubs in Toronto yesterday, helps re-establish Liberals as the Conservative alternative and protect against NDP and Green vote poaching. It doesn't fix a strategy that isn't effectively focusing on ridings where the splits will be decisive.
That tilts the election toward Conservatives and is a critical error in a campaign where so few ballots can mean so much. If an 11th hour blitz scatters the vote to his party's political left, if Harper can bring himself to connect emotionally with deeply worried Canadians, Conservatives will regain some grip on a victory now slipping away.
Hicks on Six does a good job at explaining the credit crisis in a clear manner.
What's the difference between a stockbroker and a pigeon?
A pigeon can still leave a deposit on a Porsche.
Tom Brodbeck seems to fail to realize that giving a party $1.25 per vote is not a "tax" but rather a way of supporting the party you vote for, regardless if they get elected or not. By his standards, Manitobans are paying a undemocratic "MP tax" for parliamentary members they didn't directly elect (They pay a lot more in MP salaries than by this new $1.25/vote plan). Either his math is pretty messed up or Manitoba is in a worse state than I think when he says that $1.25 per vote will somehow prevent families from putting food on their table. [Ed note: $1.25 means a maximum of $1.25 per person who can vote in the province every election (ie. four or five years).]
Haroon Siddiqui: Democracy and transparency is finally catching up to Harper as Canadians see what he is really like.
Harper is in trouble in hard-hit Ontario, which is losing manufacturing jobs and $20 billion a year in money transfers from Ottawa. But he doesn't seem to care. Worse, his finance minister, Jim Flaherty – ironically, an Ontarian – has been badmouthing the province as a bad place to invest.
Besides having a tin ear, Harper has cornered himself politically. Having said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong, Harper cannot now say they are not. He is right to argue that our economy is sounder than America's. But it is not recession-proof, as he implies.
Andrew Weaver and 123 climate scientists agree: "Vote for the environment"
We are at a critical juncture in Canadian history. The 14th United Nations Conference of Parties to the Climate Change Convention will be held in December in Poland and COP15 will follow next December in Copenhagen. It is at this latter meeting that a post-Kyoto global warming treaty will be proposed. It is critical that Canada play a constructive role in negotiations leading up to this event.
In the last two years, Canada has obstructed international efforts to develop policies to deal with global warming. At the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Uganda, Canada scuttled attempts aimed at getting consensus on a strongly worded commitment to greenhouse gas reduction.
Neil Waugh: The Alberta Treasury Branch was caught recently with $1.1 billion of junk investments, and the executives were forced to write down $253 million, and yet...
The day began when fictitious ATB employee Kirsten from Killarney was the justification given for ATB Financial CEO Dave Mowatt pocketing $1.6 million last year - a stunning $1.2 million in perks called "variation pay and post-employment benefits" - on top of his already sweet $406,000 base salary.
You've gotta love those golden parachutes.
Bob Hepburn: We have too many parties that I don't support, they clearly are going to take votes away from the party I do support, so I say they should just go away and everyone should just vote for my party. [Ed Note: apparently he hasn't learned about voteforenvironment.ca , someone should drop him a note]
Paula Simons has a great article about Harper's complete lack of respect for our charter and country.
For a fellow who likes to portray himself as a law-and-order candidate, Stephen Harper shows a remarkable disdain for the law that orders our Confederation -- that pesky Constitution.
Last month, Harper attacked Alberta's jurisdiction to control its natural resources, with his plan to ban raw bitumen from Alberta's oilsands to countries that don't conform to Canada's greenhouse gas emission standards. This week, when the Conservative leader unveiled his party's platform, he went even further, and suggested his government would also ban exports to countries with lower pollution standards in general.
...
Tuesday, Harper also pledged reforms to create an elected Senate. If Parliament didn't pass such reforms, Harper vowed, he would abolish the Senate.
That's quite the threat. ... But whatever our impatience with the current Senate, a bicameral Parliament is a fundamental part of Canada's history and democratic structure.
The Senate isn't just there to be a retirement home for senior politicians. Nor is it only there to provide "sober second thought." The Senate is also there to protect regional interests, to provide smaller provinces with a way to make sure the big provinces of Central Canada can't control the national agenda. What Alberta needs to protect its interests isn't fewer senators -- it's more of them.
More to the point, no PM can unilaterally ice the upper house.
Jeffrey Simpson believes we are heading into a phase change in Canadian democracy where coalitions and minorities will become the politics of the day and authoritarian majorities are history.
Don Martin: Harper desperately drags his own mother into the fray to try to stop the Conservative support from hemorrhaging any further.
The Prime Minister admits it's unusual for him to drag a family member into the ugly political fray, but bizarre times call for desperate measures as the party tumbles dangerously into the low 30s in percentage of voter support.
"We're getting this criticism that somehow I don't understand the stock market or understand what people are feeling about the stock market," he told reporters. "I use my mother as an obvious example because she is the person closest to me most worried about the stock market these days. Believe me, I get quicker updates from her on the stock market than from the Department of Finance."
He might also want her advice on closing a campaign that has turtled.
Naheed Nenshi: If you want to know why a majority of Canadians don't vote Conservative, just look at Stephen Harper.
I suggest, while people might trust Harper as a leader, they don't trust him as a person. Or maybe they just don't like him. The problem here, I submit, is one of his own making -- he has been incredibly calculating, and Canadians have seen that.