So, what other things you have been saying during the campaign that have now proven to be untrue? Or, in other words, what other things has Mr Harper said during the campaign, that you said were lies, turn out to be true?

Yes, Dion held his L O N G awaited press conference yesterday, after HIDING OUT for nearly a week. Saying he’ll step down, but stay on for now (?). He blames everything on himself, but mostly on a number of other things (is that possible? It’s like a shirt is 100% cotton, AND some wool h/t Seinfeld), such as:

1. The Conservatives’ giant war chest
2. The Liberals’ small war purse
3. The Conservatives painted a bad image of him he could not shake
4. The Conservatives said his Green Shift plan was a “Tax”, neglecting to mention the matching income tax cuts.

So, for #1 and #2, you have no-one to blame but yourself: you are the leader of the party and as such in charge of bringing in the donations. Just because others are better at fund raising doesn’t mean they were the cause of your demise; #3: Harper=Bush, Soldiers in our Streets, Harper is a Liar, Harper lives in a ‘bubble’, Harper is dishonest. ‘Nuff said. #4. Sorry, but it isn’t the Conservatives interest to sell YOUR plan to YOUR voters. I think everybody in Canada knows that. Everybody, except one, apparently.

In all of this, past year not showing up for votes in the House, and this election disaster, Mr. Dion still hasn’t stepped past his Parisian snootiness. It’s my fault, but really, it’s those meanies across the isle! He claims to be stepping down for the good of the party, but in the same breath he says he’ll stay on for another 8 months, no doubt to collect his hefty MP salary to be able to pay off his own personal debt.

Well, well. Mr. “I am not a quitter” Quits. Who’s the liar now, Mr. Snooty?

Let’s face it: Harper did not get a majority due to the following facts:

1. The boneheads in Newfoundland who voted for equalization handouts even though they are a “have province” now. They would rather risk a carbon tax on their precious oil than to finally take their place in confederation and pay towards this country.
2. The idiots in Quebec who vote for the Bloc and thus for separation. In particular the idiots in Gatineau who mostly work for the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and would surely lose their jobs should their party of choice succeed in its goal and separate.
3. The idiots in downtown Toronto; How ANYBODY in Ontario can vote for Bob Rae, I will never understand. Another vote for hand-outs. Lovely.
4. 59% turnout. It’s a shame.

And there you have it. Last night’s election results.

All over the world and throughout history, people have fought for the right to have a vote. In many countries people brave hunger, illness, penalties, torture or even death by force, sometimes walking for miles and miles to stand in line for hours and hours to have their say. In this country, we are very fortunate to have none of that, thanks to people who fought for these rights in our past, and are fighting for them right now. Voting in this country means at most a 10 minute drive in the comfort of our cars, or going down to the lobby of our own apartment buildings.

My daughter, I am very proud of her, is twenty years old. This is her first election. She is currently out of the country, trekking through Nepal. She was smart and involved enough to request her ballot from Elections Canada and send it in before she left. She’s 8000 miles away, on the roof of the world, and she voted.

There is no excuse not to vote. On October 14th, go out and vote.

This is the first election I’ve heard the opposition parties say: If the Conservatives win a strong minority or a slight majority that means they got 40% of the vote which means 60% of Canada did NOT vote for them. 60% of Canadians DO NOT WANT them. That means 60% of Canada voted for US and so we should govern.

So I did some research into past elections and, applying the above ‘rule’, where you don’t have the Canadian people’s blessing to govern if you don’t get more than 50% of the vote, the history of our country would have been quite different:

• 1867: Conservative won with 50%, Macdonald can stay.
• 1872  Conservative won with 49.9%. Macdonald thrown out. Liberals and Other govern. (Blake PM)
• 1874: Liberals won with 53.8%. Mackenzie can stay.
• 1882: Conservative win with 53.4%. Macdonald can stay.
• 1887: Conservative win with 50.7%: Macdonald can stay.
• 1891: Conservative win with 52%. Macdonald can stay.
• 1896: Liberals win with 45.1%. Laurier thrown out. Conservative & Order govern (Charles Tupper PM)
• 1900: Liberal win with 52%. Laurier can stay.
• 1904: Liberals win with 52.5%. Laurier can stay.
• 1908: Liberals win with 50.6%. Laurier can stay.
• 1911: Conservatives win with 51.2%. Borden can stay.
• 1917: Conservatives win with 57%. Borden can stay.
• 1921: Liberals win with 40.7%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Other and Conservatives govern. (Arthur Meighen PM)
• 1926: Liberals win with 43.6%. Mackenzie King rown out. Conservatives & Other govern. (Arthur Meighen PM)
• 1930 Conservatives win with 49%. Bennett thrown out. Liberal & Other govern. (Mackenzie King PM)
• 1935 Liberals win with 44.4%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Conservative, Social Credit & Other govern.
• 1945: Liberals win with: 41.4%. Mackenzie King thrown out. Progressive Conservatives, CCF, Social Credit & Other govern. (John Bracken PM)
• 1949: Liberals win with 50.1%. St-Laurent can stay.
• 1953: Liberals win with 50%. St-Laurent can stay.
• 1957: Progressive Conservatives win with 39%. Diefenbaker thrown out. Liberals, CCF, Social Credit & Other govern. (St-Laurent PM)
• 1958: Progressive Conservatives win with 53.7%. Diefenbaker can stay.
• 1962: Progressive Conservatives win with 37.3%. Diefenbaker thrown out. Liberals, Social Credit, NDP & Other govern.
• 1963: Liberals win with 41.7%. Pearson thrown out. PC, Social Credit, NDP & Other govern. (Diefenbaker PM)
• 1972: Liberals win with 38.5%. Trudeau thrown out.PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Stanfields PM)
• 1974: Liberals win with 43.2%. Trudeau thrown out.PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Stanfields PM)
• 1979: PC win with 35.9%. Joe Clark thrown out. Liberal, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Trudeau PM)
• 1980: Liberals win with 44.3%. Trudeau thrown out. PC, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Joe Clark PM)
• 1984: PC win with 50%. Mulroney can stay.
• 1988: PC win with 43%. Mulroney thrown out. Liberals, NDP, SC & Other govern. (Turner PM)
• 1993: Liberals win with 41.3%. Chretien thrown out. Bloc, Reform, NDP, PC & Other govern. (Lucien Bouchard PM!!)
• 1997: Liberals win with 38.5%. Chretien Thrown out. Reform, Bloc, NDP,PC & Other govern. (Manning PM)
• 2000: Liberals win with 40.8%. Chretien Thrown out. Canadian Alliance, Bloc,NDP, PC & Other govern. (Stockwell Day PM)
• 2004: Liberals win with 36.7%. Martin thrown out. Conservatives, Bloc, NDP, Green & Other govern. (Stockwell Day Harper PM)
• 2006: Conservatives win with <50%. Harper thrown out. Liberals, NDP, Bloc & Green govern. Dion Martin PM.

So, to recap, with this new ‘rule’ we’d have had: No Jean Chretien (+), A BQ as PM (-), No Paul Martin (+), No Free-Trade (-), One term of Trudeau (+), Right Government for past 15 yars (+)

Hmm… more pluses than minuses. Maybe they’re onto something here…

Jack Layton sent me another email (calling me his friend, I’m so lucky) containing the following quote:

Every vote for a New Democrat elects a New Democrat MP and stops Harper. And every vote for a New Democrat will spark the change that’ll move Canada forward.

“Every vote for a New Democrat elects a New Democrat MP”?!? I hope Jack Layton is running 6.4 million candidates, if he gets 20% of the vote, he’ll need them!

The Liberals have thought themselves up a new slogan:

Always there for you.

This reminds me of the old Seinfeld show:

JERRY: Good question. (More to himself than to Elaine) Why are we calling?

ELAINE: Oh! I’ve got it! I’ve got it! We’re calling just to say, “I’m there for you.”

JERRY: (Nodding, trying it out) “I’m there for you.”

ELAINE: Then, after a period of being “there for you”, we slowly remove the two words “for you”, and we’re just (Makes a “ta-da!” gesture) “there”.

Yes, the Ottawa Citizen endorses Harper . Not because he’s such a great guy with a great party, but they feel we need to keep the steady course. Congratulations on finally getting it!

This comes in stark contrast to its columnists who have tried very hard in this campaign to ween us away from the Conservatives:

Randall Denley: Harper just pandering to voters with crime policies, Harper’s problem is not lack of empathy, but lack of credibility, Harper fails to lose bully image

Janice Kennedy : Putting families on the ballot, National unity? Who cares?

Just a post to redirect you to an excellent post by clangmann.net. Spread the word.

Hypothetical scenario:

Minority Conservative Government. First vote of confidence will be on Tough on Crime for Young Offenders. It will (obviously) be defeated. Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens will go to the Governor General, and form a new coalition government. We’ll get:

1. Prime Minister Stephane Dion
2. Minister of Finance: Bob Rae
3. Minister of Defense: Jack Layton
4. Minister of the Environment: Elizabeth May

If this doesn’t scare anybody I don’t know what this country is a-comin’ to.

And this is a VERY REALISTIC scenario. The Bloc, Greens and NDP have already said they’re open to it. Dion has REFUSED to rule out putting May in his cabinet, indicating he’s open to a coalition. The only way to stop this is by electing a majority Conservative government.

h/t to Lowell Green’s radio show

Announcing a hearing problem just before the election campaign was an incredible foresight of the Liberal party. It’s a kind of a catch all for any bad answers given during the campaign.

And it came in handy today.

In this week’s edition of the Lanark County EMC is a “Meet the candidates” section for my riding, Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington. It profiles the four major candidates with a little biography and a blurb that was obviously sent in a good while ago to meet the deadline.

Here are the candidates:

Dave Remington, Liberal. Napanee Mayor… blah blah blah… business community… blah blah blah… ah, the good stuff: Most important issue this election: The Green Shift. Other issues of importance: education, health care, agriculture, the environment.

Sandra Willard, NDP. Home health worker. Most important issue: global warming, jobs, keeping health care private, supporting single parents and keeping uranium mining out of the riding.

Chris Walker, The Green Party. Renovation contractor, renewable energy consultant. Most important issue: the environment. Other issues: the arts, health promotion, renewal in faith in the democracy.

Scott Reid, Conservative. Incumbent. Seeking fourth victory. Most important issue: THE ECONOMY. Other issues: state of our local rural economy.

I know this is just a rinky-dink newspaper in a largely rural riding somewhere in the middle of nowhere. However, it lays bare the painfully obvious: before their leaders discovered the economy last Thursday and turned it into a national ‘crisis’, neither the Liberals, the NDP nor the Greens had anything even remotely economic in their platforms, whereas the Conservative had it front and centre. 

Who is out of touch with Canadians now, eh?

To Elizabeth May:

I’ve had it with you. First you were voted out of the debates and you cried foul. Then some people cheered for you and you were, with kind permission of Harper and Layton, let back in, even though your numbers didn’t allow it. You called it a “victory for democracy”. At the debates all you did was talk through people and point fingers. Then you were accused of making a deal with Dion to, at the last minute, call upon your people to vote strategically, and in most ridings that would mean Liberal. You denied this deal.

Now, it comes out, that you are actually calling upon your followers to vote strategically in certain ridings to stop Harper.

You call yourself a leader. You put forth candidates all across this country who put their heart and soul into canvassing and campaigning for YOU and now you tell them they don’t matter. People in their ridings should vote Liberal instead. If I was running for you in one of those ridings I’d be pretty pissed. Thanks for nothing. What, you can’t even get YOURSELF elected, you don’t want anybody else to either?

Ms. May, you are a liar, and you better crawl back into the hole you came from and if I never hear from you again, it’ll be too soon.

To all the people who laughed at PMSH’s statement that now is perhaps a good time to pick up some bargain stock: you think this is a party leader who is “out of touch” with the electorate and doesn’t know what the electorate wants to hear. I tell you this: these words came from a Prime Minister who holds a Masters’ Degree in Economics. These words did not come from a party leader who wants to be re-elected (although that is naturally what he wants). Mr. Harper is an economist first, politician second. As an economist AND PM you have to avoid panic in the stock market at all cost. In times of economic uncertainty, when stock markets are crashing, the best thing to do is to try to get people to BUY stock, not SELL them. Selling your stock will just increase the rate the stock market will go down. The only way to reverse a massive sell off of stock (ie: the market going down) is to BUY stock (ie. market going up). This is BASIC ECONOMICS. Shouting doom off the rooftops saying “We’re tanking!” is extremely irresponsible for a Leader of a country (and isn’t that what our Opposition ‘leaders’ strive to be?) It just creates panic resulting in a massive sell-offs of stock which in turn will make them worth even less. If the opposition leaders would set aside their desire to be elected for a minute, and take into account the well being of all Canadians, they’d have to conclude the same thing: saving this economy is more important that any one individual’s election. Harper is doing what it takes to save this economy, even if it means lower polling numbers. He says it would be irresponsible of him to create a panic even though that is what the electorate wants to hear and would improve his standings.

The fundamentals of the Canadian economy are very strong. They only thing going wrong with our economy currently is that the stock markets are going south (no pun intended). The Canadian People want to hear Harper say what he is going to do about it. Well, the only way to stop a stock market from going down is to MAKE PEOPLE BUY STOCK. Isn’t that what he is saying? If any of the opposition ‘leaders’ had any formal training in economics, and not a week long crash course on it, they would know that. I think they do know that, however, they’ve put their own selfish election chances over the fortunes of the Canadian People. They shout doom and gloom, creating a panic resulting in economic woes, in order to get their own behind into the PM’s chair. PM Harper has done the exact opposite!

If the opposition ‘leaders’ were serious leadership material, they’d realise the PM’s first and foremost responsibility is the stabilizing of the economy.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Harper has been doing for the past year and a half. That is why we don’t have bail-outs for banks and big investment firms. That is why our inflation is still below 4%. That is why we have a job gain of 87,000 jobs in 2008 so far. That is why the IMF projected Canada to lead the G7 in economic growth next year.  And that, is why we have to continue with his successful strategy.

On CTV.CA the big headline says:

Economists call on gov’t to stimulate economy

It’s a big story about it’s the THIRD letter economists had to send to the government this week urging the government to act on 1) Carbon Taxes are good (Monday), 2) Act on Climate Change by voting strategically (Tuesday) and now 3) Act on the economy.

Basically the story informs us how this country’s economists keep urging Harper to “do something” and that “doing nothing” is not the answer.

Sounds familiar? Oh, these ‘economists’ the story mentions, are the Progressive Economic Forum, a group that describes itself as promoting “alternatives to conservative economic theory and policy.” The letter is signed by Doug Peters, a veteran federal Liberal and former junior minister of state for finance, and Rodrigue Tremblay, who served as Parti Quebecois industry minister of Quebec.

Well, what do you know, Mr. Chretien said in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail:

“While everybody’s in turmoil, Canada is not in turmoil,” Mr. Chrétien explained in a brief interview.

So, Dion and Rae are shouting off the rooftops that the economy is not fine and we need to do something NOW, while Chretien says “Canada is not in turmoil” and effectively proving Mr. Harper is right.