President Ken Lewenza of the CAW, Canada’s largest private sector union, asked his members to vote strategically to stop a Harper majority from becoming a reality.

“Stopping a Stephen Harper majority is one of the most important challenges progressive Canadians have ever faced” — Ken Lewenza

In this story, it is obvious he blames the Tory Government, rather than the fact that people do not want  trucks and SUVs anymore, for closures in the Ford plants, GM plants and numerous auto parts plants.

He wants his members to vote Liberal or NDP depending on your riding. Hmm.. Liberals want to put a carbon tax on every auto plant out there, making cars more expensive (read: layoffs). The NDP wants to tax “big corporations”, like, say, GM and Ford (read: layoffs). The Conservatives are the only ones proposing tax cuts for corporations, so I don’t really see his motivation here.

I said it before, the closure of those plants has nothing to do with government: it has to do with the lack of foresight and market research by the ‘big three’: Ford, GM and Chrysler. They did not realise people were switching to smaller, more fuel efficient cars until it was too late. Toyota and Honda, on the other hand, clued in a long time ago, and are actually building new plants in Ontario.

Dion stated he’s ready to become PM and he’s going to show that to Canadians during the debates.

So in order to accomplish that, he’d have to serious brush up on the following areas before the French debate on Wednesday:

1. The Economy (uh, might as well start from the beginning: “An economy is the realized social system of production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of a country or other area.”) 
2. The Environment (why don’t you fight pollution rather than some plant feeding odourless gas)
3. Foreign Policy (nuff said)
4. Reading the Canadian people (“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”)
5. Democracy (Teaming up with Lizzy May and not running candidates in each other’s riding, then getting in bed with the strategic voting crowd is NOT democratic)
6. English (you have an extra day for this one, only due on Thursday)

Layton revealed his feel good platform. It’ll make everyone, except for those nasty corporations, happy! He’ll take the feel good money from those nasty corporations and put it on your kitchen table. Yay. Raising corporate taxes. Yes, nothing says “buy our cheap products” than higher corporate taxes.

“Now is not the time to do something new, wild or stupid” (Stephen Harper).

Dion finally gets it: it’s all about the economy. A full 18 days AFTER Harper started talking about the economy, Dion is finally on the same page, and then has the audacity to say “It’s the economy, ” [waives hands] “Stephen”. Is this guy not embarrassed? Who does he think he’s fooling?

Jackie proposes a brand new, expensive to run, Ministry of Consumer Affairs. Is this what Harper means when he says “new, wild and stupid”?

Five Ottawa Liberal candidates ganged up on Ottawa-West candidate John Baird yesterday, saying he meddled in municipal affairs by intervening in the Light Rail project. They say the Federal Government should not meddle in municipal affairs, and then, in an ironic twist, proceeded by laying out THEIR terms for the Ottawa Light Rail project.

Another good day for conservatives: a great economic speech by Harper, an embarrassing moment for Dion, Layton talks kitchen tables, Gilles stands by his “fresh meat” comment, and May hasn’t been heard from.

Dion’s response to a question from a STUDENT who asked is Mr. LeDrew’s remarks could undermine party morale:

No, because I know how much our party is convinced that we need to win that for our country. It’s not like it was only a battle for who will have the power to enjoy the power. It’s the philosophies and approach. It’s the kind of Canada we want.

…

Now compare that to this response from Harper to questions from a seasoned reporter:

http://watch.ctv.ca/news/election-2008/conservative-campaign/#clip95524

Can anyone be more together, calm and clear with their thoughts and insights?

Why is there even a choice?

I am tired of hearing the phrase “third election in four years”. Doesn’t that sound like we’ve had an election nearly every year? What they don’t mention is that normally we have two elections in four years (one at the start, one at the end of the four years), and this is just one more. And they don’t mention the fact that two of three opposition parties have been trying to get to this election for two and a half years, and the third party has been threatening to do it for that same amount of time. So, this is an election ALL FOUR PARTIES WANTED, AND THUS, BEING A DEMOCRACY, MOST OF THE POPULATION.

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Foreigners will pay for the arts, or something

Dion proved that he has no idea how an economy works: he said yesterday that foreigners would pay part of the carbon tax when they buy our products. Uhm, professor? [raises hand] Didn’t we learn in Economy 101 that it is the interest of the country to make our products MORE attractive to foreign buyers? Isn’t making our products more expensive going to turn them off of Canada and turn them to China? Just a question, professor.

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Trains, Planes and Automobiles. And ponies.

Jack Layton is talking (again) about kitchen tables and being Prime Minister. Talk about being a one trick pony. He did put in a good dig about Liberals not following up on their promises in past elections and taking a promise off the table during the current election.

Finally a pet peeve of mine gets addressed: the naming of serious offenders of 14 years old and over. It always was very frustrating to see these young punks ‘protected’. And not a minute after Harper announced this new measure, and the bleeding hearts are already complaining how teenagers do not have a developed enough brain and can’t be blamed for their actions. And how the death penalty is not far behind and how Harper is turning us into the United States. We don’t need the death penalty. Just stick them in jail for a really long time. I’d be happy with that.

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Oh my God!

I read the most terrible news on the Liberal website this morning, it nearly made my heart stop:

The Conservative plan to use trucks to carry partisan billboards throughout the province of Quebec during this election campaign is a perfect example of the harmful effect the Harper government has had on Canada’s environment, Liberal Candidate for Vaudreuil-Soulanges Brigitte Legault said today.

Can you imagine that? They are using TRUCKS throughout the province of Quebec to carry partisan billboards around!

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Last year I sent an angry email to the NDP explaining to them that Global Warming, as it was then called, is not man-made, and that they were wrong in their environmental policy. I promptly got a reply thanking me, and that they too were concerned that human-induced global warming is destroying the planet (?), and then they added me to their email list calling me “friend”. So I sent another email asking them if they even read the email that comes in, to which I got no reply.

And so, this evening I received another email from my NEW Democratic “friends” begging me for money because they want to put a new ad on TV but they don’t have the money, so if I could please send them some.

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Dion’s New Creed: Ditch the Shift, Pitch The Team.

Yes, Dion has ditched the widely unpopular and poorly understood Green Shaft plan, and is pitching a newly minted “team approach” on the campaign. Apparently, Ignatieff is doing the announcements now. At least we can understand what he is trying to say: over $80M for the auto industry. I don’t hear Jackie complaining about this ‘corporate bailout’… Oh, in the “Another Day, Another Billion” file: another $1B or so for farmers. Since we ran into one on the campaign trail.

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