Quote:
Originally Posted by Bownesian
@Slava - I don't know how you can say that.
The conservatives tried a number of soft reform measures:
- telling the provinces they would appoint elected senators. When the provinces didn't elect any, they were forced to appoint some to keep government running because without a constitutional amendment, we need a Senate.
- tried several reform bills that stalled in the minority parliaments and in the Senate (in part because they were unconstitutional)
- on that front, got a reference from the Supreme Court to determine how reform could happen, and ultimately learned that there's pretty much nothing we can do without a significant constitutional amendment
- Now, after trying more in this decade than the decade that preceded it, they have fallen back to their long-held position that "if it can't be reformed, it should be abolished"
And Trudeau has done nothing substantive. He kicked them out of caucus but they continue to be Liberals. His proposal for some kind of nomination committee is laughable because it would boil down to one of two results:
- The committee would be gerrymandered to suggest people the government agrees with politically
- Or, even worse, the senate could become more than a rubber-stamp/technical body where "eminent Canadians" that nobody voted for would start exercising real power with no recourse from voters to punish bad behavior
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This all sounds great, but its not like Harper has had his hands tied. We all knew that a constitutional amendment would be required for reforms? How pray tell does he plan to abolish the senate without one though? So basically rather than reform he now favours abolition (which as far as I know was only the position of the NDP, which it has been for decades actually).
He did say that he would appoint elected senators, and I will give him credit for that extremely small step (although elected senators were appointed before Harper). Aside from this though, his impact on the senate appears to be hamstringing the senators there with not enough bodies to properly undertake their work, and appointing terrible choices so that everyone can complain about the legitimacy. Quite the bar to set.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Frequitude
I'm really enjoying the "just not ready" campaign ads by The Conservatives. Not because they're cinematic genius (they're not, they're corny bad), and not because I'm a Conservative voter (I am), but because I've always been fascinated by how good of a politician and campaigner Harper is (note, I didn't say leader).
He's got a good pulse on the best issue to go at someone on and the best way to message it. Once again, he's knocked it out of the park with this messaging.
The most impactful word of the whole campaign has been "yet", as in "he's just not ready, at least not yet". That word alone projects a softer view of Harper and would also seem to soften the resolve of some pro-Trudeau types in Ontario that voted Conservative for the first time last election. I can see them thinking "hmmm...Harper agrees with me that he could be a good Prime Minister. That's good. But maybe he's right that Justin's a touch young and inexperienced. Maybe I'll vote Harper one more time before going back home to the Liberals."
It's going to be a fascinating campaign to watch play out. Harper vs the son of one of his most hated historical figures, with the nice guy leading the upsurging NDP party right there neck and neck.
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Hilarious. I think those ads are pathetic and ridiculous. I love that they've branched out from the original terrible ad to one featuring the old guy who is the worst actor at the table. I think that once all the parties go negative (which is a foregone conclusion) there will be better ads than this one in terms of effectiveness.
Basically at this point Harper
has to get softer Liberal votes in Ontario to stand a chance. At some point though he has to shift to attacking the NDP, and of course the opposition hasn't put their ads out yet because they just don't have the same war chest. I expect the NDP to come out swinging though. They did with Layton and probably ran the best negative ad last time around that was attacking Ignatieffs attendance record; it was damaging for sure and IMO easily the best negative ad of the campaign.