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Now that the Election is real, who will you vote for?

Which party will you be voting for on June 28?

  • Liberal

    Votes: 33 26.0%
  • Conservative

    Votes: 48 37.8%
  • NDP

    Votes: 20 15.7%
  • Green Party

    Votes: 4 3.1%
  • Marijuana Party

    Votes: 6 4.7%
  • Undecided

    Votes: 7 5.5%
  • Couldn't give a rat's ass

    Votes: 9 7.1%

  • Total voters
    127

Makhno

Recidivist
Nov 11, 2003
696
0
0
Beyond the Pale
Now that Paul Martin has finally called an election, we have an opprtunity to voice our collective opinion on the "good government" he says the Liberals have been giving us for years.

Good government?

Some examples:

1. The current sponsorship scandal that ran from 1997 to 2001 included at least $100 million skimmed off the top in unneeded commissions to Jean’s friends. The litany of payoffs and schemes that lined the pockets of connected Liberal supporters would make a mafia don envious. Jean Chretien’s response: So what if a few million was stolen, it was all in a good cause.” Paul Martin's response: "I didn't do it" (rumour has it that Bart Simpson is now suing for copyright infingement.)

2. An additional $793 million in federal advertising spending over a five-year period was rife with Liberal rule breaking with commissions and fees paid for no work.

3. Jean Chretien’s interference in FBDB loans to the Auberge Grand-Mere.

4. The HRDC grant boondoggle in which $1billion was unaccounted for after grants were being vetted by Liberal-party officials in Quebec, and (surprise) Liberal supporters were frequently the beneficiaries of huge grant dollars

5. As he then was Finance Minister Paul Martin’s interests in Canadian Steamship Lines and how they were not truly in a blind trust. He manges to underestimate the amount of money it received in federal contract by a factor of over $100 million (or as the Liberals call it, petty cash)

6. George Radwanski’s spendthrift ways as Privacy Commissioner (A guys gotta eat, eh...).

7. $101 million for Chretien’s private jets while the Sea Kings are literally falling from the sky. The Liberals overruled its own military - which operates the planes - which said new ones weren't needed until at least 2010.They also broke their own rules on contracts by acquiring the jets without putting out a public tender

8. The $2 billion gun registry, initially promised to cost $2 million.

9. And an endless stream of other Liberal boondoggles and spendthrifts.

Will the latest Liberal scandal pass, as have the past Liberal scandals? Will the proverbial short memories of the voters save the Liberals at the polls?

Or will we finally say enough is enough.

Have the endless cycle of Liberal scandals - financial and ethical - that typified Chretien's tenure so lowered the bar for an alternative to Liberal government, that “warm, vertical and not a Liberal” is all voters now need to cast their vote?

Cast your vote on June 28. Have your say.

 

qwerty

New member
Jun 19, 2003
214
0
0
Vancouver
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you vote in the conservatives, in 5 years we will be talking about the billions they have wasted.

1. G.S.T.

2. N.A.F.T.A.

3. the conservatives will never get my vote!

4. The liberals Will win again, like it or not, and if they don't get any seats out west (as usual) we will continue to miss out on their extravagent spending.
 

Makhno

Recidivist
Nov 11, 2003
696
0
0
Beyond the Pale
True enough Qwerty, but doesn't accountabilty mean anything anymore? Do we reward the Liberals for their sleazy tenure with another majority, and fuel their appetite for filling their friends' pockets with our tax dollars to new heights?

 

qwerty

New member
Jun 19, 2003
214
0
0
Vancouver
I do agree that their should be accountability. I also agree that the liberals wasted plenty of our tax dollars:(

I suppose that if their was an alternate on the left side of the political spectrum I might be inclined to try them.
I just don't feel their is a realistic alternative to the liberals whose agenda I can support. And yes that is a sad concept.

Everyone goes around bashing the Liberals. We all know what they have done. I just wonder if anyone here can give me some good reasons to vote for any of the other parties.
 

wolverine

Hard Throbbing Member
Nov 11, 2002
6,385
9
38
E-Town
I consider myself to be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, which is a common centrist position. Ideally, Paul Martin and the Liberals should be my vote, but the bloated arrogance and waste is a sign that a change is needed. On the news today, the pundits are predicting a minority Liberal government. Perhaps that's for the best? Depends on who they have to share power with. Anyway, for these reasons, I've voted Undecided in this here poll.
 

CaryGrant

New member
Apr 12, 2004
54
0
0
If the Rhinos were still around, they'd get my vote. Barring that, the Marijuana Party might - and I don't even smoke the stuff. I think the political system is hopelessly corrupt, and what the world needs now, is love, sweet love, no, seriously, we need a few Gandhis and Martin Luther Kings to act as moral checks on the political vermin. Though the love, sweet love wouldn't hurt, either.
 

Makhno

Recidivist
Nov 11, 2003
696
0
0
Beyond the Pale
Grendleaxe said:
As I say, forming a government is too complex to be decided by single issues or "right" vs "left" crap.
Well said indeed, Grendleaxe.

The practical reality of the matter is that the Liberal support in Eastern Canada will ensure that the Liberals will probably survive as the government, but I would guess as a minority for at least three reasons:

1. The merger of the Alliance and PCs will have to translate into victories in many ridings where the split in the right vote previously allowed Chretien an easy win. (This already factors in the bleeding of some of the red tory votes to the Liberals).

2. The immense public dissatisfaction with the Liberal record of sleaze and corruption has got to kick in to knock them down a few seats. Add to this the growing perception of Paul Martin as Paul Martinet (many Liberal ridings were extremely pissed off with his appointment of candidates, thereby bypassing the democratic process) and the result should be clear.

3. After three big Liberal majorities, voters are once again restless.

These are the current standings in the House of Commons (301 total):

Lib 168
Con 73
BQ 33
NDP 14
Ind 9
Vacant 4

There are now 308 seats up for grabs. Anything under 154 will be a minority government. I will hazard a guess as to the outcome as follows:

Lib 145
Cons 113
The rest 50

Minority governments have historically been much more accountable and responsive to the electorate. This seems to be our only hope this time around.

However, its still early and I suspect this may be a volatile election.
 

Makhno

Recidivist
Nov 11, 2003
696
0
0
Beyond the Pale
 

The Happy Tapper

-------------------------
Jul 27, 2002
163
0
0
I'm voting NDP because of Jack Leyton. I saw an interview he did with Marc Emery where he stated that if he were PM, marijuana would be totally decriminalized and handled differently than it ever has been in Canada.

That's my kind of politician!
 

rickoshadows

Just another member!
May 11, 2002
902
0
16
65
Vancouver Island
I think most "working" Canadians are fiscal consertvatives, note the the change in the fiscal policies of the Liberal party in the last decade to reflect the majority. However, they have a lot of bad habits and a leader who got there by staging a coup and is now surprised that he has to pay to Liberal insiders in order to prevent another. There are still a number of ideological leftists in the party which is why we still have liberal spending habits and fucked up programs AKA the gun registry.

Social liberalism on the other hand is a little harder to pin down. We claim to be a tolerant country, but in reality most canadians only tolerate what they don't disaprove of. There are also external limits to policies such as legalizing marijuana because of the ultra conservative policies of the US. (even their left party is right of ours). Even so, Canada is slowly liberalizing our vice laws and maybe in a couple hundred years or so, we'll be in the 21st century.

I will be holding my nose and voting Liberal because Harper scares the shit out of me. Preston Manning was the only leader of that lot whom I trusted to keep the religous right and the neo-conservative whackos under control. I think Harper is one of them. Billions of dollars of waste and mismanagement are a high price to pay to maintain some of the individual freedoms we have, but I don't see another choice.

It's pretty bad that after voting in this country, one feels he has to take a long hot shower to scrub the stink of politics out.

rickoshadows
 

wolverine

Hard Throbbing Member
Nov 11, 2002
6,385
9
38
E-Town
rickoshadows said:
Social liberalism on the other hand is a little harder to pin down. We claim to be a tolerant country, but in reality most canadians only tolerate what they don't disaprove of. There are also external limits to policies such as legalizing marijuana because of the ultra conservative policies of the US. (even their left party is right of ours). Even so, Canada is slowly liberalizing our vice laws and maybe in a couple hundred years or so, we'll be in the 21st century.
I think most of us PERBerts are social liberals. After all, wouldn't we all want to see prostitution legalized more? Of course, our opinions will vary on other social issues like pot, gay marriage, etc etc. But in my opinion, if you believe that individuals should be allowed to make their own choices that don't harm others, that said individuals bear sole responsibility for those choices themselves, and that those choices are not dictated to people by white-bread tradition nor by some 2000-year-old fairy tale, then you are a social liberal.
 

HankQuinlan

I dont re Member
Sep 7, 2002
1,744
6
0
victoria
I agree that the best hope is for a Liberal minority; that would hopefully keep them on their toes. I really hate the thought that the no-longer-progressive Conservatives could win --- their tax cut plan is even more ridiculous than the provincial Liberals was here in BC, and there are still lots of loony right-wing social conservatives in the party, including Harper. We'd be in Iraq right now, apologizing for whatever our troops had done or not done if he had been in power last year. I too will vote for whoever is the best choice in my riding -- probably the ndp, depending on the candidate (it won't be the conservative!).
 

rickoshadows

Just another member!
May 11, 2002
902
0
16
65
Vancouver Island
I agree that most PERBerts would classify themselves as Social liberals, but even here we have had bigotry and intolerance of other peoples kinks and desires. We, as a nation have a long way to go before we can call ourselves truly tolerant. Someone, some time ago challenged me on the concept of tolerance asking if I was prepared to accept anything that others do. I replied, as most others would, that there are limits to every society's tolerance, I would just like to see the line drawn a little further to the left than it is now, by a legally elected government vice someones interpretation of the words of an imaginary diety. Harper, at best would leave it where it is, and at worst would move to the right. The NDP nutcases would just redraw it perpendicular, therefore leaving the Liberals. Ugh! I feel so dirty.

rickoshadows
 

HankQuinlan

I dont re Member
Sep 7, 2002
1,744
6
0
victoria
Unfortunately, given the current state of politics in Canada (and in the US), we have no choice but to vote for the least offensive candidate or party. It will be a long time before we have real choices.

Candidates can't afford to say what they really believe -- assuming they believe anything; if they want to be elected they have to follow the polls and give people what they want. What the people want is determined by the media in general (almost all of which is owned by six huge multinational corporations -- joined in Canada by CanWest Global, and tempered a bit by the CBC), and by political advertising. The candidate with the most money usually wins. When the Republicans started their attack ads on Kerry, the polls showed that they were effective. I am sure that we in Canada are just as suggestible and that we respond to whatever the hot topic in the media is this week.

The U.S. has the choice of voting for the party of the rich, or the party of the really rich. Anyone in the US who wants to get rid of Bush and his cronies has to hold their nose and vote for the Democrats. Our choices are a little better, but not much. In this election, we can still afford to vote for a candidate we believe in. If there is one running in your riding, vote for that person. Until we learn to ignore the crap we're fed and think for ourselves, democracy is just an idea.
 

AceVerb

New member
May 6, 2004
18
0
0
The Past
Rickoshadows:

I agree with everything you said but one thing, I would like line drawn just a little further to the right so that noisy SIGs don't get funds that real people who need them do. For instance, scrap DIAND. Scrap MC. Reintroduce incentives for those who create jobs, good paying jobs, for average joes (and joannes). I will vote Conservative and suspect many more do that most people think. As the campaign moves forward, watch Harper show he's got more under his $120 'do than mush and rhetoric.

Interesting thoughts. Have a hard time believing anyone from BC would even consider voting NDP but that is what a democracy is all about, shaking your head at the other guy!
 

rickoshadows

Just another member!
May 11, 2002
902
0
16
65
Vancouver Island
AceVerb said:
I would like line drawn just a little further to the right so that noisy SIGs don't get funds
If you think getting rid of the liberals, or any party will stop SIGs, you're dreaming. The SIGs will just be a different bunch with different objectives. I agree with the sentiment though. It would be nice to see a party which will enhance personal freedom as well as hold people a little more responsible for their actions. Just because a person comes from less than ideal circumstances doesn't excuse criminal actions, nor are they owed a living. And don't get me started on single mothers, it's not like birth control hasn't been invented yet.

rickoshadows
 

James

Member
Jul 22, 2002
818
18
18
The left coast
Ahh, the diverse PERB community. We've got everything from tree huggers to commies to right wing zealots, and everything in between, in here. That's cool.

What isn't cool is all those who do nothing to contribute to the electoral process, yet endlessly bitch about those who do get elected. If you don't vote, for whomever you support, how can you honestly complain?

So many people died so that you could have the chance to vote. Show them the respect they deserve by taking a few minutes and mark the ballot.

And, if you really want change in government, or if you really want the situation to stay the same, why not involve yourself in the process? It does not matter who you support, if you feel strongly enough about a candidate, or party, why not sign up to help them along?

I have done exactly that. I've chosen a party and candidate in my riding, and volunteered to help with the campaign. I'm actually somewhat ashamed that I haven't taken the time and done it before now, as I've been voting for more than a couple of decades.

Serving your community. It's awesome.
 
Ashley Madison
Vancouver Escorts