If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Proportional representation's advocates invented the concept of the wasted vote, claiming that votes for losing candidates are wasted, and that under PR "every vote counts." But ultimately there is no decision. And that surely is a waste of voting.
There are some among the privileged few who believe that they are entitled to use what has been created by and belongs to us all in order to profit themselves alone. The growing gap between the rich and the rest of us is the result of this belief and it is in the process of sinking economies around the world.
A war against unions will feed some red meat to the party base, but at what cost both short and long term to our economy and is it worth the risk at this stage of our economic recovery?
The McGuinty government made a decision to ignore the motions against further industrial wind development, the protests, the rallies and the dominance of this issue at rural all candidates debates and their rural caucus paid for it with their jobs and cost his government their majority.
When Dalton McGuinty was down in the polls, Hudak seemed prepared to let the Liberals self-destruct without comment from him. Maybe if Hudak had run a campaign on silence, instead of uttering banalities and refusing to answer certain pointed questions, he'd have done better in Toronto and urban centres.
The McGuinty version of fiscal austerity includes green-jobs boondoggles. Ontarians must overpay twice for energy: once in the form of huge overpayments to uncompetitive solar and wind producers, and then again in the form of subsidies to companies that manufacture the components for solar and wind.
John Duffy (Liberal): Dalton McGuinty is the most consistently under-rated politician of his generation, and now, very clearly, one of the most successful. To him and his team go very high honours, and the challenge of charting the choppy waters ahead.
When "foreign workers" story broke I sent a note to a friend of mine on the campaign and said "your team just blew it." It sounded like an angry old white guy's campaign reminiscent of some of the Reform Party campaigns of the 1990s.
Applause lines are those bits in a speech designed to get an audience cheering and clapping with approval that you see on the evening news. So what's the problem? Well, the NDP leadership candidates will be tempted to come up with an applause line that's also highly partisan and ideologically-oriented.
The per-vote subsidy guarantees that, at the very least, when you vote for a party, they would get some support for later campaigning, even if they didn't win the seat. It's the only proportional part of our voting system and it means you could not say your vote didn't count.
Jason Lietaer (PC): I spent this morning at a powerful symbol of this campaign: the "abandoned" Mississauga power plant. I say "abandoned" because Dalton McGuinty now says he will "move" it. Sure.
John Duffy (Liberal): It just doesn't feel like the anger is there this time. This is not to suggest that there aren't a lot of disappointed Ontarians, but there isn't enough fury directed at the Liberals to produce the kind of epic sacking that seemed in store for them.
A recent CBC television movie about John A. MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister, highlighted the debates and struggles that preceded Canadian con...
Jason Lietaer (PC): There will always be some kind of allegation of hate or intolerance thrown by the grits. This time, it's homophobia. And it's nonsense. McGuinty's making sure that parents don't have any say in what kids are taught at school about these topics. We stand on the side of parents.
I have watched many an election in my life and I am always amazed by the low voter turnout. Do we stay home because we don't know what to do, or is it because we feel our one vote won't make a difference?
The media couldn't even keep its eyes open during the Manitoba election campaign, only occasionally looking below the surface of the promises and policies. Then again, the resurrected NHL Winnipeg Jets were beginning their pre-season games and the Bombers were in first place. The media can only do so much.
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