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LIBERALS!

Actually, the opposition has made is QUITE clear that they don't intend to form a coalition. And the funny thing is, Harper, in 2004, contemplated a coalition government with the Bloc and NDP There is a signed letter by Harper, Duceppe, and Layton asking the Governor General to consider a coalition government. (Hypocrite, much?)

@JosephH: "The NDPs and Liberals are dead-set on spending spending spending" --You are joking right? The Conservatives want us to buy F-35s that are going to cost us 30 BILLION dollars. Not to mention the G20/G8 summits that cost us 1 BILLION dollars, for a fake lake. In a time of economic uncertainty! They haven't even told us what those mega-prisons would cost us. Do we need them? No. Canada's crime rate is going down.

Do you know why we have made it through the recession? We survived this Market crash because of limitations Martin put on the banks while he was finance minister. The surplus that the Liberal Party left us clearly helped. Is Harper is going to lead us to financial security with jets and super jails?

Further, Harper is a career politician who has done nothing outside politics while Ignatieff has been a renowned journalist in Afghanistan, author, lawyer, Harvard director, and Oxford professor. 

This article is great, and it does a GREAT job outlining what has happened in the Harper regime. At a time when Arabs risk life and limb for political freedoms, Canadians seem largely apathetic about the erosion of their democracy.

It's crazy how little attention all of these scandals are getting while the opposition parties are screaming and no one seems to be listening.

Thoughts on the last article?

It's funny, everyone cared so much about the sponsorship scandal, but the Conservatives can do pretty much anything and avoid the same fate. We should give the Conservatives the same verdict we gave the liberals in light of that scandal.

Laundry list of shadiness:

1. Conservatives held in contempt of Parliament

a. Bev Oda lied in Parliament, a cardinal sin of Westminster style democracy

b. Conservatives held in contempt for withholding and misleading the House

2. Integrity Commissioner failed to uphold even ONE of more than 200 whistle-blowing complaints. 

a. kicked out of office due to public outcry, she was given $500,000 of taxpayers' money on the condition that she doesn't talk about it.

3. A foreign service officer blew a whistle on the Cdn military handing over detainees to Afghan security forces, which was likely violation of international humanitarian law, and the government tried to  destroy him and refused to give documents to a parliamentary inquirty

a. The Speaker reminded them that government Parliament controlled cabinet, not the other way around

4. When opposition parties were close to agreeing on a coalition government, rather than face a vote of confidence, Harper talked the governor general into shutting down parliament for a month so he could shore up his own support. 

5. Harper chose a governor general, who had previously drawn up terms of an inquirty commission that excluded the potentially most damaging parts of a scandal involving a former conservative prime minister

6. Four conservatives have been charged with exceeding campaign spending limits in the 2006 election that put Harper in power. A minister used public office and material to pursue party political goals of courting ethnic vote banks for the conservatives

7. Harper promised greater transparency and accountability BUT has silenced civil servants and diplomats, PUBLISHED guidelines on how to disrupt hostile parliamentary committees and supressed reseaerch that contradicts ideologically driven policy (like the data that show crime rates are falling)

8. Civil society groups that criticze any government policy risk loss of funding and hostile takeovers.

Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/canada-watches-its-democracy-erode/story-e6frg6ux-1226030310248

I agree, the thing is, I wish the NDP-ers would also realize that the left vote is being split between them and the Liberals. If NDP voters threw their support behind the Liberals, the Liberals could win, which means no more sketchy Conservative government who is the laughingstock of the world. 

@tranquility: Yay! I'm not going to lie, I'm excited about Ignatieff. Conservative attack ads, spanning from two years ago, will not work on me!

"It’s not that Ignatieff is much more available to the media and the public than Dion was. It’s that the way Ignatieff handles himself in an exposed situation—talking without text, taking lots of questions, including hostile ones—commands attention in a way Dion, or Paul Martin before him, just couldn’t muster."

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/01/the-campaign-trail-contrast-will-harper-adjust/

@tranquility: Hey tranquility, 

Globe and Mail is great; The Star is good Macleans is a really good site too. I try to avoid National Post, because I find them more biased than the other sites (they use misleading titles, for ex.)

All these sites are updating every few hours on new information about the elections, and when you learn more, it's actually super fascinating. 

You'll find crazy stuff like experts are saying that elections don't hurt the economy.

You can find out more about Ignatieff here

CBC news is fairly impartial

I'm not paid by the Liberal gov, btw :)

i think this should be placed on the Canada board instead of the lounge :)

@Bostonsmom: Hey Bostonmom,

Honestly, that's a misconception that Liberals wouldn't be good for the oil and gas business. In fact, my fiancee went to hear Ignatieff speak, and he said that we need to pitch Canada's oil sands as an ethical alternative to funding the blood in Middle Eastern oil. There's also concerns that some of these oil companies might get money back to terroist organizations. Liberals are definitely in support of the oil industry -it's one of our most lucrative. :)

I just realized -it's the NDP/Layton who don't like the oil sands -not the Liberals

Rick Mercer is writing for Macleans during the elections, and he's a surprisingly good writer! and it's funny! i thought you guys would like it

http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/04/mr-harper-are-you-on-your-meds/

"I like elections. Governments don't just fall every day, but I understand why some people feel that they do. Three elections in five years is a lot. I have baking soda in the fridge that is older than the Harper government, and I still have Tabasco from the Paul Martin era.

But elections are important. We all know that $300 million is a lot of money...but this is a democracy and this is the cost of doing business"

BUT did you guys hear about the latest scandal? Conservative senators, on the order of Tony Clement, stalled a bill that could've saved millions of African lives -in the next year or two, not just in the future. The House of Commons passed it, and it went to the Senate. The Senate adjourned it every day from Monday to Friday until Parliament fell...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/how-can-conservative-senators-look-at-themselves-in-the-mirror/article1967459/page1/