So, ::sigh::, here we go again...
Sep. 7th, 2008 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciroccojStarkly contrasting visions laid out in kickoff to Oct. 14 vote
By Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper bolted out of the gate Sunday with a precipitous election call while simultaneously downplaying talk of a Conservative majority.
Harper, whose opening hours of the 37-day campaign took him from Rideau Hall to Quebec City and Vancouver, dashed his promise of a fixed election date and pulled the plug himself to end 31 months of minority Tory rule.
He immediately offset his bullish behaviour with modest projections of success on voting day, Oct. 14.
"Voters can't vote for a minority or a majority," Harper said at the Governor General's residence, where he asked Michaelle Jean to dissolve Canada's 39th Parliament.
"They can't vote 60 per cent for one party and 14 per cent for another. They have one vote. They should vote for the party that they want to lead the government."
Recent polls have suggested a Conservative majority within Harper's reach. But the Conservatives have repeatedly bounced back from those lofty levels over their 31 months in government whenever Canadians began to contemplate the possibility of a Tory majority.
Harper predicted another minority will emerge - even going so far as suggesting a Liberal or New Democrat could be prime minister.
So be it, responded Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton.
Both attacked the Conservative government's environmental record and both heaped scorn on the Harper's laissez-faire economic management.
But while Layton assumed an animated prime-minister-in-waiting bravado - big talk for a party with just 30 of 308 seats - Dion revelled in his under-dog status.
"I love to be underestimated," Dion said to open the Liberal campaign.
Echoing any number of past campaigners, Dion said the current election is the most important in Canada's federal history. He explained his remark in an interview with The Canadian Press by pointing to the economic restructuring demanded by a future of limited energy resources and global warming.
"It's the path that we'll give to this country that will be decided," Dion said of the election. "In some ways, it may affect this country not only for the next four years, but for the next 40 years."
Layton said the NDP is the only party offering real change, echoing the theme of the U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.
"We're offering, instead of Mr. Harper's approach, a vision that looks forward," said Layton.
Layton's thrust for 24 Sussex Drive is a far cry from the New Democrats' traditional social conscience role. That mantle appears to have been taken up by Elizabeth May and the Green party, which leveraged its first MP into the Commons last weekend by wooing Independent Blair Wilson, a former Liberal.
May kicked off her campaign in Guelph, Ont., with an impassioned plea to voters to "wake up," vote for change, and save the environment and the planet.
"To all of you who are disenchanted, dispirited, disappointed and disillusioned, this is the time for you to wake up and recognize that the leadership does not exist at the series of podiums you've just watched over this morning. The leadership is the people of this country because in a democracy the people are in charge."
Only Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, openly contemplated a Harper majority on the opening day of the campaign. He argued that the Bloc alone can stop Tory inroads in Quebec which could give Harper unfettered power in Ottawa.
Duceppe, who is seeking to maintain his party's 48 Quebec seats in the face of waning sovereigntist sentiment, compared Harper's Tories to George W. Bush's Republicans. He said the Tories "are fighting for the free circulation of firearms" and for the censorship of the arts.
And he excoriated Harper's tax and environmental platform.
"I don't think Quebecers are supporting the fact that he's giving billions of dollars to the rich oil companies instead of fighting for the environment and applying Kyoto."
Harper said this election, the third in four years, will be a choice between certainty and risk at a time when the world economy has entered a period of instability - a statement aimed at scaring voters away from Dion's proposed overhaul of Canada's tax system.
"Between now and Oct. 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests at a time of global economic trouble," Harper said after meeting with Jean.
"They will choose between direction or uncertainty; between common sense or risky experiments; between steadiness or recklessness."
Harper's managerial acumen in a slowing economy will be pitted against Dion's "Green Shift" plan - designed to shift taxation off income and on to greenhouse gas-emissions.
Harper said now is not the time to gamble on Dion's plan.
"The opposition insists on large-sale spending and a new tax. But even they admit that their carbon tax proposal is a work in progress," he said. "This tax will pack a cost on to every expenditure every family and every business makes."
It's a message Harper is expected to pound home repeatedly.
Dion fired back, pitching the Green Shift as a simple idea supported by most economists - cut income taxes and shift taxes to pollution.
He said the election offers a stark choice between the Liberals and the "most Conservative government in our history."
Dion accused Harper of abandoning the poor, squandering the $12-billion surplus left by the Liberals, and standing idly by as the economy shed hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
"The words 'fight against poverty' have yet to cross the lips of Mr. Harper," Dion said. "With this Conservative ideology, Canadians are left to fend for themselves."
He promised to reduce poverty by one-third in his first mandate, create jobs and make Canada a leader in the Green revolution.
He also accused Harper of being the most secretive and manipulative prime minister in history, and promised to run an open, transparent government.
In calling the election, Harper ignored his own fixed-election-date law - legislation he'd explicitly pitched as a means of stopping prime ministers from calling snap votes whenever the political tide felt favourable.
In what will likely be a regular riposte, the Liberals issued a press release under the headline "Conservative Broken Platform Promise of the Day," which quoted the Tory blue book of 2006.
Elections are to be held every four years, said the 2006 Conservative campaign promise, "except when a government loses the confidence of the House."
Harper justified breaking his own law by saying Parliament, which was to resume Sept. 15, had become "dysfunctional" and requires a fresh government mandate as the country sails into global economic turbulence.
It's Canada's fifth general election in 11 years and the third in just over four, dating back to June 2004, when a 25-year spell of successive majority governments ended.
With five parties now represented in the House of Commons and the separatist Bloc squatting on 15 per cent of all federal seats, winning a clear parliamentary majority of 155 MPs appears difficult.
Moreover, there's no clear momentum currently driving any one party, nor is there a single compelling election issue, according to pollsters.
The Conservatives appear intent on exploiting the current tepid public reaction to Dion's Green Shift, while at the same time avoiding a series of potential autumn pitfalls.
Those Tory trip wires include a series of ongoing ethics investigations into various Conservative party activities, Canada's third-quarter economic report card, and the unpredictable impact of the Nov. 4 U.S. presidential election.
When the writ dropped the official standings in the 308-seat House of Commons were: Conservatives, 127 seats; Liberals, 95; Bloc Quebecois, 48; NDP, 30; four Independent; and four vacant.
Blair Wilson, while carrying the Green party banner, is officially still an Independent, since the party must win at least 12 seats to earn official party status.
The general election call cancels three federal byelections that were to take place on Monday and a fourth slated for Sept. 22.
Link to the article
By Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper bolted out of the gate Sunday with a precipitous election call while simultaneously downplaying talk of a Conservative majority.
Harper, whose opening hours of the 37-day campaign took him from Rideau Hall to Quebec City and Vancouver, dashed his promise of a fixed election date and pulled the plug himself to end 31 months of minority Tory rule.
He immediately offset his bullish behaviour with modest projections of success on voting day, Oct. 14.
"Voters can't vote for a minority or a majority," Harper said at the Governor General's residence, where he asked Michaelle Jean to dissolve Canada's 39th Parliament.
"They can't vote 60 per cent for one party and 14 per cent for another. They have one vote. They should vote for the party that they want to lead the government."
Recent polls have suggested a Conservative majority within Harper's reach. But the Conservatives have repeatedly bounced back from those lofty levels over their 31 months in government whenever Canadians began to contemplate the possibility of a Tory majority.
Harper predicted another minority will emerge - even going so far as suggesting a Liberal or New Democrat could be prime minister.
So be it, responded Liberal Leader Stephane Dion and NDP Leader Jack Layton.
Both attacked the Conservative government's environmental record and both heaped scorn on the Harper's laissez-faire economic management.
But while Layton assumed an animated prime-minister-in-waiting bravado - big talk for a party with just 30 of 308 seats - Dion revelled in his under-dog status.
"I love to be underestimated," Dion said to open the Liberal campaign.
Echoing any number of past campaigners, Dion said the current election is the most important in Canada's federal history. He explained his remark in an interview with The Canadian Press by pointing to the economic restructuring demanded by a future of limited energy resources and global warming.
"It's the path that we'll give to this country that will be decided," Dion said of the election. "In some ways, it may affect this country not only for the next four years, but for the next 40 years."
Layton said the NDP is the only party offering real change, echoing the theme of the U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama.
"We're offering, instead of Mr. Harper's approach, a vision that looks forward," said Layton.
Layton's thrust for 24 Sussex Drive is a far cry from the New Democrats' traditional social conscience role. That mantle appears to have been taken up by Elizabeth May and the Green party, which leveraged its first MP into the Commons last weekend by wooing Independent Blair Wilson, a former Liberal.
May kicked off her campaign in Guelph, Ont., with an impassioned plea to voters to "wake up," vote for change, and save the environment and the planet.
"To all of you who are disenchanted, dispirited, disappointed and disillusioned, this is the time for you to wake up and recognize that the leadership does not exist at the series of podiums you've just watched over this morning. The leadership is the people of this country because in a democracy the people are in charge."
Only Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Quebecois, openly contemplated a Harper majority on the opening day of the campaign. He argued that the Bloc alone can stop Tory inroads in Quebec which could give Harper unfettered power in Ottawa.
Duceppe, who is seeking to maintain his party's 48 Quebec seats in the face of waning sovereigntist sentiment, compared Harper's Tories to George W. Bush's Republicans. He said the Tories "are fighting for the free circulation of firearms" and for the censorship of the arts.
And he excoriated Harper's tax and environmental platform.
"I don't think Quebecers are supporting the fact that he's giving billions of dollars to the rich oil companies instead of fighting for the environment and applying Kyoto."
Harper said this election, the third in four years, will be a choice between certainty and risk at a time when the world economy has entered a period of instability - a statement aimed at scaring voters away from Dion's proposed overhaul of Canada's tax system.
"Between now and Oct. 14, Canadians will choose a government to look out for their interests at a time of global economic trouble," Harper said after meeting with Jean.
"They will choose between direction or uncertainty; between common sense or risky experiments; between steadiness or recklessness."
Harper's managerial acumen in a slowing economy will be pitted against Dion's "Green Shift" plan - designed to shift taxation off income and on to greenhouse gas-emissions.
Harper said now is not the time to gamble on Dion's plan.
"The opposition insists on large-sale spending and a new tax. But even they admit that their carbon tax proposal is a work in progress," he said. "This tax will pack a cost on to every expenditure every family and every business makes."
It's a message Harper is expected to pound home repeatedly.
Dion fired back, pitching the Green Shift as a simple idea supported by most economists - cut income taxes and shift taxes to pollution.
He said the election offers a stark choice between the Liberals and the "most Conservative government in our history."
Dion accused Harper of abandoning the poor, squandering the $12-billion surplus left by the Liberals, and standing idly by as the economy shed hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs.
"The words 'fight against poverty' have yet to cross the lips of Mr. Harper," Dion said. "With this Conservative ideology, Canadians are left to fend for themselves."
He promised to reduce poverty by one-third in his first mandate, create jobs and make Canada a leader in the Green revolution.
He also accused Harper of being the most secretive and manipulative prime minister in history, and promised to run an open, transparent government.
In calling the election, Harper ignored his own fixed-election-date law - legislation he'd explicitly pitched as a means of stopping prime ministers from calling snap votes whenever the political tide felt favourable.
In what will likely be a regular riposte, the Liberals issued a press release under the headline "Conservative Broken Platform Promise of the Day," which quoted the Tory blue book of 2006.
Elections are to be held every four years, said the 2006 Conservative campaign promise, "except when a government loses the confidence of the House."
Harper justified breaking his own law by saying Parliament, which was to resume Sept. 15, had become "dysfunctional" and requires a fresh government mandate as the country sails into global economic turbulence.
It's Canada's fifth general election in 11 years and the third in just over four, dating back to June 2004, when a 25-year spell of successive majority governments ended.
With five parties now represented in the House of Commons and the separatist Bloc squatting on 15 per cent of all federal seats, winning a clear parliamentary majority of 155 MPs appears difficult.
Moreover, there's no clear momentum currently driving any one party, nor is there a single compelling election issue, according to pollsters.
The Conservatives appear intent on exploiting the current tepid public reaction to Dion's Green Shift, while at the same time avoiding a series of potential autumn pitfalls.
Those Tory trip wires include a series of ongoing ethics investigations into various Conservative party activities, Canada's third-quarter economic report card, and the unpredictable impact of the Nov. 4 U.S. presidential election.
When the writ dropped the official standings in the 308-seat House of Commons were: Conservatives, 127 seats; Liberals, 95; Bloc Quebecois, 48; NDP, 30; four Independent; and four vacant.
Blair Wilson, while carrying the Green party banner, is officially still an Independent, since the party must win at least 12 seats to earn official party status.
The general election call cancels three federal byelections that were to take place on Monday and a fourth slated for Sept. 22.
Link to the article
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