canadian election debate

bensprott

Is anyone watching the debate?

Dr Lots-o'watts

Watched it. The thing is the 2 best debaters have no chance of winning. Layton was really at ease, and Duceppe was great (considering the language difficulty. In French, he's really strong.)

Neither Harper or Ignatief were convincing, but of course, there is no doubt one of them will win the election, because they're from the only parties that aren't utopic.

DaveC426913

Layton is and always has been one of the most stand-up guys I've seen in politics. If he were head of any other party, he'd surely win by a landslide.

rootX

I am not going to vote, neither interested but I heard Layton was good.

Alfi

The Bloc isn't a Canadian Federal party ( Provincial only ) and should not have been there.

I almost wish Duceppe was a Canadian and a Liberal, he seems like the smartest of the bunch.

Dr Lots-o'watts

Technically, the Bloc is a "Federal" party in the sense that it is built to play on the federal scene. But it only has candidates in Quebec, so its aspirations are not to govern Canada, only to "bloc" the winning government to pass any legislation that they see to be detrimental to Quebec.

The "Parti Quebecois" is the provincial counter-part that made the 2 historic referendums. It is a serious contender but it seems to have lacked convincing leadership in recent years.

Alfi

Advance pools open today.

I haven't seen anything different in the talk from the leaders to indicate to me that anything different will result from this re-election.

I think it's all a waste of taxpayers money.

DaveC426913

The ousting of the Harper government?

Dr Lots-o'watts

If Harper gets reelected with a minority government, then it's a waste of taxpayer money. If the result is anything different, then it's not.

Incidently, a former colleague of mine (and physicist/researcher) is actually running in these elections. It's rare enough to see scientists running.

Alfi

As always, I will vote for the best person for the job in my riding.
Even though I do not like his leader, I will not vote for less than the best, just to try and change what Party is running the country.

We, as Canadians do not vote for the leader in these elections, only the local candidates of the various parties.
The Party with the most winners gets to be the government.
I wonder if it would be different if we only voted for the leader.


My wife is working in the polls for this election. She tells me it was very busy at her location.

Alfi

Doesn't look like NOT going to be a waste of money. :(

Alfi

Majority Government

NDP opposition
The Bloc lost it's leader
The Libs lost their leader


Wow. that was almost worth the money

DaveC426913

Well, you wanted to be around when the robots rose up and crushed their creators.

It's a Harper majority...

kraphysics

Wow! This was quite a surprise. I expected NDP to gain quite a lot but didn't expect them to come in second place! Liberals were crushed which is somewhat surprising but Ignatieff losing his own riding! wow, didn't expect that!. I for one am happy the Block Quebecois got owned. Gill Duceppe is a separatist tyrant.
As usual my province voted conservative..nothing surprising there. Guess what province that is?

DaveC426913

As a member of that riding I can attest that he was jammed in here in the first place, in his first bid at Prime Minister, and we didn't know where he came from - and he has been increasingly called 'the absentee candidate'. We never see him.

kraphysics

what was he doing then? it seems like an arrogant/foolish thing to do for someone new to canadian politics.

DaveC426913

An excellent question.