Where is the Ontario P. C. Party?

Why vote P.C. ?

Seriously? Does anyone know?

On Thursday, Christina Blizzard said exactly what I've been thinking. How exactly do Tim Hudak and the rest of the invisible Progressive Conservatives, differ from the status quo? Besides standing right along side Dalton, where does the P.C. Party stand?

If I want all-day kindergarten, I just won't bother to vote . . . why would I? I'm not voting NDP, that's just a given. And I won't be voting Liberal given that they never promised all-day kindergarten, a health premium, the HST, the eco-tax and yet now we have them -- costing us billions. But why do the P.C.s deserve my vote if they're keeping almost all of the stupid that Dalton decided was good for us?

Fact is, despite not being brave enough to ditch much of the garbage the Liberals have dumped on Ontario, the P.C.s have some okay ideas. For example The Home Energy section of the P.C. website was really informative --- I didn't know the debt being paid by the Debt Retirement Charge on your hydro bill had been paid off, but that the Liberals extended the fee for another 8 years anyway -- and because I didn't know that, I didn't know that the P.C.s would be removing that from our hydro bills ---- but I shouldn't have to go the website to find it out.

Message to Tim Hudak and . . . whoever else might be out there for the Conservatives: If you want my vote, work for it! Show me what you've got and don't make me me seek out the good things you plan to do. Most of the time I'm just too lazy -- and this is coming from someone who is actually interested in politics. The average voter hasn't heard a thing you have to say . . . that is, if you've said anything at all --- because besides yapping something about *foreign workers* I don't recall hearing you.

Oh, and if you wanted me to vote for you because the Liberals are promising something stupid ($10k for hiring immigrants) then instead of saying how asinine *they* are, I'd have rather heard your plan. Instead, I just heard *gotcha!* and tuned you out. Whoever has been doing your spinning, has just been spinning their wheels.

Sorry to be so negative, but hey . . . if you want positive reviews, do something to earn them.

canadianna

Does Warren Kinsella even read what he's written?

In Sunday's column, he writes about the *Not a Leader* ad about Dion that played during the Superbowl. He says:

Nowhere in the ad does Harper’s campaign team declare they were hoping to persuade one million Liberal voters to stay home. But that in fact was their objective and they achieved it.

Extensive focus group and polling research had told the Tories that while many Grits despised Harper, they also had serious misgivings about Dion’s “image” as a leader and his ability to communicate.

If they couldn’t persuade those million Liberal voters to come over to the blue team, the Conservatives concluded, they would persuade them to stay home on election day.

Note that he says *Liberal voters*were the target of the ads, and they were the people swayed by those ads. He continues in the same column, with his focus on Liberal/Liberal-leaning voters:

Their research had shown many card-carrying Liberals, or Liberal-leaning voters, had serious misgivings about the fact Michael Ignatieff had spent almost 30 years of his life abroad.

That was Sunday. In his follow-up column, he gives a brief re-cap of what he'd said:

In that column, I suggested some of those left and centre-left Canadians who stayed at home had been "vote suppressed."

So now, it wasn't Liberal voters being suppressed, instead it was all lefties.

Then, on his website, a commenter posted a question about the legitimacy of attack ads. Here is the exchange:

south america says: July 10, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Warren,
I’m a little confused. Are you saying the criticisms directed at Dion (“not a leader”) and Ignatieff (“left Canada for 30 years and only returned to try and be PM”) are illegitimate?

Reply

Warren says:

Nope. I’m saying they were aimed at motivating non-Libs to stay home – not motivating Cons to vote Con.
My point is that no political party should be doing anything to discourage participation in democracy, in an era when fewer folks are voting.

So on Sunday he was concerned because the Conservatives thwarted democracy by targeting Liberal voters and getting them to stay home. Then on Tuesday he was defending his concern because Conservatives targeted left-leaning voters and manipulated them into staying home. But now, on his website, he's worried that the Conservatives managed to target non-Liberals, who were also apparently not Conservatives --- and persude them to stay home.

In 2006, Dion managed to turn off his own people. Even Warren says it. The fact that even Liberals couldn't bring themselves to vote for him is hardly due to nefarious Conservative tactics. And in 2011, rather than persuading Liberals, left-leaners or anyone else to stay home, SOMEONE managed to persuade a whole bunch of left and centre-left people to vote NDP. Jack Layton performed well. His rise along with Ignatieff's epic failure, created the perfect storm for an NDP surge. Much as Conservatives might like to take credit for the crumbling Liberal fortunes, I'm afraid this one is on the Liberals themselves.

Don't worry Warren, no one who wanted to vote Liberal attained their apathy by virtue of Conservative ads or disappearing polling stations --- their attitude came directly from source.

And yeah, I know y'all say don't indulge Warren, but he's like a mosquito in the dark that keeps buzzing and I'm restless until I swat it. Besides, it's hard to let such falseness and contradiction stand without comment.

canadianna

Kinsella: Liberal voters even stupider than you thought

Imagine a million Liberal voters standing out in this heat, waiting to vote. Poor guys. Turns out it wasn't the Conservative ads that made them stay home from the polls--- Kinsella fired off another column -- it was nasty conservative tricksters placing late-night harassing phone calls from across the border to tell those Liberal voters that their polling stations had changed. I'm guessing they must still be standing at those wrong polling stations if those phone calls affected their ability to cast their ballot.

Warren, your first column suggested you lost because of nasty ads. Now you're saying you lost because of widespread, Conservative sanctioned, criminal activity. Pick one. Stick with it. Or --- face facts: Anyone who didn't bother going to the polls, didn't feel that passionate about ANY party.

I'm not saying voter suppression doesn't happen, but voter apathy is more prevalent and I'm guessing it's pretty prevalent amongst former Liberals who watched dozens of Chretien scandals, a lot of internal party bickering, endured Martin's ensuing scandals and then shook their heads at Dion's utter ineptitude but finally faced with Ignatieff pushing himself into the leadership role, they bailed.

You lost them by the numbers, election after election. Who to blame? Well, maybe the out of touch Liberal strategists. Warren?

You lost. Get over it. Move on.

canadianna

Okay, I'll play

Always love Kate's sign generator (title link). This time I decided to play. Here are a few of my tries:




canadianna

Getting the word out

The Green Shift slid down the slope into the dung pile and it's all the Conservative's fault. Apparently, according to reliable sources -- get this: the Conservatives disagreed and therefore spoke out about it before the Liberals really got a chance to explain. From the Globe:

The Liberals still have to fight to explain their Green Shift plan because the Conservatives bombarded the airwaves with “propaganda” in an effort to kill it, Stéphane Dion says.

If the Conservatives had just kept their mouths shut . . . those poor Liberals have only had two months since they announced this plan to get the word out. During that whole time the Conservatives actually gave their opinion of it. How fair is that? Their rival actually commenting on their policies? Typical Conservatives. They've got opinions on EVERYTHING and most of the time, you can count on those opinions to be different from the Liberals and you know what? They actually feel free to talk about it in public.

He (Dion) added later: “We are starting to explain it after months, months of propaganda by the Conservatives. I'm sure you and many people thought it was a carbon tax. You didn't know it was a green shift. That we will tax less what we want more of, our income, and we'll shift it to pollution, something we don't want.”

So, there you have it. Now, don't blame Stéphane Dion if you don't get it. The Conservatives probably twisted his words or something because quite frankly, it just doesn't make much sense.

canadianna

Throwing good money . . .

Prior to the vote on Kyoto, the Liberals issued a call to action to thwart Stephen Harper and the nefarious Global Warming Deniers (GWD):

Our goal with this vote is to force the Conservative party − a group of long-standing global warming deniers in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence − to recognize that this is a global crisis that requires a global response – with Canada taking the lead. This is the vision Stéphane Dion has worked hard to promote.

It would seem that Dion has worked harder at promoting the vision than he ever did taking action.

I don't deny global warming. It might be happening; I just don't know -- but I do know that even if the world is heating up, that Kyoto is not the answer.

The left has managed to link Kyoto with a cure for global warming. Rather than debate the science, critics are more and more apt to point out that if mankind is contributing to the problem through industry, then with or without this bizarre treaty, the world's temperature will continue to rise because the treaty doesn't address global warming, but rather the global economy.

But of course, that inconvenient truth is lost on those who use buzzwords and sound-bites to advance a flawed agenda. Rather than taking a step back and ascertaining realistic fixes for the environment, they bleat on about conservatives not 'caring' about the environment. They pretend that if we would obey the unrealistic and ruinous targets imposed by this piece of paper, that countries like China, India and Pakistan would suddenly jump on the CO2 reduction bandwagon.

What incentive does Kyoto provide for any of the developing nations to curb their CO2 emissions? None. In fact, there is a financial incentive to ignore any growth in their own CO2 production. Should we fail to reach our targets, we must pay them -- and yet there are no guarantees that the money we use to buy these credits will be spent on a developing nation's environmental action plan. There are no enforceable strings on this bonus cash -- so, not only can developed nations continue to pollute so long as they buy credits, no environmental demands are made on developing nations. Exactly how does this equate to a reduction in CO2?

Of course, the environment isn't really the issue:

The Conservatives have amassed a multi-million dollar war chest which they intend to use to twist and distort the truth. Please consider a donation of $100 today and help our Liberal Team speak up for all Canadians on issues like the environment, and also ensure we are able to take our positive message door-to-door in the next election campaign.

So while twisting and distorting the truth to suit their own ends, the Liberals beg their faithful to reward their party's long-standing inertia on this file. Good stewards don't throw money at a failing endeavour. Maybe that's why the Liberals are broke.

canadianna