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Why Stephen Harper won't win the election...
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| MarkT |
post whichever reason tickles your fancy :p
how about because this is what he talks about the day Parliament is dissolved...did he learn NOTHING from the last election campaign???
| quote: | Harper vows free vote on gay marriage
Nov. 29, 2005. 02:13 PM
CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Stephen Harper launched his campaign today by steering it straight into the electoral turbulence of gay marriage.
A Conservative government would move to restore the traditional definition of marriage if Parliament supports the idea, he said.
"It will be a genuine free vote when I'm prime minister. I will not whip our cabinet," he said referring to the process by which Paul Martin's ministers were forced last summer to support a bill that legalized gay weddings.
Harper would consider the matter closed if MPs don't support introducing new legislation to once again define marriage as the exclusive domain of one man, one woman.
Either way, Harper promised to preserve more than 3,000 gay marriages already performed across Canada.
"That's the commitment we've made and it hasn't changed," he said in the lobby outside the House of Commons.
Harper made a point of raising the thorny issue even after his handlers had cut off questions from reporters. He believes same-sex couples should be recognized through civil unions that set out economic rights but don't infringe on traditional marriage.
In the 2004 election, the Tory stance against gay weddings cost the party crucial support in urban Ontario and among younger voters.
It also helped the Liberals to portray Harper as a kind of far-right bogey man who would undercut the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They wasted no time today.
"Mr. Harper begins his campaign with an unequivocal statement that, if elected prime minister, he would act swiftly to roll back charter rights," Martin spokesman Scott Reid said soon after Harper's comments.
Gay activists were dismayed.
"It's really disheartening," said Gilles Marchildon, executive director of EGALE Canada.
"What does that say about our confidence in the government, that when a law is passed we can rely on it? Instead of creating conditions that bring peace, order and good government, it's chaos, confusion and uncertainty."
Marchildon says the issue was decided after a two-year national debate.
"A decision was made, and I think a majority of Canadians — whether or not they agree with the outcome — agree that we should move on."
Not so, says former Liberal MP Pat O'Brien.
He has teamed with ex-Tory Grant Hill to form Defend Marriage Canada. They plan to raise money, publish letters and lobby voters during the campaign to elect candidates who oppose gay marriage.
O'Brien quit the Liberals over the issue to sit as an Independent MP and is not running for re-election.
He says same-sex weddings are not over in the minds of "millions of Canadians."
But most legal experts agree that a raft of court judgments and a reference opinion from the Supreme Court of Canada give the Conservatives little room to move.
Heather MacIvor, a political scientist at University of Windsor, recently published the book Canadian Politics and Government in the Charter Era.
She leads a seminar class on the Supreme Court opinion and says the high court was clear that marriage, under the Constitution, now includes gay couples.
"You can't use the notwithstanding clause to override the division of powers in the 1867 Constitution."
The court also stressed "that same-sex marriage is not opposed to the values and principles of the Charter — it flows from them," MacIvor said.
"This is the law of the land and we cannot go back on it. I don't know if it's just that (Harper) doesn't have anybody in his entourage . . . who is capable of explaining this to him, or if it's just that he's ignoring all of these facts. He knows that his political base doesn't like same-sex marriage." |
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| MarkT |
further to that...
so Martin will walk around talking about how 400,000 jobs were created last year, unemployment is at a 30 year low, the dollar is strong, inflation is low, interest rates are low, and more than 80 billion in debt has been paid down during Liberal administrations. Then he'll talk about all of the spending initiatives that the opposition is endangering by forcing the election.
yet Harper is going to make gay marriage a major issue again...good job, Stephen! :rolleyes:
The man is never going to be PM until he amends his gameplan...this didn't work last time, it won't work this time. He is NOT going to increase his voter base by making this an important issue and allowing the Liberals to paint his party as having anti-gay agenda (not saying they do, but it's easy to spin it that way when he includes this in his speech virtually immediately at the beginning of an election campaign). |
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| hardcore trancer |
| As I said in the past Harper is an idiot and there is no way he'll win any election in this country.He is wasting his time and everyone elses by bringing issues that are not important. |
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| VERTiG0 |
| Because the man simply cannot eat 3 Double Big Macs in one sitting. What a ing . I don't want a as a prime minister. |
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| Wyndham |
| i dont think harper should have brought this up so soon in lol, but whatever, hes not the best when it comes to timing...but, he is right, there should have been a free vote in the first place, martin was more up on making histroy instead. Polls show that majority of canadians didn't agree with the way it was done by martin, harper knows this, everyone should know this if ur up on politics, which is why hes going to have a fair free democratic vote. I agree with what hes doing 100% because we are supposed to have a democracy in the commons, not a forced vote by your pm, i really dont see how someone can disagree with this. He wants a free vote like how it should have been done if the first place, if it passes, then the matter is closed. Harper is not anti gay, hes fixing something that wasn't done properly in the first place. But i dont think Harper should campaign on it, talk about it here or there but it should be a background issue, not something to campaign on |
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| lexclu |
Um... not defending the liberals..
But that wikipedia link is total crap... the provinces have nagged and nagged and nagged the federal government for more money on some very key issues.. so the government gave them the money they asked for and the responsibilities... now that they can't handle the responsibilities themselves they ask for more money... this is very typical of a federal system.. if the fed gov was to make all the prov gov's happy... we'd be running such a large deficit that would cripple the country, maybe not for us but our children and our grandchildren... and be skeptical of any province oriented political reading who's main sources are 1) the province of quebec 2) the bloc quebecois and most importantly 3) the partie quebecois...
Canada has been able to stay afloat due to the proximity to the US... um... yeah... such has been the case since before the liberals or lieberals even existed...
lex |
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| TheVrk |
How about because Harper (like any Conservative) would destroy
this flourishing economy as they've ALWAYS done.... |
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| DigiNut |
| quote: | Originally posted by MarkT
so Martin will walk around talking about how 400,000 jobs were created last year, unemployment is at a 30 year low, the dollar is strong, inflation is low, interest rates are low, and more than 80 billion in debt has been paid down during Liberal administrations. Then he'll talk about all of the spending initiatives that the opposition is endangering by forcing the election. |
He can talk all he wants but it doesn't make any of those things actually true. Oh, they did create about 350,000 jobs - and destroyed another 450,000.
You're right about Harper though, it was an *incredibly* stupid move to kick off his campaign with such a controversial yet trivial issue. |
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| Jayx1 |
Why Harper wont be PM?
Answer: Because one in 3 canadians really are that stupid.... |
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| Wyndham |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Why Harper wont be PM?
Answer: Because one in 3 canadians really are that stupid.... |
haha, about the same ratio for ta's |
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| Cosmic Fur |
| quote: | Originally posted by Jayx1
Why Harper wont be PM?
Answer: Because one in 3 canadians really are that stupid.... |
I was gonna post something like that, but you beat me to it. So I'm just gonna quote you in the hopes of appearing as smart as you. |
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