I am going to spend time with my family now so that when I take off to Ottawa in a couple of years they will remember who I am!
Kevin Falcon announced this morning that he was stepping down from his ministerial positions effective immediately,serving out his term and leaving politics to spend time with his family and the new-born expected in February.
Admirable to be sure.
Also a definite shot at the Christy Clark leadership.
It could also be paving the way for a run at a Federal Conservative seat in 2015.( The newborn will be 2 by then)
Where will he run? The in the process of being created new federal seat in the soon to be called Electoral District Association of Surrey Cloverdale, that’s where.
By leaving now he escapes the slaughter that will be known as the May 2013 provincial election where the BC Liberals will almost certainly be wiped out.
What do you think, Is Kevin Falcon preparing for loftier goals?
Boris: Elizabeth who? I have no idea who you are talking about!
Boris Wrzesnewskyj is probably crying in his corn flakes right about now.
If the members of the Supreme Court happen to read the Globe and see this piece it will give them yet another reason to over turn the judgement of the Ontario Court.
MS. May makes my argument for me, that the result from the election should be allowed to stand simply because voting conditions have changed since May 2011.
Election Canada has also said time and time again that we are talking about 20 or 30 votes which although are just as important as every other vote didn’t necessarily go to Conservative candidate Opitz.They could have been spread out equally amongst the parties.
I think common sense will prevail and the Supreme Court will over rule Ontario and ask Elections Canada to clean up their act.
As for Elizabeth May, Canadians and Conservative voters probably owe her a thanks.
Her ridiculous idea and strategy probably just saved us the cost of a by-election.
He won fair and square. The Courts should butt out!
I find the Etobicoke Center case to be interesting not just because I am a Conservative with a vested interest ( I hate losing) but because as a Campaign Manager in the last election I went to a number of Elections Canada meetings for both of the Electoral Districts I worked in.
For what it’s worth they were located in Langley and Surrey British Columbia.
This question was front and center at all the meetings because a lot of us were startled by Elections Canada’s rules regarding specifically homeless people voting.
Essentially we were told that if a homeless person approached the booth and said he lived in the area he or she was eligible to vote.
Recently,as I am sure you are aware an Ontario Court judge tossed out the election result in which the Conservative Ted Opitz won by a mere 26 votes.
What the correct thing to do is anybody’s guess and I have my opinions and I will share them shortly.
This whole thing reminds me of voting in Saskatchewan in the late 80’s and early 90’s. As scrutineers we were always warned about a certain political party ( I was a conservative, It was not the Liberals and the green and Saskatchewan Party did not exist back then) would fill up vacant rental house just before the election with students,drunks etc, and get them to vote repeatedly.
Most scrutineers were stressed and tense and I recall challenging many a vote.( Hey you have already voted get lost!)
In the case of Etobicoke Centre I feel for all the people involved.
I feel for our guy because as the judge said he did nothing wrong and it was because of Elections Canada’s rules that this happened.
I feel for the Liberal ( not really he’s a Liberal) who lost his seat by 26 votes.
I feel for the voters who had their result tossed out.
The problem as I see it in tossing out the result a year later is that it does not take into consideration the climate on the original voting day as compared to what exists now over a year later.
People voted not just for Opitz but to toss Igantieff out!
Quite frankly Mr. Opitz will get screwed if this Ontario court judges ruling is allowed to stand.
What I think should happen is that the Supreme court should throw out the Ontario judges ruling for a number of reasons.
They would be: Courts should not interfere in election results otherwise every close result will be referred to the courts who have no business getting involved.
Secondly people vote on a given day for a given reason. That can change 13 months or more later and is also not fair to the process.( See giving Mike Ignatieff the high hard one above)
What should happen is that the Supreme Court Should allow the election result to stand and admonish Elections Canada for the stupidity of the rules. They should give it a year to report back to the court with streamlined rules to prevent this from happening again.
Everybody should have to show proper ID to vote, no exceptions!
Thomas Mulcair has won the leadership of the Federal NDP and is the new leader of the opposition , Now what?
He will more than likely move the party to the center and most likely very quickly.
What will this mean to Canadian politics?
First and foremost it will almost certainly force the Liberal party of Canada to advance their own leadership convention.
Why?
Because Mulcair and the NDP will devour the Liberals if they get control of the center and Marijuana Bob wouldn’t like that.
Also the interim leader of the Liberal Party, under it’s constitution, cannot negotiate a merger with the NDP. They need a permanent leader, it’s as simple as that.
What else?
It will probably force a lot of the extreme leftists that are currently have a home in the NDP to go somewhere else. ( Hello Elizabeth May and the Green Party you belong together )
Anything else?
Yes the right side of the Liberal Party will likely bolt to the Conservatives rather than join the NDP.
That it?
No the Bloc had hopes and aspirations going into today. Thomas Mulcair probably killed them off.
Anything good come of all this?
Yes likely the Liberal Party as you know it is done, so is the Bloc?
Any last thoughts?
Yes given all the mayhem and delays in the voting today , Rebecca Blaikie handle herself well. She is a good President of the NDP and has a lot to be proud of.
Thank god these two can't vote,I can't afford any more bad news!
More bad news for the BC Liberals as the BC Conservatives continue to eat into Liberal numbers.
Glum news for a Party and a Premier who have been making announcement after announcement this week.
This probably explains why the Premier is returning to her old stomping grounds on NW radio Monday for as Justine Hunter says “a faux Throne Speech” with Bill Good.
Prepare to be nauseated for 90 minutes. This will more than likely be an opportunity for BC Liberal staffers and party members to phone in with easy to answer questions that even the Premier can answer.
Maybe we all will get lucky and she will call those by-elections.
Word comes today from a study done in Canada that the drug that the Marijuana Liberal Partyproposed to legalize might not be a safe as everybody thinks.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has today called the by=election to file the vacancy left by the death of Jack Layton in the EDA of Toronto-Danforth for March 12,2012.
Even Marijuana Liberal interim Leader Bob Rae held this riding when he was a Federal Dipper back in the late 70’S.
Traditionally governments don’t win by-elections but Layton is probably looking down with more than a passing interest from heaven.
After all,having just been laid to rest,it is a little soon for him to roll over the grave, should the lefties split the vote and the governing Conservatives come up through the middle and win the seat!
Angus Reid released a new poll today that showed the BC Conservatives gaining ground in Metro Vancouver and the Interior. This is a happy occasion for the party as Mario Canseco of Angus Reid says “their leader is not particularly well-known at this stage and is not carrying any significant momentum on issues”
One can only imagine the heights the party can climb to,once people start paying attention and get to know John Cummins and the policies that the party represents.
Even more troubling for Premier Christy Clark and her Liberals is the fact that the party has dropped below 30% since Gordon Campbell resigned.
Responding to the poll results,the Premier,mentioned that she was too busy thinking about jobs rather than polls.Given the disastrous results of the who would make the best Premier question,I am thinking the job she is most concerned with would be her own!
Sadly,to be a leader and increase your numbers in those type of questions,a Premier must show leadership on important questions such as the pipeline and the jobs that go with that project.. This premier has not.
For a Premier and a Party that relies on photo ops,this poll would be a great snap shot of where the BC Liberal team are headed,to the bottom with the Titanic!
Yesterday a story appeared in La Presse about Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc misusing funds and paying a Bloc staffer with money out of their parliamentary Budget.Today the National Post followed up with an English version of the story.
Mr.Duceppe,has subsequently said he is stepping away from politics to defend his integrity.
I can only imagine most people reading these stories and discussing the events debating about whether he/they did it or not.
That is exactly the question whoever released the story to the press wants you to ask. However,it is not the one you should be asking.
What you should be debating is this: If this has been going on for 7 years why is the story being released now. Surely,somebody inside the Bloc or PQ knew.They could have let this slip out sooner,why now?
The answer of course is that Duceppe has been throwing up trial balloons about the executive of the Bloc deciding the fate of the PQ’s current leader,Pauline Marois.
There has been speculation that Mr.Duceppe has been trying to push her out and take over the leadership himself.
Could this story have been slipped to La Presse by a Marois sympathizer in an attempt to thwart Duceppe from making a come back? Of course!
However the PQ are not the only one with something at stake here. Right now the party is not polling well.If Duceppe had have forced Marois out and brought the PQ back into prominence then their sister party,the Bloc may have also made a comeback federally.
This would have hurt the NDP who is already smarting from a recent defection and it also would have hurt the Liberals who are trying to make a comeback( on the backs of the NDP) of their own.
Remember the interim leader of the NDP is a former Bloc member as are numerous members of the NDP caucus. The NDP defector was of course also privy to all of this and quite likely now so is her new party.
So any of these people could have leaked this to La Presse.
You can speculate all you want,but this is politics at its dirtiest!
