It's hard to believe it's only been two years since that nightmare night. Two years to the day since Stephen Harper finally got his precious majority. And our precious Canada began to wither and die, as if choked by some monstrous weed. Or ravaged by an invasion of alien apes from some barbarous planet in the bowels of the universe.
Ever since the robocall scandal began the Cons have always claimed that if there was a "problem" it was a small one. It was limited to the Guelph area, the work of a rogue operative or operatives, and that people only complained AFTER the election was over. Because you know the Lieberals made them do it eh? But unfortunately for the Cons, we now know that's not true. The complaints started flooding in BEFORE the election.
He's still out there hiding in the shadows. His foul breath still hangs heavy in the air. But it seems the trail of the demon dialer Pierre Poutine has come to a dead end.
Elections Canada investigators tracking “Pierre Poutine” hit a dead end when the Internet address behind misleading robocalls in the last election led them to an open Wi-Fi connection in a private residence near Guelph.
So we may never know who tried to steal an election.
Golly Sherlock, I see the bizarre case of the Cons and the Demon-Dialers has taken another strange turn. It seems that the Harper mob is trying to shop one if its own.
A young campaign worker named Michael Sona, seen here posing with Great Robot Leader...
In a photo supplied to Con Sun Media by the goons at the PMO.
Don't they make a lovely couple?
Although I'm not sure Sona makes a good scapegoat. Because while he may be rabidly partisan.
Several University of Guelph students claim Michael Sona, the communications director for Guelph Conservative candidate Marty Burke, attempted to put a stop to voting at the special ballot held Wednesday. The students say Sona approached the Elections Canada balloting site claiming that the process unfolding at the location was illegal and at one point reached for but never took possession of a container with ballots.
When I first heard that Elections Canada is investigating attempts to suppress the vote during the last election, I wrote that at the very least bye-elections should be held in the 18 swing ridings that were targeted by robot calls.
But now I believe that it must declare the last election null and void, because this is too big to ignore.
The published report said Elections Canada was probing complaints received in Guelph, one of 18 ridings where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting. The NDP upped that number Thursday, saying they were aware of eight other NDP-held swing ridings, and at least one BQ-held riding where voters reported crank “robocalls,” for a total of 27 ridings where deception may have been at play.
This isn't just a scattered attempt to suppress the vote. This is a vast conspiracy to steal an election.
Extra. Extra. Pick up a copy of Con Stories, with the latest Con scandal.
Elections Canada has traced fraudulent phone calls made during the federal election to an Edmonton voice-broadcast company that worked for the Conservative Party across the country.
Elections Canada launched its investigation after it was inundated with complaints about election day calls in Guelph, Ont., one of 18 ridings across the country where voters were targeted by harassing or deceptive phone messages in an apparent effort to discourage Liberal supporters from voting.
Golly. Who are the Liberals going to attack now that Ruth Ellen Brosseau has been welcomed with open arms in her riding?
"She is very composed and competent, and expresses herself very well in French," said Guy Richard, mayor of Louiseville, Que. "I think she wants to do well. We want to see her regularly in the region, but like any new candidate, she'll have to get used to the job."
The unfortunate reality for those who cling to the past is exemplified by the handful of Progressive Conservatives who cried foul at the demise of their party in 2003. They were left on the sidelines sitting beside dodo birds and Commodore computers while the new Conservative Party of Canada went on to rule the country.
My hope is that the remaining members of the Liberal party will learn from this history, realize what has actually happened, and move forward into the future with heads held high and full of hope for a return to a liberal direction for Canada.
Gosh. I hope they go for it. Because voting for the Cons was such a bad idea.
I came across this little old steam engine today. Every evening it steams into a nearby tent for a performance of The Railway Children.
Normally I would just admire its toy-like beauty. But after what happened last week, all I could think about was the journey we are on. Into The Great Darkness.
It's going to be a long five years, but this gives me hope.
A new poll suggests the NDP is the hands-down favourite party among an increasingly mobilized youth.
It indicates that support for the NDP among young people was leaps and bounds ahead of the other parties in every region of the country except Alberta and it grew during the campaign.
The old parties and the corporate media can mock them.
It's still an old person's Canada.
But nothing will attract more young people to politics than the sight of all those young MPs. Nothing will motivate them more than seeing their own kind attacked.
If Jack Layton and the Quebec surprise hadn't brought them to Ottawa how else would they have got there?
If the NDP can mentor them, and show them off, even more young people will join that party.
And by the time the train pulls into the next election, those who are 13-years-old today will get to to vote, and they could change EVERYTHING.
(click pic to enlarge)
Yup. It will be a long journey.
There will be some very dark times.
But I'm riding the little toy train with the youth of Canada.
OK. To try to make up for being rude to the Liberals in my last post, and unfairly cruelly slagging, among others, Our Lady of The Impolitical, and in general causing a scandal in the progressive blogosphere.
And after having a quiet chat with the Liberal in the house. Who is bigger than me...and a martial arts expert.
I have decided, of my own free will, to try to cheer up the red Liberals (not the blue ones) and other progressives who are slowly, very slowly, coming to terms with the horrifying implications of a Harper majority.
“It’s scary,” one restaurant worker shuddered. “You wouldn’t catch me up there.”
“It’ll be pretty windy out there,” another offered. “I hope they’re taking that into account.”
Unless it's really windy, and the cable breaks eh?
But then what is death compared to five years of Big Daddy saying "God Bless Me" and "God Bless My Majestic Majority. Now bend over or ELSE..."
While the head of the Canadian Salvation Army echoes his heavenly call.
"On behalf of all those men and women, I just want to say thank you, God bless you. I'm so thankful for the support, I'm proud to be your chief of defence, God bless," he said.
And Jason Kenney and his fat shirts try to arrest people for being secularists.
Of Harper’s announcement, Kenney said: “You are speaking to their values ... I’ll be honest with you about the extent to which the mentality of today’s Liberal party is characterized by the kind of flippant secularism of the Annex.”
“If you go inside most places of worship around the GTA today,” Kenney said, “the large majority are new Canadians who have a higher degree of appreciation of religious freedom than your average university professor at the University of Toronto.”
Yup. First they came for the professors, and the atheists in the Annex, and then they came for the women, and the gays, and the bloggers. And shortly after that they came for medicare.
But cheer up. Think of it this way. Compared to that death is only RELATIVE.
Or so Darth Vader told Jean-Paul Sartre...
Anything would be better than this agony of mind...this creeping pain that gnaws and fumbles...and caresses one and never hurts quite enough.
Now does that sound familiar? I didn't think so. This one hurts a LOT.
But this sounds true.
Life begins on the other side of despair.
Which reminds me... I also want to apologize to my Liberal friends, for using the wrong doggy video. And suggesting they were begging for cheese.
That was unforgivable. All I can say is I was drinking heavily yesterday.
And what I REALLY wanted to say is when you drop the stick you are using to beat the NDP and their young MPs.
It'll be easier to go through the door...
And when you do, I'll be waiting for you on the other side.
Solidarity Forever. Long live the young people of Canada.
It's been a week since the Liberal Party went down the black hole of history.
So you'd think that by now their supporters might be ready to blame themselves. Or apologize for the fact that so many of them voted for the Cons. The ghastly blue TRAITORS.
But no, all they seem to be doing is going after the young people in the NDP, and in particular Ruth Ellen Brosseau. Hack a doodle. Hack a poodle.
Don't these pathetic losers have anything better to do? Like stand on a corner and beg for quarters.
Because they're going to need them...
Don't these pompous asses know ANYTHING about Quebec?
Don't they understand that Quebecers were so desperate for change they would have voted for a dog catcher if necessary. Just not a Con or a Liberal.
What is it about the Liberal dog that it can't understand it's not getting any more entitlement?
And no cheese either...
Woof. Woof. But but but... we is the natural governing party of Canada. WAAAAAAAH !!!
Look....NOBODY has tried more to bring the Liberals and the NDP together more than I have. For the reasons I explained last night.
But if the Liberals insist on attacking the young people in the NDP, instead of coming to terms with reality. And fighting the Cons instead of voting for them.
My patience has its limits.
And if they want a war dog fight they'll get one...
Feeling a little blue? Finding the toxic partisanship in the blogosphere a little hard to take?
Does the sight of progressives eating themselves alive shock you and make you nauseous?
So soon after the catastrophe of a Harper majority.
Don't worry, it's a perfectly natural reaction. It IS the worst thing that ever happened to this country. You can't expect people NOT to be hurt and angry.
And besides you can't spend ten hours a day, for a month, on the internet and not expect to pay a heavy price.
I know I have eh? The other day when I got up from my chair, and noticed the clear imprint of my buttocks in its leathery folds, I knew I had a problem.
But if like me, you STILL can't tear yourself away from your computer, have I ever got the solution.
The triumph of Harper's Conservatives is a revolution in Canada. Grumpy old men are happy but modernists, women, young people, immigrants, people fond of evidence-based policy will be much less so. It's the beginning of a kind of war, conducted in a dull, quietly agonising way.
And these people...
But strangely enough I'm not discouraged. Because a lot of exciting things happened last night. The orange wave was awesome. I look forward to seeing all those young people the NDP has brought to Ottawa in action, because this country is dying of oldness and BOREDOM.
And most of alI I'm excited because I'm absolutely convinced that out of this majority will come the historic opportunity to rid our country of the Cons FOREVER.
And of course because when a hard rain falls, I fight even harder. Just like I did against the bullies at school. One moment they looked unbeatable. The next moment they weren't.
What does disappoint me is the way some Liberals are blaming the NDP for what happened to them. And their extraordinarily harsh language.
Because let's be absolutely clear, the only vermin in this country are the Cons. And the Liberals have only themselves to blame for their sad situation. A lot of their supporters voted for the Cons. And so many of them still don't understand that in an increasingly polarized country the centre will not hold.
So we are back to old-style, left-right politics. Our debates are going to be a lot more impassioned, and angrier, than they've been in years. It'll be less nice, even less Canadian. But it will be more real.
Nor do they understand that when they started losing Quebec, about TWENTY years ago, they were doomed. And that they will never get those votes back because they can't be as left or social democratic as that province demands, without alienating their right-wing supporters.
So while I'm sorry about what happened to the Liberals, and the loss of good MPs like Mark Holland and Marlene Jennings, I'm also happy because it will finally force the Liberals to come to terms with their real existential problem. And force them to make a choice: join with the NDP to form a new Liberal Democrat party, or face slow extinction.
They may not want to even think about it now, but as the long years in shrunken opposition grind on they will. Which is a good thing for ALL of us.
And the even BETTER thing is that now that Stephen Harper doesn't have to pretend to be a Liberal, he will reveal his true self, and after years of mugging and raping this country Canadians will be begging for something new and different by the time his term is up.
And there waiting for them will be a new and powerful progressive party waiting to grind the Cons into the dust. And chase them from power FOREVER.
Oh sure, I know birth can be a painful process, but when you see the look on the face of the mother holding her baby, you know it was worth it. And so it shall be for us.
In the meantime I look forward to taking our struggle into the streets of this country and exploring new ways to fight the Cons.
Because with only 39 percent of the vote they are NOT my government, Stephen Harper will NEVER be my Prime Minister.
And this evening when I saw his plane arrive in Ottawa, and I heard the redneck hee haws from the Cons waiting to greet him, I realized how much I hate them.
And how easy and how much fun it will be to keep on fighting them...
But I'm sure it's just a nightmare and I'll wake up soon eh?
I've never been prouder to be a Quebecer. I LOVE that orange wave.
And I'm not going to play the hysterical blame game like so many others are tonight.
Because trust me...out of this catastrophe will eventually emerge something GREAT. Like a united left that can properly represent the views of most of the citizens of this country.
I'll be back with another hopefully rational comment. As soon as I pack my suitcase.
You know...it's funny.
I was planning to wear my favourite t-shirt tonight.
Golly. For a moment I thought that Great Ugly Leader had forgotten himself. And was trying out his Thousand Year Majority salute. Before the votes were even counted.
Yikes. Doesn't he even know the election rules? Has he NO respect for democracy?
The federal agency has received reports from ridings across Canada of people calling voters to give false information about polling locations or other changes in voting polls.
Are the Cons trying to steal the election? You don't think they might be trying to suppress the vote eh? Surely NOT.
Oh well. I just did my part to start correcting the systemic problem. I just voted for the good guys. Or the good woman.
Everybody should vote eh?
And keep your eyes open for Con operatives, the ones with the flinty eyes who smell of corruption.
I went for a long walk in the woods this evening, to clear my head, slow down my wildly beating heart, and try to prepare myself for the election tomorrow.
The precious signs of Spring in The Great White North were everywhere. But it was cold and wet, a fog was rolling in from the lake. And it all seemed to sum up how I'm feeling.
Tomorrow could be one of the best days of my life, or one of the worst, and nobody really knows what's going to happen.
"I want you to create lineups at the polls, my friends, because we can defeat Stephen Harper," Layton told the crowd.
The numbers and the headline I thought I'd never read. The words I thought I'd never hear. Except in my dreams.
The fear comes from the very real danger of vote-splitting that could still give the tyrant his deadly majority. As the Toronto Star, that endorsed the NDP, points out here.
In theory strategic voting could avoid that danger. And I have the Project Democracy widget in my sidebar. But will it work? Will NDP supporters vote Liberal when their party is so close to overtaking the Cons? Will Liberals supporters vote NDP when their party is so damaged?
I hope so, but I wonder. And what if it just drained support out of the orange wave and prevented it from swamping the Cons?
Luckily for me, my choice is a simple one. I live in an NDP riding, I'm voting to keep it that way, and I couldn't be happier to find myself surfing the orange wave.
Not just because their social-democratic platform is closest to my own. Or because I prefer to live in a centre-LEFT country not a centre-right one. And I know that in an increasingly polarized Canada, the middle is just an illusion.
But also because of something else, that strangely enough so few progressives seem to mention. Jack Layton's ability to connect with Quebecers, and break the Bloc's long stranglehold on the French-speaking people of that province.
Because it's a stunning achievement, a glorious opportunity for a new beginning. And some things are even bigger than an election.
Quebecers have saved us from a Harper majority. They are the fiercest defenders of our beautiful Canadian values, that put community and caring before the jungle individualism of Amerika. No Canadians hate the Harper Regime more than they do.
Now they are challenging us to join an orange wave, overthrow the tyrant, and bring something new and different to a country that has been suffocating in its own deadly lethargy, while being slowly poisoned by the fascist fumes of Harper and his alien, un-Canadian thugs.
So I'm going with them eh? I'm accepting the challenge. I love them too much to see them disappointed. Especially the one I live with, who will be voting for the NDP for the first time in his life.
And as the kids from this French junior college in Montreal, where the orange wave started, keep reminding me. Life is meant to be exciting.
And I gotta feeling it's gonna be a good day...
And from the English-speaking kids just a few blocks away.
Who are running to meet them...
YES/OUI. We can do it...
Have a great election everybody. May all our dreams come true.
I'm hopeful, I'm scared, but I've never been so proud to be a progressive.
Yesterday, he wouldn't answer questions about whether he's planning a constitutional coup. And he allowed a Con mob to drown out questions from a CBC reporter.
Now, on the last day of the campaign, he will take no more questions.
In the closing days of the campaign, Harper is focusing his message and has decided not to get thrown off track. Throughout the race, he has imposed tight limits on media access by only allowing five questions at a daily news conference.
Now, he has gone further, deciding not to hold a news conference on Sunday — the last day of the campaign — as he hits the hustings in Prince Edward Island, Ontario and British Columbia.
While he continues his demented attack on Jack Layton, trying to portray him as an economic terrorist.
In recent days, he has said the economy would be ruined, Canadians would lose jobs, consumer prices would increase, taxes would rise and foreign investment dry up.
But why is Great Ugly Leader refusing to answer any questions? What is he trying to hide?
Is it just because he wants his last day to be pure propaganda? Is it because he has decided to launch his coup, and doesn't want to give anything away?
Or is it because his sleazy thugs are planning to smear Layton again? And he doesn't want to be seen anywhere near the scene of the crime?
Because with this deranged degenerate you never know eh? He's capable of ANYTHING.
You know when I see what Harper and the corporate media are trying to do to Layton, it reminds me of what Big Business did to Chile's Allende. Before their stooges killed him.
And it also reminds me of the old TV series A Very British Coup. And one scene in particular, when the one of the coup leaders, the head of MI5, visits the progressive, working class Prime Minister.
And delivers an ultimatum...
Because let's be very clear, the same dark forces are at work here. The ones who will do anything to make sure Jack Layton NEVER becomes Prime Minister.
Stephen Harper is the most sinister and evil leader in Canadian history. He destroyed Michael Ignatieff, now he's going after Jack.
And unless the decent people of this country defeat him tomorrow, he will stick a knife into the heart of our democracy.
It was another chilling moment, another totalitarian tic, from the troubled mind of an increasingly desperate political thug. Who would be our dictator.
Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is refusing to say if he would honour any decision by Governor General David Johnston to invite NDP Leader Jack Layton to form a government if the Tories fail to win a majority on Monday.
A Canadian political leader who won't say whether he will follow the rules of our parliamentary democracy. A howling Con mob shouting down reporters.
When CBC Television reporter Terry Milewski asked Harper why he was “ducking the question,” the invite-only group of Tory supporters tried to shout him down.
“Shut down the CBC!” yelled one man, provoking cheers from the crowd.
Great eh? Once he pretended he was Stalin. Then he started acting like King Stephen or Big Daddy. Now he's out of control. And our democracy is in real danger.
I knew that if he failed to get his precious majority, he would try to use the threat of a "Separatist Coalition" to whip up the rabble and intimidate the Governor General into giving him what he wanted. Like he did with Michaelle Jean.
Bent her to his will.
Just like that foul bully will try to do to ANYONE who dares stand in the way of his savage lust for power. And his desire to mutilate Canada beyond recognition.
And since it has happened before, and Andrew Coyne and I agree on something, you know we've got a serious problem.
What he may have in mind is this: that after losing a vote of non-confidence, he would advise the Governor General to dissolve the House and call new elections, rather than call upon someone else to form a government. He would then dare the Governor General to overrule his first minister’s advice, something that Governors General are quite properly extremely reluctant to do.
He would, in short, be doing another King-Byng, provoking a constitutional crisis rather than yield power, hoping to intimidate the Governor General and/or rally public opinion to his side.
Because if that is what he is planning, nothing less than a coup in Canada, there can be no other reasonable conclusion: Any Prime Minister who would provoke a constitutional crisis to save his own skin is unfit to be Prime Minister.
And this hideous Harper must be removed from office just like the first one was.
I mean somebody has to say it eh? It does run in the family, it is madness. And this country won't be safe until that dangerous authoritarian is gone.
With less that 48 hours to go before the most critical election in Canadian history, the choice couldn't be clearer:
Defeat that power hungry maniac and his Con junta.
Like many people I was disgusted to see the Globe and Mail editorial board endorse Stephen Harper.
It was hard to believe a serious news organization, whose own reporters had catalogued such a long list of abuse, corruption, and contempt for Parliament, could come to such a conclusion.
And it was clear to me that the only reason they were endorsing Harper was because of his plans to cut corporate taxes.
And their Big Business masters were jerking their leashes...
It was porky, it was crass. And the fact that they would put profits before their country, at such a critical time in Canadian history, will shame them FOREVER.
So I'm glad to see a Globe contributor take on the editorial board.
This dishonesty transcends the kind of white lies that people expect of politicians; it suggests hostility toward the truth. Indeed, in some of the government’s stranger moments, the Conservatives appear to have lost touch with reality altogether, blinded by ideology while caught in their own spin cycle. Witness their response to being the first government in Canadian history to be found in contempt of Parliament. To the Tories, this was a mere difference of opinion. The Globe endorsement made no mention of that.
To me, this election goes beyond ideology: it’s about trust. The very fact that Mr. Harper and his entourage could behave in such a dishonest manner and still get The Globe’s endorsement is an indication of how cynical we've become about our political process under this government.
Both Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton have given us far more reason to believe they are trustworthy, honest leaders who have a grip on the reality Canadians face.
Yay Matthew. Say it like is, or should have been.
If you believe in democracy, and love our beautiful Canada.
Voters who believe that Canada can — and should — aim higher have an important decision. Until 10 days ago, they had only one realistic alternative to the Conservatives — the Liberal party under Michael Ignatieff. Today, that is no longer the case.
The New Democrats have been reinvigorated under the leadership of Jack Layton. After Monday, they may well challenge the Liberals as the principal national standard-bearer for the roughly two voters in three who disagree fundamentally with the course charted by the Harper Conservatives. Progressive voters should give them their support on Monday.
No wonder the Cons are so desperate, and are throwing their fecal pellets at Jack Layton. When they're not chewing on them like peanuts. That's why that Sun story was released tonight, to try to blunt the impact of that endorsement. Because it's HUGE. Especially in the Greater Toronto Area where the Cons are hoping to pick up seats.
The NDP are at 33 per cent support nationwide, up three percentage points in recent days and just four points back from the Conservatives who are at 37 per cent, up two, according to the latest Angus Reid poll done in partnership with the Toronto Star and La Presse.
The Liberals have dropped by three percentage points this week to 19 per cent. That’s where the NDP stood at the start of the campaign, illustrating the stunning turn in fortunes for both parties.
I suppose anything is possible. But I wouldn't bet on it.
I'm betting that this country wants real change.
Out of the darkness comes hope.
Out of the manure that is Con Canada, spring the finest flowers...
I always knew he was a monster. You know I did. I always knew he would do ANYTHING for a majority. We all did.
But now I think I can say this categorically: Stephen Harper is to the Canadian body politic what syphilis is to the human body.
Jack Layton accused his opponents of launching a smear campaign after a report alleged the NDP leader was found naked in a Toronto massage parlour long before he got into federal politics.
A political thug who would infect our democracy with the disease of American politics, cripple and blind it, and drag our country into the gutter.
I see the Con Death Machine is denying any responsibility.
Conservative party officials declined comment Friday night.
“All I can say is it wasn't us,” said one senior Tory insider.
“We have no interest in this and, if anything, this kind of a story benefits the Liberals not us,” said the source.
But since just a few days ago a top Con operative, they flew in from Chicago, was accused of peddling a ridiculous story about Michael Ignatieff.
And since we now know from which stinky swamp these Con operatives come from.
Opposition parties have long suspected that the Tories use U.S.-based and (likely) Republican Party-affiliated political consultants to develop campaign strategy. But determining which consultants are on the payroll is difficult.
Do they really think anyone will believe them? And would YOU trust these RepubliCon sleaze monkeys with a Canadian government, let alone a majority?
Oh boy. My parents prepared for a lot of things, they warned me about all kinds of bad people. But they never could have prepared me for this. And for a moment when I first read the story, I thought I was going to vomit.
The good news? It's probably going to backfire. Jack Layton will have a far easier time denying that he did anything wrong, than Stephen Harper will have denying he is a sleaze artist, or a political pervert.
And of course it only reinforces what I have come to believe at the end of this election campaign. Vote smart, but if you can join the orange wave join it.
Let it roll across the country like a democratic tsunami, wash these filthy Cons into the sewer of history.
