Saanich-Gulf Islands - perhaps not quite Ground Zero after all

Saanich Gulf Islands in 2008 is widely perceived by many to be "ground zero for election fraud in Canada", as Elizabeth May puts it. Not only did the perps successfully pull it off but Elections Canada's botched investigation demonstrated it could be done in future elections with impunity.

The scam comes in two parts. (Wet coasters may want to skip this bit.)
1)Robocalls
Environmentalist and SGI Lib candidate Briony Penn lost in the 2008 election when robocalls from the US spoofed the NDP campaign number and encouraged SGI voters to vote for the NDP candidate who had very publicly dropped out 3 weeks earlier but too late to have his name removed from the ballot. Some 3700 voted for him and Con MP/TarSands Minister Gary Lunn bested Penn by a 2,625 vote margin. 

The alternative theory is that pissed off NDP voters voted for their candidate anyway to spite the Liberals who outed him for inappropriate skinny dipping and body painting behavior 12 years earlier in 1996, causing him to drop out of the race. 

“The Liberal Party did that,” the director of communications for the Liberals B.C. campaign Brad Zubyk said, though he denied deserving credit himself. “It's all public domain. Quite frankly, we don't apologize for it. None of this is particularly hard to find.”

Either way, Elections Canada closed their investigation after failing to determine whether anyone "had actually been influenced in their vote because of the purported telephone call", and because "evidence of the actual source of the calls and the person or persons who made them would be required."   
Same reasons EC gave for concluding their election fraud investigation in 2011. 

2) Third party advertisers. 
Your previously unheard-of go-to people when a campaign has maxed out their allowable EC spending limit and there's a need for a last minute proxy ad buy in local papers and radio before Election Day, after which they vanish in a puff of smoke til next election.
Of the 50 odd third-party groups registered with Elections Canada in 308 ridings across Canada in 2008, five were registered in Saanich-Gulf Islands. The first four on the list below all shared the same financial agent and registered under the law firm address and phone number of Bruce Hallsor - former Canadian Alliance Party candidate, Gary Lunn supporter, and Conservative riding association VP . 

• Economic Advisory Council of Saanich  - Patricia Trottier, sole financial contributor, c/o Bruce Hallsor’s law office at 800-1070 Douglas St., Victoria
• Dean Park Advocacy Association  - Ralph Bodine, contributors Ralph and Linda Bodine c/o Hallsor law office
• Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council  - Dana Dickinson c/o Hallsor law office
• Citizens Against Higher Taxes  - Lynda Farmer c/o Hallsor law office
• Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria  - Donna Evans

Before Andrew MacLeod at The Tyee added Citizens Against Higher Taxes to his list, there were only four on it. At that time Hallsor told him that while Dickinson of Saanich Peninsula Citizens Council :

"did some advertising in 2006 - the other three were new for this election."

Not that new.

In 2006 in Victoria - the riding right next to SGI - crown prosecutor and Con MP-hopeful Robin Baird got some election advertising help from Common Sense Advocacy of Victoria. On their January 2006 Elections Canada Third Party Advertising Report, Common Sense Advocacy lists Donna Evans as financial agent and the address is once again ... wait for it ...   Bruce Hallsor's law office.  

Donna Evans is married to Robert Evans, Gary Lunn's fundraising chair for Saanich-Gulf Islands electoral district association. Lunn's VP was Bruce Hallsor and his riding president was then-Environment Minister Jim Prentice's sister.   
MacLeod :

"Robert Evans is the vice-president of Community Marine Concepts, which is seeking a license from the province to occupy 2.63 hectares of Victoria Harbour with a marina for 80-foot to 120-foot yachts.  The company is working on the proposal with Alberta-based WAM Development Group. Getting the license requires approvals from various provincial and federal agencies ... Hallsor has registered to lobby on behalf of WAM."

and is still the registered lobbyist for WAM in 2015 : 

• Application of transport regulations related to use of the Victoria Harbour

G&M : "... when a minister gets lobbied by his own campaign manager, who is acting for his fundraiser, it certainly looks bad. "

Likewise, when local opponents to the mega-marina ask the riding president's brother, the Environment Minister, for an environmental assessment and are refused - also not good.

In 2006 Bruce Hallsor formed the BC Conservative Club ; by 2009 he was also the BC Liberal constituency association president for Victoria – Beacon Hill. In a treatise I can no longer find online, Hallser argued that federal conservatives should vote for BC Liberals.  

It's a small, small, small LibCon world out here in BC. A lot of it is about money. I reckon the 'ground zero' elections shenanigans event horizon goes back further than most of us can remember.

Thursday Update : Deep Climate : Conservative Democracy Deficit on Vancouver Island
A very thorough and detailed look that I had read four years ago and forgotten about.
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Stephen Maher interviews Del Mastro on his elections violations

Fifteen months ago, Stephen Harper's Parliamentary Secretary and robocalls pointman Dean Del Mastro made an unscheduled surprise visit to CBC's Power and Politics panel to defend himself against a breaking McMaher story that he was being investigated by Elections Canada for allegedly incurring costs that breached the spending limit for his 2008 election campaign. EC laid charges against him yesterday.

Stephen Maher was on that June 2012 panel and this is a rare opportunity to hear DM using his indoor voice.
Excerpted from above : 

Maher: If you look at the campaign statements, the expence statements, there's a record of $1500 going to this company Holinshed but not a record of $21,000 and I don't know if you've had a chance yet to look back and see what that $21,000 was for.

Del Mastro : They undertook a small amount of work during the campaign, during the actual campaign writ, that's reflected in that campaign expenditure. They did also undertake some work at various times both for, well, for my [riding]association, so they would be on separate statements. As you know, expenditures incurred during a writ period are reflected in the election return, and campaign, er, expenses that are incurred outside of a writ period for an association are reflected on the association's files.

Campaign expenses outside of the writ? 

Jennifer Ditchburn : "Was there a total amount of $21,000 that was paid to this particular company over a period of time?

DDM : There was a relationship for services that had been completed by this company for various services that they had done, both for my MP office - at one point I had a very small contract with them for that for the association which is not me, this is the Conservative association - and a small contract that was undertaken for my 2008 campaign.  Those were paid. There is no question as to whether or not they were paid - in fact Mr Hall [Holinshed] indicated that in his filing on a separate matter.

JD : So you're saying that the financial records will ultimately reveal that although you paid out of your pocket, all of that $21,000 was paid back to you at certain points. [clever girl.]

DM : I've always been reimbursed, whether it's by the campaign or by the association for any expenditures I've incurred.

What DM is pushing here is that the $21,000 cheque covers both work done during and outside the writ period for both himself and the riding association, so he's not actually gone over the election spending limit.

However from the McMaher story the same day :

After the election, Hall [of Holinshed] claimed, Del Mastro asked him to do $1,500 of additional work using some of the election data and to backdate the invoice to the election period.
Hall later checked Elections Canada filings and found that the Del Mastro campaign had declared only the $1,500 payment for the extra Holinshed work — a payment Hall said he never received — and not the $21,000 of work he performed during the election.

And as Stephen Maher pointed out on CTV's PowerPlay yesterday : 

 "One of the key documents is a piece of paper which purports to be paperwork from Holinshed to Del Mastro saying 'oh we've received this payment and returned it to you' - which appears to bear the signature not of someone from Holinshed but of someone from Mr. Del Mastro's campaign.  This is what the investigator called a false document and this is what makes it serious." 

A look at the GeoVote and GOTV work Frank Hall at Holinshed possibly did for Del Mastro in 2008 here. 
GeoVote was an interactive voter-tracking system like the Cons CIMS, pinpointing how voters voted in each house in a riding on a map. Despite receiving a six-figure Economic Action Plan grant to develop the project in 2009/10, Holinshed disappeared in 2011.

Three months before his 2012 Power and Politics appearance, Del Mastro stood 16 times over two days in the House of Commons to read the same identical talking points off a script about election fraud allegations against the Cons being "baseless smears". 
The sad thing is he had to read them off the script every single time, only allowing himself very minor variations :



P.S. What a complete prat Norquay is in the P&P segment at top - he's absolutely outraged that an investigative journalist would actually do his job.

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The price of doing democracy

In the 2006 federal election, Tony Clement won his won his Parry Sound-Muskoka riding by a mere 28 votes.

In 2008, following election endorsements from local mayors on his G8 slush fund tailgate committee which he used to misdirect public funds intended for border infrastructure to gazebos and flower pots in his riding, he increased that vote margin to almost 11,000.

Fun with math : $50-million divided by the 21,831 that voted for him in 2008 = $2,290 per vote.

h/t DAMMIT JANET
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Nah, that's too simple. It would never work.

Rick Mercer on Libs choosing their leader :

"Members of the Liberal party don't actually get to vote for the leader. Oh no, no, no. That would be madness. Instead, they choose a delegate. And when they choose their delegate, they hoist them up on their shoulders and they march them down to the train station and then send them off to Montreal somewhere. And then three days later some guy named Gerard Kennedy makes a back room deal and then suddenly, the guy in third place who can't communicate becomes the leader. Then there's an election. Then they lose.

Here's an idea. From now on in, how about members of the party actually get to vote for the leader? And instead of one of these old fashioned multi-million dollar conventions, do it on the Internet. Hell you can do your banking on the there, you can buy a kidney on there, surely to god you can figure out a way to vote for the leader of a political party on there."

Actually, Rick, at their last convention the Lib delegates held a forum on whether or not to open up the vote to, you know, the members of the Liberal party. Then they voted against it.

Green Party guy endorses Gordo ; Gordo endorses Harper

G&M : Campbell urges support for Harper government
Blaming Quebec separatists for election results, Premier says it's time to work together

"The Liberal Premier of British Columbia blames Quebec separatists for the country's third minority government in a row.
"Everyone should understand that the only thing that prohibited Mr. Harper from getting the majority he was seeking was the separatists in Quebec," Gordon Campbell said yesterday"

Can I get a lolcat to go with that, please?
We have all already given our collective thanks to the Bloc, Gordo.

"He added that Mr. Harper is clearly the man most Canadians want as prime minister."

Yo! Gordo! Steve won less of the popular vote than last time!
But I can see where you might be hoping to hitch your little rightwing wagon to Steve's in time for your election campaign next year.


In other fabulous cross-party wankfests:
"The former Interim Leader of the BC Green Party endorsed Premier Gordon Campbell’s leadership and joined the BC Liberal Party team today."

"Over the past year I’ve been impressed with Premier Campbell’s leadership," said Christopher Ian Bennett. "It was time for me to move over and be part of a party that was making a difference and truly leading Canada blah blah blah..."

For his part, Gordo said he "respected [Bennett's] ability regardless of party label to stand up for what was right for British Columbia blah blah blah..."
Previously, Bennett was Elizabeth May's communications director in her successful bid for GP leadership.

Ok, are we done with this nonsense of referring to all Greens as "left wing" now?

The friends of Gary Lunn

Minister of Natural [Oil] Resources Gary Lunn had some interesting third party advertising help in keeping his seat in Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Of the 52 third parties registered with Elections Canada to advertise for special interest groups, Andrew MacLeod at The Hook reports that four of them share the same address and phone number at the law offices of former Alliance Party candidate Bruce Hallsor who, along with the four, was working to re-elect Lunn.

The office receptionist had never heard of them.
Well, we have.
Patricia Trottier, Elections Canada contact person for one of the four, the "Economic Advisory Council of Saanich", is an oil and gas consultant married to Gwyn Morgan, former CEO of EnCana Corp. where he is still a director.

Hallsor, a former member of the B.C. Chief Electoral Officer's Advisory Committee, is also named in Election Canada documents in the alleged Con in-an-out scheme, in which moneys were transferred to local candidates, who then transferred the funds back to the federal party to spend on more advertising for the national campaign. Elections Canada maintains that in this way the Cons exceeded their spending limit by more than $1 million in the previous election.

More Saanich-Gulf Islands shenanigans.
Mike Watkins writes about the automated phone calls allegedly impersonating the NDP and urging voters to vote for an NDP candidate who had already stepped down, thus further splitting the vote.
The removed NDP candidate received 3, 667 votes ; second place Liberal Briony Penn lost to Lunn by 2,621 votes.

Election "08 - Proportional representation chart

This chart shows how many seats each party would have received under proportional representation in yesterday's election.

From Fair Vote Canada :
"Once again, Canada’s antiquated first-past-the-post system wasted millions of votes, distorted results, severely punished large blocks of voters, exaggerated regional differences, created an unrepresentative Parliament and contributed to a record low voter turnout."

The chief victims of the October 14 federal election were:

- Green Party: 940,000 voters supporting the Green Party sent no one to Parliament, setting a new record for the most votes cast for any party that gained no parliamentary representation. By comparison, 813,000 Conservative voters in Alberta alone were able to elect 27 MPs.

- Prairie Liberals and New Democrats: In the prairie provinces, Conservatives received roughly twice the vote of the Liberals and NDP, but took seven times as many seats.

- Urban Conservatives: Similar to the last election, a quarter-million Conservative voters in Toronto elected no one and neither did Conservative voters in Montreal.

- New Democrats: The NDP attracted 1.1 million more votes than the Bloc, but the voting system gave the Bloc 50 seats, the NDP 37.

“How can anyone consider this democratic representation?” asked Barbara Odenwald, President of Fair Vote Canada.

Indeed.

Now just imagine how much higher voter turnout would be if more people could depend on their vote actually counting for something.

In 2002, Elections Canada hired Decima to do a survey of over 5000 Canadians on their satisfaction with our current electoral system, including roughly equal amounts of voters and non-voters.

70% were either "Very supportive" or "Somewhat supportive" of the introduction of proportional representation :

Instead, we get this :

along with some self-serving rhetoric from rich old white guys about how a proportional representation system would be "disfunctional", exactly the same reason the same guys gave for calling this last election.

We can either support the aims of Fair Vote Canada or we can watch that wiggly black line in the above graph continue its downward trend towards less than 50% participation in elections.

Election '08 - Canada doesn't vote!

So what the hell was that good for?

No majority for Steve, mostly due to the Bloc in Quebec.
Voter turnout was 59%, the lowest in Canadian history.
In his acceptance speech, Harper said, "Voters have entrusted us with a mandate".
Given that Steve's win here is based on the support of 22% of eligible voters, at least that mandate isn't likely to be anyone that you know.

Libs boast the lowest popular support in a general election in the history of the Liberal Party of Canada. Tomorrow liberal media pundits will explain that this was caused by not enough of us voting for them.

No seat for Lizzie May but Dippers up by 8 seats.

Note that a voting coalition of Libs and Dippers can now no longer beat Steve, so I would like to propose a new coalition - one made up of the Libs and the Cons.

Then any candidate who doesn't support imperialistic war-mongering and corporate-run deep integration will leave to join some more progressive party that the 40% of the rest of Canada might actually feel like showing up to vote for.


TV coverage P.S. : Is it just me or is Michael Ignatieff beginning to resemble the American eagle in appearance?

Election '08 Seat Projections in Vancouver/Lower Mainland

From Democratic Space - Oct 13, 2008 :

Vancouver/Lower Mainland Seat Projections

(DS uses yellow to denote a seat change since the last election - Emerson, Blair Wilson)

The rest of Canada's seat projections according to DS here. YMMV.

Strategic voting = Stop Harper

If your chosen candidate is third or fourth place down in the polls in your own riding and cannot possibly beat the Con, vote for which ever other party has the best hope of doing so.

If the Cons or any other party has a lock on your riding for sure, vote for whoever you like.

And please remember : All politics is local - you can only shift the vote in your own riding, no matter what is happening nationally.

Scott's non-partisan pitch for SV here.

My own grudging rant here.

RossK's recommendations for strategic voting in BC.

VOTE

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Vote For Environment has a list of 40 ridings in which the Cons are projected to win but "3rd to 6th parties could defeat the Cons by joining the second party". Shown are projected number of votes required from parties polling in 3rd to 6th place to put the second place party ahead of the Cons. For example, according to their projection, Richmond only needs 150 Lib votes from the Greens or NDP in order to defeat the Con frontrunner.

Yeah, I know, it's all hypothetical but - only 150 votes!

Correction : VFE's list actually has 62 close ridings listed, not 40 as stated above when I missed page 2 - doh.

Election '08 Final Nanos Projection

CPAC-Nanos Tracking results

Yeah, it's only a poll but Nik nailed it in 2006 :

In the last election the Cons were 36.3%, Libs - 30.2%, NDP - 17.5%

Vote today, but be careful out there.

Have you seen the sniggering that changed the election?

On a final tour through Québec to shore up ReformaTory support, "Harper accused opponents of unfairly demonizing him in Québec", insisting "that Quebeckers will see through attacks on his character."
"I'm confident the attempt to demonize me really belittles the intelligence of Quebeckers," he said. "I think Quebeckers are more tolerant than that."

Hey Steve, speaking of belittling intelligence, have you seen the latest election flyer from your Con MP Wajid Khan? Voilà :

Think they've seen it in Québec yet?
Because as I recall, there's nothing Québeckers like more than a really good laugh at the expense of a Francophone struggling with English.

Good call though, Waji - the Cons losing a boatload of support in Québec will indeed "change the election".

h/t Kady O'Malley for the flyer

Elizabeth May's third strategic voting do-over in as many days

Today's Star : It isn't easy being Green

"Green Leader Elizabeth May has called on her candidates to consider whether their participation in a close contest could help elect a Conservative MP – an outcome she opposes.

May made the statement yesterday after acknowledging that some Green candidates have expressed concern about vote splitting that could result in Tory victories.

"It's up to our local candidates to decide in a close riding whether they feel their participation is likely to elect a Conservative or not. I'm not weighing in on that. But in the vast, vast majority of ridings in this country, voting Green is clearly the right thing to do," she said in an interview last night.

May made the comments after two Quebec Green candidates were reported to have asked their supporters to back their Liberal rivals."

In both of those Quebec ridings, the Bloc is an absolute lock - nowhere near being close ridings - so their switchover to the Libs does not help defeat the Cons and changes absolutely nothing in the vote outcome.

May acknowledges their actions were a mistake/misquoted.
Meanwhile the rest of us are waiting for May to finally throw the whole Green Party under the Liberal bus.
Ekos polling has May running third in her own riding against Con Peter MacKay and NDP Mary Louise Lorefice, who came second in the last election.

May's previous SV do-over.

The Greens must be tearing their hair out.

h/t Rabble

Nanos Daily Election Tracking ending October 10 :
CP... 32, LP... 28, NDP... 22, BQ ... 10, GP... 8

Sunday night Update : Right under the bus!
G&M : "Ms. May has been accused of “selling out” the Green candidates and supporters in close ridings, but the Green Leader says those candidates understand Canada's first past the post-electoral system forces situations where voters sometimes must leave their first choice.

"Those are not places where we're going to win seats. I love our candidates. I think they're fantastic people,” said Ms. May. “Of course the situation created by first past the post and the Green Party's larger commitment to action on climate means there is a certain amount of confusion… I cannot lie to voters and say there is no issue [with voting Green] in these ridings. I trust the voters. That's what it comes down to."

In addition to Central Nova, Ms. May said there about six other ridings where the Greens will have a chance of winning on election night."

LaPresse called it back in early September

Elizabeth May and strategic voting...again

Poll from Nanos Research


The G&M has Elizabeth May endorsing strategic voting for close-race ridings again today, mentioning both VoteforEnvironment and DemocraticSpace as sites to go to for advice/info.
VoteforEnvironment is still endorsing May in Central Nova against Peter MacKay, even though the Ekos, Decima and Nanos polls listed there all show her running a close third place behind the NDP candidate. Come on, guys, get it together - these are your own rules.


Would be very peculiar if this means Greens are expected to not vote for May in her own riding on top of her having done the deal with Dion to not run a Lib there, but last time Lizzie was quoted as coming out in favour of stategic voting, she says she was misquoted, so we'll have to see. Her oft-stated position is that the most important thing is to stop the Cons.


I was part of a two hour radio show on SPP and the election today, with local candidates giving their thoughts. Unsurprisingly the Libs and Cons both declined to participate.


Thursday night Update : Yup, it's happened again. May says she did not endorse SV.
Received from Adriane Carr, Green Party, 2pm:

"Media reports and suggestions from other parties that I am urging strategic voting across the country or that backroom deals are being made are complete nonsense,” Ms. May said. “As I have said over and over, strategic voting is generally not a sound strategy at all and I do not support it. Canada needs to elect Green MPs."
Ms. May was responding in particular to the headline and opening of a Globe and Mail story that directly contradicts what she said to the reporter.
“I clearly said that voting strategically as advice is pretty useless. I also said: ‘Suggesting one should jump away from the Green Party is very bad advice indeed.’
“I want to do politics in a much different way, with collaboration, civility and respect. But I am not making deals with other parties, and the Greens are not in discussions with other parties.
“I will say it once again so absolutely no one can be confused or misled: I want Canadians to elect Green MPs."

The G&M had reported May as saying :

"As the leader of a grassroots party, I'm not in a position to yank anyone, or tell anyone what to do. I just think Canadians need to take a long hard look at the potential here to get rid of the government of Stephen Harper and all that it represents…”
“That includes Greens as elected MP's, and to make that change it includes Stéphane Dion as a minority prime minister.”
She said it's a bad idea to leave the Greens in most ridings in the country, but that it would make sense in a small number of ridings where there are tight races."

I dunno. If the above G&M quote is accurate, it clearly is a limited endorsement for SV. If that's what she said. This misquoting business happens a lot to May. Hard to say whose fault that is.

Peterborough Politics has background on the Green reaction.

Saturday Update : And she's back to endorsing SV again.

Plan B? What the hell happened to Plan A?

NaPo : "In a marked change of tone entering the final week of the election campaign, the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, said Monday he's in the midst of working on "secondary plans" to protect Canada from the ill-effects of a global financial crisis should conditions worsen in the country."
CBC : "The Conservatives have a Plan B..."

Plan B? What the hell happened to Plan A?
I heard that Plan B may cause nausea and vomiting, must be taken within 72 hours to be effective, and then when you die you get fast-tracked to hell.
So a little late here, huh, Steve?

But what do I know about economics? For a serious strategic analysis : Ottawonk breaks it down at e-lekshunHub08™

Election 2008 - the English debate

Right now Susan Orniston has a big pie chart up onscreen at CBC : "Twittering about the Leaders"
Gosh, I wish I'd said that.

Shorter debate
Jack to Steve : Where's your platform? Under your sweater?
Steve : We don't need no stinkin' platform - we're the government.
Stephane : Hi. I was the third choice for party leader at the last Liberal Leadership Convention.
Gilles : Jeez, but you guys all talk a load of crap!
Lizzie : [Answering the question - and I'm paraphrasing here - What would be your first order of business upon forming the government?] Reform the electoral system.

Thank you, Lizzie May - the only one to bring it up.

She was a very good addition to the debate - many times piping in a fast fact-checking refute on Steve while he was talking, too quick and stoccato to be called on interrupting, although she did a lot of that too. Steve was furious but in terms of vote-splitting, it will ultimately help him to have had her there.

After-polls all showing for Steve - bigtime.

Most devastating line of the night :
Jack to Stephane : "You supported Mr Harper 43 times. His policies, your responsibilty. If you can't do your job as leader of the opposition, I don't know what you're doing running for prime minister."

Gilles Duceppe for Prime Minister!

We are so fucked.

Ipsos Post Debate Summary : Sample size -2512

Who is winning this debate?

Did you change your mind about who to vote for on October 14th because of tonight's debate?

YES - 15% ....... NO - 85%

Update : Hah!

Afghanistan and Taliban Steve

The Independent : British ambassador warns against Afghan surge
"Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan has warned the international mission is failing and that sending more troops will only make things worse, according to a top-level telegram leaked from Kabul.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles told a senior French diplomat that "American strategy is destined to fail," and he warned that increasing troop levels would serve only to "identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets".

L.A. Times : More U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan 'quickly,' general says
"Allied forces are facing a tougher fight in Afghanistan than was expected and need an infusion of American troops "as quickly as possible," the top U.S. commander there said Wednesday."


Meanwhile Impolitical points out that Steve's unswerving support for Operation We're-Sorry-We-Didn't-Support-Your-Iraq-Oil-Occupation-More-Wholeheartedly seems to be heading for some vote-collecting in Quebec :

"Toward the end of the [French] debate, Mr. Harper said he supports efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to attempt peace negotiations with elements of the Taliban.
"Mr. Harper, on negotiations with the Taliban?" asked moderator Stéphan Bureau.
"This is not entirely new," said Mr. Harper. "The government of Afghanistan has made local efforts from time to time with the Taliban. President Karzai is looking for a political solution and a democratic debate instead of a debate with arms. It's an essential part of his program and I support it."

Does this mean we won't be hearing quite so much about "Taliban Jack bin Layton" any more?

I guess that depends on how widely this attempt to unshit the bed on Steve's part is reported - so far one story, paragraph 24 - and whether he repeats his remarks in the English debate tonight. Aaah , except that the English debate is being televized at exactly the same time as the highly publicized U.S. vice-presidential debate/Pallin slapfest soap - oh, what a surprise! - so just how many people do you think are going to be watching it?

SPP - Canada Election 08

Paul Manley, the guy who shot this footage of police provocateurs attempting to start a riot at the Stop the SPP protests in Montebello Quebec, is working on a documentary about the SPP.
In the meantime he has produced this short vid about all the questions not being asked in this election about issues related to the Security and Prosperity Partnership and Canada-EU Free Trade Ageement. An excellent short history.

Why isn't this an election issue?

Go Nanaimo Blog!

Unscripted

Election time and we're all about the framing but when someone busts through that frame, suddenly we're paying attention.

Elizabeth May : "May urged Canadians to do all they can to throw Prime Minister Stephen Harper out of office, including strongly suggesting they shouldn't vote Green if another candidate has a better chance at defeating a Conservative.

"We are too close to the edge of a global apocalypse," May said in an interview. "We have got to grab the opportunities we have. And, clearly, the contribution Canadians can make to a global solution is to get rid of Stephen Harper."

"I'd rather have no Green seats and Stephen Harper lose, than a full caucus that stares across the floor at Stephen Harper as prime minister, because his policies are too dangerous," she said."

and

Michael Byers, NDP - Vancouver Centre :
"We need to go after the big polluters, we need to shut the tarsands down."

Almost Anybody But Conservative

Vote For Environment is an online campaign to prevent the centre to centre-left vote-splitting that resulted in a Con victory last time round in our crappy first-past-the-post voting system.


The site looks at 63 key ridings in which a united vote to defeat the Cons would have been successful in 2006 if at least one-third of those parties' supporters had voted for the leading opposition party in their riding instead of voting their individual conscience.
Entering your postal code takes you to a map of your riding and a dropdown box of the most recent election predictions from VFE, Ekos, Nanos, and Decima, updated daily.

Of the 63 ridings, the Vote For Environment strategy would see 44 seats go to the Liberals, 11 to New Democrats, seven to Bloc candidates and one to Elizabeth May of the Green party.


Co-creators Kevin Grandia of the excellent De Smog Blog and Alice Klein of NOW mag are indeed both Libs and while they strive mightily to be party-neutral in their endorsements, dippers will certainly be disputing some of their calls, if not the entire notion of strategic voting.
It's early days yet.

YMMV.

Strategic voting - a Liberal Con

Snagged from Paulitics : this great graphic of 12 months of polls in BC.

Greens and Cons are up, while the Libs show every indication of coming dead last among the four parties.

Cue a little chat about strategic voting from Liberal Bob Rae at Team BC :

"Former NDP Premiers Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh teamed-up Friday to deliver a message to progressive voters: to fight for British Columbia and stop the conservatives, the only choice for progressive voters is the Liberal Party of Canada.

Rae said that he returned to federal politics to stop Stephen Harper and said he’s determined to do just that, describing this last parliament ... as the house that Jack built."

And this is the guy the Libs have sent out to talk us into strategic voting ?
Suck on this, Bob :

Strategic voting is a horrible horrible horrible and sometimes necessary choice, depending on what's going on in your individual riding. I've done it.

But somehow the Lib call for strategic voting always amounts to "Vote for us or the Cons will get in!", even when, as in BC, it's obviously the worst possible available strategic choice to get rid of the Cons.

As Thwap said at Pogge's : "Rae, you miserable ignorant slut."

h/t Pogge, Paulitics, Accidental Deliberations

UPDATE : Dion rules out coalition

"Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion flatly rejected forming a coalition government with the New Democrats today on the heels of hints from NDP Leader Jack Layton that he'd be open to the idea.

Mr. Dion, speaking after an address to a Vancouver-area business crowd today, said he could not work with Mr. Layton in this way because the NDP leader wants to hike taxes on business."