Canada is in the shitter.

[Bär]

But back bacon's gooood.


Wait - didn't you guys invent Hockey Hair as well? (seen here on a Czech model)

[Bär]

Harper gets the "Untergang" remix treatment.

[Chris McKinley]

You Royalists are so adorable. Never have so few had so much land and yet been so content to make good beer and backbacon.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Harper gets the "Untergang" remix treatment.

Tremendous! I especially loved how they translated "Mein Fuhrer" to "Mr Harper".

[meeks]

so what's the general perception? Is Harper scrabbling to hold onto power he's abused, or is the attempted coalition a complete farce to get control, rather than recapture the economy?

[Darth Rock&Roll]

imo - the harper gov is fucked ideologically, but also the coalition is a farcical attempt at grabbing power with no real regard for the forces of the world market which we can't do much about anyway until the entire system is restructured because our only options are more protectionism or depression.

it's bad, and we're not the only ones in the shitter.

[qiphlow]

so harper is your version of gwb?

[mixjourneyman]

so harper is your version of gwb?

Essentially heres how it went: Jean Chretien was in power and briefly Paul Martin as well. Bush really hated both of these guys because they are lefties and tend to act against American infringements on Canadian rights such as forestry and water and probably would have made inroads against Canada via sanctions or anything he could do. After Harper was elected the first time, Bush called him up and was all buddy buddy with him. Harper is a big pro Neo Con type who believes in privatization and draconian legal policy. He's a bad guy and I really hope he gets brought down by the coalition in January.
But people's millage tend to vary.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

actually, Chretien and Martin are Centrists if anything. In fact, the Liberal party in general, in recent history from Pearson forward, has been centrist and that's why they are so hugely popular here.

I don't see GWB or Harper as right wing really. They are neo-cons which originally had a right of centre model of law and order. But somehow, in action and through application, it became more of a model of mini martial law on a 24/7 365 basis and was prone to profiling and other erroneous blunders tied to human nature. the actual right wing of the USA and Canada has been fragmented over the last decade. in the US it split between economic opportunists and ideological types so you had fiscal conservatives, libertarians and neo-cons all split up. With the other side, the democrats, no change really except they were terribly unorganized since Gore lost the election in 2000.

as for the neo-cons, their idea of what could be, was as lame as Karl Marx' when it came to actual implementation.

Now, GWB, the great champion puppet of neo-con thought is done and his attempt was a dismal failure and all who joined him around the world have also failed.

the entire focus is the changing of the guard now, and this brings uncertainty everywhere in this case because of the scope of the kind of power game that has been played in this last decade.
you see the opportunists raping as much as they can before their power phase is done and the new power enters weak in the pillars.

Next year will be difficult to say the least. But that isn't to say that the last 8 haven't been as well.

[meeks]

it appears now that Harper hired Carl Rove to write their advertising against the coalition - trying to breed fear and misconception. Might as well use the 'domestic terrorist' term (henceforth called the 'DT Bomb')
paraphrased example (not nearly as good as the real ads):
"a vote for the coalition is a vote for Stephane Dion, who's only goal is to separate Quebec from Canada"

[Jeice]

Ugh, canadian politics. Darth pretty much spoke for me. But as a west coaster the divisionist methods used by the Harper gov really did smack of Rovian tactics when EVERYONE was up in arms because their Canada was under attack by these easterners.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Harper hiring Rove kind of outlines how little Harper understands mainstream Canada.

Seeing as Rove doesn't really understand the machinations of all things Politic in Canada. lol

Dion a separatist? that is laughable. the dude is more of a federalist than Harper is. Unfortunately, he comes across like a retarded gibbon on ecstasy.

[Jeice]

That's the problem, as much credit as we want to give the canadian masses. I'm telling you that bullshit flew here on the coast just as easily as it did down there. There's a lot of lingering anti-ontario/quebec sentiment that doesn't take much to stir up.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

That sentiment exists everywhere in Canada and it's unfortunate but the truth of the matter is that most of Canadians live in Ontario and Quebec.

The next big bulk of population is BC and Vancouver specifically.

It's worthy of note, the populations we are talking about here.

Vancouver and it's GVA is about roughly 3 million+ people all of BC is less than 5 million and it is ranked as the 3rd largest province after 1.Ontario and 2. Quebec

Ontario has more than a third of the population of the country with almost 13 million people!
Quebec has about 7.5 million people

and the rest of our population is spread about the maritimes and prairies and territories.

so, with 20 million people in Ontario and Quebec alone out of a country of roughly 30 million people total, that says a lot about why politics are geared towards the east and particularly to Ontario. It's because no matter what, that's where the votes are and in a democracy, the majority of votes is what you want and so, you don't go canvassing wheat fields to get those votes. No Offense. But that is the real issue at play with a country of our geographical size. It is also a great indicator of why democracy as a political model can be a failure and why it needs to constantly be changed and updated to best reflect the real will of the people.

also, there should be way more power in the provinces and far less centralized power in a country like canada because of the geography and hence cultural differences across the country. IN the US, there is more power in the states than there is on a federal level.

the federal government in Canada is problematic in that respect because if we didn't have heavily centralized government, our country would've fallen apart ages ago.

[meeks]

oops - when I said "it appears" (hiring Rove) I meant that as "it would look as if" - not literally.