Anyone get Canadian TV?

[PopeyeII]

I live on the US-Canadian border. The in about two weeks the Canadians will be electing a new prime minister. Gun Control and the 2$Billion dollar (yep that's billion) Gun Registration fiasco are front and center on this race. The conservative party may get in because the liberal party (in power) insisted on punishing law abiding gun owners.

[jeff30997]

1. Don't tell me about it !

If that slimeball Harper become prime minister we're screwed!If he was an American citizen,he would be part of the neocons mafia.

[iverglas]

2. well ... I do

And just last night I watched the rerun of the party leaders' debate that had been on the French language stations earlier in the evening. I'd say I watched about 2/3 thirds of it, some in French and some with the simultaneous English interpretation. I haven't watched the opening statements yet, but I watched a bunch of Harper vs. Martin, Martin vs. Duceppe, Duceppe vs. Layton, Layton vs. Harper, Layton vs. Martin, Harper vs. Duceppe ... whew, I think that covers it.

And y'know what I didn't hear a single mention of? Firearms, or the firearms registry. Now I may have missed it, but I tend to think not. This would likely be because the support for Cdn firearms control and the firearms registry is even more overwhelming in Quebec than in Canada generally, Quebec having been the main audience for the French-language debate. (Imagine, eh? A country in which the leaders of all four major parties, and probably even the Green Party, although I don't know, are able to engage in debate in two languages.)

Tonight's the English-language debate. There might be some mention of firearms control tonight. I'd bet that it's raised by someone attacking Harper, the yucky right-winger who of course wants to do away with the registry (and allow a free vote in the House of Commons on criminalizing abortion, and use the override clause in the Constitution for that if necessary, and for outlawing same-sex marriage ...). Harper might mention his position in order to play to his natural constituency, the fundie right-wingers in Alberta, but he has their votes anyhow, so there wouldn't be a lot of point in raising the issue to alienate undecided voters elsewhere in Canada who are looking for a place to park their peeved Liberal votes this time around.

So ...

Gun Control and the 2$Billion dollar (yep that's billion) Gun Registration fiasco are front and center on this race.

... I'm afraid I can't help myself. What a pantload. Pull the other one. Perhaps you thought there was no one here who actually watched Canadian TV, let alone was Canadian?

The conservative party may get in because the liberal party (in power) insisted on punishing law abiding gun owners.

The Conservative Party might just get in, but if so it will have virtually nothing to do with the firearms registry or any other aspect of firearms control. Like I wuz saying, it already had the fundie right-wing western vote. What's fueling its fires now are the sponsorship scandal and Martin's incredibly abysmal and weak showing in the few months he has been PM, and that perennial lizard-brain voter desire for "change".


For anyone interested, the results are very likely to be a dog's breakfast no matter what happens. It's looking unlikely that any party will form a majority -- there will be 4 parties in the house all with less than 50% of the seats. Even if the Conservative Party had the most seats, it's unlikely that it could govern without an actual majority -- none of the other 3 parties is likely to support its legislative initiatives, unless the Bloc Québécois sells out what's left of its social democratic roots in favour of power-grabbing.

So theoretically, Martin and the Liberals could just go on governing, since he is still PM unless and until his government is defeated on a confidence vote. The normal result of an election in which another party obtained a majority of seats would be that the pre-election govt. would fall on the first vote held in the House, so it resigns first and the majority party goes through the formalities of forming the government. If the Liberals have a plurality and the NDP is satisfied with their legislative initiatives and has enough seats to make a majority when they're combined, we'd have one of those fine traditional Cdn majority minority* govts with the Liberals governing as long as their behaviour is acceptable to the New Democrats, that being what us progressives are hoping for.

*edited for anybody paying attention and confused:
it's a fine Cdn minority govt I was talking about. We don't actually form governing coalitions as happens in some European countries; the coalitions are just ad hoc: every time the govt introduces a piece of legislation, it needs to get somebody else's support for it to pass. Political considerations will rule out the Conservatives supporting Liberal initiatives and vice versa, so a third party is needed by whichever party is trying to keep governing. Traditionally, it's the Liberals propped up by the NDP in return for laws and policies that do not conflict too badly with NDP policy.

[glarius]

3. I couldn't agree more with what you say!

This person does not know what Canadians are about....Either that or he is purposely being misleading.....Personally, I'd like to see Martin get a chance to prove himself.....I think his father's influence has rubbed off on him ....I hope I'm right about him.....Peaches and cream Harper scares me silly....He is trying to back away from his whole-hearted support of the Iraq war and pretend that he only wants to support "our allies who are fighting.".....The Liberals and NDP should keep hammering away with ads showing how Harper and his party were daily berating Chretien in Question period for not joining the "coalition."....Not only that, the first thing Harper announced as a candidate was his intention of pouring billions into a military buildup......He is consulting with Mulroney and has even used Mulroney's phrase..."you won't know Canada when I'm done."......Let's hope the public see's the light!

[Lefty48197]

4. Is Canada deteriorating into...

the people who support totally unregulated weapons ownership, vs. the rest of the country? They used to be such a nice country.

[iverglas]

5. nah

Have no fear. We're congenitally nice.

Update: the English-language leaders' debate was last night.

I heard "gun registry" twice in two hours of debating by four leaders. Both times, they were uttered in the middle of Conservative Stephen Harper's attacks on Liberal Paul Martin for laxity/corruptness in govt spending, right after "HRDC boondoggle" and before "sponsorship scandal", or in approximately that order. That's it that's all, as they say in Quebec (in English when speaking French, inexplicably).

As I said, Harper knows he has the fundie right-wing vote already, and is angling for the centre-right Liberal vote. And they don't share his loony base's gun nuttery. He spent much of his time babbling about health care, just like the others. Martin wants to deal with the horrible waiting list problem (which I've never encountered, myself) that was created by his slashing of billions from the health care budget a decade ago when he was Finance Minister, and Harper doesn't want to talk about his real plan to privatize the system so he attacks Martin.

On the other hand, Martin bashed Harper repeatedly with Martin's own fierce commitment to the Charter of Rights and "a woman's right to choose" (as did NDP Jack Layton, of course) and Harper's refusal to commit himself to not attempting to implement legislation to limit access to abortion, although he says he would take no steps to initiate such legislation. (Such legislation would be unconstitutional, but if a private member introduced a bill, Harper would allow a free vote - let his MPs vote as they liked - so that theoretically the bill could pass. The question is then whether he would override the constitution -- on that and on same-sex marriage, since he has falsely claimed that the constitution does not protect sexual orientation.)

One good thing about the Conservative upsurge is that it seems to have driven Martin back to classical Trudeau-esque L/liberal issues and principles. Of course, that's all a smokescreen for his conservative economics, but if it gets him a minority govt dependent on the NDP to remain in power, that will do.

Doncha wish your right wing were so civilized??

I must say that after a decade of female leaders in the NDP, it was galling to have to look at 4 middle-aged white guys in suits for 2 hours ...

But guns? Nope. Not on the electoral menu, or even the radar.

[iverglas]

6. you hoo

I courteously responded to your post. Aren't you the least bit interested in pursuing what you started? No reply for me?

I'm mighty curious where, on Canadian TV, you get this notion that "Gun Control and the 2$Billion dollar (yep that's billion) Gun Registration fiasco are front and center on this race." The CBC (or SRC)? CanWest Global? CTV? Quatre-Saisons? A provincial public TV station? City-TV? Local news?

Didja watch the debate? Who are you rooting for?

And maybe you can tell us about some of those law-abiding gun owners who have been punished. I haven't heard about that on my Canadian teevee.

edit
heh. That's "yoo" hoo.

[RoeBear]

7. Well I sure don't...

...'get it' that is. Is Red Green really supposed to be funny?
Do you Canadians really spend most of your time trying to figure out new uses for duct tape?

[iverglas]

8. since I've never really watched it

I'm afraid I can't explain it.

Perhaps you could explain, hmm, Friends. I gather it was supposed to be funny. Or maybe Hope and Gloria; I actually watched one of them this year because a friend of the co-vivant had written a song that was supposedly in that episode but wasn't. Now that was a thousand painful deaths.

But, well, maybe I can explain Red Green a little bit. It's the concept of laughing at one's self. I know it's a furrin one.

And I still urge anyone with access to run out and get BBCAmerica, if you don't already have it, and watch every available minute of Trailer Park Boys (Tuesday nights). Even without the half of the dialogue consisting of the f-word, which is too much for those delicate ears south of the border.
http://www.showcase.ca/trailerparkboys/
"Bubbles befriends a dope-addicted mountain lion that has been eating weed from the Boys' marijuana fields."


Of course, you can always buy it, if you hurry:
http://www.videoflicks.ca/titles/9990/9990102.htm?TYPE=0

Of course, those who get CBC on air can just watch This Hour Has 22 Minutes, and try to remember the last time that President Bush (the real deal) was a character in a television political comedy show, the way Jean Chrétien was in all those ambush skits with Marg the Warrior Princess. In one, he was interrupted in mid-speech and made an off-the-cuff acceptance speech for his award for longest acting in a continuous role. Here ya go: http://www.22minutes.com/intro.htm

Damn, not much there, but of course, you might not get that either anyway ...

[iverglas]

9. and in the news, for those who care

(Apparently PopeyeII doesn't.)

The Bloc Québécois is the Quebec-sovereignist party at the federal level. Yeah, one of those contradictions in terms. Its policies, other than saying "no" to things, are similar to the NDP's: social democratic. Peacekeeping not combat (no participation in wars contrary to international law), large increases in aid spending, fairer use of unemployment insurance funds and coverage of workers, substantial re-investment in affordable housing and substantial re-investment in health care (both of which were slashed by current Prime Minister Martin when he was Finance Minister), protect abortion rights, extend marriage rights to same-sex couples, etc.

Its leader, Gilles Duceppe, sounds like a whiner in English much of the time (a function both of what he's usually talking about and how he speaks in English), but is extremely impressive as a thoughtful and well-spoken leader in French.

Anyhoo, here we are looking at the likelihood of a minority govt. -- a govt. formed by a party that will not have a majority of the seats in the House and will have to rely on some other party's (parties') support to stay in power. The Conservatives would have a harder time doing this than the Liberals, in general. The Conservatives are the only ones talking about scrapping the firearms registry.

The other day (and sorry, I can't find a news report), Duceppe announced that the BQ would not support any government that proposed to eliminate the firearms registry. As I've mentioned before, support for the registry is overwhelming in Quebec. (Of course the NDP would not support abolition of it either, although we get some of our support from western redneck socialists, so the NDP has not exactly spoken with a single voice on this at all times.)

So it doesn't look like the registry will be going anywhere in the near future, no matter what the outcome of the election. Even if the Conservatives win, with a minority, they could not possibly get such legislation passed.

Oh well. Better luck to the western fundie rednecks next time.