First Act of Liberal Government: Check the books

Given Jim Flaherty's gift to Ontario of a $5.6 billion deficit, this move as proposed by Stéphane Dion would be smart indeed.

Earlier Wednesday, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said the first act of a Liberal government would be to ask for an audit of public finances to see whether Canada is in deficit already.

He said he would take his cue from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, who asked for an independent audit of his province's books after taking over in 2003 from a Progressive Conservative government in which Finance Minister Jim Flaherty had served as a cabinet minister. The audit revealed Ontario had a $5.6-billion deficit.

“The first thing we'll do, we'll ask for an audit, an independent audit … and we'll see if Mr. Flaherty did to Canada as he did to Ontario,”

These comments are buried deep in an article focused on Harper's offer of more carrots to Quebec and his campaign's latest gaffe this time courtesy of Gerry Ritz. See also the videos of Ritz speaking to reporters in this G & M article.

And here's another Conservative gaffe, a racist, bigoted response by Transport Minister Lawrence Cannon's campaign assistant to a native protester.

These incidents are coming fast and furious as Conservatives begin seeing their 'majority' chances dwindling.

H/T to bloggers Robert and Pogge

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FALSE - Green Party snubs PR

This is a response to Green Party snubs PR over at Dipper Chick.

In answer to that headline: No, the Green Party does not snub PR.

Proportional representation is in the Vision Green plan - that's a direct link to the PR section of the plan.

The Vision Green document includes all the Green policies. It is too large to fit into campaign leaflets - a situation which all parties face in presenting their over-the-sound-byte platforms. The Greens have included in their campaign handouts references back to Vision Green, where readers can find all the Green policies laid out in full, including supporting documents.

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If we had proportional representation...

If we had proportional representation, then all votes would matter in this federal election.

Instead, with our first-past-the-post system, there is a chance that Canadians will get the "majority" Stephen Harper has been threatening. That is, a disproportionate number of Conservatives will be elected to the House of Commons on the basis of less than 40% of the popular vote - not 50% + 1, as a true majority would warrant.

Now in my federal riding, there isn't a hope in hell of either a Liberal or Green winning. No matter the quality of the candidate or party platform, the Liberal will come third and the Green fourth.

However, if our first-past-the-post system were replaced by a system of proportional representation - Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) or Single Transferable Vote (STV) -, then in the first case voters would make two selections: one for the candidate, the another for their party of preference.

With STV, which is coming up for referendum in BC in 2009, voters would have at least three choices, marked in order of preference: 1, 2, 3.

Here's how I would vote in each of these cases and the likely result in the riding.

FIRST PAST THE POST

Result: Counts for nothing

---------------

MIXED MEMBER PROPORTIONAL (two ballots, 1 for candidate, 1 for party)
Candidate - Party -
Result: Likely win for candidate; Party vote goes toward proportional representation in the HOC

---------------

SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE (single ballot, select candidates in order of preference)
1 - 2 - 3 -
Result: Least portion of the vote is wasted. Best reflection of voter preference.

---------------

Both MMP and STV better reflect voter choice and help support democracy. FPTP does neither.

Which would you choose: First past the post, or a system of proportional representation?

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GST for Municipalities: Greens (1) - Cons, Libs, NDP (0)

I've written three posts over the past couple of months focused on the GST for municipalities. One was in response to a TorStar report on the Liberal strategy for cities. The second responded to another, and supporting, editorial in The Star. The third was a copy of my letter written to the Liberal Party's Urban Committee and commenting, in a fair amount of detail, on their full report to the party.

Only the Greens appear to have seen how RIGHT and REASONABLE the One Cent Campaign championed by Toronto Mayor David Miller, and endorsed by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, is.¹

The other parties, if they address municipal issues at all, offer services and programs. They do not offer the autonomy for communities - the ability to set their own goals and design their own solutions which fit uniquely to their residents' needs - which one cent of the GST could deliver.

This Green policy, which respects the resolution of the FCM, should not fail to convince people who give it more than one cent's thought that it is the right way to go. Now if only other parties would get onside with it.

¹ See the FCM's Emergency Resolution BCMC07.2.01, "Federal revenue sharing with municipalities," adopted at their 2007 annual conference.

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The "Healthcare" Meme

While I appreciated the announcement of the Liberal Party's proposal of a catastrophic drug plan, I'm tired of the meme "healthcare," which is code for the medical and acute care industry.

WHY do parties and politicians insist on maintaining the fiction that health is equivalent to care-after-the-fact? Worse, that sickness prevention requires only the targeting of individual behaviour, such as addiction and eating and exercise habits?

There is a consistent message coming from Canada's public health professionals, the World Health Organization and international agencies, and even from our own government's Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. David Butler-Jones (whose report was quietly tucked away by the Harper government). It is this:

Social conditions crucially matter. And they can be deadly.

Investing more and more money on doctors, nurses, hospital beds, trauma care ... is wrong-headed. First, our acute care system needs a management overall, rather than just more money thrown at it. Second - and more importantly - we need fewer SICK PEOPLE, fewer people made vulnerable to illness.

Poverty causes stress. Stress is a proven primary underlying cause of heart disease, diabetes, and other major and chronic illnesses.¹

Given these facts, which have been known for decades by researchers of the social determinants of health, it's clear that poverty is the #1 killer and our largest health threat.

People need less stress in their lives. With less stress, we'll be healthier. With fewer stressed people, Canada's acute care system can undergo its own recovery.

Whether members of the medical and drug industries would be happy with fewer sick people is another matter.

¹ Google 'poverty causes stress' and you'll be swamped with references. Also simply 'stress causes'; your search result will uncover a huge number of diseases linked to stress.

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Khadr to be Tried in Guatanamo

Time for a reminder about the Harper government's failure to intervene on behalf of Canadians who face injustice outside our borders.

Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr's trial before a U.S. military judge has been rescheduled for Nov. 10...

Khadr, who was born in Toronto, is the only Westerner remaining in the controversial U.S. naval prison in Cuba. Captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2002, he was due to start trial before a military tribunal on Oct. 8 on charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy and supporting terrorism.

The trial was delayed last week amid defence and prosecution wrangling over access to evidence and other legal issues...

The Nov. 10 date means the trial will start after both the Canadian and American elections.

Kuebler said the elections will have little impact on Khadr's fate, and whether his trial will go through.

"Omar Khadr's best chance for justice is that the Canadian government does something for him," said Kuebler.

"It really is a question of Canada's basic identity and commitment to its fundamental principles: Is it a country that stands for the rule of law, or is it a country that identifies itself as the U.S.'s little brother to the north?"

Khadr, who turns 22 this week, has been in the facility for six years. He was 15 when he was captured during a firefight in Afghanistan and accused of throwing a grenade that killed an American medic.

His trial will be held in Guantanamo Bay, where Khadr and some 270 others accused of terrorism or being enemy combatants — most without charge.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has come under fire for refusing to call for Khadr's return to Canada and has said the judicial process is already underway in Guantanamo Bay and must continue.

The Harper Conservatives' also quietly changed the policy of the federal government to demand extradiction of criminals facing the death penalty in other lands.* And they nixed the plea deal, already made between Marc Emery and the US government - for his selling marijuana seeds by mail -, which would have seen his sentence reduced by half and to be served mainly in Canada.

* If you can help by providing the link to a news article on the death penalty extradition issue, I'd appreciate it. A cursory google didn't deliver it up for me. Also, the cartoon above appeared July 17th in the Calgary Sun and was picked up three days later by TruthDig.

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In-and-Out Scam Revisited

Am sure that other bloggers are on this story, but the more the merrier I always say! Especially when it lends more exposure to the illegal questionable tactics of the Harper Conservatives.

Workers on the campaign of a Conservative MP who declined to participate in the in-and-out advertising scheme in the 2006 election were denounced as "idiots" and a "bunch of turds" by senior party officials, who wanted to "put the fear of God" into them for not taking part in the contentious TV and radio purchases.

The emails obtained by the Citizen show how the campaign of MP Dave MacKenzie in the Ontario riding of Oxford expressed concern about the advertising purchases that would later come under investigation by Elections Canada.

Mr. MacKenzie's campaign manager, Bruce Richards, said in one email that the plan for the campaign to contribute $10,000 to the media buys "has caused some concern internally."

Mr. Richards is the former chief of police in Ingersoll, Ontario.
The party's regional organizer for South Western Ontario wrote back to assure Mr. Richards the plan was legitimate. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with this," John Bracken said in his email. Mr. Richards replied that the Oxford campaign didn't have enough space under its local spending limit to take on the extra $10,000 expense limit, anyway.

At the same time, Mr. Bracken was emailing with Michael Donison, the Conservative Party's national director, who was quarterbacking the plan to bill local ridings for so-called regional media buys.

"These idiots in Oxford have now told me they don't have room for the $10K," Mr. Bracken wrote. "These people really take the cake."

Mr. Donison wrote back: "What a bunch of turds - this is not going to cost them a cent nor give them a moment of cash flow problem and in fact will allow them $6,000 more in their reimbursement and they still try to wiggle out!"

There's more. Suggest reading the whole thing.

'tis most enlightening given Harper & Company made government accountability a key issue in their 2006 election platform.

Will the people be fooled again? Not if this kind of thing keeps leaking out.

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Noise Pollution threatens Biodiversity

There's an intriguing article in Scientific American today, about the work of Bernie Krause, a bioacoustics expert and former Moog synthesizer player for George Harrison, the Doors and other '60s musicians.

At the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, Krause made a recording of the natural ambient sounds of birds, animals, insects, reptiles and amphibians. Having made spectrographs of natural soundscapes in his musical career, he realized that the recording of these creatures “looked like a musical score. Each animal had its own niche, its own acoustic territory, much like instruments in an orchestra.”

How well these natural musicians played together, Krause concludes, says a good deal about the health of the environment. He argues that many animals evolved to vocalize in available niches so they can be heard by mates and others of their kind, but noise from human activity - from airplanes flying overhead to rumbling tires on a nearby road - threatens an animal’s reproductive success.

For the past four decades, Krause has continued this work and thus far recorded over 3,500 hours of soundscapes from three continents. With at least 40 percent of these natural symphonies having been so radically altered, Krause concludes that only species extinction could account for it.

Heck, it's not just the little critters who are affected by noise pollution. This member of the human species flinches at the sound of the constant traffic outside my window.

As Duncan grows and there's a greater influx of people - all seeming reluctant to ditch their cars or even to take passengers -, the intersection where my apartment sits is awash with traffic noise. It's unrelenting and I hate it.

Can't hear the birds singing anymore.

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System cause of Parliamentary "dysfunction"

Rarely do I reproduce so much of an article as follows, partly because of copyright concerns (it's duly linked) but largely because I don't like blogs which do that, and worse, offer no commentary of their own.

However, this editorial, which appears today in the Brantford Expositor, needs nothing more.

Stephen Harper is right when he complains of a dysfunctional parliament constantly on the brink of going to the polls and unable to focus on long-term goals.

The Green Party has the support of about five per cent of the voters but no elected member of parliament. The Bloc Quebecois are there to dissolve Canada. The Independents enjoy unprecedented and undeserved influence.

The NDP are swift to use blackmail and the two main parties see their roles as lippy prizefighters rather than politicians.

All members put their party before their country. The cabinets are full of strutting idiots.

Debates are reduced to empty chambers, except, when the cameras are rolling, to inanities, one-liners, and name-calling.

Members vote according to party orders, not from personal and considered judgment. The PM's office governs the country.

It is this old system which is dysfunctional and most of the world's democracies have moved on to better systems.

Only three countries still retain this "first past the post" system, which ensures that "winner take all" and "loser lose all" -- not a savvy system when placing bets and no way to run a country...

For information on electoral reform, proportional representation and what action you can take, contact FairVote Canada.

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Toughen Animal Abuse Laws NOW

UPDATED with a third case reported today.

At least two three stories of animal abuse are in the news today.

One reports a cat which was set on fire and left to die a horrible death. The other second tells the tale of the shooting of a 14-week old puppy. And the third describes the case of five puppies which were thrown down the hole, and left slowly to die in a stinking outhouse.

Regardless of whether you're an animal lover, these incidents should matter to you. It's well known that animal abuse and torture almost always precedes an escalation to the torture of humans.

Even if you don't care about other species' welfare, at least consider the consequences to human life of letting animal torturers go untreated and unpunished.

My furry companions are kept indoors because, living in an apartment on an upper floor, we've no choice. I've always felt guilty about that, although veterinarians argue that cats live longer, healthier lives and don't suffer from being kept indoors if they've never known otherwise.

Unfortunately for me, I don't buy that argument and so the guilt continues.

But I do buy the argument that keeping Kiltie and Brodie indoors keeps them safe from those who would torture animals just for the fun of it.

As for our ridiculous, antiquated animal abuse laws, Parliamentarians have talked and talked and talked, and introduced bill after bill after bill - and it never results in substantive change.

Well, we've got a federal election happening right now.

Which party leader will step up and PROMISE IN WRITING - with the statement signed, witnessed and notarized - that legislation will be enacted that treats the matter of animal abuse as seriously as it should?

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Harper Anti-Voter Disorder

Following on my earlier post, there's this story, which provides further evidence that our Prime Minister has an acute case of anti-voter disorder.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stepped up his efforts to ensure he does not meet a single Canadian voter who hasn’t been pre-screened and positively identified as a partisan Conservative during this election campaign.

Since the campaign began, the Conservative Party has prevented the general public from attending Conservative events. Now, they have taken extra precautions by not publicly disclosing where Mr. Harper’s events will take place - not even to the media who are covering them.

According to a media itinerary released by the Conservative campaign, journalists were instructed to meet behind an office building in Ottawa where they would be taken in shuttle buses to an undisclosed location. It is not clear at this point whether the Conservatives will require journalists to wear blindfolds during the secret journey to the undisclosed location. It is also unclear if this is the same “undisclosed location” that is frequently used by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.

This Conservative campaign has set a new standard for “bubble campaigns” and now appears to be running a “mobile panic room campaign.”

Later, Mr. Harper will hold a media availability at his secure party compound which the media have nicknamed the “Fear Factory” and the “Stephenbunker.”

This would be funny if it weren't so sad - and terrifying. Canada could have up to four more years with this guy in the PMO.

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Harper Shuns Public Events

As party press releases go, this one from the Liberals tells a compelling story.

Despite appearances as portrayed by our media, Stephen Harper has not loosened his micro-management style. In fact, it now aligns with tactics studied and adopted by the Republican Party in the good 'ole U S of A. That's no coincidence given that Canada's own brand of neocons have studied at the feet of the same master.

Among the items of note in the first-week report card (blatantly lifted from the Liberal media release):

• Number of Harper campaign events that have been open to members of the public: 0
• Number of times Jason Kenney has been seen in public since the puffin incident: 0
• Total savings a Canadian family could receive from Harper’s two-cent-per-litre diesel tax cut if it fully “trickles down” to consumers and is not absorbed by suppliers or transporters: $15 annually or about 25 cents per week.
• Number of Conservative campaign events that used unwitting new and expectant mothers as human props: 1
• Number of apologies Harper has had to issue for gaffes by his staff: 2
• Number of times the RCMP has been used to physically shield Harper from questions: 1
• Number of party leaders Mr. Harper has tried to exclude from the leader’s debate: 1

And I would add:

Number of times Harper has prevented or quietly released, usually late on a Friday, reports uncomplimentary to his government's activities: Countless.

But here is a start:

• Carbon tax not harmful to economy
• Chief Public Health Officer emphasizes need for action on social determinants of health
• Sixteen lakes slated to be mine dumps
• Agreement to allow US troop deployment in Canada (the Liberals are no less guilty in this matter: "While a formal agreement was reached in February 2008, the decision to allow the deployment of US troops in Canada was announced in April 2002 by (former) Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."
• Signing of a "cradle to grave" agreement that would see the US sending its nuclear spent fuel to Canada (Hat tip to Une femme verte, whose excellent summary provides more links.)
• Killing of the access to information database

Not to mention Harper's attempts to fool Canadians into thinking he knows how to manage the economy. Apparently, that $19.2 BILLION in pre-election spending (PDF) was designed to stimulate the economy. It wasn't to buy votes! Or was it?

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Outted: Secret Government-Sponsored Environment Report

Update to my previous post on this topic.

Progressive bloggers got noticed! By the mainstream media! Again!

OK, enough with the exclamation marks. But 'tis true. Abandoned Stuff, Impolitical, Scott's DiaTribes and Challenging the Commonplace (yes, US) all got a mention.

Now as I emailed to friend Daphne, "if only WISE had been noticed by the MSM how much different things might have been, yes?"

That said, this is proof that WISE still lives on in its key activists. While it may have folded, we sure didn't!

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"Secret" Government-Sponsored Environment Report Out

A report commissioned by the Harper Government and submitted to Natural Resources Canada indicates that a $50 per tonne tax on carbon would have a statistically insignificant impact on the economy and would realize a small positive boost as early as 2015.

It comes as no surprise that the Harper Conservatives have been reluctant to make this report public. This is why the Green Party of Canada has released it for them, the party having obtained the report and supporting documents under the Access to Information Act.

Both the Greens and the Liberals have proposed multi-pronged approaches to addressing the urgent environmental, social and economic issues of our times.

Part of their proposals is reducing tax on income and investment and replacing the lost revenue with a tax on carbon. The Liberals would start the new tax at $10 per tonne and build it to $40 per tonne by the end of four years; the Greens would begin taxing carbon at $50 per tonne immediately.

According to this report, in neither case would the economy be harmed.

It's clear why the Harper Conservatives don't want to read their own government-sponsored report, which was prepared by economists or its supporting documents. They could hardly justify lying to the Canadian public - such as broadcasting dire warnings of the economic devastation and the threats to national unity which would result due to a carbon tax -, if they knew this were untrue.

Or would they?

ETA: Here's a suggestion: "If increasing taxes on carbon and reducing taxes on income would destroy the economy, shouldn't Harper be raising income taxes and slashing carbon taxes in order to create an economic boom?" In other words, rather than a Green Shift, go for a Black Shift™ (trademark pending - no, just kidding).

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All Parties Use a Single Lens

As this blogger notes, accusations fly constantly of the Green Party being a "one issue" party, with a focus solely on the environment.

However, this accusation unfairly deflects from the point that ALL parties look through a single lens when they pick the issues of interest to them or they evaluate issues of concern to others.

Yes, the Greens use an environmental lens through which to identify and evaluate issues. Just as the Conservatives use the lens of individual freedom; the Liberals look at everything in terms of the GDP (even when they talk "three pillars"); and the NDP assume a nanny state and base everything on need rather than strength, an outlook which focuses on what's wrong rather than what we can build on.

None of the parties always look through their single lens consistently, although they will try. For example, Conservative MP Ken Epp's Bill C-484, the "Unborn Victims of Crime Act," would challenge Canada's abortion protections and thus encroach on the individual freedom of women.

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Voters Urged: Be Skeptical of Polls

Not all polls are created equal, cautions political scientist Dennis Pilon.

And there should be changes to the Elections Act that include requiring pollsters to state who paid for their surveys, the exact wording of their questions and the order in which the questions were asked.

"That stuff is critical for us to know whether we're being manipulated," said Pilon. "Polling is about trying to create the result you want. That's why millions of dollars are spent on it.”

Polls affect the public in various ways, he said. If people feel an election is already decided, they might not bother to vote. If they feel their first choice isn't popular, they might stay home on voting day. There's also the “winner affect” where some will want to vote for the person they feel is most likely to win.

“That's where all this polling crap starts to become very important,” said Pilon.

Pollsters should also state (so say I) whether an introduction or preamble was used at the beginning of their poll or before each question.

Push polling in particular, but even otherwise well-designed polls, will use preamble that can plant a bias in respondents' minds.

For a good discussion of what went right and what went wrong in polling for the 2006 federal election, check out this paper by Bea Vongdouangchanh and Kady O’Malley.

Hands down, the pollster who got the most accurate results during the 2006 election was Nik Nanos, who reported his daily tracking results each evening on CPAC's Prime Time Politics - and is doing it again this election. His projection was within 0.1% of the actual voting results.

UPDATE: See also Impolitical's take on polls.

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PMO Sics RCMP on Media

What a week Steven Harper's having! Now the PMO is using the RCMP to keep reporters away.

Robert Fife - CTV Newsnet - Closed captioning: "Well I'm telling you the prime minister's office is not letting us talk to the prime minister. And they've used the R.C.M.P. To keep us away."

So what do we have so far?

• Harper threatens boycott to keep Elizabeth May out of the debates


• The pooping puffin (That's a Reuters link no less!)


• Using non-partisan moms as props for partisan purposes


• Ryan Sparrow


• More questionable financing of campaign advertising - courtesy, Jason Kenney


• Harper reframes the Liberals' Green Shift, which is a three-pillared approach toward addressing economic, social and environmental issues, as a threat to national unity

Help me out here. What else?

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Democracy Doesn't End at Democratic Debates

Elizabeth May and the Green Party of Canada have inspired people from across Canada to think about fairness, both in terms of having democratic debates and also on a related issue.

Had it not been for our first past the post system, which deprived Greens of Members in Parliament in 2006, there would have been no debate about the debates.

However, the attempts by Jack Layton, Steven Harper and to some extent Gilles Duceppe, to exclude May from the debates have helped make HOW voters elect their representatives a possible emerging election issue.

After all, it was the threat to their election being a democratic one which galvanized Canadians into getting behind May.

The Greens should therefore take this opportunity to champion a key policy in their platform, that of democratic and electoral reform.

And if Layton's NDP would care to walk the talk for a change, so should they. However, that is unlikely given Layton's explanation for his reversal: that "debating the debates" had "become a distraction."

Layton changed his mind for the sake of political expediency, not because he believed himself to have been wrong.

Harper of course is a dead loss. Asked about proportional representation in an April 2006 interview with Peter Mansbridge, Harper replied: "It's probably not the preference of our caucus."

Clearly, his idea of electoral reform is to make fixed-date elections into law - and then break that law.

As for the Liberals, any expression of interest by them in reforming our electoral system should be taken dubiously.

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With May In, Viewership Gets a Boost

On Monday, Daphne and I learned of Jack Layton's and Stephen Harper's threat to the media consortium to boycott the Canadian televised debates should Elizabeth May be included in them.

It so happens that both the Canadian English language and the US Presidential debates are being held on October 2nd. Therefore, given the exclusion of May, which was contrary to the wish of 66% of Canadians, we determined that our attention that evening would turn south of the border.

Early this afternoon, Layton, then Harper, changed their position on the matter.

Dogged by protesters and divisions within the ranks of his own party, Mr. Layton told reporters during a visit to a solar-panel company here Wednesday that the debate about the debate has become an unwanted distraction.

“I have only one condition for this debate, that the Prime Minister is there, because I want to debate the issues with him,” said Mr. Layton. “I don't want to be debating the debate forever.”

This placed the onus on Harper, the remaining holdout. It was therefore no surprise that Conservative spokesperson Tony Teneycke soon provided this response:

“It appears the NDP has changed their position. Our position has been to support the NDP on this point of principle. We are not going to be the only ones to boycott the debate.”

(Matt over at Pample the Moose makes the point that reversing oneself on a position of "principle" suggests that the original position was unprincipled. Oh, to have Harper - or Layton - admit such a thing!)

So, May is in.

Now being the political junkies and avid debate watchers that we are, we know of at least two households whose members will be glued to their computers.

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Harper, Dion Excluded from Debates

Elizabeth May is challenging Steven Harper and Jack Layton to 'fess up to their threats to boycott the televised debates should she be included.

According to Harper, allowing May in the debates would amount to having a "second Liberal candidate," which he said was unfair.

NDP campaign spokesman Brad Lavigne confirmed Layton's refusal to attend with May present, and for the same reason.

"We said that if the Liberals were going to have two representatives, we would not accept the invitation."

Jack Layton looks increasingly like a Harper wannabe. Alpha monkey says he won't play because May and Dion aren't running party candidates in each others' ridings. Ergo, May is a Liberal in sheep's clothing. Beta monkey mimics the same line.

By this reasoning - we can't call it 'logic' -, not just May, but also Dion and Harper should be excluded:

• Dion, because he was the other side of that agreement. Which means, according to the argument used by Harper and Layton, Dion is a Green in Liberal clothing. Therefore, with Dion and May in the debates there'd have been two Green candidates. If May is to be excluded for purportedly being a Liberal in Green clothing, then Dion should be excluded for being a Green in Liberal clothing.


• Harper, because the Conservatives aren't running a candidate in a Quebec riding in which a popular Independent MP is running for re-election. By Harper's own reasoning, as mimicked by Layton, this makes Harper an Independent, not a Conservative. And we all know that Independents are not allowed in the debates!

This leaves Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton to debate each other... Cue the crickets.

NB: This is a duplicate of a post written at 10:00 AM this morning. The original was not picked up by Progressive Bloggers, which means the following link wasn't working. Please vote, here and in the election!

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