Decision Canada compiled these Campaign Coles Notes, which are worth a read. I found them a bit too summary-ish and lacking in analysis, but that's what you get from Coles Notes. Which is why you should always read the actual book. Anyway. It mentions us (youth voters)!!!!!!!!!
There were a couple things I disagreed with. This one, for example, I found a bit fearmongery:
3. A Conservative minority might open other doors.
If Harper is held to a third minority, he will return to the nation's capital as prime minister. But for how long?
He has warned of a Liberal-NDP-Bloc Quebecois "coalition" government. A formal coalition, with New Democrats holding spots in a cabinet led by a Liberal prime minister Michael Ignatieff, will not happen. But Ignatieff does say Harper would need to "try" to gain the confidence of the Commons. Moreover, he says he is willing to "work" with other parties.
Translation?
A re-elected Tory government could be quickly defeated in the Commons. If Ignatieff receives a commitment from the NDP and Bloc to support a Liberal minority government, he could approach Gov. Gen David Johnston and ask to become prime minister without another election.
Constitutional experts say Johnston would be hard-pressed to say no.
I just want to put it out there that a coalition government isn't as evil as everyone seems to think it is. A lot of countries that have proportional representation, for example, are constantly ruled by coalition governments. A majority coalition is about as stable as a one-party minority, although a minority coalition government can be on shaky ground.
Everyone's acting like this is some crazy unprecedented thing, the idea that Ignatieff might ask the governor general to try to form the government. Um, no, it isn't. You know what was some crazy unprecedented thing? Harper going to ask the governor general to prorogue parliament in order to avoid potentially losing power.
As for Governor General David Johnston, he's a constitutional expert in his own right. I'm sure that if any constitutional matter comes up, he will deal with it admirably.
Anyway. The Coles Notes piece also mentions that "Harper is actually pleading for a majority to provide 'stability'" and that
This election is happening because the government was found by a majority of MPs to be in contempt of Parliament.
The Liberals hoped to make this a core election issue, blasting away at Harper for his obsession with control and disrespect for democracy.
There's no evidence the issue has caught fire yet — either because Canadians don't care, don't know enough, or are content with Harper.
This brings me to the next piece. Here's the core of it:
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff displayed verve, agility and intelligence in both leaders' debates this week, but he won't win this election unless he undermines Stephen Harper's compelling, repeated promises to provide economic "stability."
It is a weak claim that should be easy to counter without overstating the case. Harper is no more solely to blame for the recession than he is primarily responsible for the recovery. But so far no one has laid a glove on the eerily imperturbable Conservative leader, with his hypnotist voice and bland expression.
Instead, Ignatieff has missed opportunities to challenge Harper's claims to economic invincibility by focusing obsessively on the prime minister's anti-democratic instincts and behaviour. We get that. It's scandalous and unacceptable -but a lot of voters care more about jobs, the cost of gasoline and taxes than what they see, wrongly or not, as petty infighting.
Those are the voters Ignatieff has to reach. He could begin by reminding them it was Liberal governments that created the wellregulated banking system Harper likes to boast about internationally -often in the face of criticism from anti-regulation zealots like the old Harper.
Then it basically tears apart the Conservatives' economic performance over the last few years. Which is what Ignatieff should probably be doing if he wants to win. It seems that by focusing on Harper's undemocratic actions--which I obviously think are very important--he's trying to win over right-leaning voters who don't particularly approve of Harper. But I think a better way to get hold of those voters would be to push the centrist thing--that the Liberal platform, if you look at it from an economic perspective, isn't too different from the Conservative platform. And also Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty fail at the economy and Paul Martin wins at it.
Speaking of campaign promises, here are two handy resources from Decisions Canada: the interactive campaign-promise tracker, and the campaign promise reality check. Here's what all the parties have to say on education:
Conservative Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
- Promise interest free student loans for part-time workers.
New Democratic Party
- Pledge $1 billion annually for high school students to attend university or trade school.
- Pledges a Veterans learning benefit.
- Pledges an Aboriginal learning benefit.
- Wants language training for new Canadians.
- Would create integrated, community based child-centred early learning and education centres.
- Pledge more money to the provinces to lower tuition fees.
- Would increase the education tax credit amount.
- Plege increased funding to Canada Student Grants for marginalized groups.
- Would invest $1 billion in Aboriginal education.
I was going to include the promises on employment issues, too, but they were really long and the Liberals and Greens were the only ones who have promised youth employment initiatives. But definitely go check it out! It's a great tool for comparing what the parties have to say on different issues.
As for the Reality Check, here's an excerpt from the one on the Liberal Passport to Education ("If you get the grades, you get to go!"):
Will the plan increase demand for post-secondary education?
It might, but there's no guarantee Canada's institutions can handle that. Universities are already turning away applicants, as they operate above capacity, and many university graduates have had trouble finding skilled work.
When government starts providing something that increases the demand, without increasing the number of seats, there are two main options, Milligan said: redistribute who gets the seats, or increase tuition fees.
"With the capacity constraint, quantity isn't going to budge. What will budge is the price," he said. "There will be more room for tuition fees to go up, since everybody has an extra $1,000 in their pocket."
Recently, for instance, some provinces increased their fees when the federal government introduced the Millennium Scholarship Fund.
All very good points, as those of us who are graduating and are now saddled with student debt know.
One last tidbit (I know, I know, this is already super-long!). Stéphane Dion is afraid that Conservative attack ads will do the same thing to Ignatieff they did to him. I don't have much to say about this, except that attack ads, honestly, turn me off. I've said before that we can, and should, hold our politicians to a higher standard of political discourse, and that starts with not voting for people who attack other people! But I agree that attack ads do seem to be strangely effective.
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