The Liberals with Ignatieff

[esdras]

The Coalition Poll/Thread seems to have run its course with the latest developments. But, this poses an interesting question. With Ignatieff now the leader of the Liberal Party, and the very real possibility of another election inside of a year, would your vote change from the last election?

Please select one option (as this might give an idea of Ignatieff's impact on voter preference)

This thread also assumes Harper, Layton, May and Duceppe remaining as leaders of their respective parties.

 

[Tantor]

Voted Liberal last time. I like Ignatieff ,he's very smart man, and will vote Liberal again.

 

[bdoyledimou]

Although i am Liberal, if there is an election called in the next 12 months, i cannot in good conscious vote for them again.

The current party has shown itself to be unprepared, and scrambling to to gain control of themselves.

The party is a mess, and if they cannot manage that, they cannot manage a country falling into recession.

 

[TheZue]

I like him. I voted Torrie last time, probably will again (but it's really not 100% anymore). But the idea of voting Liberal with him in charge is okay with me. I think the Liberals need a time out every now and then to clear out the dead wood and corruption that inevitably comes from being in power most of the time, and I think they are almost there. This is somebody that wasn't here for them fighting in the Paul Martin/Chretien camps and wasn't here for sponsorship. He might be exactly what they need to move forward. And he's a historian...that makes me partial right away

I know what the torries are going to say. He hasn't lived here, he's referred to himself as an American, etc. I don't care personally. Maybe somebody with some distance is a GOOD thing. Sometimes when you are so close to an issue you are really badly effected by it. He's been successful in other venues so if he fails as a politician it's not like he has nothing else which gives him the freedom to take some chances and maybe even do the right thing instead of the safe thing. And he's got enough distance to think about looking at the constitution and giving Quebec their nation status which really needs to be done or at least attempted again. This time we need to avoid a referendum though lol. Then he's obviously struggled with all the issues that we face in terms of foreign policy. Like it or not we are going to have to deal with the ethics of counter terrorism for a long time; regardless of what war we are currently fighting. The fact he's thought about beyond "lets support our troops vs war is bad" and moves into how far can you go before it negatively impacts a democracy impresses me.

But I don't think you can compare Stephan Dion for vulnerability to attacks. I thought he was full of it after I saw he named his dog kyoto. From that point on I thought he was either a) an idiot because that accord is so flawed (yes it's better than nothing and I think we should have stuck with it) that I can't see anyone being that passionate about it unless they didn't get or care that it doesn't include the two biggest poluters on the planet or b) so desperate for votes he decided to name his dog after an accord and drag it to an interview to show how commited to the environment he was. And that's pretty much all he had. If he had another message he never got it out. Then he was just so meek. We need a leader, not a meek man to attempt to lead, he'd be good for parliament but not to be the voice of a nation. Everything the conservatives jumped on was summed up in that tape incident last week and it wasn't even a little surprising. Some people just aren't meant to go all the way to the top in politics, you have to have a strong ******* streak which he is missing.

 

[lisalonglash]

Honestly, I don't care who the Liberal leader is, it's not going to change my vote. The political maneuvering done at this time in our economy by the "coalition" has done one thing and one thing only in our home - it has absolutely GUARANTEED that we will NEVER vote Liberal or NDP again. The sheer avarice and blatant disregard of all Canadians has shown us what the Liberals and NDP are truly made of - and it isn't pretty.

 

[Ham Ham]

Vote Iggy

 

[drag n' fly]

I voted other. I do not have enough information to make an informed decision

 

[esdras]

Although i am Liberal, if there is an election called in the next 12 months, i cannot in good conscious vote for them again.

The current party has shown itself to be unprepared, and scrambling to to gain control of themselves.

The party is a mess, and if they cannot manage that, they cannot manage a country falling into recession.

I somewhat disagree with this. I think the party was a mess, and is still partially a mess...

BUT

A party that can go from utter disarray (ineffective leader planing to take over by joining with NDP and support of the Bloc for only a few months; another potentially divisive leadership convention pitting the "conservative" Liberals behind Ignatieff against the "socialist" Liberals behind Rae; no consensus within party ranks on the coalition and their in debt) to essentially dealing with three out of those four major problems in less than 10 days - that's kind of impressive.

I've been reading as many articles as I can lately - even Ignatieff's method of dealing with Conservative attacks is light-years ahead of Dion (who thought the old school-yard tactic of ignoring the bully would work - it didn't). In today's press conference, Ignatieff was asked about the Conservative accusations that the way he has become leader of the Liberals was un-democratic, and - therefore - if the Conservatives fall in a non-confidence vote, he has little to no legitmacy to become PM. This was Ignatieff's reply (from the Canadian Press):

he pointed to Harper's decision to abruptly shut down Parliament against the will of its members.
"I don't take lessons in legitimacy from Stephen Harper," Ignatieff shot back.
"I don't take lessons in legitimacy from someone who lost the confidence of the House and seems to misunderstand the co-operation that minority Parliament requires."

The bolded sentence is - really - the perfect comeback. It deflects the Conservative attack back at them - questioning their own legitimacy.

Now, is this enough to say the Liberals are back - probably not. It will take some time. They still have a serious debt to pay off (but Iggy being more centrist/right wing Liberal should be able to attract some more donations again). The one thing going for them now is (probably) a leader who won't allow himself to be Harper's whipping boy.

Going out on a limb (at this early stage) I would predict an election held within the next year resulting in a weak minority government - for which party, I just don't know.

 

[esdras]

I like him. I voted Torrie last time, probably will again (but it's really not 100% anymore)... Some people just aren't meant to go all the way to the top in politics, you have to have a strong ******* streak which he is missing.

Just had to say this - you're entire post, excellent.

You are a Conservative who thinks critically and logically (a rarity in Harper's version of the party in my opinion).

There needs to be a balance between what has been the worst in politics from both the Conservatives and Liberals...

Liberals - not enough control, leading to divisions within ranks due to weak leadership - no fear of reprisals (can you imagine ANY Conservative trashing Harper the way John Manley savaged Dion?)

Conservatives - too much control, leading to muzzled party due to overbearing leadership - a party of yes men/women.

That's actually one of my fears with Ignatieff - if he got the vast majority of the party to fall in line behind him in the space of a week, he just might be more controlling than Harper.

 

[digskat]

Honestly, I don't care who the Liberal leader is, it's not going to change my vote. The political maneuvering done at this time in our economy by the "coalition" has done one thing and one thing only in our home - it has absolutely GUARANTEED that we will NEVER vote Liberal or NDP again. The sheer avarice and blatant disregard of all Canadians has shown us what the Liberals and NDP are truly made of - and it isn't pretty.

THe initial political manuevering came from Harper, who chose to make waves within Parliament, instead of working with the opposition parties to find a solution to our economic turmoil. Harper has shown nothing but utter arrogance, his first move should have been to toughen our economic borders, by enacting an Act similar to the USA's "Made in America Act". Make it so that anything sold here must be at least 60% made here, and stop the one way trade between Canada and Taiwan/Korea/India/China/Mexico etc. Instead Harper alienates the other parties by trying to tilt things to his advantage, and questions the validity of our recession........then promises to address it in another 6 weeks (How many jobs will be lost during that period?). The Liberals dumped their moron....time for the Tories to follow suit.

 

[laura001]

Vote Iggy

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Ever since I have been able to vote starting with the 2004 Federal Election, I have voted for the Conservatives and will continue to vote for them.

 

[TheZue]

THe initial political manuevering came from Harper, who chose to make waves within Parliament, instead of working with the opposition parties to find a solution to our economic turmoil. Harper has shown nothing but utter arrogance, his first move should have been to toughen our economic borders, by enacting an Act similar to the USA's "Made in America Act". Make it so that anything sold here must be at least 60% made here, and stop the one way trade between Canada and Taiwan/Korea/India/China/Mexico etc. Instead Harper alienates the other parties by trying to tilt things to his advantage, and questions the validity of our recession........then promises to address it in another 6 weeks (How many jobs will be lost during that period?). The Liberals dumped their moron....time for the Tories to follow suit.

Ya...pissing off Asia isn't going to fly out here. 25% of BC's exports go to the countries you listed and it's been growing. We just built a massive port in Prince Rupert to take advantage of Asian trade. We CAN'T rely on the US for our economy since every few years they have a hissy fit over soft wood lumber. And considering it's more expensive to ship from Ontario than from Asia demanding we buy only from Canada when the companies are generally unwilling to put a shipping warehouse West of Ontario let alone a head office is plain unfair.

 

[MkyMws]

This reminds me of watching the news a few months ago & seeing the chinese or taiwanese parliament & a fist fight broke out.

This is making our country look like real idiots!

The canadian peope voted and said we want a minority Conservative government.

If the Liberals, Bloc & NDP wanted to ride the wave together they should have done it before the electio & we woudl have spoken with our votes. PC or coalition.

I never voted for the coalition.

These guys need to stop acting like my dughters 2nd grade class without the teacher in the room, grow up & do what is best for our country, not what is best for them.

I would agree on the "buy Canadian" theme, but it is very difficult to find product that is made Canadian (or North American). Even if it was formed/made in Canada, there is a chance that the raw material was still purchased overseas

stepping off my soapbox now

tim

 

[esdras]

This reminds me of watching the news a few months ago & seeing the chinese or taiwanese parliament & a fist fight broke out.

This is making our country look like real idiots!

Maybe, but not total idiots. I'm going to try to be optimistic about this and say that unlike many other nations (including a number of developed nations), the state of political turmoil didn't result in tanks rolling down the streets of Ottawa.

The canadian peope voted and said we want a minority Conservative government.

If the Liberals, Bloc & NDP wanted to ride the wave together they should have done it before the electio & we woudl have spoken with our votes. PC or coalition.

I never voted for the coalition.

You may not like it, but that isn't how our system works. A party or group of parties do not have to make it known prior to an election that they would be willing to form a coalition should the party with the most seats fail to hold the confidence of Parliament.

Now, what usually happens in government systems where coalitions are possible (or common) is that before the legislative body resumes, a coalition deal is made. The potiential situation here was different in that the Conservatives actually resumed Parliament as the governing party for a couple of weeks before the coalition idea was suggested. However, regardless of HOW or WHEN a coalition forms, the public is rarely - if ever - consulted on which parties they want to have join up with each other.

Look, I know that people are pretty PO'ed about one or the other (or both) of the questionable political tactics - the coalition and/or proroguing parliament. As a Canadian citizen, you only have three choices to make sure you never have to get upset about either scenario again:

1. Learn to accept it
2. Move to another country
3. Convince the government to amend the Constitution

I'm not meaning to be snide or trite - but really, that's all any of us can choose from.

 

[digskat]

Ya...pissing off Asia isn't going to fly out here. 25% of BC's exports go to the countries you listed and it's been growing. We just built a massive port in Prince Rupert to take advantage of Asian trade. We CAN'T rely on the US for our economy since every few years they have a hissy fit over soft wood lumber. And considering it's more expensive to ship from Ontario than from Asia demanding we buy only from Canada when the companies are generally unwilling to put a shipping warehouse West of Ontario let alone a head office is plain unfair.

And what are you exporting to Asia? Natural resources...pulp lumber, etc. The Asian Market isn't going to turn its back on the Raw Materials they get from Canada, but we need to start limiting the near slave labour we import from foreign markets. The problem we have (at least in the industrial base) is that the raw materials are being shipped out of Canada, and we import the finished product. Corporations are using the cheap labour to assemble, and flooding the market with foreign product. In the Auto industry, Canada exported 500 cars to Korea, and imported 114 000. The bulk of textiles and clothing are imported from third world countries....here I sit at the computer in a Canada shirt, made in MEXICO. The USA saw similar issues occuring in the 80's, when our dollar was at about 67%, it was cheaper to build in Canada and ship to the States, and Asian products had already lined their shelves.....so they brought about the "made in the USA" movement and set a minimal standard of work performed in the USA. We need to adopt a similar policy...........Kia and Hyundai, want to sell a car in Canada, no prob but 60% of it will be manufactured here. Volvo want to sell heavy machinery here, great but you won't be building it in Brazil. We welcome your product, but you'll be building it here.

 

[digskat]

This reminds me of watching the news a few months ago & seeing the chinese or taiwanese parliament & a fist fight broke out.

This is making our country look like real idiots!

The canadian peope voted and said we want a minority Conservative government.

If the Liberals, Bloc & NDP wanted to ride the wave together they should have done it before the electio & we woudl have spoken with our votes. PC or coalition.

I never voted for the coalition.

These guys need to stop acting like my dughters 2nd grade class without the teacher in the room, grow up & do what is best for our country, not what is best for them.

I would agree on the "buy Canadian" theme, but it is very difficult to find product that is made Canadian (or North American). Even if it was formed/made in Canada, there is a chance that the raw material was still purchased overseas

stepping off my soapbox now

tim

Yes the Canadian people voted and the result was a Conservative minority, however Harper saw the rise in his popular vote, and arrogance took hold. Instead of working with the opposition (as required when the have 60% of the seats), he decided to attempt to hammer in his own agenda. What makes us look worse, is running away from the issue, instead of trying to negotiate a better direction. The Tories had a chance to rectify the issue with Dion's fall and Ignatieff's ascension, but decided to bad-mouth instead (more arrogance).
The buy Canadian theme isn't that difficult, we have the raw materials (we have been shipping it out for others), we have the technology, and we have the workers, we just need to tighten our import borders.

 

[esdras]

Just jumping in to examine the poll results (so far) - of course this isn't remotely a large enough sample to get accurate results in terms of general vote distribution (NDP and Green would show much higher in an actual poll for example).

However, at least among the DIS members, there's a fair amount of party loyalty going on. What has surprised me the most:

1. Nobody jumping ship from the Liberals - I would have thought there might be a left-wing Liberal Rae loyalist out there who would rather vote NDP than the Liberals under the far more centrist (even slightly right-wing) Ignatieff.
2. Seeing someone who voted NDP last time planning to vote Liberal this time - although without an explanation, this could be "strategic" voting. Since Dion was far more to the left in the Liberal Party, I didn't expect Ignatieff to draw votes from the NDP - except, as I said, for those willing to vote strategically.
3. A little surprised that there isn't at least one Conservative who is planning on voting Liberal (although TheZue posted that there is a slight chance of their vote changing). On the other hand, the DIS in general (both the Canadian and especially the General forum) in terms of political views seems to have far more members who have a conservative outlook.

 

[Tantor]

Ignatieff plans to sit down and 'listen' to Harper
Updated: Thu Dec. 11 2008 7:59:08 AM

CTV.ca News Staff

Freshly minted Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff says Canadians have sent a clear message they want their leaders to listen to each other and co-operate -- and he plans to do just that.

One day after being crowned the new party leader, Ignatieff told CTV's Canada AM one of his first orders of business will be to sit down with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and hear him out.

"I think it's right for me to listen," Ignatieff said.

"I think the Canadian people are sending us all a message that it's time for us to listen. Mr. Harper didn't listen to the opposition, he lost the confidence of the House of Commons, he's unable to govern without the confidence of the House of Commons, so it's time that he sat down."

However, he added, "I haven't seen him do much listening so it will be interesting to see if he starts now."

Ignatieff said he had a short congratulatory talk with Harper Wednesday night, but they haven't yet scheduled a sit-down meeting.

In his inaugural news conference as leader on Wednesday, Ignatieff said he was willing to honour the coalition agreement forged between the Liberals and the NDP to topple the Conservatives -- unless the government comes up with a budget he can live with at the end of January.

Earlier this month Ignatieff appeared to be lukewarm on the idea of the coalition, which requires support from the Bloc Quebecois to bring down the Tories.

He said on Thursday the Conservatives will have to draft a budget that puts the needs of Canadians first, if they expect his support, which is essential to keeping the government alive.

"I think what Canadians want us to do is to have a budget at the end of January that protects the most vulnerable in our society," Ignatieff said.

"We're going to have more unemployment next year, we're going to have families really having a hard time putting food on the table and they're going to want their government to make sure they're looking after them, that's number one."

The budget must also include stimulus for the economy that will provide a jolt to business people and entrepreneurs, Ignatieff said.

He told CTV's Mike Duffy Live on Wednesday that Harper must also ditch his "my way or the highway" style of government.

"You can't run a minority Parliament like this: we are fed up with it, we won't have it anymore."

While NDP Leader Jack Layton seems intent on toppling the Tories in January no matter what, Ignatieff struck a more diplomatic tone Wednesday.

"Canadians can't trust us politicians if we say things like 'I'm going to vote against the budget even though I haven't seen it,'" Ignatieff said.

"It seems to me, that (approach) treats the Canadian people with disrespect."

Ignatieff became leader after the party consulted with about 800 influential Liberals from across Canada, and follows a caucus meeting held earlier in the day in which MPs also endorsed the new leader.

In a media release, party president Doug Ferguson said Ignatieff will take over the party's top job at a "historic" moment.

"Our interim leader will be called upon to lead our caucus and our party through a volatile Parliament, and a possible federal election in the midst of the worst economic crisis in memory," Ferguson said Wednesday afternoon.

During the Grit caucus meeting in Ottawa Wednesday morning, Bob Rae, who withdrew from the Liberal leadership race Tuesday, nominated Ignatieff for the leadership position.

 

[declansdad]

Honestly, I don't care who the Liberal leader is, it's not going to change my vote. The political maneuvering done at this time in our economy by the "coalition" has done one thing and one thing only in our home - it has absolutely GUARANTEED that we will NEVER vote Liberal or NDP again. The sheer avarice and blatant disregard of all Canadians has shown us what the Liberals and NDP are truly made of - and it isn't pretty.

Then you must be a Green Party supporter because there was just as much manoeuvering done by Harper and the CPC.