Rick Mercer Report

As much as I hate what Harper stands for and would like nothing more than to kick him out of government, he can be pretty funny at times. Maybe just because I haven't seen the Rick Mercer report in a while, but I did find his sketch at 24 Sussex drive pretty good. Then adding on with the Peter MacKay dogfood, pretty good skit.

Otherwise, I still don't know why Pete decided not to apologize about his remark. Honestly, even if he know there was absolutely no audio tape and no way people could clarify, what's so bad about owning up to a comment that was said in the heat of the moment and saying, "I'm sorry"?

Finally, Layton meeting with Harper. I gotta agree with Far and Wide on this. If Layton could get us a new deal onthe environment, I don't mind. We all applauded him when he came in to help us on the budget a year ago, so why would we be against him when he's trying to help get more for the environment? I mean, it's especially good if Layton tries and Harper refuses, then we can even campaign against him not even considering anything else for the environment.

By-election and the Nation

First off, I'd encourage people to watch the CTV interview with Kennedy to see his responce to the question about the by-election and the Quebec resolution.

On the by-election, I don't think Kennedy should run. The big problem is that it's a high-risk, medium-reward proposal. If he runs and loses, then there's no chance that he could win the leadership. Simple as that. If he runs and wins, then yes, it's a good bonus, but it in no way gives him a big boost. All he will do if he runs is waste time in staying around London and not getting the chance to talk to people from around the country.

Then there is the nation question. Kennedy gave a good answer on that, saying that the meaning in french really isn't the same as in english. Personally, I find this a tough question to handle. I do believe that there is something distinctive about the french and Quebequois (I myself happen to be born there, and there definitely is something different about that), but the whole question of the word "nation" is very disturbing. I definitely don't think it's the right time to open up the constitution again (I would if I knew it would work smoothly and go well, but they thought that in 87 and look where that ended up), so that whole idea is completely off the table.

But then even if we don't open it up, the words still ring around. I personally don't feel comfortable referring to Quebec as a nation, since I think that rings too much of statehood. Even if you try to limit it to a civic duty, it's still not where we need to be going. Actually, Justin Trudeau has a good comment about it, basically saying that we shouldn't really be concerning ourselves with this question now.

One thing's for sure, this isn't an easy question. I just don't think we should be throwing this around now. Give it a little bit of time, give us a leader, then we can consider whether the time is right to be talking about the issue.

Final Results - take 1

Well, we're seeing some final results now from the DSMs. I really do like the party doing the breakdown by riding and club, since I know many of us had been interested in that for some time.

Now, one thing would be nice would be if they released the number of "unclaimed" delegate spots for each candidate. For example, the University of Waterloo is listed as being one for Kennedy, Iggy, and Martha, but we'll be adding a second Kennedy delegate pretty soon. It will most likely fall as the other delegates spots have been assigned, but it would give another impression of the total support. Also, vote counts (maybe not per riding but at least per province) would be really interesting.

But overall, it's looking good for Kennedy. Over 1% ahead of Dion. It's realy going to come down to how the 15% from the bottom 4 and the undeclareds split, as well as which camps are able to get out their delegates. Still anyone's game.

Ununoctium!

Well, according to the Globe and Mail, scientists have finally been able to make an inert gas. They slammed together calcium and californium to get a new element, element 118. It would be cool if they could make something like this that works for longer than 1 millisecond, but it's still pretty cool where we've come in creating elements.

In other news, apparently the tories kicked Garth out of caucus. I doubt they'll come out of this looking too well. I guess they don't approve of bloggers in the Tory caucus meetings.

Iggy backtrack?

Well, thanks to Paper Dynamite Online, we see Iggy's interview with George Strombo[...] on The Hour. Basically, Iggy is now trying to claim he never admitted that Israel commited war crimes in Qana, simply that war crimes happened there.

Now, perhaps this really was his position all along (as apparent Bob Rae should know), but he certainly hasn't done well in getting that view out to the public. If he really doesn't believe with 100% certainty that Israel committed war crimes, then he should have said that. Even if he wants to leave it open if an international tribunal finds them guilty, a simple, "Based on the information I have, I do not believe that Israel committed a war crime in Qana" would go a long way to clearing it up.

But after what's gone on, maybe his best plan now would be to take a nice long holiday overseas. Anything he says now, people will either accuse him of being anti-Israel or flip-flopping on his position. He really does need to learn how to pick his words and either (a) be much more definite about what he says ("Hezbollah committed war crimes in Qana") or (b) learn to properly comment on tough matters ("I can't comment on what happened; we have to wait to see what an international jury says"). Can he learn to do that before December, or if he wins, before the election? A few more comments like that and it's going to be very tough to run a campaign that doesn't spend half our time and ressources clarifying what our leader says.

Killing Rae in BC

Well, the talk right before today's debate seems to be between Iggy screwing up and Rae filling out some illegal forms in BC.

First off, this type of Iggy comment is a big reason why I don't think he's ready to be leader. A bit more political acumen to not do these stupid comments (he's screwing up his retractions, even!) and he'd be a fine candidate. I was hoping that he would at least be fine from the DEM until the convention, since at least then I might not have to hold my nose so much if it came down to being forced to vote for him. Does he not think before he speaks?

Then we come to Rae in BC. Some people (mostly Rae supporters) believe that this shouldn't be a problem and the campaign shouldn't be forced to lose 70+ delegates because they screwed up. Some people (supporters of other camps) tend to be along the "screw him" route, accusing the Rae campaign of significant mis-steps in the province.

I fall along the middle, and actually aligned nearly perfectly with Cherniak on this issue. I do believe that anyone who was elected with an illegal form should not be allowed to go as a delegate. That's simple enough. But what to do with those Rae delegate spots?

Rae deserves decent representation in BC. As much as I like seeing other candidates get less delegates, we should not unfairly screw over those in BC who legitimately voted for Rae. It's too late to go back and go after membership fraud. I say that Rae should be able to fill as many of those spots as he can with people who legitimately ran. So in a riding if there were 5 Rae illegal Rae delegates elected and 5 other Rae delegates who were legal but who didn't win, then Rae should be able to replace those spots. If there were not any legal delegates, then the campaign should still be allowed to back-fill up to the 2 that it allows.

The way I figure it, with that method, Rae won't be able to fill all the spots, since I would guess for most ridings there would be all illegal delegates. So maybe in total it might cost him 30-40 delegates total, assuming all 78 listed under the challenge did not fill their forms. I think that would be an adequate punishment for the fraud perpetrated, and would still allow most of those in BC who voted Rae to have some representation.

Debate and kitten eating

A few quick things, since blogger swallowed my previous version of this post:

Iggy's exceuse for skipping the RobTV debate today was weak. Cherniak has a recap on his site. Yes, the Liberal Party wants to be inclusive, but you can't expect every company that wants a debate to invite everyone. Just like news shows are more likely to want Iggy or Rae to appear as opposed to Volpe or Dryden, someone organizing a debate won't want everyone. Unless if he is prepared to deny TV interview requests until the networks give equal airplay to all candidates, I think he was just looking for a cop-out from an Iggy-bashing fest.

Second, there's a blogger going around spouting violent anti-Kennedy rhetoric. Just like my previous post about the anti-Iggy website, I think this sort of fearmongering is wrong. At least the stop Iggy people were upfront about their dislike. This other blogger just spouts nonsense, like baseless accusations that Kennedy cheated on his taxes. It's okay to disagree with someone, but to go to this level doesn't help the debate at all. I may not be a fan of Ignatieff, but I won't go so far as to throw out stuff I don't have background information for.

And finally, there's another blogger out there who is taking a much more light-hearted note of the campaign, posting cartoons and jokes about the candidates. Some are pretty good. And at least he's being fair about it, posting jokes about everyone. A nice way to get a break from some of the more serious posts by a lot of others.

GK on "The Current"

Just a quick note to tell everyone to go check out the GK interview on CBC's "The Current", nicely linked to by The Dan Report. Very good interview there.

Also, freaking Habs. Why can't they learn how to hold a lead or do well in a shootout? Hope they can come back strong tomorrow against the Leafs.

Game time!

Habs season starts tonight! Man, I'm so excited for hockey to start and for the Habs to prove all these naysayers wrong. This team WILL make the playoffs this year. Can't wait!

More results / Quebec

Well, I haven't made any post-weekend comments yet (more so because I've been sick and busy than lack of interest), but we're slowly starting to see the last results pour in! Okay, so there's been one riding report since Sunday, but it's something.

And also, Kennedy's showing in Quebec: I don't know how any Kennedy supporter can accept this, and try to spin it positive. We can all give some reasons for it ("Kennedy's not well known in Quebec" "His french wasn't up to par"), but it's pretty disappointing. I mean, were there no Kennedy supporters who could win some delegate spots in some ridings?

But I still don't think this is the death blow for him. Quebecois like to vote for winners and people from Quebec. There's a reason why the Conservatives magically doubled their vote count in Quebec overnight last January (and then they did that a few more times as well) Those are the main reasons why Rae, Dion, and Iggy did well there in terms of delegate counts. But once people start to realise that this Kennedy dude isn't some no-name politician from Ontario, that he has real ideas and a real vision for the country, they will support him and love him. I mean, if you made everyone in Quebec vote based on the policies they liked best, I'd be willing to bet that Gerard would be on par with any other of the leadership camps in terms of Quebecois support.

So now the challenger for the campaign will be to get that message out, and once that's done, I'm confident people in Quebec will be just as receptive to Gerard as people in the rest of Canada have been.

Jockeying for position

Man, it's been close all day. Kennedy vs. Dion for 3rd place. Iggy straddling 30%. Kennedy vs. Iggy in Ontario. Kennedy vs. Iggy in Alberta. It's been so crazy to watch all day. I'm so glad I don't have an assignment due until Friday.

Kennedy's really been picking up steam the last couple days. After the disappointing student club numbers in Ontario and disappointing numbers overall in Quebec, we really came alive and are currently (as of 11:22PM, 394 of 469 meetings) 6 behind Dion overall for 3rd, 3 ahead of Iggy in Alberta, and 19 (less than 1%) behind Iggy in Ontario.

Big congratulations go out to the Kennedy organizers in Southwestern Ontario and in Alberta, where Kennedy managed to claim nearly 40% of the delegates in Southwestern Ontario and 7 of the 12 student club delegates in Alberta, including the only clean sweep of the weekend at the University of Calgary!

No more Ribs

Well, I did say at the start that I would comment not only on politics, but on other matter as well. One of those happens to be the Canadiens. Today, we dealt away Ribeiro.

Now, I post on a few message boards and the general consensus is people don't like him. Similar to how most of us Liberals feel about Volpe. I am not so against Ribeiro, since I think he has a lot of talent and couple be a decent centre in the future. But I definitely did not shed a tear when I heard the news. Hopefully Plekanec will be an adequate replacement on the second line. Hopefully this one turns out as good as last year's last minute Hossa for Murray deal.

National Support

I am very pleased to report that as of 1:15 AM on this Sunday morning, Gerard Kennedy is the only leadership candidate to have support in every province and every territory in this country! Well, okay he has the only delegate for the North-West Territories, and he's one of 2 in Nunavut (the other is undeclared).

Overall, Kennedy seems to have had a good day today, after a somewhat disappointing day yesterday, especially among the Ontario Student Clubs, where I think we all expected we would be doing a bit better. With nearly half the polls reporting, Kennedy sits with 16.3% of the delegate support right now. 4th place for the moment, but very close between him, Dion and Rae.

So as I was looking through the province by province breakdown, I was noticing how the inequity between provinces could skew the totals. Since obviously if we would have had only Ontario, BC, and Alberta reporting, Kennedy would be sitting nicely at or near the top of the list. So I went through each province and copied down how many stations reported and how many delegates each candidate had. Then multiplying by how many ridings have yet to report, I get an extrapolation. Obviously it's not perfect, since each report has a different number of people getting elected (student clubs vs ridings), but I was interested to see if the fact that Manitoba had only 2/21 was really making a big difference in the results. Here are the extrapolated results I get:

Iggy: 29.7%
Rae: 20.3%
Dion: 17.2%
Kennedy: 16.3%
Dryden: 5.5%
Volpe: 4.1%
Brison: 3.6%
MHF: 1%
Undeclared: 2.3%

Comparing to the current results, it's basically 1% less for Iggy and 1% more for Rae (with Dryden getting .5% from a variety of people). Now, I think it's a bit skewed by Manitoba, since I doubt Rae will get 40-50% of the delegates there, but I think in general we can see that the LPC has done a fairly good job of mixing the different regions voting times.