— Musings —06.08.2010 06:39 AM
CBC question
A few folks have asked me if they could eyeball last night’s Power and Politics clippage, wherein me and the NDP’s Anne McGrath mooted coalition stuff.
Beats me, said I. Anyone know how to obtain same from the CBC’s insanely-dense web site?
UPDATE: Thanks to Wendy and others for the feedback! Clip is now posted above.
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/ID=1516008928
When you get to this, in the Search Barm, key in evan solomon power and politics and you should get it.
Having viewed the Power and Politics ‘great big sheeeew’, as Ed Sullivan would say, I was left totally underwhelmed and somewhat confused by the discussion concerning coalition or no coalition. Neither Mr. Kinsella or Ms. McGrath made it very clear what the effective and realistic coalition options are for their respective parties. Will there be a pre-election deal regarding cooperation in specific ridings to ensure a defeat of Conservative candidates. Will the deal outline what happens after an election if the total of Liberal and NDP seats constitute a plurality or, perhaps, an improbable slim majority of the seats in the House.
If the Liberals and NDP do nothing before the election, the electoral outcome will be much the same as it is at the moment.
In fact, Harper may even get a few more seats, just short of a majority, thanks to his government’s very lavish stimulus package spending at the taxpayers expense for years to come. Folks in greater Toronto and south western Ontario might be complaining about the ‘fake lake’ for the foreign media but they are all gaga over the seemingly unlimited federal tax dollars that are flowing freely around their communities these days.
Massive gobs of cash speak far louder than words or the very nasty, destructive but effective Conservative ads.
So-called fiscal Conservatives, either American or Canadian, are not real fiscal conservatives. They just have a different set of spending priorities than Liberals or Democrats. And Harper’s Conservative government spending priorities – big business, tough on crime, defence, and security issues — have been, and will continue to be, far more expensive than the spending priorities of Liberals. And, once Conservative spending priorities are legislated into law – as Harper is currently doing, these programs will last for several decades. In so doing, Conservative entrenched spending programs will preclude any old or new centre-left governments from adding to the growing deficits and national debt with new or improved social, health, community and education programs.
This Harper scenario, which is well underway, is why a quick Liberal-NDP coalition of the Liberal and NDP Parties is necessary. A coalition should be followed in due course with a democratically attained merger and a leadership campaign to chose a new leader for the new Liberal Democratic Party.
Riff: I agree but momentum being what it is, I suspect that the elites in both the Libs and the NDP will nix a merger out of pride. “Michael deserves his own election running 308 candidates” as we have heard on this site. I understand the logic, but don’t agree.
Warren: What is your take on the plain old vanilla strategic voting that flies below the radars of the leadership cadres of both the Libs & the NDP? You know the script: “If you vote in a riding with an NDP incumbent, vote NDP. If you vote in a riding with a Liberal incumbent, vote Liberal. If you vote in a Conservative-held riding, vote for the Lib or NDP candidate most likely to defeat the Conservative incumbent.”
Nice and simple. A few populist web sites, blogs and Facebook pages and it could be done, no? If the electorate followed this strategy the result would be a much more progressive parliament and a much greener, more democratic and optimistic Canada. What do you think?
http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/Politics/ID=1516008928 You’ll have to scan through the video — CBC just posts it in one chunk.