Think positively. This is a forward-thinking move. It can signal many things, plausibly that the Liberals know something — and are clearing off the decks because they just might win this thing.
Warren, do you know if the Conservatives or NDP have cancelled THEIR conventions? The NDP one was scheduled to be the EXACT same weekend in Vancouver, while the Conservative one is scheduled for one week before the Liberal one and at the same location in Ottawa.
Can you find this out for us? If the NDP and Conservatives cancel theirs all is fine, but if they DON’T I don’t see how this doesn’t look bad on the Liberals. How come the other parties didn’t feel the need to cancel their conventions for the exact same time? I know there’s a lot of commenters out there now defending this move on LPC’s part (just look at the comments at Grit Chick’s blog), but how will they defend this if the Liberals are the ONLY party cancelling their convention.
By the way it’s not really fair to blame this on Apps entirely, surely the whole LPC Board signed off on it, which includes Ignatieff himself. Apps, as President, is the one that has to convey the decisions of the Board though.
Yes but they could have announced this May 3. It was already common knowledge at the beginning of March that it would be cancelled if there was an election was called. In fact that is standard procedure. LPCO cancelled their gig too.
That doesn’t matter. though. Even if it is common knowledge and standard, what does that say when the Tories and the NDP are NOT cancelling theirs’. This is inside baseball stuff, but still bad, bad bad optics.
“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” Sun Tzu
Why is it bad? Conventions are to prepare the platform & shore up the leader for the next election, no?
And, um, we’re having an election as we speak, and no one wants another one any time soon, so why not have it later, instead of having an ill-prepared (because pre-empted by the election) and expensive (for the delegates) ‘So, why are we meeting here, now?’ -fest?
Apps – now there’s a gift that keeps on giving. Liberals across the country must cringe when he shows up on TV. The personfication of an elitist fat-cat millionaire Toronto lawyer just waiting to belly up to the trough. And yes I’d say the same thing if he were a Conservative – think Mulroney in those Saville Row suits and Gucci shoes – same thing till they got him to dress down a bit. They should never allow Apps to rep the party on TV. Then again I suppose he calls the shots.
If you’re so smart, why not replace him? Oh, right, you are a troll? Sheesh!
[ Standard on-line challenge. Just because a guy is far sighted and wears creepy specs does not diminish his effectiveness. For example, WK’s hair needs work IMHO. Doesn’t stop me from reading his deranged viewpoint. ]
Agreed, this is a bad move and the media will obviously claim that Apps is setting up a Leadership. However, in all fairness, the Liberals are looking at a 25 seat gain or thereabouts. Ignatieff’s numbers are about what Martin’s were in 2006. While it looks like a loss overall, that is still a huge net gain for the Liberals going from 2008 – 2011 and nothing to sneeze at. After watching this thing for two weeks, I can admit that I was damn wrong about Ignatieff. How often does someone on a political blog admit that he / she was wrong about something? Not often I’ll bet. No way around it, the guy is performing way above expectations. He’s joking around with the media and looks like he is having a good time, while Harper looks bitter and under siege. One week of a campaign is about as valuable as one year of the pre writ in terms of gaining traction etc.. Three weeks left is a long time.
One day story if that. This week will be dominated by the debates and the leaders of all of the parties will be doing debate prep tomorrow and Tuesday, particularly since one of the debates has been moved up to Wednesday as a result of the NHL playoffs.
If someone does ask then the Liberals can claim that they will be focused on the transition to the Liberal government after the election.
You become more retarded by the day. The deposit was put down well over 8 months ago. We’ll see if the COns and Dippers cancel theirs. They are all at the same time. The difference is their presidents aren’t fucking morons.
Well in all fairness, at least the Tories’ can say that their leader isn’t being helped along by your hero’s father Geppetto. Oh thats riggggggghhhhhtttt, Pinocchio had his strings cut out. My bad.
Maybe the LPC just finished their platform and are prepared to stand pat on it, and to wait a bit to see where things stand re: their leader …. and would want more time to work on both if they need reworking, instead of rushing both in the six weeks between the new election date & the originally scheduled conference date (which is yet more evidence they didn’t plan or want the election now, BTW).
Whereas the CPC are still working on their mystery meats budgets by the week, and are prepared to either dump Harper right after the election or declare him President for Life, depending on whether he gets his precious majority.
I got the same letter, and figured that it means the party has internal polling indicating we just might win this thing, and we’ll be too busy running the country to organize a convention.
That is a nice theory, but just WHO will be running the country and, more importantly, in what form?
Here is another theory, and its kind of related to your own: it means that you are buying time to get a coalition in place to be “running the country” before Iggy has to face a leadership review immediatley after having lost the election.
You can thank Alfred Apps for that one, and a Liblogger for letting that genie out of the bottle.
But we’re not done. Young Trudeau today stated that Ignatieff will probably “try his luck” after the election is over in the event of another Con majority.
Boy, I bet you guys thought this coalition talk would have went away by now. Guess again.
Mr. Tulk — Well, I guess “thank you” for proving my point, but I don’t need to prove anything, actually. I JUST AM. But really, did you not take anything away from I said? Tell me, that wasn’t revealing? (Or don’t tell me. Just reflect on it.) Have a good night.
Geez
Some one has rocks in their head. Having to watch “Beer and Popcorn” and “Dave who makes me want to Hearle my cookies” on CBC is bad enough now we’ve got this idiot giving the cons something on which to build a narrative. Lock apps up until the campaign is over.
Again, I responded to this bizarre claim of yours in the earlier thread, here & here:
StatCan has plenty of mandatory surveys which are only applied to a random sample of about 1/5th of the applicable population at any given time, both of households (Labour Force Survey) and virtually all kinds of businesses.
where it appears that phrase is included on the “Information for survey participants” of 81 surveys:
not only for various kinds of farmers’ production surveys, like I mentioned before, but also for sawmills, steel shippers, sellers of oil, and wool, etc. etc.
And this is all being done on a continuous basis, including for the last 5+ years under the CPC. Under the radar. But under the authority of the democratically enacted (and periodically revised) Statistics Act.
As for the alleged cash cow nature of such surveys, sure, they sell data to end users, which includes industry & trade groups as well as social policy orgs. & municipalities (for the Census data) to try to defray some of their expenses… but only about $100-M a year: i.e., a quarter of its $400-M annual budget. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/298823
You object to that? Seems a pretty fiscally responsible thing to do.
p.s., there’s also plenty of intrusive questions in the mandatory LFS which is administered to nearly 50,000 households a month, which is pretty much just as comprehensive as the mandatory long form census — and the poor saps who get tapped for that have to do it for six months in a row:
on race, education, income, immigration status, name, age & relationships of everyone living in the house, a bunch of stuff on the house — owned or rented, for how much, AND the dreaded ‘how many bedrooms’ (but not how many bathrooms, which the census only asked once, in 1981) — and more:
Gord could be normal or he could be a poseur or he could be a paranoid schizophrenic. Careful with the replies. I have on authority that trolls cannot be trusted. They are usually in the employ of bridge owners who force their employees to lay in wait UNDER the span.
Hey Mr. Tulk — it’s a joke. Like everything you post here, right? 😉
Crisis! Crisis! As a token Joe Canadian posting here, if this is news it’s because you say it is. It is completely irrelevant to me and my family. Stop behaving like party insiders, especially if you are one, because most of us aren’t! With everything that we juggle in managing our households in a day, this kind of stuff is on our radar — how, exactly? SLOW DOWN!
Warren – it also puts all speculation of a secret coalition deal lead by Iggy write back on the table and on the airwaves….and plays into Harper’s hands once again.
I’m not a Grit and I just took it as a no-brainer announcement that the convention was being delayed due to the election. Now, I guess you can say why not announce May 3 – that wouldn’t give much time for people to cancel hotel rooms, flight plans etc.
Think positively. This is a forward-thinking move. It can signal many things, plausibly that the Liberals know something — and are clearing off the decks because they just might win this thing.
Warren, do you know if the Conservatives or NDP have cancelled THEIR conventions? The NDP one was scheduled to be the EXACT same weekend in Vancouver, while the Conservative one is scheduled for one week before the Liberal one and at the same location in Ottawa.
Can you find this out for us? If the NDP and Conservatives cancel theirs all is fine, but if they DON’T I don’t see how this doesn’t look bad on the Liberals. How come the other parties didn’t feel the need to cancel their conventions for the exact same time? I know there’s a lot of commenters out there now defending this move on LPC’s part (just look at the comments at Grit Chick’s blog), but how will they defend this if the Liberals are the ONLY party cancelling their convention.
By the way it’s not really fair to blame this on Apps entirely, surely the whole LPC Board signed off on it, which includes Ignatieff himself. Apps, as President, is the one that has to convey the decisions of the Board though.
Yes but they could have announced this May 3. It was already common knowledge at the beginning of March that it would be cancelled if there was an election was called. In fact that is standard procedure. LPCO cancelled their gig too.
That doesn’t matter. though. Even if it is common knowledge and standard, what does that say when the Tories and the NDP are NOT cancelling theirs’. This is inside baseball stuff, but still bad, bad bad optics.
Who fucking cares what the CPC is doing. Certainly nobody in the Liberal Party does.
“So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.” Sun Tzu
50/50, big boy. You like those odds? Wow.
Why is it bad? Conventions are to prepare the platform & shore up the leader for the next election, no?
And, um, we’re having an election as we speak, and no one wants another one any time soon, so why not have it later, instead of having an ill-prepared (because pre-empted by the election) and expensive (for the delegates) ‘So, why are we meeting here, now?’ -fest?
Apps – now there’s a gift that keeps on giving. Liberals across the country must cringe when he shows up on TV. The personfication of an elitist fat-cat millionaire Toronto lawyer just waiting to belly up to the trough. And yes I’d say the same thing if he were a Conservative – think Mulroney in those Saville Row suits and Gucci shoes – same thing till they got him to dress down a bit. They should never allow Apps to rep the party on TV. Then again I suppose he calls the shots.
If you’re so smart, why not replace him? Oh, right, you are a troll? Sheesh!
[ Standard on-line challenge. Just because a guy is far sighted and wears creepy specs does not diminish his effectiveness. For example, WK’s hair needs work IMHO. Doesn’t stop me from reading his deranged viewpoint. ]
Hair??? Nothing wrong with a 1988 John Cleese Look 🙂
Agreed, this is a bad move and the media will obviously claim that Apps is setting up a Leadership. However, in all fairness, the Liberals are looking at a 25 seat gain or thereabouts. Ignatieff’s numbers are about what Martin’s were in 2006. While it looks like a loss overall, that is still a huge net gain for the Liberals going from 2008 – 2011 and nothing to sneeze at. After watching this thing for two weeks, I can admit that I was damn wrong about Ignatieff. How often does someone on a political blog admit that he / she was wrong about something? Not often I’ll bet. No way around it, the guy is performing way above expectations. He’s joking around with the media and looks like he is having a good time, while Harper looks bitter and under siege. One week of a campaign is about as valuable as one year of the pre writ in terms of gaining traction etc.. Three weeks left is a long time.
One day story if that. This week will be dominated by the debates and the leaders of all of the parties will be doing debate prep tomorrow and Tuesday, particularly since one of the debates has been moved up to Wednesday as a result of the NHL playoffs.
If someone does ask then the Liberals can claim that they will be focused on the transition to the Liberal government after the election.
A one day story, but it tells everyone where your head is at – or will be.
Blood in the water.
You become more retarded by the day. The deposit was put down well over 8 months ago. We’ll see if the COns and Dippers cancel theirs. They are all at the same time. The difference is their presidents aren’t fucking morons.
Can I vote? Tulk IS a moron.
But that was a political comment–nothing personal Mr. Tulk.
If your guy loses, do they cut off his nose? Hope so. He’s an insult to my hero — Pinicchio.
Well in all fairness, at least the Tories’ can say that their leader isn’t being helped along by your hero’s father Geppetto. Oh thats riggggggghhhhhtttt, Pinocchio had his strings cut out. My bad.
Maybe the LPC just finished their platform and are prepared to stand pat on it, and to wait a bit to see where things stand re: their leader …. and would want more time to work on both if they need reworking, instead of rushing both in the six weeks between the new election date & the originally scheduled conference date (which is yet more evidence they didn’t plan or want the election now, BTW).
Whereas the CPC are still working on their mystery meats budgets by the week, and are prepared to either dump Harper right after the election or declare him President for Life, depending on whether he gets his precious majority.
Will there be a leadership review?
I got the same letter, and figured that it means the party has internal polling indicating we just might win this thing, and we’ll be too busy running the country to organize a convention.
That is a nice theory, but just WHO will be running the country and, more importantly, in what form?
Here is another theory, and its kind of related to your own: it means that you are buying time to get a coalition in place to be “running the country” before Iggy has to face a leadership review immediatley after having lost the election.
You can thank Alfred Apps for that one, and a Liblogger for letting that genie out of the bottle.
But we’re not done. Young Trudeau today stated that Ignatieff will probably “try his luck” after the election is over in the event of another Con majority.
Boy, I bet you guys thought this coalition talk would have went away by now. Guess again.
French debate has been moved to Wednesday.
Montreal Canadians 1, Elizabeth May 0
Nice to know this country has its priorities straight
Hmmmm, I’m still trying to figure out if that is sarcasm or not…………..
And somewhere Harper sits in a dark room shitting his pants before this debate. Let’s see if Canadians believe his bullshit lies this time.
Mr. Tulk — Well, I guess “thank you” for proving my point, but I don’t need to prove anything, actually. I JUST AM. But really, did you not take anything away from I said? Tell me, that wasn’t revealing? (Or don’t tell me. Just reflect on it.) Have a good night.
Geez
Some one has rocks in their head. Having to watch “Beer and Popcorn” and “Dave who makes me want to Hearle my cookies” on CBC is bad enough now we’ve got this idiot giving the cons something on which to build a narrative. Lock apps up until the campaign is over.
We’ve tried that. I don’t know who unlocks the door.
he does — he’s got an App for that
There’s an election on and there’s time to win it. That’s what matters right now.
Again, I responded to this bizarre claim of yours in the earlier thread, here & here:
StatCan has plenty of mandatory surveys which are only applied to a random sample of about 1/5th of the applicable population at any given time, both of households (Labour Force Survey) and virtually all kinds of businesses.
http://warrenkinsella.com/2011/04/in-todays-sun-john-diefenbaker-has-left-the-building/#comment-33816
http://warrenkinsella.com/2011/04/in-todays-sun-john-diefenbaker-has-left-the-building/#comment-33878
For some examples: just search “Survey participation: mandatory” on http://www.statcan.gc.ca
(which is done for you here: http://urlm.in/hmrf )
where it appears that phrase is included on the “Information for survey participants” of 81 surveys:
not only for various kinds of farmers’ production surveys, like I mentioned before, but also for sawmills, steel shippers, sellers of oil, and wool, etc. etc.
And this is all being done on a continuous basis, including for the last 5+ years under the CPC. Under the radar. But under the authority of the democratically enacted (and periodically revised) Statistics Act.
As for the alleged cash cow nature of such surveys, sure, they sell data to end users, which includes industry & trade groups as well as social policy orgs. & municipalities (for the Census data) to try to defray some of their expenses… but only about $100-M a year: i.e., a quarter of its $400-M annual budget. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/298823
You object to that? Seems a pretty fiscally responsible thing to do.
p.s., there’s also plenty of intrusive questions in the mandatory LFS which is administered to nearly 50,000 households a month, which is pretty much just as comprehensive as the mandatory long form census — and the poor saps who get tapped for that have to do it for six months in a row:
on race, education, income, immigration status, name, age & relationships of everyone living in the house, a bunch of stuff on the house — owned or rented, for how much, AND the dreaded ‘how many bedrooms’ (but not how many bathrooms, which the census only asked once, in 1981) — and more:
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/instrument/3701_Q1_V1-eng.htm
Gord could be normal or he could be a poseur or he could be a paranoid schizophrenic. Careful with the replies. I have on authority that trolls cannot be trusted. They are usually in the employ of bridge owners who force their employees to lay in wait UNDER the span.
Hey Mr. Tulk — it’s a joke. Like everything you post here, right? 😉
The Liberal web page is still advertising the convention
Alf Apps, Fasken-Martineau partner running the Liberal campaign.
Guy Giorno, Fasken-Martineau partner running the Conservative campaign.
Nice. A bit awkward at partnership meetings, but cozy.
Don’t forget all the Fasken candidates that are running.
Crisis! Crisis! As a token Joe Canadian posting here, if this is news it’s because you say it is. It is completely irrelevant to me and my family. Stop behaving like party insiders, especially if you are one, because most of us aren’t! With everything that we juggle in managing our households in a day, this kind of stuff is on our radar — how, exactly? SLOW DOWN!
Good point Craig. I wonder if WK liked Apps he would even comment on this?
Warren – it also puts all speculation of a secret coalition deal lead by Iggy write back on the table and on the airwaves….and plays into Harper’s hands once again.
I’m not a Grit and I just took it as a no-brainer announcement that the convention was being delayed due to the election. Now, I guess you can say why not announce May 3 – that wouldn’t give much time for people to cancel hotel rooms, flight plans etc.
Tories and Dippers having theirs in same month, and they haven’t cancelled. Makes us look like we aren’t as organized as them. It’s stupid.