What a giant this man was. He is missed.

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• We are at the Whitehorse airport, Vancouver-bound. But I keep staring at this Abacus graph about Québec, which more or less reflects what other folks have been reporting in recent days. 

  

• Look at that orange line. Look at that blue line. You can find the full Abacus poll here, but you don’t have to be an expert in survey methodology to see that the NDP are in trouble. Liberals steady, Conservatives moving up. And Tom Mulcair losing ground dramatically. The NDP may be returning to their traditional role: a parking lot between elections. 
• What’s the reason? Some have speculated it is the Niqab thing. Quite a few who watched the French debate suggested as much in comments.
• Personally, I admired what Mulcair has said about the issue. And I’ve said as much, here. It took guts. 
• Some of his Québec candidates likely don’t feel the same way. Don’t be surprised if you see some of them start to pop off about the Niqab issue as their fortunes slide. 
• What do you think? Is it the Niqab, or is it something else? Whatever it is, one thing is clear: what comes in with the Orange tide may now be going out with the Orange tide. 

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Man, this sucks.

  

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• The length, sure. The outcome, of course. All of that is important.
• But Election 42 will be remembered for one thing most of all: the record number of shitty candidates. The ignorant, the bigots, the truthers, the anti-Semites, the drunkards, the scum of the Earth: those are the kinds of losers who were trying to win.
• Don’t believe it? Then read CBC’s list, here. There have been more candidates dumped for insanity/idiocy than ever before, by all the parties. And there many more morons on the ballot who the parties still refuse to dump.
• We’re on our way to Alaska shortly. So I have to go. But, I have one piece of advice for the people who vet candidates: don’t put your role on your CV. Because when history writes this election up, some of you are going to receive the blame for – literally, truly – hurting Canadian democracy. And some of you richly deserve it.

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From Carcross Tagish First Nation, for the work we did for them over the years. Presented to us by Chief Danny Cresswell. Shark transforming into man, by Keith Wolfe-Smarch. 

 

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• Good morning from cold and wet Whitehorse! We have some big things on the agenda today – among them a potlatch out in Carcross – so here’s some bits and pieces about this and that.
• Grumpy Justin: Is this story true? Well, some might say: consider the source(s). But I’ve had dealings with Suzuki and Solomon in the past, and so I tend to believe what they’re claiming.
• Don’t talk about how you makes sausages! Election process stories are bad enough – but cocky staffers claiming credit for digging up sleaze on an opponent? Dumb, dumb, dumb. Do your job, do it well, then hand over the results to a reporter and let them claim credit – not you. Don’t do what this anonymous staffer did. Dumb.
• “They could be talking.” Or, they could not be. And won’t be. And shouldn’t be. Is this being written because these women are talking to each other? Because they’re women? Because…why? From my perch, Messrs. Mulcair and Trudeau energetically detest each other. They see the other guy as their main problem, not Harper. If they haven’t come together before the election, it’s usually pretty damn hard to do so after the election.
• A Mulcair minority? He’s telling the truth here. He is preparing for transition. To wit, I know of two senior folks who have been approached about working for a Mulcair administration. Problem: looks cocky. Looks arrogant. Looks presumptuous. If you believe Greg, here, that ship has sailed.
• Anyway, that’s that. Off to the wilds of the Yukon. And, in that regard, a movie poster that reminded me of both the Yukon and the election!

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Yep.   

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Back by popular demand – for our good friend, Liberal candidate Bill “Card ‘Em and Kettle ‘Em” Blair!

(Someone took it down, but we got it back. Heh.)

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• Okay, so here we are in Whitehorse.  It’s snowing.  Spent a good part of yesterday visiting former Liberal MP Larry Bagnell and current Conservative MP Ryan Leef.  Nice guys, both.  Story to come in next week’s Hill Times.
• Because we couldn’t see the French language debate – and because no one else in Yukon was watching it, seemingly – I opened up comments for y’all to comment.  Below, a summary of your takes on what you saw heard.  Bottom line: appears I didn’t miss much. Here goes.
• Jam: From an entertainment perspective it was nice having Duceppe back at the podium. He’s got such a razer sharp wit… pity he’s a seperatist.
• Michael Bluth:  I think overall it was a good night for everyone but Mulcair.  Harper did pick up a little ground.  Trudeau performed passable. Much less arm waving.  May tried.  Mulcair seemed to be actively working on keeping the anger down and was at times frustrated in that.
• Christian:  Didn’t watch the debate – don’t much care anymore as I think these events are now just for partisans. I’ve sadly resigned myself that we’re going to be stuck with Harper after this is all done. What we have here is almost the exact same situation as the UK election. Parties deadlocked but then the machinery of the FPTP system kicked in and rewarded splits to Cameron’s Conservatives (its also interesting that Harper now has the guy who helped Cameron win now advising him). This will I’m afraid happen again unless something big occurs allowing one of the opposition parties to surge ahead. So far that isn’t happening.
• Matt:  Duceppe won the debate…………….. for Stephen Harper.
• Canadian Kate:  Was struck by how close Duceppe was to Harper on many issues. Which could make the Bloq a ‘kingmaker’ if the Cons end up with a narrow minority and Duceppe actually wins some seats (not sure what the seat projections show for him.)
• Sean Cummings:  I rather liked Chantal Hebert’s smackdown on Andrew Coyne during At Issue last night as opposed to the debate itself. (And local CBC radio was playing it here in Saskatoon during the morning show)
• Maps Onburt:  It cracked me up that the English translator for Trudeau had the same high, squeaky voice as Trudeau – although he didn’t get the breathless part quite right.
• Bill G.:  Didn’t see it, was doing life stuff. On the radio this morning thru a CTV feed, old Bobby Fife said that Mulcair and Harper pretty much sawed each other off, and, Duceppe and Trudeau were the ones who looked out of place, then, said, Trudeau looked to be the loser of this debate.  Then read a few columnists who thought Trudeau and Harper did ok and Mulcair struggled.  I think the only people who watch these things now are the people who already know who they are voting for.
• Bobbie:  1) we turned it off at the 48 minute mark.  2) turned it back on for the last 20 minutes.  Did we miss anything? No. Not one thing.  A race for second place between Mulcair and Trudeau – Trudeau doing better than Mulcair and Harper benefits from Duceppe.  Election results on Oct. 19? – Trudeau becomes the official opposition, NDP third party. Harper majority.
• Matt: Let me just say I only watch it in short bursts because the translator voices were annoying.  From what I did see, it seemed to me there was an internal struggle going on within Muclair to prevent Angry Tom from bursting forth.  I LOL’d at Harper’s response to a question, or maybe it was a comment from May – The camera focused in on him and he simply rolled his eyes and shook his head.
• Roger X:  I saw it and heard the translations, but early in the ‘debate’ Mulcair and Harper got into a finger pointing tiff standing next to each other, and it appeared that Harper got the better of Mulcair, in French too!!!
• Al in Cranbrook:  PM Harper gained ground tonight in Quebec…even Hebert suggested as much. His heated exchange with Mulcair will be the topic du jour tomorrow around office coffee pots.
• Andre Goulet:  What? None of you nerds watched the Grand Débat?  What a huge improvement on last week’s Globe fiasco, particularly in the dignity that Patrice Roy and Yves Boisvert brought to their profession. Stark contrast to the G&M editor-in-chief’s very public act of seppuku last week.  Short version:  Harper: B- for keeping to his talking points and keeping his cool, Trudeau: B for appearing competent and avoiding the shrill notes he hit at the G&M debate, Mulcair B+, but just barely, for telling Quebeckers what they wanna hear and appearing prime ministerial, May: C+ for managing to hold up okay in french and getting some valid points across, Duceppe: B for being a weirdo and an authentic politician.  Radio-canada: A+ for being smart and putting together a really great debate.  The one-two of last week and this week’s televised debates are a great argument for a future pointing to a Consortium supremacy.
• Todd Robdon:  Lamest kung fu movie ever.

And Todd wins the comment of the night! Have a good one, all.  Me, I’m getting a jacket for the drive out to Carcross!

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I’m in the Yukon and completely unable to see the debate. So, add your trenchant commentary below. I’ll post the best ones as KCCCC tomorrow, bien sur!

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