Sorry to say

All three leaders of the 'mainstream' political parties leave me out in the cold. Not one fully understands the concept of 'peak oil' or the wholesale collapse of the US Capitalist society.

The Liberals today, like Harper's Conservatives, are there solely for their political friends benefits. They care nothing for the 'common' man/woman.

The NDP are throw backs fighting political wars of a different age and have about as much relevance today as a dinosaur.

By accident, what is left is the 'Greens', Canada's party of protest and there my vote shall lay.

When people are in the mood

When people are in the mood to turn incredibly sadistic, they need to find someone who can help exercise that need, without incurring guilt. This can't be done with Harper, because it is too easy to imagine him Canada's George Bush. It can well be done with Ignatieff, because, like Obama, everything he'll do will be appropriately dressed for the times. He'll be a monster, though, just like Obama will prove to be--someone who'll move us toward militarism, and will makr every warm, well adjusted leftie, flee for the forrest of arden, lest they tagged and bagged as traitors to the Nation. (We've all seen here what some NDP supporters would do to Greenies if they had the chance . . .)

PET was the last real

PET was the last real liberal the liberal party had, Chretien was more centrist but Iggy really is centre right and not much different than Harper other than the religious ideology part.

The libs are too far to the right at the moment for me personally

This loaded sentence ...

PatrickMcEvoyHalston ...

Quoting from your comment above:

(We've all seen here what some NDP supporters would do to Greenies if they had the chance . . .)

End of quote.

So far as I know, NDP supporters would co-operate with the Greenies if they had a chance.

Carole James went herself before the May 12 election to the Green Party leader and proposed co-operation. Her offer was rejected. Right?

Co-operation could have helped to save the BC rivers, for one thing. It could even have helped the Greenies get somebody elected. Why would they reject that?

Speaking only for myself (an occasional "NDP supporter", and a David Orchard Conservative supporter), I can tell you that I wish the Greenies were actually GREEN as well as more honest about their political gameplan.

"Michael Ignatieff must do

"Michael Ignatieff must do three things and if he does them he will carry this province."

To carry BC, Ignatieff is going to need much more than that. Firstly, he needs Harper to be far more unpopular than he is now - Mulroney levels of unpopularity. Right now, Harper's polling 30%. Furthermore, if the provincial vote proves anything, it's that BC voters as a whole are basically happy with the status quo. There's just no evidence to suggest that a big change in voter behaviour is in the offing.

Secondly, he probably needs there to be an NDP government in Victoria - the only circumstance in which the federal NDP vote really crashes. Only then would ridings like Vancouver East be vulnerable.

Finally, let's look at the simple number of seats. Suppose the Liberals double their count in BC to 10, a greater share of BC seats then they've had since 1974. To accomplish even that, they would have to win in places that they haven't succeeded in since that date. (And 10 seats is a long way from carrying the province!)

Simple fact is that, for Liberal strategists, the focus is likely to be on ridings the party has managed to win recently. That basically means Quebec (where the Liberals will look to ridings they won in 93, 97, and 2000), and swing seats in Ontario. In BC, they might focus on Kingsway, North Van, and Richmond, but they're not likely to spread scarce resources over huge swathes of the province.

Faint hope clause for BC

The destruction Gordon Campbell will lay on us over the next five years is unimaginable. Yet there is a way we progressives can stop him if we unite.

The BC NDP is mess with a ineffective unelectable leader utterly incapable of organizing her party, her policies, her opposition and an election campaign. Her make nice parliamentary techniques resound with the voter and the hostile press as cowardly. Bloated Bill Good whips her ass in a one on one. She is driving progressives to the Green's who are utterly fed up with her and her current supporters. Until that party gets its act together, progressives can still take action.

It is very easy for determined special interest groups to hijack political party's in Canada because the electorate is so disinterested. For inspiration look at David Orchard a far left progressives who almost beat Joe Clark for Conservative party leader. Look at how the Gordo and his media wing was able to wipe out Gordon Wilson who was leader of an actual Liberal party until Neocon mass membership buys defeated him. Look at how Harper and Stockwell Day and the religious right were able to hijack the ReformaTories.

There are already lots of real Liberals in the BCLiberal party Ken Jones, Carole Taylor, just booted Gordon Hogg and myriads more still hanging on hoping a messiah will come along and save them from the suffering neocon yoke. If progressives start buying party memberships in large quantities we can easily within the year take back all Liberal party constituency associations and their executive, make massive changes at party policy conventions, force a leadership review convention, change the party name back to Liberal and elect a progressive MLA as party leader.

The Neocon's can join Wilf Hanni over at the BC Conservative party where they belong.

Iggy may be the next big thing

But that is only due to his pandering to the same agenda as Harper.

Rafe, lets be clear, the only thing Iggy has that Trudeau may have had is a thread of arrogance that permeates everything he does.

Full stop.

Rafe's got some issue right, but the parties wrong

Rafe is forgetting that in the last federal election the NDP actually got two thirds as many votes as the federal Liberals. This is not a quantum distinction.

He's also forgetting that Michael Ignatieff has not made clear his position on asbestos or tanker traffic on our coast.

On the issue of Premier Campbell's hydro policies he has said nothing specific, but at the national Liberal convention in Vancouver he made it crystal clear he wanted the Premier to be re-elected, the same viewpoint that was expressed by his predecessor Stephane Dion as soon as Campbell took office. The notion that either of these men, as Prime Minister, would find a way to interfere with provincial hydro developments is quite unrealistic.

The Forest of Arden

has been infiltrated and large swathes bulldozed in preparation for an environmentally friendly run-of-river project. There is nowhere left to hide and so now it is sink or swim together ...
we are all traitors to the nation unless we can join that merry band in the forest stealing from the rich to sustain the poor...preferably colourfully dressed with elan and fervently committed to maintaining
the concept of freedom, in the truest academic sense: that the collegial exchange of ideas and the sharing of insights and the absolute integrity to stand one's ground in spite of 'popular opinion' is the only real freedom.

No more cliches...

Off the mark as usual

Despite Rafe's horse-flogging rhetoric, the collapse of the BC salmon industry is hardly a Campbell-only issue. His gov'ts haven't helped the issue, but then again, DFO has jurisdiction over anadromous fish. Vis-a-vis, the federal liberals did nothing but watch stocks decline through the 90s and 2000s - don't expect this to even cross the radar as an election issue. Besides, Iggy's got a lot more in common with Gordo than Harper does, despite the majority of this site trying to label Gordo as a neo-con (Campbell is actually a classic neo-lib, hence BC Liberals not conservatives).

Iggy...

Certainly a helluva an improvement over Dion, who was not only a lacklustre/poor communicator, but whose "Green Shift" platform turned off voters en masse, resulting in the Lib's worst BC vote share (19%) in 25 years (1984).

Under Iggy, the Libs have consistently place a very respectable 2nd place in BC federal polling, with the NDP falling back to the rear.

Iggy should be able to recapture the north shore, Richmond, Vancouver-Kingsway, and be very competitive in Burnaby-Douglas and Victoria. In other words, the Libs will likely regain/consolidate their urban base as well as the inner suburbs.

The Cons own rural and suburban BC and that won't change. The NDP also has its pockets of support.

I doub't many posters here will appreciate that quip, Rafe. :D

Are you still on the Run-of-River IPP kick Rafe? That's basically a provincial matter and the feds will never get involved.

BTW, it appears that the BC NDP has also abandoned their "moratorium" position on micro-hydo IPPs.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/06/12/bc-ndp-libs-carbon-tax.html

neoliberal

is the formal term for the colloquial a neocon and has nothing to do with the Liberal party.

You are referring to new liberalism or social liberalism. G West is likely to give you another spanking on this one.

Under Iggy, the Libs have

Under Iggy, the Libs have consistently place a very respectable 2nd place in BC federal polling, with the NDP falling back to the rear.
------------

lol

A political minefield

The saving of this country, let alone the salmon, is now loaded with catch-22's.

There is no difference between the BC Liberals, the federal Liberals or the federal Conservatives. They are all playing for the same team....and their jerseys no longer have Canadian flags embroidered on them.

The intricate inter-connections between these traitorous teams are woven deep into the details of the BC Rail case.

Strings are being pulled from all political and legal directions to make sure this case never comes to trial....in order to protect those who have sold this country down the road.

UnCivilizedEngineer: Right about Liberal's DFO administration

... the collapse of the BC salmon industry is hardly a Campbell-only issue. His gov'ts haven't helped the issue, but then again, DFO has jurisdiction over anadromous fish. Vis-a-vis, the federal liberals did nothing but watch stocks decline through the 90s and 2000s - ...

This simple point seems to escape a lot of people, most importantly people whose interest in fisheries is mostly self-serving spin.

For example, I just saw a piece in a business magazine in which the writer and his interview subject claimed that things had come a long way since the 1990s. Really? Is that why salmon stocks on the West Coast of both the US and Canada are at risk?

Turns out the interviewee is interested in sports fisheries, and is quite happy just to get the commercial fishers out of his way. Once that's done, he really doesn't care what the overall stocks are doing.

Looking at Federal BC Numbers In Depth...

BC Federal Polling:

Ipsos:

Con - 45%
Lib - 29%
NDP - 15%

ARS

Con - 45%
Lib - 26%
NDP - 22%

Ekos

Con - 32%
Lib - 30%
NDP - 25%

Harris-Decima

Con - 30%
Lib - 33%
NDP - 25%

And Threehundredeight currently has this BC federal seat projection:

Con - 21 seats
Lib - 12 seats
NDP - 3 seats

http://www.threehundredeight.blogspot.com/

BC was also almost covered

BC was also almost covered by the Reform nutcases not too long ago, so it would be an obvious repetition of the same.

Ed Deak.

maybe

iggy is so iffy.
the guy has already been so wishy washy on issues that one can easily give up.
It will take forever to get more than a couple of Greens in the house.
The Bloc are more credible than the others. They introduced the GE label bill and are more environmentally minded as a whole.
This is why the COALITION was the solution. The goodwill was there as well.
Too many Canadians just want the price of beer and gas to stay down.
As the conservative seniors pass on, the game could change, somewhat.
Meanwhile, scientists are tightening up on the predictions
of just how much time is left.
Me, I take the bus and ride my e bike and curse the traffic.

I would vote independent.....

Or stay home and not vote if there was no independent in my riding........

@ Luke....Lets have an election,lets have one every week,call it a stimulus package,polll clerks and election officers make pretty good money and from what I gather Harper`s stmulus money seems to have gotten lost somewhere between the pixels on the computer screen and 24 Sussex...........

P.S. you are correct Lynn,there is no difference between them......

The Good,the bad and the ugly,your guess is as good as mine as to whos who!

Cheers-Eyes Wide Open

...wherein Rafe tries to

...wherein Rafe tries to goad Ignatieff into fulfilling Rafe's river wishes.

Iggy is just goofing around

Iggy is making a complete ass of himself, doing the typical Liberal indecision thing. "Studying" the "Report Card" to death, humming and hawing whether or not to force an election, blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately Iggy is controlled by the Liberal power brokers who are entrenched in the Liberal Philosophy that "Talking is more successful than actually DOING."

Where do we go from here?

Yes, B Bay, a truly sorry scene - a bunch of politicians acting just like we've come to expect of politicians.

One would expect that a country with 33 million inabitants could produce at least one statesman per generation, eh?

The last one we had was Pierre Trudeau. Sure, many conservatives hated him, and he could be arrogant, alright. But at least we knew what he stood for, and he didn't flip-flop minute by minute as the polls changed.

How unlike this current bunch of chameleons, seeking to aggrandize themselves to whomever might possibly vote for them. And he didn't promise to do - or not to do - one thing and then turn around and do the exact opposite.

Lyin' Brian may have been a sleaze, but he never broke a solemn oath made in front of the nation like Harper's right-hand man Peter McKay did to David Orchard, or like Gordo with BC Rail.

And what about Paul Martin, who on the strength of his father's record we held such high hopes for - but who easily could have fit into Mulroney's cabinet?

Is there any room at all in Canadian politics for an honest man to become the leader of a party?