Les autorités célébraient dernièrement le rôle déterminant des soldats canadiens dans l’immonde bataille de Vimy en 1917. À ce moment, des milliers de pauvres bougres se sont fait massacrer pour prendre possession d’une colline. Fauchés trop tôt, enlevés à la vie et à leurs amours. Continue reading New Democrat Boulerice on World War I then and now
The New Democratic Party of Canada and the Liberal Party of Canada have substantially different party constitutions, relationships with provincial parties, and finances. And, yet, it seems irresistible to make some comparisons between the NDP leadership race of 2011-2012 and the Liberal leadership race of 2012-2013. So let’s do that.
Here is a table which shows the total number of eligible voters in each province. Eligible voters are not actual voters . We will not have a final count of actual voters in the Liberal race until Sunday April 14. We do know that, as of today at around 1 pm, the total number of actual voters in teh Liberal race eclipsed the total number of voters in any one of the four ballots in the NDP race last year. Continue reading Comparing New Democrat and Liberal leadership numbers
Last year, when New Democrats elected Thomas Mulcair their leader, every single paid-up member of the party was allowed to vote and every single vote counted. It was a one-member, one-vote system.
There was, at various points in the race, concern from the Montreal-based Mulcair camp that, since Quebec had never had — and still does not have — a provincial wing of the party and since members of provincial NDP parties in BC, Manitoba, Ontario and elsewhere are automatically voting members of the federal party, that the one-member, one-vote system would be a handicap to candidates, like Mulcair, from Quebec.
The one-member, one-vote system in the NDP leadership race turned out, after all, not to be a handicap for Mulcair because he won.
Still, though the province of Quebec has about 23 per cent of the Canadian population, just 9.6 per cent of the eligible voters in that NDP contest were from Quebec. By contrast, more than 30 per cent of the voters were from B.C., even though B.C. has only 13 per cent of the population. Those who were nervous about one-member, one-vote were worried that regional imbalances would either given an advantage to one candidate or another.
The Liberal Party of Canada is in the midst of its own leadership race and voting is underway this week. Again, Quebec is under-represented so far as voters go if one compares Quebec votersto the overall population. Just 11.6 per cent of the Liberal leadership voters are from Quebec.
This time next week, the leaders of the two leading opposition parties could be from Quebec and yet, judged on their participation in each party’s leadership contest, Quebecer’s seem not to care that much. That’s the starting point for my discussion with Le Journal de Montréal blogger Lisa Ravary, above.
96 years ago today: The Battle of Vimy Ridge. One of the best assignments I’ve ever had was covering the 90th anniversary of that battle on the Ridge itself. I was working for CTV at the time and here’s a video I recorded with my pocket camera as I walked around the monument.
He might just be the best leader the Liberal Party of Canada never had and, for just a few more days, Bob Rae is the interim leader of the Big Red Machine. Tonight, we chat about the byelection in Labrador and the soon-to-be wrapped up leadership race.
Peter Penashue, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada is sworn in as Member of Parliament for Labrador at Parliament Hill in Ottawa May 26, 2011. He would resign his seat in nearly two years later amid accusations he violated federal election finance laws. Penashue will run in a by-election called Sunday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper for May 13. (ANDRE FORGET/QMI AGENCY)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced this morning that a by-election will be held in the federal riding of Labrador on May 13. The riding became vacant after Conservative MP Peter Penashue, then a member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet, admitted that his campaign violated federal election finance laws in the May 2011 general election. Penashue, in that general election, won by a handful of votes and it was quite reasonable to assume that the extra illegal spending his campaign did in that general election could have made the difference.
Elections Canada is still investigating the over-spending and its investigation will be unaffected by the by-election. Moreover, Penashue is not avoiding any sanction he may face from Elections Canada by resigning and running again. That peril will still exist for Penashue regardless of the by-election and its outcome.
This by-election really won’t change a thing in the House of Commons. No matter who wins, the Conservatives will still have a majority; the NDP will still be the Official Opposition; and the Liberals will still be the third party. And yet, for a by-election that means so little in the big scheme of things (though obviously a big deal for the good people of the riding), there is a surprising amount of political capital at stake. For that reason, expect all three of those parties to be campaigning heavily to win. Some notes on what’s at stake …
On a tour through Northern Ontario earlier this week, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was calling out the Harper Conservatives for slashing funding to FedNor, the federal government program that provides economic development help for northern Ontario. That prompted Tony Clement, the minister responsible for FedNor to fire back at Mulcair. Clement’s comments were echoed by Jay Aspin, the Conservative MP for the riding of North Bay-Timiskaming. Aspin’s salvo was the lead story today in the North Bay Nugget:
“Unfortunately, the Conservatives’ cuts, the planned cuts of tens of millions of dollars from the budget of FedNor, will have a devastating effect in the whole region, particularly in centres of excellence,” he said. “(The cuts will be) 20% this year and 25% next year — those are the actual cuts to FedNor.
If Tony Clement says anything otherwise, he’s not telling the truth. This is not a matter of ‘he said, she said’ — these are facts, they are printed on a piece of paper. Tony Clement should start telling the truth to people in Northern Ontario. If he’s got the guts to cut, let him have the guts to admit what he’s doing and stop playing word games.”
Clement promptly issued a statement on Friday, a statement which included the following:
“Mulcair decried magical funding numbers for FedNor he seemed to make up on the fly. …the numbers pure fiction. Its core funding remains virtually unchanged. If Mulcair understood financial documents – or cared to actually look at them – he would see a 0.43% decline in funding, not the 10%, 20%, 26% or any other number he is pulling out of his hat.”
So who’s right? Well, I care to actually look at financial documents and, if I don’t understand them, I ask what they mean. And after looking at the documents both use to support their claim/attack, one is right on the broad point — that would be Mulcair — and one is right on the narrow technical point about FedNor funding — that would be Clement.
Ever wonder how much it costs the federal government to send out a press release announcing it is handing out your money? I have. And so, apparently, did Liberal MP Scott Andrews.
