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41st Canadian General Election Thread

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Also, Sparq, I'm writing a newspaper report about Canada's gun control policy.

Harper just promised the other day to abolish the long gun registry, but given the conservative track record, you'll probably just see another amnesty granted once the original one (May 16th, 2011) rolls around.

 

Yeah, we (we being the gun community I guess?) were expecting another amnesty, though this election throws things into a bit of doubt. We'll see. All mine are registered anyway, I have no real problem with the registry aside from the cost for something so demonstrably useless and the fact that the RCMP and CFO have a habit of confusing their own arbitrarily defined policies with federal law. Some of the more foil-hat-inclined have suggested that the LGR is best suited to confiscating reclassified firearms from lawful owners, while utterly failing to affect the illegal gun trade. As a recent example, when Smith & Wesson started making a pistol version of their MP-22 semi-automatic rifle, the magazines were reclassified in Canada as "Pistol Magazines" (10 round limit) where previously they were "Rimfire Rifle Magazines" (no maximum capacity). Suddenly, any Canadian who bought the MP-22 with the included 25-round magazine was in possession of a Prohibited Device. Every legal owner is listed in the registry (not the LGR, the restricted one, but still). the RCMP and CFO conspicuously did NOT use that much-flaunted registry to notify the owners of that particular gun - they just put up a notice on the website. What about people who bought that gun and aren't members of the gun forums? Fifteen years from now they could be arrested and charged for possession of that magazine. Why didn't they contact the owners? Ugh....I'm venting, and getting off topic.

 

What's your report about specifically? Will it be online anywhere?

Edited by Sparq
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Yeah, we (we being the gun community I guess?) were expecting another amnesty, though this election throws things into a bit of doubt. We'll see. All mine are registered anyway, I have no real problem with the registry aside from the cost for something so demonstrably useless and the fact that the RCMP and CFO have a habit of confusing their own arbitrarily defined policies with federal law. Some of the more foil-hat-inclined have suggested that the LGR is best suited to confiscating reclassified firearms from lawful owners, while utterly failing to affect the illegal gun trade. As a recent example, when Smith & Wesson started making a pistol version of their MP-22 semi-automatic rifle, the magazines were reclassified in Canada as "Pistol Magazines" (10 round limit) where previously they were "Rimfire Rifle Magazines" (no maximum capacity). Suddenly, any Canadian who bought the MP-22 with the included 25-round magazine was in possession of a Prohibited Device. Every legal owner is listed in the registry (not the LGR, the restricted one, but still). the RCMP and CFO conspicuously did NOT use that much-flaunted registry to notify the owners of that particular gun - they just put up a notice on the website. What about people who bought that gun and aren't members of the gun forums? Fifteen years from now they could be arrested and charged for possession of that magazine. Why didn't they contact the owners? Ugh....I'm venting, and getting off topic.

 

What's your report about specifically? Will it be online anywhere?

 

My report is a final school project for a public policy and administration class so it won't be published or online. I'm supposed to outline the government's options as a policy adviser and how each change (or lack thereof) would affect legislation, bureaucracy, and the government's image. So I'm looking at gun control from all possible outcomes and making suggestions that would benefit the government in power. It makes the most sense to grant another amnesty until another election looms, and then eventually eliminate the registry or replace it with different (but probably more of the same) legislation (aka the hunting and wildlife panel) to claim that they fulfilled an election promise. All of this is assuming the conservatives win another minority.

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Ideal timing for the Tories, ey.

 

The situation in Canada reminds me of what we had in the 80's: a more right-wing than usual Tory, who's not terribly interested in consensus or compromise with other parties, but basically unopposed because the Left is so hopelessly split. I suppose the key difference here is, unlike in the 80's when there was a fairly big gap between how Labour (socialists) and SDP (social democrats) wanted to shape the world in the midst of the Cold War, from an outsiders perspective the Liberals and NDP seem to be social-liberals and social democrats, which are found together in parties all around the world - which begs the question, why haven't they amalgamated? Seems to me you might getting something resembling a social democratic opposition, but with the added confidence to create a bold platform that having a significant support base/vote would grant you.

 

Saying that, if I were a Canadian I'd vote for whichever party likeliest to offer a proportional voting system, as today's "social democrats" make yesteryears Tories look like socialists.

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http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20110...ructure-110407/

 

A new study that analyzed the brain structures of peoples' brains based on their political affiliations has found some significant differences.

 

Essentially, they found that liberals have more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the conservative brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear.

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Anyone watch the debates this week? I only caught the English one but kinda zoned out halfway through, too long and lackluster. Heard the French version was a bit more lively but I've been trying to study. That and playoffs create a perfect storm of procrastination...

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Anyone watch the debates this week? I only caught the English one but kinda zoned out halfway through, too long and lackluster. Heard the French version was a bit more lively but I've been trying to study. That and playoffs create a perfect storm of procrastination...

 

Watched the English debates, but like you i started zoning out, about 90 minutes was all my brain could take. I vaguely remember some gobbily-******** about multiculturalism and health care in the last bit. 2 hours is a bit long. Why not break it up into 2 nights?

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I doubt it will come to that, and if it did, we'd be back at the polls in no time. There are a lot of Harper haters out there.

 

I agree there's plenty of haters out there, but don't be so sure about going back to the polls. The electorate is going to be sick and tired of election talk and if the government falls again I wouldn't be surprised to see a slight bump up for the Conservatives from whatever they end up with in this campaign. The call for a majority government might sound a little better to those voters who are really sick of voting as often as we have been over the last 7-8 years, as awful as that sounds. They might just give Harper the majority he's asking for - and the Cons have been polling near majority territory at some points throughout this campaign.

 

This last week is going to be very interesting with the surge in NDP support. While it likely won't translate into huge seat gains, it might motivate the NDP to get it's act together and make it realize that it may be a legitimate runner in the next election for Official Opposition, if they can organize themselves properly nation-wide and not just strategically in key ridings. See today's ThreehundredEight post for more, it makes a compelling argument. Can't wait for election night now!

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This last week is going to be very interesting with the surge in NDP support. While it likely won't translate into huge seat gains, it might motivate the NDP to get it's act together and make it realize that it may be a legitimate runner in the next election for Official Opposition, if they can organize themselves properly nation-wide and not just strategically in key ridings.

 

lol no

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I doubt it will come to that, and if it did, we'd be back at the polls in no time. There are a lot of Harper haters out there.

 

If Harper/CPC gets a majority, we won't be back to the polls for another 5 years most likely, since the other parties won't have enough votes to bring down the gov't.

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Hope everyone remembers to exercise their democratic right today, and remember kids: if you don't vote, the commies win.

 

But seriously get out there and vote, even if it's only for the sake of giving a party some funding.

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oh no, we have a conservative majority, all hell is going to break loose! will someone please think of the children!

 

in the end, the only people that fucked over in this election are the liberals. Am I happy that the Harper has a majority, no. Am I going to bitch about, no. If you dont like the results, move then. Go to the states, go to Europe, go to the middle east and try to have an election there. Dont start bitching cause Harper has the control he wants. If Harper really is bad, we can vote him out next election, he is not king for life. And the way we have been having election lately, just remember the Maple Leafs fans say, "well, maybe next year".

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I would rather take 15 minutes of my life every 2 years or so to vote then have to wait 4 years to "hope" for change in another election. A lot can change over 4 years, especially when any party has a majority.

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I would rather take 15 minutes of my life every 2 years or so to vote then have to wait 4 years to "hope" for change in another election. A lot can change over 4 years, especially when any party has a majority.

 

This exactly, he's unopposed now. He can do whatever the hell he wants and just put it up to vote and win. He tried to buy jets without any engines when he had a minority, what do you think he'll do now? Four years is a very long time. Bush had 8 years and look what happened over there.

 

Anyway, going by the numbers, he seems to have polarized the country.

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I think every time we have an election it proves how broken our electoral system is. And lets be honest, it is... Con's got 1.8% more popular vote, and there for 16% more seats... something seems weird.

 

There were a bunch of ridings in SK where if the liberal had been eliminated (STV) then the NDP might have taken the seats. But who knows. http://votelab.ca/results.php did an interesting experiment in STV, so might be interesting to watch what their results are (though no better than polls as they only have some 5025 samples).

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Our political system IS busted. I can't help wondering if Harper would still be PM if we voted for our local representative and PM separately. This whole election, I've been pulling for the NDP. I figured they were a long shot but I think they surprised everyone. Here's hoping that, in 4 years people will have learned their lesson and not vote George W. Harper back in.

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