What Else Do I Want in 2006?

Besides a Tory victory on January 23rd, and lots of cash and women?

There is another election in November, to elect the Mayor of Toronto. David Miller has got to go. His "reaction" to the Boxing Day shootings on Yonge Street has been totally inadequate. Instead of putting the blame where it belongs: at these gangs, criminals, and persons of a certain ethnic group who are causing all of the problems, he sympathizes with the criminals and instead blames his usual suspects: American guns, social ills and the so-called "root cause" of criminal activity etc. etc. And then he came out opposed to having cameras on the street. Right now they have absolutely no leads on who the suspects are.... cameras would provide immediate visual identification. Their usefulness has been proven over in the UK, especially after the 7/7 London bombings, and have been used to catch multiple crimes. Miller's solution to everything is more taxpayer-funded social programs.

Jane Pitfield is the first person who will be declaring her candidacy for mayor. As a right-leaning councillor, I will definitely support her over Miller. Who I would really like to run, like all other right-leaning Torontonians, is Julian Fantino. If he does, let's hope that Pitfield is smart enough to drop out, so as to not split the vote for the right.

24 Days To Go: Change in the Numbers, and New Ads

As reported on numerous other blogs, the latest SES Rolling Poll numbers has an overnight change where the Liberals have gone nationally from a 7 point lead, to a statistical tie. Because this is a 3 day rolling poll, the numbers for the Liberals last night must have been REALLY bad. (in the neighbourhood of Liberals 29% Tories 38%, according to Calgary Grit.)

There is also a marked change on the UBC Election Stock Market. Although, as of this writing, the seats market still has it as Lib 119, Con 109 (the difference of 10 is down from 16 a couple of days ago), the popular vote market has the Conservatives leading for the first time since the election campaign began, and in the majority government market, the Conservatives are leading the Libs by a statistically significant margin.

Update at 3:40 pm: The seats market is now at Conservatives 117, Liberals 114. First time EVER during this campaign that the Tories have been in the lead.

There is also a new commercial on the Conservative Party Website. On the right hand side, click on "Ad: They'll Go Neg". Looks like the Conservatives are going to try and cut the Liberals off at the pass before they start their negative campaign. Perfect timing and wording in this ad, with voters minds fresh on the income trust investigation and scandal.

25 Days To Go: Goodale Sweating Like a Pig

I saw Peter Mansbridge's drilling of Goodale on CBC last night, and he looked like a bumbling idiot. Especially when Mansbridge asked him why his Ontario counterpart (Sorbara) resigned under similar curcumstances, and he won't.

Goodale, it doesn't matter whether you are personally guilty or not, the tradition of "ministerial accountability" says that you're responsible and should resign as long as there's suspicion of anything in your department.

And Martin claims to stand up for "Canadian Values", when he refuses to enforce the most basic tenet of the parliamentary system, ministerial accountability.

Just more proof of Liberal corruption, flip-flopping, hypocrisy, and standing up for issues only when they are most convenient for them. Hopefully voters are finally starting to pick up on this pattern with just over three weeks to go.

And All I Want For Christmas Is....

For 30 Days from now, on the evening of January 23rd, Canadians from coast to coast will be able to raise their glass in a toast to say "Prime Minister Stephen Harper"!!.

Bloc Surging in Quebec

The new CTV/Globe Ipsos poll has the BQ up to 60% in Quebec. The main quote in the CTV report has gotta be this:

"With the current numbers that they are polling in Quebec, the Liberals would be reduced to seven seats and this number would not include Mr. Martin's own seat," Woolstencroft said. "Right now, there's a risk that the PM might lose his own seat."

34 Days to Go: Harper: To demonstrate which federalist leader will REALLY Stand Up fo Canada

If this proposed one-on-one French debate on TQS between Harper and Duceppe is really going to happen, after Martin refused the offer, then this will undoubtedly be the "TSN Turning Point" of the campaign, moreso than anything else in the campaign so far. It will demonstrate to Quebec federalist voters that there is a true alternative to Martin, who is too wimpy to show up for the challenge, and it will demonstrate Harper defending Canada. The only negative is that for voters outside of Quebec, it will be in french, so the impact will be lessened as compared to what it potentially could be).

Harper offering to stand in for Martin, take on Bloc in Quebec-only debate

38 Days to Go: First poll of English Leaders' debate

I personally thought Harper looked a bit stiff, but he got all of his message across in a clear, concise manner, uninterrupted. Here are the results of a Global National/Ipsos-Reid insta-poll (scientific poll conducted via Internet, 2611 voters, accuracy +/- 1.9% 19 times out of 20) conducted immediately after the debate:

Overall Winner:
Martin 32%
Harper 30%
Layton 24%
Duceppe 4%

Best Ideas and Policies:
Harper 36%
Layton 32%
Martin 27%
Duceppe 3%

Change in impression/your image of the leaders after the debate:

Layton +30
Harper +23
Martin -2
(not sure exactly how this number is calculated)

So, all in all, I think Harper came out of the debate in good shape, getting his ideas across, and laying the groundwork for the second half of the election campaign after the holidays.

One thing for sure: Harper's closing statement was a total home run.

Iran's President Calls Holocaust A Myth

Why isn't this a bigger story? This is unbelievable.

Iranian leader: Holocaust a 'myth'

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ranks right up there as one of the most dangerous fanatics in the world today, who will totally de-stabilize the Middle East.

40 Days To Go: And Now Carolyn Parrish is endorsing Harper policies?!

You know that there is some hope that the Tories will pull out a victory when both Shiela Copps and Warren Kinsella (see my earlier posts from Sunday and last week), and now Carolyn "Damn Americans - I hate those bastards" Parrish say they agree with Harper's policy ideas and campaign.

Printed of all places in today's Commie Star.
Toronto Star: 'I wouldn't want to be running now": Parrish

Some highlights:
"Have you been watching him?" she asks. "Harper keeps coming out with a juicy new thing every day that all the young families love.

"I wouldn't want to be running in this election right now," the former Independent MP for Mississauga-Erindale says. "I agree with the stuff he's giving, too. Money for sports, to register your kids in sports. Good thing."

She says people come up to her at local shops to talk about the issues.

"They say, `Yes, this is really good. Is it okay if we vote Tory, Carolyn?' Yeah, it's okay, I'm not running," she whispers.

"I hate to be doom and gloom," she says. "I've been watching Harper and he's a whole different guy than he was in the last election. He looks far more relaxed".

She thinks Harper's promises to give parents $1,200 a year for each pre-school child and $600 a year for kids to play sports or other activities are timely.

And his pledge to reduce the GST by 2 per cent?

"I'm a hardcore Liberal my whole life," she says, parsing the question. "I believe him.

"And that's a bad thing if I believe him. I wonder how many other Liberals believe him? The man has got some credibility, doesn't he?

41 Days To Go: New Conservative Commercial

Was watching The Amazing Race tonight (with part of the show in Toronto!), and caught a new commercial for the Conservatives. Same basic theme, but far more professionally done, with ordinary people in a diner talking about how there needs to be change in government, with a newspaper sitting there with a headline about Liberal corruption. A great improvement over the first batch of Conservative commercials (which honestly, looks like something I could have made up and filmed in high school).

New HOV Lanes on 404 South

I think that new HOV lanes are generally a good idea, if they actually enforce it (unlike the "HOV Lanes" that you never see enforced along Don Mills or Eglinton).

However, I see a bit of a design flaw in that they only permit direct access to the 401 West. Anybody going down to the DVP, or especially 401 East (which will require cutting across multiple lanes of traffic) is going to have to merge back into the regular lanes, creating huge bottlenecks. 404 to DVP will go from 5 lanes to 3.

It is about time that either the Ontario government forces the City of Toronto to widen the DVP as far south to Eglinton by another lane, or take over ownership of the road altogether. The 404 north of the 401 has kept up with the expanding population and traffic. The city-maintained DVP has not.

Globe and Mail Number Diddling

This morning's Globe and Mail / Strategic Counsel Poll has Liberals 35% Conservatives 30%. Fine, that's in line with all of their recent polls. But then their headline says that "Liberals snatching NDP votes in Ontario", and the NDP is down to single digits. What?

The numbers they have in the article for Ontario is Lib 40%, Conservative 24%, NDP 9%, followed by the comment that the NDP have dropped from 15% in their last poll. Hmmm... 40 + 24 + 9 = 73. Now, unless the Green Party somehow miraculously got 25% of the vote overnight, something isn't right there. In previous poll reporting, they only reported % of decided voters, today they left the undecided voters in for the Ontario numbers. And they don't mention this anywhere in the article. Talk about diddling with numbers, to make the Conservatives and NDP look worse than where they were in prior polls.

To keep it consistent with their earlier poll reporting, the Ontario numbers factoring out the undecided voters (assuming Green is at 5% like last time) is:
Liberals: 52%
Conservatives: 31%
NDP: 12%

43 Days to Go: Liberal gaffe and a Copps attack

Just finished up drinking my beer and eating my popcorn, so have some time to stick up a blog post.

If you haven't seen the actual video of the comments by the Liberals' Scott Reid, Joel over at Proud to Be Canadian has put together a video of the clips from this morning's news programs:
Beer and Popcorn Comments

The other interesting item that I've read today was the column by Shiela Copps (yes, that Shiela Copps) in this morning's Toronto Sun, where she said that the "ban" on guns is going to be as big a failure as the multi-billion dollar gun registry, and that the Liberals have just kissed all of their rural votes goodbye.
Shiela Copps: Grits Misfire on Guns

Great NDP Ads

Although I have no intention of voting for them, I must say that the three television advertisements they've released so far are pure gold.

NDP Advertisements

More Gun "Ban" Stats from Australia

One year of crime stats after guns were "banned" and destroyed in that country: Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 %, assaults are up 8.6 %, armed robberies are up 44% (yes that's 44%) In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms were up 300% (Note that while law abiding citizens turned them in, criminals did not).

47 Days To Go: Liberal "ban" on handguns

To quote Paul Martin's favourite line: "let me be clear": handguns, with very minor exceptions, are already illegal in Canada. And their waste of money, uber-expensive gun registry does not do a bloody thing to reduce crime, especially here in Toronto. Now I see on all these Web sites that the Liberals plan to "ban" handguns tomorrow. What a load of BS. Not only will it not do a thing to reduce crime in the city (as if some gang member, criminal, or illegal immigrant would stop using their guns because of this "ban"), but it is nothing but an attack on legal, law-abiding citizens.

I do not own a gun, and never have. However, I believe that it is my right that if I wanted to own one to protect my family and property, I should have the right to do so. It has always bothered me that property rights isn't actually written into the Charter because communist sympathizing Trudeau and his compatriates intentionally didn't want to put it in, to allow them a backdoor to seize property if they wished. This is more proof of it that the Liberals want nothing but a federal government-controlling state that takes away all rights of the individual to protect the property that they've earned and owned.

Update: In the two years after the UK "banned" ownership of handguns in 1997, handgun crime actually went up by 40%!!

Jays look like a contender in 2006!

No election musings today. You can read the fine blogs listed under "Blogging Tories", especially my favourite, Political Staples, to get your election fix.

However, what an amazing day it was yesterday if you're a Jays fan. Following the signing of BJ Ryan as the new closer, yesterday the Jays grabbed AJ Burnett on the free agent market, outbidding the Cardinals. Mr. Rogers is certainly spreading the cash around. And the terms and weighting of the contract allows the Jays to have enough money to look for a big bat to add to the lineup. We also still need to trade away Batista for another bat as well. Yankees and Red Sox, watch out!

I disagree however with the rumours that Orlando Hudson could be traded. His glove is the rock of the Blue Jays infield defense.

50 Days To Go

The first week has passed by in the 2006 Federal Election campaign, and so far, Stephen Harper has totally driven the agenda. The strategy of always releasing that day's theme first thing in the morning ensures domination of the news buzz for the day, and forces the other parties to react rather than be pro-active. The question is, what are the Liberals up to? You've hardly a peep out of them all week. Either it's a strategy of theirs to save their stuff until the end and hope that Harper screws up, or they have absolutely no policy of their own. Again, the Conservatives have to drive home the theme that a vote for the Conservatives is a voice for the future, a voice for change, and a voice for Ordinary Canadians, rather than the Liberal elite.

I just read that apparently the Liberals are now comparing the Bloc Quebecois to Nazis? Yeah, that will play real well in Quebec. Then again, what do you expect out of the Liberals, who won the last election by scare-mongering and name calling, instead of on policy.

52 Days to Go: A night of drinking beer during the campaign

Started the evening out at Loose Moose playing poker at their weekly "Red Hot Poker Tour" night. This was followed by many pints of beer at my favourite local bar, C'est What. One of the people here tonight is an old friend I've known since Grade 6 who is a lifelong Progressive Conservative growing up under the Mulroney era. I spent much of the evening convincing him why voting Conservative (or at least voting for anyone but the Liberals as he lives in Trinity-Spadina) is needed, as he has been brainwashed from the Liberal propaganda of the MSM, and especially The Toronto Star "newspaper". I made some headway, but he says we need to meet (i.e drink more beer :-) again sometime prior to the election. Realistically, the Tory candidate in his electoral district has no chance of winning, but I'm trying to get him to at least vote for Olivia Chow, even he disagrees with her policy, because voting for a candidate who exhibits honesty, loyalty, and always working for what they believe in, even if you as a voter disagrees with it, is still a better core value than supporting someone who flip-flops and steals money. At least, that's how I've always treated my relationships with friends and family. I'll always support them if you believe in what they're doing, despite my own personal opinion and whether or not I agree, if they're loyal to you in the long run... just don't stab me in the back.

Harper again controlled the news of the day on Friday. That's the way you gotta do it, be proactive and you'll always be on the offensive... let the other guys have to react to you.

53 Days to Go: The 5% GST

Harper and the Tories totally controlled the election news today by announcing early this morning that they plan on immediately cutting the GST to 6% as soon as they get elected, and 5% within the next five years. The Liberals, somehow caught off-guard despite rumours first being reported about two weeks ago, started to defend the GST. Not a politically smart move. It also showed their own hypocrisy on two points:

1. The promise by the Chretien-Martin Liberals to eliminate the GST when they first got elected in 1993 (and caused Shiela Copps to have to resign her seat when they broke that promise).

2. Their incredibly stupid assertion by both Martin and Goodale today that a cut in GST helps rich people over poor people. Study after study and statements from both the Liberals and NDP over the years (just google for it and you will find) have called the GST far more regressive than income taxes because low income people pay a higher percentage of their total income on GST than high income people.

(and from my own personal experience, I've gone from low income to high income in the past few years.... when I was low income, I would have far preferred a cut in sales taxes because I wouldn't have paid much income tax to begin with and most of my income went to buying stuff... now that I'm higher income, I would far prefer an income tax cut, as a higher percentage of my income goes to savings and/or travelling abroad, and a lower percentage of total income goes toward purchasing items).

This is a winner. When both Liberals Sheila Copps (tonight on Countdown on CTV NewsNet), and Warren Kinsella (Chretien's former chief of staff on his blog post here) say that this is a great move and an election turning point, you know that it's a most excellent move by the Tories.

Oh, one more thing... what became infamously known as "your daily crack" during the 2004 election returns tomorrow. The daily CPAC/SES tracking poll. They've increased the numbers now to give it a lower margin of error. It's now 400 people a day, for a rolling total of 1200 for the past three days, a number consistent with the more "reputable" polls.

CPAC ("Canada's Political Channel")
SES Research