[Canadian Election Results] Harper vs Iggy vs the 'stache

[viper37]

Looks like Viper's riding might go NDP in the end.

meh.  fuck that.  If I find 6 pro-Cons who didn't vote, I'll give them a good head slap à la Gibbs.

[Grey Fox]

Eh. Non-voters are the worst.

[Monoriu]

Eh. Non-voters are the worst.

[Zoupa]

Zoups, I appreciate the seriou answer to my post.  A serious response will need to wait till morning.

Her Majesty, She is a harsh taskmistress...

Ahem.

[Barrister]

Zoups, I appreciate the seriou answer to my post.  A serious response will need to wait till morning.

Her Majesty, She is a harsh taskmistress...

Ahem.

My apologies.  I'll find the original post.  I had forgotten.

[Barrister]

If you're living in a nice high income area I guess you wouldn't see crime as a problem.  But it is a substantial problem for a large number of Canadians.

I live in Cote des Neiges, Montreal. Ask around, it's one of the most crowded and shit poor neighbourhood in the country. I'd like to see a national poll on crime perception throughout the country. I bet you it's wildly different than police stats that show crime is down across the board.

Well first of all if you pull crime stats my beloved northern Canada is ahead in every category by a staggering degree.    So Montreal doesn't compare.  But yes, statisticians tell us crime rates are down.  Which is great.  But it also doesn't mean a lot of communities aren't substantially affected by crime.

What you're suggesting is not "small adjustments", but rather an almost complete rejection of the Conservatives strategy.

I will suggest that you're not terribly informed on the crime front.  While "prevention" is of course an exceedingly good idea, in practice it is very hard to implement.  Nobody knows who is going to become a criminal.  "Revitalizing neighborhoods" sounds an awful lot like a slogan - what does that actually mean as a public policy?  Community centres - sounds great, but there's almost no connection between community centres and crime.  Building a community centre will not reduce the crime rate in any measurable way.

All I can give you is my personnal experience: basically kids between 10-16 stealing shit or getting high/drunk and causing ruckus. And I can tell you they're out causing shit in our store or in the streets because there isn't any adult at home. Dad is either in jail, dead, a crackhead or simply ran away. Mom is out working her second job. I'm thinking if they're playing soccer or taking a swim, maybe they're not cutting each other or stealing my Tylenol PM.
[/quote]

But here's the problem.

I'll certainly agree that kids growing up in a single family home, exposed to criminality at a young age, have an increased chance to turn to crime themselves.  No doubt about it.  But the correlation is a lot less than 100%.  Being poor, from a single family, with a father in jail, isn't even close to guaranteeing that you yourself will turn to crime (at least in a significant way).  A lot of people grow up in such environments and turn out... well maybe not great, but they aren't the people who have multi-page criminal records.

If you go out and fund an extra YMCA (or whatever), it won't be the most at-risk youths that take advantage of it.

I've also seen examples in small communities.  An enterprising RCMP officer helps to rebuild the local community rink in a first nations community.  It's great - but there's no measurable reduction in crime either.

I don't want to poo-poo building community services in under privileged areas.  I'm all for it.  Bt "midnight basketball" will not solve crime.

Prisons are badly crowded right now.  Even if you didn't make one change to sentencing rules, we need new prisons.  And guess what - modern, well funded prisons help reduce recidivism.

Not that higher sentences are the only answer (though they are part of it).  If you want to get serious about crime I would want to see more money for drug and alcohol treatment.  More supported and transitional housing.  More women's shelters.  More mental health facilities.  But the problem is these ideas don't make for good sound bites for either side.

Shit dude. That sounds suspiciously NDP. Orange always was your colour 
[/quote]

Well for starters, I'm a big believer in both carrot and stick.  You can't offer rehabilitation if you don't have a big stick in the other hand.  The NDP certainly doesn't seem interested in deterrence and denunciation.

Secondly, nobody (including the NDP) seems interested in the targeted drug and alcohol treatment centres, the transitional shelters for the mentally ill, that I talked about. 

[Gaius Marius]

Well for starters, I'm a big believer in both carrot and stick.  You can't offer rehabilitation if you don't have a big stick in the other hand.  The NDP certainly doesn't seem interested in deterrence and denunciation.

Secondly, nobody (including the NDP) seems interested in the targeted drug and alcohol treatment centres, the transitional shelters for the mentally ill, that I talked about.

I hear ya. Who knows for sure though, maybe one of those young NDP MPs that got elected en-masse in Quebec (or perhaps elsewhere in Canada for other parties, we did turf incumbents out everywhere), will speak up for initiatives like those. We have the gal who helps operate  a tavern, the other gal who can't do a good interview in french but got ironically voted in by the old boomer vote thats so stuck in the federalist vs sovereigntist civil war, the first year poli-sci student in montreal, the karate instructor that sent the foreign affairs minister to the unemployment line. They certainly aren't likely to be the mouth-foaming old ideologues that all parties including the NDP itself carry as baggage; they aren't policy wonks nor are they likely to be muzzled by the wonks as effectively as they would in past parliaments. I was just reading a very partisan blog site full of Liberals and Conservatives bashing eachother and racing to be the first to declare these rookie MPs are all just closet sovereigntists with no experience and no hope of reelection in 4 years.

Maybe its just a bias of being young myself, but perhaps a parliament with a bunch of young people who had no real expectations (or presumably desire; they ran for the also-rans after all) when they got nominated of being elected, much less becoming big political operators, money movers, or even a shadow cabinet as official opposition can be a very good thing. they have 4 years to prove themselves; give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they'll prove to be much more constructive than your typical political types in Ottawa. Before, you had the Liberal snob from Toronto who said "vote for us because we pretend to care about you, then watch as we use and abuse power and patronage," you might have had a extremist Alberta Reformer who said  "Lets lock every petty criminal up for life!".  Then you had the NDP union thug from Hamilton or BC who said "all markets are evil, lets go on strike and bankrupt our employers every chance we get!" and of course, the Bloc members who just got turfed out would still be whining and whining some more about how discriminatory everyone supposedly is towards their "nation."

At least a few of these political newbies don't sound like they fit any of those stereotypical categories above. Having been nominated as NDPers means they likely don't want to lock up as many people for as long as you feel it necessary BB. But certainly in the case of the university students, teachers, etc (even the fake blond from Vegas must have some interest in political and social issues to go and get nominated by a serious political party). But maybe a greater exposure to different viewpoints than their parents, grandparents had will make them more willing to think about middle-road carrot and stick approaches to pressing issues. Neither gaol for all nor welfare for all are affordable or smart in the long-term. They could just all turn out to be duds, embarassments, closet separatists. Some might just turn out to be effective MPs at the riding level, and the bringers of new solutions on the hill. Even in a majority government where these NDPers especially won't get to write government bills, one would hope that ideas which have merit and are well reasoned/developed/proven to work can get a hearing at committees and debates, even if they are proposed by a young karate instructor.


Speaking of government bills and issues, is there any prospect of reforming a major drain on public finances aka the monthly welfare cheques that go to Metis outside the reserves (who frankly often spend it on booze, drugs, or on making babies they can't be parents for) and to corrupt chiefs on the reserves who never use the $$$ to actually build infrastructure and an economy? Seems to me the other parties would never tackle the issues due to political correctness (Libs) or not pissing off some base vote (NDP in northern canada).  I'm hoping the Conservatives can do something to make sure this money actually has to be spent on building economic and social life in aboriginal communities and for aboriginals/metis who aren't eligible to live on a reserve. If that can't be done, then there must be means of renegotiating 140 years or so of treaties, accords, agreements that allowed the current situation to develop without a constitutional crisis or years of court battles. Its not like we haven't paid them in full for the land our cities now occupy.

We should have been smarter back in the day and allowed the Metis to simply be given land titles for the plots they were happily farming already in Manitoba/Saskatchewan; might have prevented alot of problems today with the Metis population. Seriously, either make welfare achieve something, or find a way to scrap and put the money into improving technology use in classrooms, making payments on the national debt, hiring police officers, expanding transit and other infrastructure. Its not like there aren't plenty of needs for these other things in our country, and every taxpayer dollar should matter equally and be treated with respect when allocated.

[Zoupa]

[crazy canuck]

Percentage of NDP governments in Ontario and BC who left their ecnomies in worse shape due to ill considered leftist policies - 100%

[Josephus]

Percentage of NDP governments in Ontario and BC who left their ecnomies in worse shape due to ill considered leftist policies - 100%

Link?

[Grallon]

Have the participation numbers been released?  I'm curious about the turnaround.




G.

[Oexmelin]

Have the participation numbers been released?  I'm curious about the turnaround.




G.

Canada: 61,4%
Quebec: 62,2%
Ontario: 62,2%
Alberta: 56,4%
BC: 61,1%
Yukon: 67,8%

(I think I included every place susceptible to be of interest to Languish posters. If not, http://enr.elections.ca/Provinces_f.aspx )

[Josephus]

Have the participation numbers been released?  I'm curious about the turnaround.




G.

I think it ended up being a couple points higher than last election

[Josephus]

Funny editorial cartoon in The globe

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/cartoon/editorial-cartoons-may-2011/article2006332/

[Malthus]

Funny editorial cartoon in The globe

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/cartoon/editorial-cartoons-may-2011/article2006332/

Funny 'cause it's true. More or less.