Take a look at this nonsense:

He said most Canadians probably aren’t aware of the differences in standards.
“That’s actually the travesty. If they were aware and they made a conscious choice that’s acceptable to them, everybody is free to make a good choice. But I think the travesty here is they’re probably not even aware of different standards out there.“

So, Michael McCain is petitioning to reduce those free choices??? Shame on anybody who would lobby for such national standards.

I would never trust pre-packaged shrink-wrapped garbage over freshly cut meat from a local farm — ever. My free conscious choice to trust a local producer has nothing to do with government oversight. It has to do with the fact that the producer delivers his produce by hand himself. In other words, he can not afford to mess things up. He governs himself accordingly because he needs me as a repeat customer. I could buy cheap luncheon-meat at the grocery store any time I want.

Now he is singing a rather different tune, promising to spend federal money to bring the Grand Prix back to Canada. According to Jack!, the event is important for the local economy, and ought to be kept there.

I would argue that if something is really that important to the economy, it should be able to survive of its own accord. It’s not the government’s place to prop up any entertainment, let alone something MEANT to be commercial.

However, if this was something I was interested in, I would certainly see the NHL as more vital to Canada’s culture and economy than auto racing.

Hat tip to Andrew Steele of the Globe and Mail.

This is nonsense:

Flaherty said the plan will make mortgages “more available and more affordable” for Canadians, adding that it will have “no fiscal cost to taxpayers.”

No fiscal cost to taxpayers?? Yeah, instead of screwing the taxpayer through open accounting-style taxes, the inflation of the money supply will screw the taxpayer through rising prices.

Who would have thunk it?

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Steve Murphy: If you were Prime Minister now, what would you have done about the economy and this crisis that Mr. Harper has not done?

What Mr. Harper may or may not have done is an action of the past tense. However, the question asks about now. The timing of when this hypothetical action that Steve Murphy wants to know is unclear. An ideal policy NOW does not necessarily have to be the same as an ideal policy that should have been done in the past.* I think it would have been wiser if Mr. Murphy did not use the word “now” in his question and simply asked: “If you were Prime Minister, blah blah blah….”

If anybody still thinks that Dion was evading the question, I think you are being unfair. I challenge you to translate Murphy’s question in French (or any other language for that matter) and see if it can possibly be clear. I do not think it is possible.

* I do not think the ideal policy would be any different regardless of the timing of this hypothetical question but that is just me. I am not in full agreement with either Dion or Harper on economic policy. My preference is for a little bit more laissez-faire in the economy.

Hat Tip to Paul Holmes for the transcript.

“The government stands ready to take whatever actions are necessary to protect the stability of the Canadian financial system.”

“I think what we have right now is adequate.” But he would not give any details about what specific measures he was contemplating and dodged questions about expanding CMHC lending programs, except to say it is a possibility. Any new measures will target the availability of credit, and not aim at subsidizing banks for their losses, or even focus on the cost of credit.

“So what I’ve said to the banks is, do as much as possible in the present circumstances” Mr. Flaherty said. “My concern, again, is less the cost of credit – that is, the price – but the availability of credit. We have to ensure that credit continues to be available.”

I am happy to hear Stephen Harper reiterate that there will not be any bailout of Canadian banks. However, I am not satisfied when I hear this:

‘The government has a series of options at its disposal … to ensure both the availability of credit and the cost of credit coming down, and we’re doing that to ensure there’s money available,” he said.

How can the government make credit available? What are these secret options at the government’s disposal? They had better get their story together because Flaherty seems unconcerned about interest rates wheras Harper is. Maybe that was just a slip up.

Regardless, get ready for an inflation of the money supply.

There is nothing that the government does that is rightfully productive. The government is not some rich zillionaire who can hand out donations to “make credit available” as a goal. Anything the government does is funded by what the government takes away. When the government acts to “make credit available” to the economy, we find ourselves somewhere along a continuum between an independent monetary system and a banking system that requires bailouts to prevent collapse. Whatever makes a bailout wrong is the same thing that makes a policy to “make credit available” wrong too — just to a less dramatic degree.

Canada has the world’s soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures shake world markets.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

I will explain more about the redesign and relaunch of ThePolitic.com after I’ve completed the integrating all the content. Thanks!

Socialism and its recent sister, the Canadian environmental movement, only work if you can mooch. Small independent statesmen can not mooch — they can only bleed their constituents.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

The National Post, in endorsing Stephen Harper for Prime Minister, rightly points out two critical things: first, it is the government’s job to keep stability.  As such, all of our leaders gunning for 24 Sussex should be working on positive spin and convincing Canadians that “everything is alright”.  The way that Layton and Dion have been willing to trumpet from the rooftops, “The sky is falling!  And it’s Harper’s fault!” is resulting in a worsening of the economic situation as Canadians grow more fearful - not of Harper, but of the economic impacts of the growing global financial crisis.

What is really being demonstrated by the other would-be PMs is an appalling lack of consideration for Canadians, in the interests of their own short term, personal gain.  In other words, Dion and Layton are willing to throw Canada’s economy under the bus, if it means giving them a chance at unseating Stephen Harper.

The second thing that the National post points out, which should be at the forefront of Canada’s attention going into an election during volatile economic times is this:  Stephen Harper is the only candidate for the Prime Minister’s Office who is an economist.   Think about that.  Dion is a Sociologist.  Layton is a Lawyer.  When your nation’s biggest trading partner is facing a massive financial crisis and global markets are shaking over the impacts of this, would you rather have a social sciences prof, a lawyer, or a trained economist in charge of the government?

There are lots of other reasons to pick Harper for PM.  But to me, this is the biggest.

Update: leave it to the banks, full of economists, to fight the chicken littles:

• RBC via Andrew Coyne, also Rootle’s comments.

I don’t care about our heritage.

I don’t care about tradition.

If it costs me as a taxpayer more money to produce than to spend, it is done.

Do it now.

For Arendt, evil is banal because rather than stopping and thinking when life is sorely burdened by heartache and confusion, human beings are oft inclined to mindlessly continue to act, just for the sake of acting and keeping busy. As we can all appreciate, stopping and thinking requires great courage because it demands that we face our own culpability in bringing these circumstances about and how we now–and may continue to–enable them in their destructive course. Stopping and thinking will morally convict us to make a course correction, to realize what present circumstance means for the future and consider taking a higher road; not rushing through to some means of escape.

Two famous playwrights well illustrate this point, not only in their professional work but through the expression of their own failings and life regrets. In his memoir of last year, Peeling the Onion, Günter Grass tells of his little slice of evil. And likewise, this piece by Vanity Fair writer, Suzanna Andrews, tells how Arthur Miller, of Death of a Salesman acclaim, deleted his son with Down-syndrome from his life:

It would be easy to judge Arthur Miller harshly, and some do. For them, he was a hypocrite, a weak and narcissistic man who used the press and the power of his celebrity to perpetuate a cruel lie. But Miller’s behavior also raises more complicated questions about the relationship between his life and his art. A writer, used to being in control of narratives, Miller excised a central character who didn’t fit the plot of his life as he wanted it to be. Whether he was motivated by shame, selfishness, or fear—or, more likely, all three—Miller’s failure to tackle the truth created a hole in the heart of his story. What that cost him as a writer is hard to say now, but he never wrote anything approaching greatness after Daniel’s birth. One wonders if, in his relationship with Daniel, Miller was sitting on his greatest unwritten play. …

Some wonder why Arthur Miller, with all his wealth, waited until death to share it with his son. Had he done so sooner, Daniel could have afforded private care and a good education. But those who know Daniel say that this is not how he would feel. “He doesn’t have a bitter bone in his body,” says Bowen. The important part of the story, she says, is that Danny transcended his father’s failures: “He’s made a life for himself; he is deeply valued and very, very loved. What a loss for Arthur Miller that he couldn’t see how extraordinary his son is.” It was a loss that Arthur Miller may have understood better than he let on. “A character,” he wrote in Timebends, “is defined by the kinds of challenges he cannot walk away from. And by those he has walked away from that cause him remorse.”

Conversely, Mark Steyn’s early reaction to September 11, 2001 is a good illustration of the importance of acknowledging moral outrage and avoiding the urge to “move on.” As Steyn writes:

Here is my worry: At one end of the national spectrum are the anti-American elite, the Edward Saids and John Lahrs secure in their redoubts. At the other end are the great full-throated “These colors don’t run” patriots. But in between is a big wobbly blurry mass trembling on the brink of making this just another wallow in victimization-the “dominant discourse” (as Said would say) of the day. Five years ago, Bob Dole wondered, “Where’s the outrage?” Three years ago, Bill Bennett wrote a book called The Death of Outrage. In Europe, the ferociously anti-American Left is plenty outraged — it is raw, visceral, passionate, and none the worse for that. If we can’t get outraged-not sad, not weepy, not candle-in-the-windy, but outraged — over thousands of people killed for no other reason than that they went to work, then we’re really in trouble. If cultural passivity — love the world, be non-judgmental, everybody does it — co-opts even this awesome event, then the sleeping giant isn’t sleeping so much as comatose.

This is war. Save the love-in for later.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Funny that, since left-wing moonbats love to compare favourably the two leaders (case in point, the “Bushitler” moniker).

Based on this chronicler’s liveblogging of the English language leadership debate, there were at least 9 references to Bush, involving every single opposition party leader.  This blogger counted 13 or more.  Did they all get handed a playbook before the evening started?

In order to stave off electoral mind-implosion and perhaps get our leaders to actually talk about policy instead of simply invoking bugbears, I propose the recognition of Edwards’ Law (named for me, naturally, as the proposer of the law). It is a modification of the famed Godwin’s Law, which is used traditionally,

“in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison [of anyone to Hitler or the Nazi's - Ed] is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically “lost” whatever debate was in progress.”

I postulate that whenever a Canadian politician is compared to George W. Bush, the person (reporter, fellow politician, lobbyist) is automatically considered to have lost the debate or argument in which the comparison is made.

Note: this law only applies in Canada (for now) as it seems that only here (and in maybe Iran) is American, and more specifically, Bush-hatred so inculcated into our government and media that the name Bush can be directly related to the directors and implementors of the Holocaust.  It doesn’t apply in Iran as there is not enough freedom to oppose such thought.

Come to think of it, is there even enough freedom left in Canada to oppose such received widsom?

Apparently, 73% of British Columbians believe it’s a bad idea.  Those are big numbers.

I was talking with my carpoolie the other day (we manage to solve the world’s problems each and every day in the 35 minutes between work and her place) and in our discussion I found myself summarizing what the real problem is.

The problem is the BC carbon tax is right now 2.4 cents a liter on gas (with other amounts on natural gas etc.)  With a pump price of $1.29 that’s about 2% of the purchase price.

Historically speaking, five years ago gas prices were about 75 cents per liter.  Through market forces alone we have seen a 100% increase in price in the last 5 years.  And how much has the consumption dropped?  I think I am overstating it, but it’s about 5%, depending on what you use to measure.  Some would argue that it hasn’t dropped at all.

So, let’s compare then.  If a 100% increase in pump price = 5% decrease in usage, what will a 2% increase in pump price do?

And that’s why carbon taxes are nothing but a tax grab.

• only “approved” programs will be credited — that means more bureaucratic oversight
• they only benefit people who can afford the programs

This type of micro-management is absurd and belongs to confused socialists. Please just reduce taxes and reduce spending, thank you very much.

While it is true I haven’t seen a lot of public appearance announcements, by the same token I haven’t seen a lot of any other candidate either.  The Toronto Star took a boo at this riding today:

Dona Cadman has kept a low profile in her campaign to become the Conservative MP for Surrey North. The address for her campaign office was not advertised on her website until yesterday, requests for interviews from many national media outlets have been declined and even local media have noted that her campaign office hasn’t been releasing her event schedule.

Interestingly, her campaign office has been prominent in the riding since the opening day of the campaign, with campaign signs all over its prominent location on a main thoroughfare in the heart of Whalley near the corner of King George Highway and 104th.  Trust me - everyone in the riding knows where it is.

They managed to find someone who doesn’t like her, without an opposing interview which is too bad.  All I know is this: with all the media stink about the supposed bribe, I think it speaks volumes about what really happened that she is running for the Conservatives now, and that her friend, former NDP MP Penny Priddy decided not to run against her.

Chuck had always viewed being an MP as a responsibility, to accomplish a specific aim.  How is it that his widow, who never to my knowledge grandstanded or made an investment life as a public figure, now suddenly can be framed as some kind of subtle publicity-hound, carefully avoiding media scrutiny so that she can ride the coat-tails of her dead husband to glory as an MP?  Only the Toronto Star can pull that kind of leap of logic off.

But as for Rivet, the interviewee for the Star’s piece, good luck with finding more support for justice reform from the NDP or the Liberals.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Gordon Pinset’s statement that artists “should be the landlords of our own industry, not the tenants” is insulting to me in all sorts of levels. First there is the obvious fact that he is angling for more control of government funding to his industry. Why should artists be given the choice of how much artists get from the government? And what makes him think that tax payers should have to prop up entertainment at all?

Secondly is the whole matter of being a landlord. He says that they should get more control of how much they’re given. Last time I checked, landlords own things. They pay their own way, and don’t whine for freebies.

Finally, he claimed that the country actually earns a nice return on all this money being thrown at the arts. From the Globe Article:

The performers — including Colm Feore and Wendy Crewson — noted that the arts provide 1.1 million jobs within cultural industries and contribute $86-billion to the GDP.

Anyone with a cursory understanding of economics knows that this is laughable. When interest groups claim that government funding is actually a good investment on behalf of the taxpayers, there are certain facts they like to leave out. Like that any return is negligible when compared to what could be done investing the money in other areas. Or that their numbers are almost always incorrect. Or that they like to have a fairly broad view of what constitutes “the arts” when looking at jobs and GDP.

So if they wish to claim that the taxpayers are getting enough cultural or intellectual benefits to justify this funding, then fine. But to claim that it makes good financial sense is insulting to my intelligence, and yours.

But suggesting we shut down the Insite program, which simply slows the speed at which heroin junkies kill themselves, is a genocide.

That makes perfect sense.

h/t

Here you can type in percentages of the popular vote for each party and see a rather close projection of seats, or swing a percentage of one party’s vote to another.

If you’re looking for raw data, the Globe and Mail shows the latest numbers from Nanos, Ipsos, Ekos, Angus Reid and Harris/Decima, as well as an average of all five.

Play happy.

However, at the rate NDP candidates are resigning in BC, they may have none left on the ballot to benefit from the popular support.

West is the third NDP candidate in B.C. to step down amid controversy, including two who resigned over their actions in support of legalizing marijuana.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

According to the CFTC, protecting yourself against a volatile market is manipulative and illegal. I guess bailing out banks and the Fed printing money — the cause of this mess — must be fine and dandy. How easy it is to blame the investors! Way to hide the problem!

Here is a frightening quote:

Analysts are debating where oil prices are headed from here. “With this new rush into commodities, the bailout has overridden the fact that demand is down,” says Peter Beutel, president of Cameron Hanover, an energy risk-management firm in New Canaan, Conn. “I don’t know where we’ll end up by the end of the week—$150 or under $100, I haven’t got a clue.”

Now some more hackers have spoofed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s governmental email to send out false and slanderous emails.

The media insists calling these incidents the work of “pranksters”, but is anyone noticing a pattern here?

When is the left going to come out and acknowledge they have supporters who are out of hand and are causing discredit to their brand of politics?

An NDP government would ensure there are inspectors on the floor of every meat processing plant in the country and insist that imported processed meats are subjected to the same standards as domestic meats, Mr. Layton said while standing in front of Parliament.

Why should meat eaters and the meat industry get such special subsidies? That sounds unfair to me. It just sounds like a simple-minded way to make people think he cares.

Sinclar Stevens, spreading his own distinct flavour of idiocy throughout the world, one vote at a time!

Incidentally, that’s about how they do every election.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

This offseason he was a free agent, and he signed with the Calgary Flames. That’s the political equivalent of Peter Mackay crossing the floor to the Green Party, spitting on Harper and signing on as senior correspondent to the CBC.

Here in Alberta, the Flames and Oilers have a rivalry uncomparable in the League. There are a lot of fans who will cheer for Anybody But Calgary, or inversely, Anybody But Edmonton.

In the political spectrum, we’ve been seeing much of the same lately. Leftists or “progressives” are often influenced to vote Anybody But Conservative, but then told in no uncertain terms that only the Liberals and their champion, the Great Dion, Trudeau’s second coming, can stop the vast right wing conspiracy. Only Captain Planet can defend human rights, get Canada out of the war in Iraq, and stab a wrought iron spike through the heart of the evil Stephen (not to be confused with the Incredibly Intelligent, Exceedingly Brilliant and Ridiculously Good Looking Stephane).

Mind you, never are people urged to strategically vote for the NDP, or the Greens. Never are Elizabeth May or Jack! touted as saviours of the free world, despite the fact that both of them are more articulate, and are arguably stronger spokespeople for the enviromentalist bloc.

Not only that, but both of them have more signs pointed up than Our Great Leader-In-Waiting. Their trends are more positive, their support is ever expanding, and they aren’t on the defensive this election.

But never mind that. Dion is great! And he’s our ONLY HOPE.

Excuse me, but I’m going to go throw some stones around. Hold my calls.
 

Check out that tattoo on the back of one.

But no, there is no connection between the GTA series of video games and crime.

Really.

What do you mean, you don’t believe me?

It is hinted at in the coverage that the defacings are happening to everyone, but funny thing when you look hard at the facts, it is only the Conservative signs that are being defaced.  It is especially interesting to note that this is occuring in otherwise typically conservative ridings.  What is it about the left that resorts to crime to knock down the opposition on what seems to be a more frequent basis?  Note, I am not suggesting that NDP or Liberal candidates condone or in any way approve of such defacings, but rabid followers acting alone or in small drunken groups are most likely the cause.  Conservative supporters just don’t go off like that - or it’s very rare.  I don’t think it’s unfair to say that the typical right wing supporter is more law-abiding than the typical left wing supporter.

A commenter has asked, “How are the carbon taxes (both BC’s and Dion’s proposed Federal) gone over in the riding?”

My sense is they aren’t.  Fleetwood and Port Kells are nicer, more suburban areas with lots of big homes and lots of RV’s and boats in driveways.  RV’s and boats mean big, often diesel-powered truck to pull them.  The kinds of gas prices we have seen in the Lower Mainland are unrivalled anywhere else in Canada (except in the far north, where it costs a fortune to truck in gas).  In addition, this riding is not serviced by significant bus or skytrain service - the skytrain doesn’t even come within 5 km of its border yet!  Cars are the mode of transport here, and commuting is the norm.  Hence, we don’t like carbon taxes.

We also don’t like crime.  Most people out here have moved this way to get away from the crime of the King George corridor, mostly related to drugs, but also part and parcel of more urban living.  As the elements that people have fled spread in here, there is a conservatism that comes of that.  A homeless guy set up camp beside a church on a main road during the summer, and one of his dogs was seized by the SPCA after he bit someone.  The row this caused was big news.  From those I talked to, a lot of people tried to do what they could to help the “Fleetwood Homeless Dude” but he didn’t really want anything, except to be free to complain about the government and how much wrong he has been done by them.  Some people don’t want to leave their crutches.

The other question by a commenter was “How is Dion’s Tour going over?”  I haven’t heard any coverage of his campaign stops in Surrey.  If he’s had any.  I think the average person in the riding doesn’t really care about campaigns or platforms - they want to know what affects them personally, and what the politicians can do for them.  As much as pundits like to pontificate over policy and politicking, in the last election Harper hit the right notes in knocking down the GST and promising money to help with child care.  It’s help you can see and feel.

And now back to the riding update: Brenda Locke’s team has finally gotten around to putting out signs - the little lawn ones are now littering every grassed meridian I’ve seen.  Still, the large NDP and Conservative signs give more visibility to the candidates.

The Surrey Now (oh, look at that. Another paper owned by the same company who owns the Province and the Sun.  Monopoly anyone?) has a piece on the candidates in the riding.  They do a good job of making Grewal look slimy, and allow Locke to get away with the party line “revenue-neutral” rhetoric on the carbon tax.  They also allow the NDP candidate to make such statements as being “for” increased wages and “against” industrial subsidies, without a thought as to how we can ratchet up industry’s expenses and cut off corporate welfare, and not see a massive collapse in Canada’s private industry.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Dona’s team is way out in front in terms of marketing though.  It will take time to even out.

The Now has a piece on the NDP candidate’s positions.  Some of them I even agree with.  Too bad I don’t agree with the party’s positions on everything else.  I haven’t even seen any of Arab’s signs.  (That’s his name.  Really.  Cadman’s running against Muhammad and Arab.)

BC is the only province that has one, and the government claims it is revenue neutral.  The Surrey Leader timidly crunches the numbers.

They use two case studies: the $40 000 a year single woman, and the $70 000 a year single income 4 person family.

The numbers for the single are crunched most thoroughly, and you get the sense that more often than not, the single will come out ahead in this carbon tax scenario.  Fine.

But then look at the family.  The paper doesn’t do nearly as thorough a job breaking this scenario down, because the numbers quickly get ugly.  They barely break even, and only if you assume that they drive less than what is really a very low number for kms driven.  Especially if those kids are in sports, or any extracurricular activity.  And the number sinks still lower when you factor in that most families live in places heated by natural gas, which also has a carbon tax on it.  The number of kms becomes even more unachievable if there is a dual income, which is more and more common.

When you look hard at the numbers, it is not even close.  The carbon tax is nowhere near revenue neutral for families in BC.

Maybe we should change the name to the “Family Tax”.

What would account for this tight race?

Quality of candidate?  No.  Barack Poppins is practically perfect in every way.

Policies?  The Brilliant Obama has thought out carefully every one of his positions… which is why he votes the Democratic Party Line so much more often than McCain did for the Republicans.

No, it must be race.  More than half of the United States of America is deeply, profoundly racist.  And that half, coincidentally, overlaps perfectly with Republican voters.

Yeah, that’s it.

Yes, true believers.  No matter what happens in this election between now and November.  No matter what is said, no matter how the leaders campaign, no matter who is the better candidate.  If John McCain wins the election, it’s because America is racist.

A flowered hat tip to Wonder Woman.

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.

Today’s post is supposed to be a juxtaposition of Stephen Harper’s visit to the same room Stephane Dion visited during the summer. Aside from the camera shots being at different points, giving us only a glimpse of the room in Harper’s case while Dion’s was the panorama, the graphics designer in me also picked up another issue immediately:

See that? Well, at first I had to be sure myself, so I blew up the image to get a closer glimpse…

Yup, that lady seems to not only have two different hair colours, going straight down the middle from the angle that the picture was taken, but she also wears two brightly different shirts! In other words, it’s clear that this photo has been doctored and cannot be trusted as an authentic view of the Dion event. Who knows, maybe Turner and co. took some of the extra people from the Harper event last night! The bigger question though is why Garth Turner (who, in this case, is personally responsible for his blog) insistent on deceiving voters? Oh, and on that note, since some of us Blogging Tories have known Garth to revise history…

Nobody is required to vote but everybody is legally required to fill out census forms. So, now that you know your personal information is not safe, should that change how you respond? I think you should. [Even if your information was safe I think you should reconsider how you respond anyway. Did you know that Lockheed Martin got the contract for this last census and the next one?] Your single vote makes no difference to the result of an election but census data is often used more directly when it comes to the allocation of funding for various government interventions — for instance, public schooling. Just think of this: sympathizers of various groups or social causes can lie to deliberately skew the data even if they are not part of those demographics themselves.

Whether they are identity thieves or policy makers, you really have no idea who has access to this census data and what they do with it.

Incumbent: Sukh Dhaliwal (LIB)

I drive through this riding every day going to work, and I also go to church down there so I see a lot of this riding.

A little bit of history: this is Gurmant Grewal’s old riding. He had unfavourable publicity after he claimed to have been approached by the Liberals during their minority government to switch sides.  This led to him not running again in the ‘06 election.  Interesting note: his wife, Nina Grewal continues to hold the riding of Fleetwood/Port Kells.

So, the current incumbent, Sukh Dhaliwal, rode to victory on a bit of a reaction to Gurmant’s episodes.  As such, it seems to me that he holds his seat fairly tenuously.  I haven’t really heard of him doing much of anything of note in parliament.  Recently, he has been in the media spotlight for attempting to aid a convicted international drug smuggler in returning to Canada after his extradition to the USA to face charges.  This can’t reflect well on his campaign in Surrey, a city with a bad reputation for crime already.

As far as early race indicators, his competition seems to be a new Conservative nominee, Sandeep Pandher.  The Hill Times reported a bit of a row over Pandher’s nomination as until 2006, he was a member of the Ontario Provincial Liberal Party.  The candidate contends that there is a difference between the provincial and federal parties, and I agree with him, but an Ontario Liberal is not a BC Liberal, whose tent holds many many federal Conservative supporters.

The other strike against him seems to be the fact that he isn’t really local.  If he was a member in Ontario until 2006 he can’t have even lived in BC longer than a few years.  A parachuted candidate may not have much of a chance unless this riding is really a party voter for Conservatives, and only elected Dhaliwal as a reaction.

Both candidates have littered the major roadways with signage already.  In several places, I have wondered if they are actually in breach of rules regarding sign proximity.  Some of them along 88th Avenue appear to obscure sightlines to their opponents’ signs.

I’ll be back with an update next week!

Sponsored By: Gift Baskets for Men Select or design your own, save money, & impress.