Half of Canadians Unhappy with both PM and Ignatieff

Even though Canadians are unhappy polls do not show much movement away from the two party system to the NDP, Greens, or other parties. I have never understood why this is so. A lot of people claim that a vote for a third party is wasted at least in areas where third parties will not win. Strangely enough one does not hear that about voting Liberal in an area that is sure to see a Conservative win or vice versa. Some people want to be on the winning side and end up voting for a person whose policies may be quite different than the person who votes for the person just to be on the winning side.

These polls ensure that Harper is safe from an election this Spring unless he provokes Ignatieff to such a degree that he has to vote against the government. Of course it is always possible that Harper could do something that makes him quite vulnerable but his close calls last year and late 2008 should teach him to be a bit more cautious.

Half of Canadians unhappy with PM, Ignatieff: poll

CBC News
(EKOS)
More than half of Canadians disapprove of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s job performance, but nearly as many feel the same way about Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, a new EKOS poll suggests.

The poll, released exclusively to CBC News on Thursday, asked Canadians if they approve of the way Harper, Ignatieff and NDP Leader Jack Layton are handling their respective jobs.

Around 52 per cent of Canadians surveyed said they disapprove of the way Harper is handling his job, and 48 per cent said they disapprove of Ignatieff’s job performance.

But more people in the survey approved of Harper’s performance than Ignatieff's (33 per cent to 22 per cent).

Thirty per cent had no opinion about Ignatieff's job abilities, while 15 per cent had no opinion of Harper's.

Layton was the only leader with a positive job-approval rating, with 40 per cent of those polled saying they approve of the job he is doing and 29 per cent disapproving.

Despite Harper's slightly higher disapproval rating, the Conservatives have opened up a small three-point lead over the Liberals after weeks of being in a virtual tie, another EKOS poll suggests.

Asked which party they would support if an election were held tomorrow, 33.4 per cent of those polled chose the Conservatives and 30.3 per cent backed the Liberals.

While Layton has the highest approval ratings, his party remains in third place with 15.8 per cent support and lags considerably behind the other two parties, the poll indicates.

Harper gets overwhelming approval among Conservatives who were surveyed, but his disapproval rating is almost as high among supporters of each of the other parties.

Disapproval of Harper is about the same among men (51.8 per cent) and women (51.5 per cent) who were surveyed and among similar among age groups, with the exception of Canadians 65 and over, who are more split on whether they approve or disapprove.

Disapproval of Ignatieff is highest in the survey among Conservative supporters (71 per cent), men (52 per cent) and older Canadians (45 to 64 at 50.5 per cent, and 65 and older at 50.8 per cent).

The random survey of 6,553 Canadians aged 18 and over was conducted between Feb. 10 and Feb. 23 and claims a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/02/25/ekos-poll.html#ixzz0gkPLZP0d

Ipsos Reid Poll: Ignatieff behind Dion!

No doubt some of those in the Liberal party who were glad to see Dion pushed out will be wondering whether it was a good idea. Or perhaps they will just sharpen their knives for a new round of suicidal attacks on their own leader. Harper must be smiling. Instead of a green shift we seem to be getting a blue shift under Ignatieff! This is from the Vancouver Sun.

Ignatieff behind Dion in latest poll
By David Akin, Canwest News ServiceOctober 25, 2009
A new poll shows support for the federal Liberal party has weakened so much that, were an election to be held today, Michael Ignatieff would lead his party to a worse showing than his predecessor, Stephane Dion, did last October.

"The Liberals, these days, just have no traction at all," said Darrell Bricker, CEO of polling firm Ipsos Reid, which provided its latest results exclusively to Canwest News Service and Global National.

Dion received 28% of the popular vote last fall. The Ipsos Reid poll suggests that, last week, the Liberals would have done even worse, with just 25% of support among all Canadians.

Ipsos found 40% of survey respondents said they would vote Conservative. But while 40% is usually good enough for a majority -- Jean Chretien won a majority with 37% in 1997 -- Bricker said the Conservative vote tends to be "inefficient," that is, it's concentrated in provinces like Alberta where, even if their support shot up to 100%, it would not translate into more seats and a majority.

Nationally, NDP support remained stable through the month at 13% and the Green Party has the support of 11 % of voters, an improvement of three percentage points since Ipsos Reid last polled Canadians in early October.

In Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois is the choice of 42 % of voters.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

Tom Flanagan: Ignatieff repeats Harper's Errors

Although I am at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Flanagan most of his articles that I have read are far better than most of the fluff that passes for political commentary in Canada. His articles are almost always interesting and perceptive and in this case place Ignatieff's actions in a unique historical perspective. At one time Flanagan was a Conservative campaign manager and close to Harper. I am not sure what the situation is now.

Ignatieff needs a history lesson


Tom Flanagan

From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published on Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 6:59PM EDT

Last updated on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009 2:51AM EDT


.Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana

The leader of the opposition, after supporting the minority government's budget, decides that he would like to force an election after all. He publicly announces his intention to defeat the government, leaving the prime minister lots of time to react. Then the roof caves in at Stornoway.

The government whips up a storm of public opposition to an election, telling people that they will lose benefits that were in the budget but have not yet passed through Parliament. Helping the government to survive, Jack Layton offers crucial support in return for policy concessions that will please NDP supporters. At a major turning point, the unity of the opposition is threatened as the leader loses the support of a key member of the caucus.

Public reaction is savage. People say they don't want an election, and the opposition falls to rock-bottom standing in the polls while the government soars. Pundits indulge in a feeding frenzy over the badly wounded body of the opposition leader. They deride his strategy. They demand that he reveal the platform he will run on in the next election campaign. They speculate that his political career is over. In response, the leader replaces his chief of staff and contemplates further changes in his retinue.

A description of Michael Ignatieff's last two months? Of course.

But every word also describes what happened to Stephen Harper in the spring of 2005. After initially supporting Paul Martin's budget, Mr. Harper decided to defeat the government when embarrassing revelations started to trickle out from the Gomery inquiry into the Liberal sponsorship scandal.

Then everything happened as just described. The government mobilized public opinion against an election, the NDP changed sides, Belinda Stronach defected to the Liberals, Conservative poll numbers nosedived, Mr. Harper was savaged in the media and he reorganized his office.

A few conclusions seem obvious. First, it is useful to read history. Several recent books have described what happened to Mr. Harper in 2005, so it is hard to see why the Liberals would rush to repeat all the same mistakes. Although Mr. Ignatieff is a noted scholar, his job as leader means he doesn't have much time to read, but doesn't anyone on his staff read books about their opponents? When I published Harper's Team , Mr. Harper was peeved I was putting out too much information, but to judge from the Liberals' carelessness, he needn't have worried.

Second, if you're going to defeat the government, do it quickly. After three elections in five years, Canadians are tired of going to the polls. Governments have many means to excite public opinion against those who would force an election, and it's even easier to do so in the midst of a global recession. Mr. Harper learned the risks of giving the government time to react, so he dispatched Paul Martin quickly in November, 2005.

Third, if you're going to defeat the government, it helps to have a reason beyond thinking that you might be able to win the next election. The public knows that everything politicians do is motivated to a degree by partisan self-interest, but they also expect to see some concern for the public good. Having voted in the House of Commons for all of Mr. Harper's major policies, Mr. Ignatieff couldn't offer any cogent reason for saying on Sept. 1, “Mr. Harper, your time is up.”

Mr. Ignatieff has messed up big-time, but the outlook doesn't have to be entirely bleak. Since he has been imitating Mr. Harper so closely, he can take solace from the fact that the Conservative leader bounced back, winning the next election and becoming prime minister less than a year after his time of troubles in spring 2005.

Replacing a chief of staff won't solve anything (in politics, the person who is fired is seldom to blame for what went wrong), but it can be an occasion for starting over.

The key is self-interrogation. Someone who wants the ultimate prize of becoming PM has to accept responsibility for all the things that go wrong along the way and figure out how not to repeat those errors (while realizing he will inevitably make others). That's the most important lesson of Mr. Harper's annus horribilis of 2005: that a leader can rebound from disaster to triumph if he accepts responsibility for his mistakes and learns to avoid them in the future.

Tom Flanagan is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary and a former federal Conservative campaign manager.

Harper: Attack Ads prevented a summer election

I doubt that the attack ads had much to do with our not having a summer election. Ignatieff did not want an election since the Liberal Party needs to raise more money and raise their standing in the polls as well. However, given that the Liberal polls do not seem have any momentum upwards perhaps the attack ads did have some negative effects and convinced some not to vote for Iggy.
Harper just loves to rub it in and make digs at Iggy even though Iggy saved Harper's bacon and is almost in a coalition with the Conservatives at this point. It seems that Iggy prefers a right coalition rather than one on the left!

Attack ads prevented a summer election: Harper
Updated Fri. Jun. 26 2009 8:41 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggests his party's recent ad campaign that included controversial attacks against Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff may have done Canadians a favour.
In an interview with CTV News in Halifax, the prime minister told CTV Atlantic's Steve Murphy that the ads help convince the Liberals not to trigger a summer election, and allowed his Conservative minority government a few months of breathing space.
"To the extent that I think that the ads made the Liberal Party think twice about having an election, I think that's been a good result," Harper said.
"Because I don't think Canadians want an election, I think it would have been another round of political instability. And so to the extent I think it's put that party a little bit back on its heels. It may be thinking a little bit more about how to co-operate in actually dealing with the economy -- I think it's been helpful."
The ads criticize Ignatieff's time outside the country, alleging the Liberal leader returned to Canada solely to seek the prime minister's job.
Harper refused to say whether he personally agreed with the ad's sentiments that Igatieff is "just visiting." He said he would leave it to voters to decide whether Ignatieff's 34 years outside Canada disqualified him to be prime minister.
"Those ads are built around his [Ignatieff's] own record, his own words, on his own motives and his own statements on the country. Those are questions he will have to answer... As I say, the ads allow Mr. Ignatieff to speak for himself," Harper said during the 10-minute interview.
Harper said the ads ran at a time when the Liberals were not co-operating in the operation of Parliament.
"My preference would be for the opposition to work with the government. The Opposition has not chosen that path until very recently," Harper explained.
"I do think the people want to see the parties work together. But, certainly if the parties aren't going to work together, the Conservative Party won't unilaterally disarm."
One week ago, Ignatieff and Harper reached a deal that prevented a summer election. Thursday's comments come as Parliament begins its summer break. It's expected all parties will use the time to test the waters for a fall election campaign.
The opposition will have an opportunity to put forward a non-confidence motion during an opposition day early in the fall session.

Poll finds Ignatieff isn't seen as very patriotic...

From the Globe and Mail.

Of course the tape of Ignatieff talking of himself as an American could be matched by these prize quotes from Chairman Harper:

"Your country [the USA], and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world."-Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank."

A culture of defeat..."- Stephen Harper, negatively describing Canada's Atlantic provinces! May 2001."Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States."- Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.

Both Harper and Ignatieff are avid supporters of US imperialism even though Harper is conservative and Ignatieff liberal. Harper would have taken us into the Iraq war and so would have Ignatieff.


Harper's a Tims man, but Ignatieff inspires
Poll finds the Grit chief isn't seen as very patriotic, suggesting that ‘nasty' PM's attack ads hit his weak spot
Brian Laghi
Ottawa — From Saturday's Globe and Mail, Saturday, May. 30, 2009 03:53AM EDT
Michael Ignatieff is seen as starkly less patriotic than Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a new poll that suggests the Tories accurately put their finger on the Liberal Leader's vulnerabilities with a series of recent attack ads.
But while the survey comparing the two leaders reveals chinks in Mr. Ignatieff's armour, it also shows the public finds fault with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who voters say is more divisive, nasty and partisan in his approach than Mr. Ignatieff.
The Globe and Mail-CTV News survey shows opportunities abound for both sides to take advantage of the other's weaknesses among regions, gender and income groups.
“I think the Liberals will make [an election] campaign issue of Mr. Harper, and the Conservatives will make the campaign issue Mr. Ignatieff,” said Peter Donolo, a partner with The Strategic Counsel, which conducted the poll.

Harper Threatens Ignatieff with old videos

This is from CTV.

So what happened to our warm family man prime minister in his fuzzy blue sweater. I guess it didn't sell. I guess the scary nasty version is more marketable. The tape battle could be bad for Harper too since there are lots of old quotes that show what Harper thinks of Canada and how he is inspired by the US conservative movement.
Flaherty is having problems with past statements too. He is right about the economy about as often as a stopped clock is right about the time as his past statements show.



Harper threatens Ignatieff with old videos
Updated Thu. May. 28 2009 10:25 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
The Conservatives are threatening to release more potentially damaging videotapes of Michael Ignatieff in an attempt to discredit the opposition leader.
During Question Period Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the Commons he had lots of tapes featuring Ignatieff.
"I cannot fire the Leader of the Opposition and with all the tapes I have on him, I do not want to," Harper said.
The Conservatives are said to be poring over old video clips of Ignatieff speeches and interviews from his past career as a journalist, author and public intellectual to find potentially embarrassing remarks.
Outside the Commons, Ignatieff described Harper's remarks as "Nixonian", referring to disgraced former U.S. President Richard Nixon who secretly recorded Oval Office conversations, and who was famous of digging up dirt on his political opponents.
"Every day that goes by, he's more like Richard Nixon," Ignatieff said.
"The public finances of our country are in freefall and he's wasting time with tapes of me? It's a joke."
Ignatieff said he won't be intimidated by the prime minister, and that is is his job to hold him to account.
His remarks followed a particularly heated session in the Commons, in which Ignatieff called on the prime minister to fire Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over the ballooning federal deficit.
Harper shot back that the issue at hand should be the "credibility of the leader of the opposition."
Ignatieff is already the subject of several Tory attack ads, which focus on comments he made before entering politics, and the decades he spent outside of Canada.
One ad features an old video interview in which Ignatieff refers to America as 'his country'.
In another Ignatieff is quoted as saying the 'the only thing he missed about Canada was Algonquin Park.'

Ignatieff warns PM against use of hardball tactics in Parliament

Interesting that Ignatieff expresses pessimism that Harper will come up with a budget that the Liberals can support. Personally, I think that it is unlikely that Harper will come up with a government that the Liberals will not support. Ignatieff would rather moan and groan and swallow all sorts of crap rather than go to an electon. Remember it was Dion who was in power when the Liberals finally decided enough was enough. At this point in time I doubt that Ignatieff has the least wish to provoke an election or join a coalition if he can in any way avoid it. Unless Harper really goes off the deep end as with Flaherty's economic update he can rely on Liberal support or at least that they will not defeat him.
Interesting that Ignatieff seems to think that things have gone too far as far as govt. intervention is concerned and claims that governments actually control the banking system now. If government has such control why is it they do not own private banks themselves and why are they not able to force banks to lend instead of hoarding cash. Why do they not also force banks to lower their interest rates to the same extent govt. lowers rates?

Ignatieff warns PM against use of hardball tactics in Parliament
BRIAN LAGHI
OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF
December 24, 2008
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has issued a warning to Prime Minister Stephen Harper that he won't tolerate the misuse of confidence votes or hardball parliamentary tactics when MPs return next month to decide the government's fate.
In a year-end interview with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Ignatieff said he asked Mr. Harper during a recent meeting to instruct Conservative House Leader Jay Hill to try to remove ill will by meeting with Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale.
"The ways in which he makes everything a confidence motion is, in our view, unacceptable," Mr. Ignatieff said.
"He took the wrong signal from the election. The signal he took was that he could try anything he wanted to and he grievously underestimated the Liberal Party of Canada. We've got our act together, got a leader chosen, and he can't keep making these misjudgments of the mood of the House and hope to survive."
Mr. Ignatieff, installed as Liberal Leader earlier this month, expressed pessimism that the Harper government would unveil a budget in January that his party could support.
The Liberals have inked a deal with the New Democrats to take over government in a coalition, but Mr. Ignatieff has indicated he could back the budget if it delivers the appropriate economic help to increasingly anxious Canadians. The coalition came together after opposition parties were infuriated by an economic statement that, among other things, would have eliminated voter subsidies for political parties and suspended the right to strike of civil servants.
"The thing that frankly concerns me is that the autumn statement so failed the test of leadership that Canadians required of the situation, that I'm not optimistic that the government will come up with a budget that meets Canada's needs," Mr. Ignatieff said.
"But I live in hope, as it were, that Mr. Harper will rise to the demands of the hour."
Despite the tough talk, the newly minted Liberal Leader acknowledged in a wide-ranging discussion that his party has far to go before recapturing its former glory. To that end, Mr. Ignatieff proposed a new policy conference based on the celebrated Kingston get-together of 1960 and the Aylmer, Que., meeting of 1991, when the then-opposition Liberals met to sort out new policy directions.
The party, he said, needs to look hard at why Liberal governments have difficulty delivering on their best intentions, such as ideas for helping native people and building infrastructure.
Nonetheless, Mr. Ignatieff said liberal parties around the world are best positioned to take advantage of the current economic turmoil. International conservative leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush rode the wave of looser market regulation that has been blamed for sparking the global financial crisis.
"The market meltdown has been a moment of truth for conservative ideology, and a moment of validation for liberal ideology," Mr. Ignatieff said.
"Liberal parties have a view that the country needs compassionate, centrist government and, in tough times, Canadians look to government to protect the most vulnerable."
Asked whether his own party had lost some of its economic credentials in recent elections, Mr. Ignatieff admitted that Liberals need to figure out their direction on the issue.
"I think we have a lot of intellectual work to do, because I think everybody is uncomfortable that the pendulum has swung so far that governments are basically running the banking system of most industrialized countries," he said. "Nobody thinks that's a good idea in the long term."
Mr. Ignatieff said his party will come up with its own ideas on what it needs to see in the budget before deciding whether to support the government.
He added that Mr. Harper has not given him an answer on whether Mr. Hill and Mr. Goodale will get together in the new year, but he said Mr. Harper needs to let parliamentary committees do their job.
"He has been told in no uncertain terms there's a problem of confidence that isn't just constitutional, but a question of personal relations across the House," Mr. Ignatieff said.

All the Ducks in A Row: Stage Set for Shitting on Hands the Sequel

By the end of today Ignatieff will be crowned as king of the Liberals. The party has displayed for all to see that the kingmakers now choose the leader again as is the natural right of kingmakers. The last episode of democratic drama failed miserably when the cast didn't understand the plot and elected the wrong leader.
Now the ducks are all in a row. Although there may be some anatomical misalignment they are ready for shitting on the hands the sequel. As far as the coalition is concerned Ignatieff has flown the coup.
Harper is now back in co-operation mode in which he will buy Liberal support. With Liberal stock so degraded this will cost little more than a stimulus and slight dilution of his acid remarks about the Liberals.