Proof Why You Must Vote Liberal

Why you cannot vote for Conservative (also why I'm not Canadian), proof by contradiction

I am voting Conservative
You have to be Canadian to vote (by election laws) (*)
We know that Canadian Values = Liberal Values
If you are Canadian you hold Canadian Values
=>If you do not have Liberal Values, you do not have Canadian Values
But there are other choices you can vote for on your ballot
If you vote Conservative you don't hold Liberal Values
=> You do not have Canadian Values
=> You are not Canadian
This is in contradiction with (*), therefore you cannot vote Conservative

This proof works by substituting in any other party except for the Liberals. Therefore you have to vote Liberal.

Home Riding(s) Predictions

This may be a long post, I am going to predict who will win in every riding I have lived in.

Toronto Centre (Ages 0 - 1 days old) - I was born in this riding, so I thought I'd include it. I don't see how Bill Graham won't win this riding. However, I really think Lewis Reford would do amazing in Ottawa if he got elected. I met Lewis a few times, hopefully Tory support will keep building up and eventually he'll have a seat.

Halton (Ages 0 - 2) - Garth Turner should be able to take this riding over the Liberal incumbent Gary Carr. Garth was previously a cabinet minister under the Mulroney government, so he already has name recognition in the riding. This riding was close enough last time and with the polls for the Tories staying strong, Turner will win.

Carleton-Mississippi Mills (Age 2) - Tory incumbent Gordon O'Connor will easily hold onto this Ottawa area riding. He won by over 10,000 votes in 2004, so look for him to win with close to 50% of vote.

Ottawa West-Nepean (Ages 2 -12) - Former Provincial Cabinet Minister John Baird is running for the Conservatives here. The current MP is not running, so he faces Lee Farnworth, a Nepean City Councillor. You'd have to assume the MPP has more name recognition than a City Councillor. In 2004, the Liberal only won by about 1000 votes, there is no way Baird will not win this. The real question is: what cabinet position will Harper give Baird?

Lethbridge (Ages 12-18) - Rick Casson by a landslide. Last time he ran against the sitting MLA (for about 1/2 of the riding), Ken Nicol, and he still got well over 60% of the vote. I'm surprised Rick is even in Canada, letalone having an 8am campaign meeting like he mentions in his campaign blog that he frequently updates. At least it shows he is willing to work for the votes instead of believing he is entitled to them. I wonder if he can keep all other candidates below 10,000?

Kitchener Waterloo (Ages 18-22, off and on) - Working on Ajmer Mandur's campaign I know this riding is much closer than some may think it is. Andrew Telegdi, the Liberal incumbent, has to be one of the most despicable politicians - oh hell, I won't limit this to politicians, so just people - hey it isn't libel if it is true. (Links and quotes thanks to the Liberal Warren Kinsella) In 2001 he said Canada, "is acting like a Nazi-style regime," which is ironic since he was defending an interpreter with a Nazi death squad during the Second World War. As well, he used the N**** word back when he was the President of the University of Waterloo Federation of Students. So you may say that was over 30 years ago, right? Well he refused to apologize for this remark at the all candidates meeting last week. Fine, people can change in 30 years, but that doesn't mean you stand by it! Here's a quote from the KW Record article about the debate:

Brad Wiffen, a fourth-year business student at Laurier, said Telegdi used the phrase "students are n------ because they want to be n------." The question sparked complaints about the question itself as well as calls for Telegdi to respond. The Liberal candidate said the student was distorting the story. He said he made the comment in 1974 as president of the students' federation at the University of Waterloo. He said the term was part of the "lexicon" at the time of the "students' movement" and it wasn't racially motivated. He said he used it to describe all students who were fed up with politics and those in power. But he didn't apologize when Wiffen asked. That drew sharp criticism from [NDP candidate Edwin] Laryea, a native of Ghana and Mandur, who was born in India. "I'm surprised that he doesn't have the courtesy to say 'I'm sorry if I offended somebody,' " Laryea said. "I don't think we should be using terms like that. That is not acceptable." Mandur [sic] said he was also offended. "As a visible minority, I'm appalled," he said. "It's a courtesy from Mr. Telegdi to at least apologize."

I'm hoping the good people of KW will stand up for ourselves and elect someone we can actually be proud to call our MP. I think Mandur can take this riding, but if he does it will be VERY close.

Willowdale (Ages 19, 21, & 22: 4 months each time) - Jovan Boseovski is running once again for the Conservatives. While I think Jovan has almost no chance against Cabinet Minister Jim Peterson, I do think his vote total will increase. Ever since receiving the nomination in May, Jovan has been door knocking and trying everything he could do to get his name out in the riding. As long as Peterson keeps running, he will keep winning this riding; however, provincially Willowdale has elected MPP's from the PC Party. So if CPC can keep doing well across the country, especially in Ontario, and if Peterson retires, this riding can be in play.

St. Paul's (Age 20) - While working downtown Toronto and living in Willowdale in December, I volunteered many days after work for Peter Kent. I heard from some people that we have no chance in the real Toronto ridings such as this one, but my experiences were completely different. In my two canvasses, I found very few Liberal supporters, just people that always voted Liberal. I went up to one house with a big Carolyn Bennett sign on the lawn and by the time I left they were marked down for a Peter Kent sign with 3/4 people in the house supporting us! Another day I was phoning riding residents, in 2 hours I had 10 signs ordered. This riding may have been used to voting Liberal, but I refuse to agree that they are Liberal. Since anecdotal evidence is always conclusive, here is an article about many people, including St. Paul's Federal Liberal Riding Association Executive, switching to Peter Kent's side. On an election betting site, the line for Kent was +10000 votes just a couple weeks ago, then it was +6000 on the weekend, now it is down to just +2000! This means so many people were willing to bet money that Peter would come within that margin, that the margin kept shrinking and shrinking. Election Prediction also finally put this riding as too close to call last week. All these positive signs put together with the very strong Tory poll standings, I think this is the riding for us in Toronto! Peter Kent will be a wonderful MP for the party.

Welland (Ages 21-22, official residency after my parents moved here) - At first I was thinking this was going to be an easy enough Liberal win, now I am not quite so sure. Mel Grunstein's website sure leaves something to be desired and he is still using the old "Demand Better, Vote Conservative" lawn signs. However, the reason I know he is using these old signs is because there are so freaking many of them! I was just there this past weekend, driving into the riding on a road that was 1/2 in St. Catharines riding and 1/2 in Welland riding, it was like a tunnel of blue signs with Rick Dystra on the left and Mel Grunstein on the right. I know signs don't vote, and all that, but these signs were all on private property! I think we may need to be in majority territory to win this riding, but if we are, this riding can surely fall our way. I would say the Liberals are in the lead here, but we are definitely not 3rd place here anymore.

Ummm What?

I couldn't believe what I was seeing when I watched the news this morning (or more like it was 1pm and I just woke up),

Martin cited Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau and even former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney as examples of leaders who "dedicated themselves to keeping Canada's word to the world, to reflecting Canadian values, to defending Canadian interests."

So what Martin's point is that even though there isn't a good reason to vote for him, Harper isn't the statesman that Mulroney was so umm... vote Liberal? I think what the underlying issue is here is that we don't need a Liberal to represent us. I am not a huge fan of Mulroney, but he certainly did represent us well internationally, and I think most Canadians will agree with this. That's why Martin can't just say the Conservatives cannot represent our country, because Canadians know otherwise. Harper will represent our country abroad much better than dithers ever could!

Great Policy!

The last new announcement from the Conservative Party is to eliminate the taxation of capital gains if the money is moved into another investment within 6 months. I love this policy. Sure, it won't move our poll numbers even higher (as most fiscal conservatives are likely already on our side), but it is just a very good idea. Under the current system it is possible for a rational investor to stay with a worse performing company just to move the capital gains tax to future years if the benefit is higher than the incremental improvement of switching to the company with a higher expected return.

I will show how this is effective with a completely true story. Two weeks ago my dad was facing a dilemma: whether to sell a shares in company A for shares in company B, that he thought would do better. In his decision he had to consider that he would have to immediately pay the capital gains taxes this year. Company B would have to perform better than A by at least the present value of the difference in taxes paid depending on which year he sold his shares. With my father only a few years away from retirement, it is possible that he could be in a lower tax bracket when he sells the security, so it becomes even more beneficial to put off the capital gains tax. So the end result is that investors will not invest purely on which security they think will perform better, as they would in an ideal market. Under this new Conservative policy, the decision becomes obvious - my father would just switch his position to the company he feels will perform the best - as it should be!

In True Liberal Form

The education announcement made today from the Liberals is barely a promise of anything. Sure they promise wads of cash to students, but this was already promised in their last budget! Only a small fraction of this was new money, the rest is just an implementation plan for the money they already promised. I don't understand how the Liberals can think they can announce the same thing over and over and try to fool us.

At least on CH News tonight I got to have my say. As they reported the announcement they said something like, "However university students are skeptical of the plan," and there were 4 quotes from students. My quote was on what my priority would be and I said, "we need across the board tax cuts."

Best. Ad. Ever.

If anyone had not seen Stephen Taylor's blog post on this... using footage from the old Liberal attack piece that aired during the 2004 election, here is a great video that somebody came up with:

http://www.f1blogs.com/attack-ad-remix.wmv
(right click and go to "Save As" if this does not work)