Canadian elections?

I'm visiting hamburger and mrs. hamburger this weekend.
From driving around town with hamburger today, you'd never guess that we're having an election in the same country. My riding, and the one next to it - are tighttighttight Liberal / NDP fights. The Green Party has more signs up than the Conservatives in my part of the world.

Here, the Liberals and Conservatives seem to be battling things out. The Greens have more signs than the NDP. If you didn't know the Conservative candidate was Conservative, you wouldn't be able to tell from his signs. His name HUGE, somewhere in [size=7]tiny print conservative[/size].

Everything I'm reading is making this look like it could be a minority government - which is always my preference. The pundits can't even figure out which combo right now. I heard one guy this morning saying it could be NDP as the minority government, with the Bloq Quebecois or Conservatives holding the balance. That could be downright bizarre.

Then again the Bloq Quebecois is the loyal opposition right now.

Interesting days here.

Paul Martin will win.

I already voted since I won't be in the country on Monday.

Yup, it looks like it's going to be a close one.

I'm going to be typically conservative and vote Liberal.

LOL. I voted liberal myself. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. I might be accused of being something or other.

I just think it's funny that in Canada, it is conservative to vote liberal. Them 'Mericans don't know what they are missing in that subtlety.

Hahaha!!!! We are a strange bunch for sure ;-)

So in the previous elections the second and fourth party were the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservatives?

(Err - Progressive Conservatives?)

How do they relate to the current parties, did they both go into what this time is the Conservative party, or how did that work?

Same in Oz, cav .... Must be very confusing to an outsider, trying to figure it out.

What are the big issues in the election?

nimh, although this is from the official party site (some flag waving going on, in other words), it should help clear up the recent history of the PCs for you. http://www.conservative.ca/english/leader.asp

msolga, on the site I posted, you can read about some of the issues. While I don't believe half the crap Harper promises in his mandate, these are the sort of things Canadians are talking about.

Same in Holland - the liberals are right-wing. Germany, France, Belgium, too.

Thanks Cav

The VVD. Bah!

Yeah.

Your theme tune, as a good socialist, is "Stem voor - stem SP!", I assume? ;-)

(Anastasia loves that song ... <grins>)

No.

I would vote GroenLinks.

Really? That makes two of us.

Heb je dat interview met Jan Marijnissen gelezen in de Volkskrant vandaag? Hij noemt ons een elitepartij. <harrumph>

"We zijn nu ook wat betreft aantal kiezers Groen Links overvleugeld - zij zijn een elitepartij, wij een volkspartij". Ha - wij acht zetels, zij negen, maar liefst. We hebben misschien niet veel klassieke witte arbeiders meer in de partij (helaas), maar hier in mijn stad is GL toevallig wel een van de grootste partijen in bijna alle oude volksbuurten.

Heb je deze draad al wel eens gezien?

Ben je aan het feesten vannacht? Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The hometown paper here has a feature on the history of local representation in the federal parliament. Canada's first prime minister was based here. He was a member of the Liberal Conservatives. Isn't that the perfect name for a Canadian political party

I won't be voting Liberal. Not an option in my riding. Our rep was caught up in one of the sponsorship scandals, and she won't be useful for anything anymore - even if the liberals get a majority - which looks unlikely this weekend.