Monday, September 29, 2008

CAW Endorses Nash for Conservative decision to block MDA sale

Oddly enough, the CAW endorses NDP candidate Peggy Nash in Parkdale-High Park, yet it was the Conservatives who blocked the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, for which they give her credit.

In the Greater Toronto Area, the CAW is endorsing an 'ABC' voting strategy (Anyone But Conservative) in all ridings with the exception of Toronto's Parkdale-High Park.

In Parkdale-High Park, the CAW is endorsing NDP MP and NDP industry critic Peggy Nash. Nash, the former assistant to both previous CAW presidents Bob White and Buzz Hargrove, was instrumental in stopping the sale of MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates' space division to U.S. arms manufacturer Alliant Techsystems back in April and has been an exceptional advocate of working people, said Lewenza.


Sunday, September 28, 2008

Who could it be now?


It's hard enough running as a Conservative against a popular NDP MP and Gerard Kennedy, the failed Liberal leadership candidate.

The battle for Parkdale-High Park is getting nasty.

Go Jilian!

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Gerard Kennedy: Any openings at the food bank?

Christina Blizzard thinks Gerard Kennedy's prospects of winning Parkdale-High Park are not good.

Which brings us to former McGuinty education minister Gerard Kennedy. He's in tough in Parkdale-High Park against NDP power chick Peggy Nash. Provincially the riding is held by another popular New Democrat woman, Cheri DiNovo. Between DiNovo and Nash, they have the riding all sewn up.

If Kennedy loses, it will be poetic justice. He was the guy who foisted Dion on an unsuspecting party by throwing his support behind him in the leadership convention.

TIGHT RACE

Most pundits predict it will be adieu, Gerard. And the end of his political career. Any openings at the food bank, I wonder?



Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Toronto hates Conservatives

I see this sign on Harbord Street every morning on my bike ride to work.


I actually had a coffee at the Linux Caffe once. But I guess you can afford to insult your potential customers when those voting Conservative accounted for only 9% of the vote in the last election.

Wireless Nomad might also want to reconsider its affiliation with the business. They use the location as home base for their ISP business.

Another US industry in a tail spin

I'll be glad to see this one go, although the consequences could be dire. With the U.S. media fawning over Obama, the anti-Obama merchandise market will likely be unable to pick up the slack.


Economists Warn Anti-Bush Merchandise Market Close To Collapse


Sunday, September 14, 2008

Blogging Tories' Ridings

Further to my previous post, here's a partial list of Conservative candidates and electoral districts as indicated by my readers. Members of the Blogging Tories live in several of the ridings. I'll update the list as I become aware of new entries. Please leave your info in the comments.

Manitoba

Kildonan-St. Paul: Joy Smith is up for re-election.

Quebec

Outremont: Dr Roy is supporting Lulzim Laloshi.

Ontario

Simcoe-Grey: Helena Guergis is running to retain her seat for the Conservatives.

Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox and Addington: Incumbent Scott Reid is running for the Conservatives.

Ottawa-Orléans: Royal Galipeau, the current Conservative MP is running again.

Parkdale-High Park: Nice Comfy Fur formerly lived in the riding and is supporting Jilian Saweczko.

St. Paul's: Nice Comfy Fur is supporting Heather Jewell.

Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry: Current CPC MP Guy Lauzon is standing for re-election.

York Centre: Matt at A Step to the Right is supporting Rochelle Wilner.

Who's your candidate?

Who are you supporting in the upcoming election?

If you are a Blogging Tory, leave me a comment and I'll put together a list of all the candidates and ridings we have covered. Hopefully, Conservative candidates and campaign managers can draw upon this list to get their message out. We're here to help.

This election, I'll be supporting Heather Jewell, the Conservative candidate in the riding of St. Paul's.

I also have a keen interest in my old riding of Parkdale-High Park, where CPC candidate Jilian Saweczko is looking to knock off two high-profile candidates - a failed Liberal leadership candidate and the sitting member from the CAW. Good luck Jilian.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Good advice from Warren

Those of you who live in the rest of Canada, my advice is this: stay there. Stay where you are. You don't want to live in Toronto.


Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Copyright and voting Conservative

Politics is not like shopping for groceries where you can fill your cart with the policies you like and leave the ones you don’t like on the shelf. Like it or not, when you vote for a particular party, you get the whole bundle: the good policies with the bad.

That said, I can understand where Alec Saunders is coming from. A recent post on his blog explains why he will be voting against Stephen Harper when an election is called. I have also been critical of the Conservative’s copyright bill.

As it stands now, Bill C-61 is so egregiously bad I think they want it to fail. We can only hope it never moves forward.

Given the groundswell of opposition to the current bill, which includes virtually everything corporate media interests have asked for, I can’t imagine the CPC actually proceeding with it. It makes no sense to turn people into criminals simply for making a backup copy of their store-bought Disney DVD for their kids to use. Now that they have tried with this bill, they can legitimately say to the next U.S. administration that it just won’t fly.

As for Alec Saunders, if this one issue is of such paramount importance to him, I would suggest he weigh his options carefully before voting against the Conservatives. Does the bad he sees likely to come from Bill C-61 more than offset all the good that might come from other "conservative" policies which he would otherwise be inclined to support? And what about the damage that the many boneheaded policies supported by other parties could cause?

In the case of the Liberals, there is really little fundamental difference between the previous Liberal copyright bill and that of the Conservatives. So a vote for the Liberals wouldn’t likely get him any further ahead on his one burning issue. In the meantime, he would have to swallow a lot of bad Liberal policies (can you say Green Shift?) with which he may fundamentally disagree.

That leaves the NDP which, of course, can adopt any policy it wants because it knows it will never get in power. But if Alec is truly conservative minded, it is hard to imagine him going to this extreme. In so doing, he would be in common cause with the likes of Lester, one of his commenters who advocates we “vote against this NeoConservative pig.”

I recognize that there is a real risk that the Conservatives may revive Bill C-61 in a similar form if they get a majority in the coming election. It is this very possibility that acts to temper my enthusiasm and desire to help the Conservatives win the election. But as important as this issue is to me, I’m not about to vote NDP. All I can say to Alec is to vote wisely.