From: jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca (John Paul Morrison)
Subject: Re: The next federal election 
Organization: University of BC, Electrical Engineering
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 09:06:29 GMT

In article <1993Jan9.004910.19040@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>In article <1993Jan8.223551.11701@bmerh85.bnr.ca> nadeau@bnr.ca (Rheal Nadeau) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan8.175345.27765@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy) writes:
>>>
>>>Look what happened in the last provincial election when the voters
>>>to cavalierly just voted against Peterson without carefully checking
>>>whether the opposition party they were voting for had any coherent
>>>policies.
>>>
>>>The purpose of the next election should be to attempt to achieve
>>>a result that forces the three major parties to have leadership
>>>conventions.
>>
>>Ah, but a lot of people who voted NDP in the last Ontario election
>>didn't expect them to win a majority government, and were shocked when
>>they did.  Voting to ensure a minority government (and I agree that this
>>is best, in general and especially in this specific case), may lead to
>>unexpected, and perhaps unwanted, results.  (There are people who will
>>vote for Reform, or the BQ, or the NDP, without wanting them to win.)
>>
>
>But this is why I recommend voting Tory, Reform, or National, (and perhaps
>NDP in the West), because to vote Liberal is to risk a majority
>government where we are stuck with Chretien for five years, and then
>face another election where we just want to throw the bums out after
>they massively screw up.

NDP? har! Well, the west doesn't count much anyway, and at least in BC,
people aren't exactly thrilled with the NDP to begin with, and having them
in power currently won't help them.
>
>The Reform and National parties can't possibly win and offer an
>alternative on the right and on the left, and both parties have taken
>the time to offer clear policy positions, and advocate democratic
>reforms in the system.     

Reform can support the Tories. The National (socialist) Party would
support the NDP-Liberal Economic Ruin Platform.
>
>And voting Tory is permissible, because even if Mulroney gets a slim 
>majority, it is extremely unlikely he would stay around for more than
>a couple more years, and which would have the side benefit of insuring
>that the Liberals, the NDP, and the Tories would all have new leaders
>in an election that would likely occur 3 years down the road.
>
>The goal should be to purge the system...this cannot happen if
>Chretien gets a majority...it will still happen if Mulroney wins,
>perhaps not as quickly as those who absolutely despise Brian would
>like, but soon enough.
>
Chretien: back to the Trudeau politics that ruined this country in the
first place. Please Canada, remember how the Liberals screwed Canada
over before you be too harsh on the Tories for not reversing the
Liberal's damage fast enough.

>The worst possible outcome of the election this year is a Liberal
>majority government...which means none of our problems get solved.

Correction: the worst possible outcome is an NDP-Liberal coalition,
or even NDP by itself (not going to happen)

>Just because we despise Mulroney and want to punish him, we should
>not be so masochistic that in seeking our pound of flesh, we end
>up with Chretien.    

Correct. The Tories are the least incompetent. Throw in a few Reform
MPs to keep the Tories on their toes, perhaps speeding up the axe
wielding that is long overdue. There has been too much wishful thinking
style deficit reduction: ie let's pretend we'll have X% GDP growth, and
that we actually cut spending Y% per year, then the deficit disappears
in 4 years. To be realistic, they should have assumed the  WORST, ie
lower than expected growth, and then made spending cuts that much
deeper, to make sure we kill this deficit before it kills us.
>
>>The best way to ensure minority government is proportional
>>representation (very few parties, after all, ever get more than 50% of
>>the vote; this would be even less likely under PR, since now people
>>often refrain from voting for their prefered, but unlikely to win,
>>candidate for fear of wasting their vote).  Of course, since all three
>>major parties hope to form a majority government in the next election,
>>there is no chance we'll get PR in the foreseeable future - it's just
>>not in the interest of the established parties.
>>
>
>The National Party supports PR...if you support democratic reform,
>and are left-leaning, then vote for them rather than the NDP or
>Liberals.  If one is right-leaning, and unable to bring oneself
>to vote for Brian again, than vote Reform, because, they to advocate
>democratic reforms...the National and Reform Parties actually agree
>on the need for democratic reforms, and some of their proposals on
>this issue are similar, but their economic positions are completely
>divergent.
>
>Strategic voting is crucial in the next election...and voting Liberal
>is not a smart or strategic vote.

yes. There are no good parties to vote for, merely parties and leaders
with varying degrees of incompetence.
>
>Gerald


-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
 John Paul Morrison                     |  
 University of British Columbia, Canada |  
 Electrical Engineering                 |   .sig file without a cause
 jmorriso@ee.ubc.ca              VE7JPM |  
________________________________________|_________________________________
Newsgroups: can.politics