A lot to cover after a long weekend.
First up, Stephen Harper is up north. Not cottaging in Muskoka or any such thing, but travelling through our country's oft-forgotten north, the one way up there, in that great expanse where few people live, in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
He's there all week, and expected to drop some cash and plans on the region, hoping to make it appear as though Canadians live up there, and operate up there, and could conceivably scare away Americans and Russians who dare traverse our Northwest Passage and, perhaps, once those pesky ice caps are taken care of, steal our oil.
Also, Harper called two by-elections to fill empty seats in Quebec. They will take place Sept. 17. The seats to be filled: Outremont and Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot. They are expected to be hard-fought and well-covered races. The Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Bloc have a lot to gain by winning, and plenty to lose if they end up defeated.
There are other vacancies to be filled, with a couple in Ontario, but it appears as though the PM will save us the confusion by waiting to have those by-elections after the provincial election.
Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre, on the other hand, is trying to inject additional confusion into the provincial election.
He wants Premier Dalton McGuinty to hold Senate elections during the provincial election on Oct. 10.
Keep in mind we will already be voting for our MPPs, and in an historic and heavy referendum on our electoral system.
Poilievre wants to add federal Senate elections onto that. There are two Senate vacancies in Ontario, and Harper likes the idea of elected Senators, even if they're not actually directly elected (winners of the election would still need to be appointed by Harper, who appointed a Senator earlier this year who was elected by the people of Alberta).
I'm no whiz, but I doubt Ontario, this late in the game, with only nine weeks to E-Day, will decide to elect Senators this year.
As of tomorrow, there will be exactly nine weeks until the provincial election. Still, none of the parties in Mississauga-Brampton South has nominated a single candidate, and everyone's staring at the sky, waiting for parachuted candidates.
More importantly, as of today, there are six weeks until the Toronto Maple Leafs pre-season begins.
Comments (1)
Aloha Mr. MacBride,
Great to read about the depressing political news at the provincial and federal level instead of just the Mississauga-level.
You wrote:
"As of tomorrow, there will be exactly nine weeks until the provincial election. Still, none of the parties in Mississauga-Brampton South has nominated a single candidate, and everyone's staring at the sky, waiting for parachuted candidates."
And it wasn't that far back when Hazel McCallion announced just how offensive she believed parachuted candidates to be.
The reality is that Mississauga is in desperate need of parachuted candidates in all three levels of government, in all wards and ridings.
That includes niches, nooks and crannies too.
Me, I'm so desperate I'd even accept parachuted candidates from other provinces.
Signed,
The (Where's the Cavalry?) Mississauga Muse
Posted by The Mississauga Muse | August 7, 2007 9:33 PM
Posted on August 7, 2007 21:33