Winners!

Yeah, I haven't figured out the final winner of the Gaffe prediction contest yet. Everybody's always ridin' me! In the next day or so we'll all know who gets to earmark my $20 in the next election, likely coming in - what'da figure, 2007? Might be worth another pool right there. Would it be wrong to play "guess the date of the next election" before Steven Harper's even had a chance to put his hand on a Bible?

Another winner was Andre Arthur, centerpiece of an appeal to deny CHOI-FM their broadcast licence renewal. An independent MP needs a very balanced house in at least one configuration to become a power player - otherwise, he's cooling his heels, getting a little committee work and begging for a chance to ask something during QP. M. Arthur luck in this matter is in no way dimished by the fact that he appears, on the surface at least, to be batshit crazy. But perhaps that's just the guy he plays on the radio. I wonder if he can come out of character long enough to sound reasonable in the House when it comes time to send the Tories packing and make a winner of someone in the RevMod next election date pool?

What happened in BC?

While the Tories did better than they ever dreamed in PQ, they dropped something in the range of six seats in BC. What happened?

I have to think that British Columbians figured out how to actually strategicly vote. They didn't run scared to the Liberals in Tory/NDP races; instead, they organized around candidates who could actually win. The NDP vote went up nationally, but only marginally - but in close races, the New Democrat often pulled through.

The loss of Tory seats in BC is a victory for smart tactical voting. Another reason for me to be pleased, tonight.

What happened in Quebec?

On the CBC, at least, they've stopped talking about What It All Means (just in time for the collapse of the Tory/NDP majority - they're down to 151), and have started talking to candidates. I suspect the war rooms have started sending out the schedules or concession/victory speeches. There's one question that was talked around, but not particularly directly addressed.

What happened to the Bloc?

I think the vote tonight proves that the Bloc's early polling numbers had far more to do with distaste toward the Liberals than it did toward any overwhelming seperatist sentiment (at least, not moreso than usual). Give Quebecois another option, as Stephen Harper managed to do this election, and they're happy to walk away from the Bloc.

This is good news for a second reason, beyond the obvious: you can't have a caucus of Myron Thompsons and Rob Anderseses...es.... er....

... a caucus that contains nothing but people like Myron and Rob would have been far more disconcerting than one where the room is shared by members who know that social conservatism is electoral death. You can't be talking up restricting abortion or gay marriage and expect Quebec to give you a second chance.

Now if only a seat or two would flip so the new government won't need to court the BQ at all.

Even more math

Tory + NDP = 150

Liberal + BQ = 150

Could the Quebec independent talk radio guy hold the balance? Stranger things have happened. But I can't think of when.

More math

With seventeen ridings to report, the Tories in combination with the NDP have 143 seats (leading or blah blah....). I would have no complaints if that number got to 155 total, if it meant the Conservatives don't have to pander to the Bloc. And now that I think about it, with ten seats in Quebec, perhaps Harper will be much less interested in doing so.

Proof they're counting BC now

Hey, look - it's a Green on the board!

Forget the count up

In the elections of my childhood, we always watched the numbers count up to the magic majority number - or would have, if the result wasn't already a foregone conclusion.

Tonight, I'm counting the seats held by parties other than the Tories. I count 154 now. Tory minority.

Hey, Mansbridge agrees! If only I could type faster, I would have beat him.

And they haven't even started counting BC

Fifteen NDP seats as of 7:56. They haven't even started counting in BC. Evidentially, the "lend us your vote" appeal was extremely effective. Jack Layton ran a campaign so much better and smarter than last time around, they might just end up with a comfortable balance of power instead of the razor-thin one they had last time around.

Dear Mansbridge:

Not to break the rules or anything, but the reason everyone's vote was showing as up was because the Bloc vote is still essentially zero - they've only started counting ballots there.

What the hell?

Watching the results coming in, around 7:43. I didn't need the Atlantic catching up, since I was mostly caught up. The surprise for me is the early number-running for the Liberals, mostly I suspect from Ontario. Unexpected.

I wonder how much of it was the same sort of campaign I saw around here - sure, you hate the party, but don't you like your local MP? That was the subtext of Anne's last drop, and I'm guessing it was Ralph Goodale's drop, as well, if he holds on.

(The timestamp is reflective of when I wrote, not when I published. I'm all about the rules.)

Blackout

If I were to identify a single law that's contributed more to western alienation than any other, it would be the restriction disallowing a live broadcast of results to any part of the country where the polls remain open. When I was growing up, polls closed at 8pm local time, everywhere in the country, and election broadcasts consisted of Lloyd Robertson showing up at 8:01 telling Albertans what government had been elected before a single vote here had been counted. Of course, it was psychological - a seat in Halifax is worth no more than a seat in Vancouver - but it was hard not to feel frustration each time.

Last election, the broadcast ban was lifted, but this year, it's back. And now it's worse: Elections Canada has gotten wise to that "inter-web" thing, and are taking steps to restrict even east coast bloggers, much less broadcasters, from telling Canadians what they're seeing on their televisions right now.

It's not as bad as those previous elections: in absolute terms, the polls from Quebec to Alberta close at the same time. However, there are a whole lot of Atlantic seats already counted sufficiently to produce results, and those results are available to those smart enough to know how to search. I'll give you a hint: cross-border Gomery publication ban scofflaws are a good place to start.

I've always stressed my own law-abidingness. I was mad when the short-term Gomery publication ban was frustrated by bloggers who thought they knew better. In this case, I think the law is shortsighted and stupid. But I'll respect it. Live blogging will begin at 8pm Mountain.

Be the Media

I'm going to respect the intent of Elections Canada restrictions on election day, and won't start posting anything partisan until the polls close somewhere. I may update the score as promised, but any late gaffe catches otherwise will have to wait. Once those polls do close, I'll be blogging my thoughts all the way through election night. It really is my idea of a good time - go figure.

The point being, go vote, and then check back frequently this evening.

I must be getting soft

Look, Peter MacKay has been in Parliament for a while now. I have no doubt that as two of the eleven members from Nova Scotia, he's spoken plenty with Alexa McDonough, and I even expect that as former party leaders, they've probably shared notes on occasion.

So when MacKay told McDonough to "stick to (her) knitting", was it a jab? Of course it was. Was there an intent to demean? Of course. Was it based on gender? No. Did it make Peter MacKay sound like he's about a hundred years old? Yeah, but I find that kind of endearing.

Look, one google search will show you that it's gender-neutral. I've heard it myself, from someone younger than me, and female. I haven't actually heard Alexa complain about the choice of phrase, and I wouldn't expect her to - she's tougher than that, even had she thought it was a covertly sexist dig. Jack Layton's complaining, but he's trying to make political hay where no hay exists. I would have happily scored this one a big fat zero.

Unfortunately, I set precedent five weeks ago - contrition is a gaffe acknowledgement, no matter what I might think about it. If I were MacKay, I would have sent out the following press release:

An Open Letter to the Leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada

Dear Mr. Layton Jack:

You could stand to stick to your knitting, as well.

Love, Peter.

p.s.: We'll call you when our majority government needs budget advice. Ha, ha!

But he didn't, and Canadians are poorer for it. Anyway, MacKay apologised, he's clearly a (prom)2, but if you think this is getting more than an ace for significance, your potatoes aren't boiled all the way through. Or whatever they say in Nova Scotia. Two points for the blue team, making a late rally but way too far behind to catch up.

(Yes, I know the scoreboard needs updating. I've just swapped computers, and that's a whole other headache. I owe the Tories three, for a total of eleven.)

Old school

The reputation of Albertans as political dinosaurs is not entirely undeserved. When I was a younger man, I idled a lot of hours in Strathmore coffee shops, overhearing the conversation of one particular group of older (but by no means old) farmers who regularly met. Their conversations followed the same few themes: The Weather, The Price of Cattle/Wheat/Barley, Our Children's Lives, and my personal favourite track, What's Wrong With Canada? The answer to the last overwhelmingly involved changes that mostly took place under the watch of Prime Minister Trudeau: bilingualism, multiculturalism, the end of capital punishment, the beginning of access to safe abortions, and the metric system.

The Reform Party lifted itself off the ground on the strength of these sorts of sentiments, though the party moved on. For a while, it was the Canadian Wheat Board and the Charter, and more recently it's been Kyoto and the gun registry. But there are lots of Albertans for whom the clock has stopped - they've added those other complaints to the ledger, but you can ask them about metric today and they can still build up a head of steam about Eastern Canada conspiracies. From everything I've seen of him as my own MP for many years, Myron Thompson is one of those Albertans.

That's why the only surprise about Thompson's forum performance is that it's getting some national traction. (Sig)1 by (prom)1, unless some tape is produced by the end of the day. Then I'm taking the significance up to two, because if there's audio, you'll hear it, again and again.

What does petty gamesmanship look like?

When Harper spoke about the balances keeping his government in check, he was stressing that no one needs to be afraid of a Tory majority going well beyond the platform.

Claiming that he was threatening to overhaul the process of Supreme Court appointments can only be described as a radical interpretation of the text.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Catch the Buzz

Buzz Hargrove says Stephen Harper's intent to decentralize some power toward the provinces essentially makes him a seperatist. In fact, Quebec voters would be better off voting Bloc, apparently, in order to stop the Tories. I can't claim to understand why voting for explicit seperatists is better than voting for implied seperatists, but such is The Logic That is Buzz™.

Yeah, I'd love to gaffe this. Overstating the danger represented by your political opponents is always a winning strategy in Canada - just check my earlier posts. But which party do I assign it to? Buzz has advocated voting Liberal, albeit in a limited way, but he's also advocated voting NDP in seats where they can win. And now he's advocated voting Bloc. In short, don't vote Tory. Very helpful, but I can hardly score any particular party for it. I could almost claim the Liberals, since Martin was the only leader so far this election dumb enough to share a stage with this particular loose cannon, but that's a stretch. Buzz is a party all on his own.

Instead of gaffe points, I'll instead award Buzz the RevMod Nice Big Cup. Congratulations, Buzz.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Democracy just doesn't work.

Confirming this Kent Brockman truism, Stephen Harper in the Globe and Mail:

"The reality is that we will have, for some time to come, a Liberal Senate, a Liberal civil service -- at least senior levels have been appointed by the Liberals -- and courts that have been appointed by the Liberals," Mr. Harper said.

"So these are obviously checks on the power of a Conservative government."

Am I the only one who finds this declaration a little disconcerting?

This is an argument designed to counteract what I suspect a lot of people are thinking: that a Tory minority will not be able to radically change the country, but a Tory majority may pursue radical changes that go well beyond the moderate and reasoned platform we've heard from Mr. Harper over this campaign.

What's missing from Harper's reassurance here? Well, for one thing, an actual reassurance. He doesn't say "We won't pursue a radical agenda going well beyond our platform." He doesn't say "We're not the old Reform / Canadian Alliance Party, that Canadians rejected election after election." He expects us to instead rely on institutional inertia to prevent Conservatives from ________. And he doesn't spell out what belongs in that blank.

There are two possible (and mutually exclusive) reasons why he doesn't promise moderate, careful government, even if granted a majority. It's possible that he doesn't want to be handcuffed by such a promise if he has the opportunity to make radical changes to the country. Alternatively, he may have no intention of making radical changes, but large swaths of the Conservative core support are expecting those changes. Could Harper say he has no plans to curb the right of gay couples to marry, and still get the whole bunch of old-timey Reformers out on election day?

I don't follow the polls in detail - why ruin the surprise? But it's become apparent to me that Canadians want a Harper government, restrained by a minority. "Minority" isn't on the ballot. Even Harper is being clear here that Canadians aren't comfortable with an unrestrained Tory agenda.

Despite this spin effort, one of the more clever I've seen coming from a surprisingly clever and self-aware spin room, Canadians may very well back away from a Tory majority once again, and like 2004, accidentally end up with another Liberal government as a result.

Two candidates

You know, I'm finding myself more often stumped than not each time I hear of another stupidity coming from the election hustings. Really, do bad ads really qualify for the meter the same way "beer and popcorn" does? Do candidates engaged in shifty shenanigans qualify as "gaffes"? It's time to get back to the gaffe-o-meter roots.

Dictionary.com, which is hardly the OED but will do for our purposes, defines a gaffe as "A public place of entertainment, especially a cheap or disreputable music hall or theater." Hmm.

Okay, there's also this pair of definitions:

A clumsy social error; a faux pas.

A blatant mistake or misjudgment.

So, let's talk about our two British Columbia candidates, one Liberal and one Conservative, who have both become independent candidates, thanks to allegations of very questionable behavior. Our one-time Liberal, David Oliver, is accused of bribing the New Democrat candidate in the riding not to split the vote. The net result is that the Liberal/NDP vote is indeed unlikely to be split in Abbotsford after all. Meantime, the former Conservative candidate, Derek Zeisman, is accused of dodging Canadian taxes (specifically, import duties), which can't look too good in the wake of Harper's debate accusation of the Prime Minister's little canoe concern doing the same thing. I'm sure Mr. Zeisman's Uncle Red is very disappointed in him. (You have to check the picture with the CBC story linked to really enjoy that.)

These weren't "clumsy social errors". These weren't "mistakes," blatant or otherwise. These were people who (again, allegedly - innocent until proven guilty) tried to pull fast ones. A fast one, successful or not, is not a gaffe.

Meantime, had either party tried to avoid the issue, that could be a blatant error, but neither did. Both parties faced the potentially embarrassing situations head-on, and got rid of the candidates as best they could given the timeline. There are no gaffes here. Like the income trust issue, what we have here are issues best settled in a court. No gaffe points.

Ah, the ads. Guns in the streets, and what-not.

I'm not going to revisit at length the reasons the ads, the backpedaling, and the threats of violence are gaffes. I mean, c'mon. Straight to the scoring.

The whole party, including the Prime Minister, has been drawn into the discussion of these ads. The Liberals are behind, they needed a huge debate from Martin, and they needed two weeks of spin and policy to follow. Instead, the ads, especially the pulled ad, are the only Liberal story being covered. The ads were a hail mary attempt to turn the election around, and instead, they've given the Tories a shot at a majority. That scares me a little.

Hey, wait! Maybe that was the strategy! Give the Tories a big lead to get a rush of scared voters back to the fold!

Nah. They're just shockingly dimwitted. The (prom) of the entire party - how do you score that? I'm going make it a single calculation: call it "Prime Minister Plus". (Prom)3+1, multiplied by (sig)3. I'm calling the entire adscam (or is that word taken for something else?) twelve points. I'm clearly making this stuff up as I'm going along.

More on the notwithstanding clause.

Bear claims that rather than revoking s. 33, it might be easier simply for parties in power to stack the bench American-style.

I couldn't disagree more - in fact, I think revoking the notwithstanding clause is a sure way to make sure the bench is stacked that way. The existance of s. 33 gives the government an emergency pressure valve - a release. The French-language debate proved that beyond a shadow, with Jack Layton coming out as the defender of a clause that the Liberals accuse the Tories of wanting to use for social conservative purposes.

Remember, s. 33 is hard to use. There's enormous potential political consequences for using it. Further, any law invoking the clause has to be renewed every five years, so no idiocy goes unrevisited. Not every decision by the Supreme court since 1982 has gone the federal government's way, and yet the fed has never used s. 33. The notwithstanding clause is a uniquely Canadian compromise.

Greatest stregic voting guide yet

A tip of the hat to Andrew Spicer, who discovered this extremely useful and interactive guide to planning a tactical vote. It's not quite as perfect as I might hope; it's too ready to declare a close third-place candidate a write-off.

Please take note - if you select Conservative or Liberal and find your riding in the list, as election day gets closer, I can be convinced to trade. Try me - I still await your offers.

Haven't been gaffing

So, here's the thing. I'm not averse to continuing to count gaffes - it's just that the candidates have slowed right down at it. I'm not saying they aren't still making mistakes (some of them huge), but they aren't making the sort of mistakes that have them apologising and feeling stupid. Instead, they're making the sort of mistakes that leave them trying to spin. Can you imagine the Liberals trying to spin Beer and Popcorn? Of course not - all they could do was slap their foreheads, say "D'oh!" (and then grab Reid by the neck with a "Why you little....!"), and move on. That, my friends, is what a gaffe looks like. But backpedaling from a rhetorical turn of phrase to debate the separatist forces on every street corner? Not a gaffe, however dumb it might have been, and however good it allowed Harper to look picking up the gauntlet.

Likewise the nearly-universally panned threat to remove Parliament from the list of legislative bodies allowed to use s. 33. Or the new Liberal attack ads. The Liberals have been making some stupid decisions, but they haven't been making "gaffes", at least not lately.

This brings me to Marc Garneau. He said that Quebec separation is a bad idea.

"I believe there are a lot of sovereigntists who have not worked it through till the end," Garneau said Wednesday. "It's a little bit like the Unites States going into Baghdad. It happened very quickly, but what after that?"

Some people want me to score this. Certainly, it put the backs up on some separatists, and had some Liberals scrambling for political cover. But I fail to understand the math: If "Alberta separation is a good idea" = gaffe, "Quebec separation is a bad idea" shouls not also count as a gaffe. Forget it. Too many times this election someone (from any party) is seen pandering to separatists. I'm on the side of those who speak truth, even hard truth. I'm drawing a line. Saying separation, anywhere, is a bad idea gets a pass from me.

So in short, I really haven't missed anything gaffe-wise. However, I haven't seen Duffy v. Duffy yet, so there's still time.

Edited for word usage. Hey, YOU write these things at three am.

The Notwithstanding Question

There was some discussion among the Global 'experts', right before I had to cut the wall-to-wall debate analysis short for my job, about Martin's declaration that he would, "eliminate the notwithstanding clause". Except, and the news stories and spin rooms may be reflecting this, that's not what the Prime Minister said. What he proposed, and he was careful to couch this, was a restriction to keep the federal government from invoking the clause. That would still leave ten governments in this country with the opportunity to apply it to their own legislation.

Who's up for a s. 33 refresher? I remember the fun during the provincial elections I ran in, with angry constituents asking Lyle Oberg why his government hadn't yet used the notwithstanding clause to opt Alberta out of the gun registry. Or something. Now, these are not dumb people. However much my politics and the politics of farmers in rural southern Alberta may not overlap, I give them credit for being generally pretty smart individuals. But talk the subtleties of constitutional issues to the average voter, and they tend to glaze over. Who can blame them? The most extensive discussion of the notwithstanding clause in Alberta was around the recognition of gay marriage (could Alberta avoid it with the use of the notwithstanding clause? The answer, which few politicians admitted but most must have realized, was no). No wonder voters came to the conclusion that s. 33 is a big stick that's used to smack the federal government around.

In the meantime, even though it could, the federal government has never felt the need to invoke s. 33.

What would it take to legislate the change Martin is suggesting? Would the federal government be satisfied with a Parliamentary resolution establishing it will never use s. 33? It would have the same effect in law as the various pieces of legislation enacted by governments banning deficit spending - there'd be a stink overturning it, but a government that wanted to violate the law would only have the additional impediment of revoking it. Conversely, the Liberals could attempt a constitutional amendment, which in this case (affecting the federal government alone) wouldn't require any provincial support

44. Subject to sections 41 and 42, Parliament may exclusively make laws amending the Constitution of Canada in relation to the executive government of Canada or the Senate and House of Commons.

but we return to the same problem we have with the resolution: repealing the amendment would be a simple matter of getting the approval of the House of Commons.

What Paul Martin is talking about is a symbolic act of claiming he likes the Charter better than Stephen Harper. That strategy might even work. But the proposal simply doesn't have any practical effect.

Three quick debate observations, before going to work and spending some time and thought coming to conclusions others will draw more quickly

First, this format was much, much more effective. Direct clash without overtalking worked to define and differentiate the leaders.

Second, Gilles Duceppe is certainly getting the crap kicked out of him tonight. Yay!

Third, does anyone else find it strange that Martin and Harper are the ones invoking Broadbent and Douglas? "Vote for my party, because it believes in the same things the NDP does." Er.....

This week in entertainment news

David Letterman goes to town on Bill O'Reiley. It was nothing like Jon Stewart on Crossfire, but it was fun to watch none the less.

Speaking of Jon Stewart, he'll be hosting this year's Academy Awards. I'll be watching to find out which actors and directors he thinks is bad for America. Can't wait!

(Wondering where my regular posts are? I wanted to leave my vote trade offer front and centre for a few days. Regular posting, including a little discussion of Marc Garneau, now returns. However, if the posts appear to be at strange hours of the day, well, I'm a night shift man now. Ick.)

Don's guide to intelligent tactical voting

Regular and long-time readers know I hate talking about polls. Other blogs have the topic well-covered. For me, the further away from the horse race coverage I can stay, the happier I am.

The results of this poll, though, are worth talking about. Jack Layton certainly sat up and took notice of it, judging by his messaging this week on the trail: New Democrats who want the party to do well need to vote NDP. That's certainly true, in places like Windsor and Oshawa, where he's taken that message. But I live in Edmonton Centre. What's a vote for the local NDP candidate going to do? How will it change the results of the election one way or another?

I refuse to feel guilty about casting a tactical vote in Edmonton Centre. Why shouldn't I cast one? The New Democrat is not going to win the riding.

I wrote my original post on tactical voting a few days before the last federal election. It was a much simplified version of what I have here. Basically it consisted of (a) determine which candidates in your riding have a chance to win, and if there's any sort of contest, then (b) select your preference between or among those candidates.

Let's consider those points before moving on to advanced strategic voting for the real political hacks among us.

Which candidates have a chance of winning the riding? There are three-hundred and eight separate elections, all scheduled for January 23. If you're confounded because you can't find Jack Layton on your ballot, strategic voting might not be for you. If you think every candidate has an equal chance, or only think in terms of the national parties' chance of forming a government, strategic voting is also not for you - don't do it.

If you're certain there's only one candidate that has a chance, a guaranteed winner, don't bother with a tactical vote there, either. Give your favourite party a buck and a half, and feel good about the decision.

But what if it's a real race? Take my own riding as an example. Going by previous elections, there are two candidates with a chance: the incumbent Liberal, Anne McClellan, and the Conservative candidate, Laurie Hawn. (Jack Layton hates strategic voting, because casual voters presume this is the race in every English-speaking riding, but in mine, it happens to be true.) Now, part of me wants to vote Liberal, because I really don't care for the social conservatives among the Tories at all, and from the sounds of things, they're just biding their time. And part of me wants to vote Tory because I'd really like to see the Liberal party spend some time on the bench (in the hockey sense, not the "Court of Queen's" sense), which they've more than earned. Then again, it's nice having at least one little island, even of red, in the Alberta sea of Tory blue. In other words, I could see myself voting Liberal or Conservative come election day. What I can't see myself doing, despite knowing, liking, and respecting the local NDP candidate, is spending a ballot on a candidate who I know can't win, when that ballot could be used to tilt the seat one way or the other.

Let's add another level of complexity to the mix: vote trading. It was suggested by one Tory resident of Trinity-Spadina that I might offer my vote to help defeat a Liberal, in exchange for his vote to help defeat Tony Ianno by voting for Olivia Chow. That's an exchange I'd be interested in. Likewise, I could happily move my vote to Regina Qu'Appele, if some Liberal there wanted to help put my man Lorne Nystrom back in the House, while saving the skin of the deputy PM. These are two places off the top of my head where an NDP vote is a strategic choice, and one of the two potential governing parties is a wasted vote. Why shouldn't I use the leverage I have as a resident in a very close riding to help get another New Democrat into the House of Commons? There are many, many other ridings that likewise are close races between the New Democrats and someone else - I'm certain Bear could recommend a few in the Lower Mainland, for instance.

Likewise, I've heard you hard-core New Democrats at conventions, claiming there's no difference between Tories and Liberals. Some of you live in unwinnable ridings, and you know it. Put your vote where your mouth is, and transfer it to a winnable riding, in exchange for casting a vote for a potential winner in your own.

If I had the disposable income today, I'd register tradeyourvote.ca and offer up a place where those savvy enough among us could get our votes to places they matter. If the interest exists, I'll set up a page for it in this domain. But in the meantime, be encouraged to use this discussion thread to offer up those otherwise wasted votes. While we wait for proportional representation, let's use the system we've got to elect the members we want.

Update, Thursday early evening: Based on the first few comments, a couple of things deserve to be pointed out.

First, Idealistic Pragmatist wrote a good piece back when Hargrove was yipping his yap about straegic voting. One very important point stressed there: if your riding is a true three-way race, don't try to overthink it. Vote your favourite if you think s/he has any chance to win.

Second, is vote trading really illegal? I could imagine a law against trying to sell your vote, but I can't imagine this. If commenter "Bryan" is correct, I look forward to being a test case. What an exciting opportunity to be a spokesperson for electoral reform. Please, make me a vote trade offer in a close NDP race.

2006: The Year of the Gaffe

I remember when I used to be known for something other than tracking the idiocy of nobodies. Those were good times. We're definitely revamping the rules the next time around, which I still suspect will be sometime around this time next year.

But in the meantime, Gordon Stamp gets recognized for his goofballery on Free Dominion, threatening to start working for Alberta independence if the Liberals win another election. These dumbasses have to learn to keep off the internet; a little knowledge is proving to be an extremely dangerous thing. Prom(1) x sig(1) = 1. I was thinking of a sig(2), but it's gotten no play, and really given a chance for the Tories to play Captain Canada again in their quick and loud denounciations.