Posted on 05/27/2005 10:14:48 PM PDT by goldstategop
Since it has been conclusively established that Canada's long-ruling Liberal Party is riddled with corruption in Quebec, since it has been unmistakably demonstrated that the Liberal government will sell out to the socialists to stay in power, and since it has become wholly evident that the parliamentary traditions that safeguard democracy mean nothing to them, what price for all this conduct can the Liberal party expect to pay in an election?
The answer, according to the first poll made since the party survived a crucial parliamentary division by a single-vote margin nine days ago, is no price at all. Liberal support has not been reduced by a single percentage point, a Leger Marketing poll found. If the election were held tomorrow, 38 percent of Canadians would vote Liberal, only 27 percent Conservative.
Their reason for shunning the Conservatives, however, was a telling one. Was it Conservative leader Stephen Harper, the pollsters asked? Not at all, came the reply – the electorate think Harper has far greater integrity than Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin. It's the Conservative Party as a whole they don't trust. They suspect and fear its "social" policies.
By this, of course, they meant the Christian influence, something the party's leadership of late has been at great pains to downplay. For instance, though Canada has no legal restriction on abortion whatever, the Conservatives flatly refused to discuss the issue at their last policy convention.
In other "social" matters, however, they have remained stalwartly traditional. They have taken a strong stand against gay marriage. They resist the growing intervention of the state into family life, contending that parents, not the government, should decide what moral principles are taught to their children. They support a parent's right to physically discipline a child, and they believe any federal day-care subsidy should be paid to the parent, not used to run government pre-school programs.
These are the policies that render the party "dangerous" in the eyes 38 percent of Canadians, the poll discovers. However, the poll's findings so mirror the editorial views of the Globe and Mail newspaper, which published it, that its credibility may be widely doubted.
History, however, lends it a certain believability. The late Kenneth Scott Latourette, the Oregon-raised historian of Christianity, in his massive mid-1950s history of the faith discloses two little-known facts about both American and Canadian religious practice. In the year 1800, he writes, slightly less than 7 percent of the U.S. population professed formal membership in a church. By 1910, this figure had risen to 43.5 percent, thanks to a massive campaign of evangelism waged throughout the 19th century to "convert" Americans to the Christian faith, and the proportion has remained in or close to that range ever since.
In Canada, by contrast, 95 percent of the population reported a church connection in 1910-11. This figure dropped to the 40 percent range during the Second World War and, if he had lived, Latourette would have seen it drop to 20 percent at the close of the 20th century. So Canada has been undergoing what Latourette terms "deChristianization" throughout the entire century, creating a widening gap with the U.S. on an integral issue.
Why this has happened to Canada, Latourette does not undertake to explain. One possibility is that Canada has always enjoyed a dependent role – dependent on the British Empire for the first two-thirds of its history, and on the American one for the remaining third. The United States, having had from the beginning no other country to lean on, has had to fend for itself, a necessity that has taught it to pray.
There is one other implication to the Leger poll. The party which 38 percent of Canadians fear and distrust draws about three-quarters of its numerical support from the four western provinces. It is, in other words, a western-based organization. From election results, it's plain that most of the 38 percent are concentrated in Ontario and Quebec. In short, the religious divide is also a geographic divide.
If the Conservatives want to form a government, the Globe and Mail endlessly lectures, they will have to suppress and silence their "socially conservative" wing. That is, the Conservative Party can only be elected if on social issues it becomes identical with the Liberal Party.
A rather large assumption is implicit in this line of argument – the assumption that if people are made to choose between their country and their faith, they will naturally choose their country. The Globe and Mail could be mistaken about that.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
How about a western succesionist movement? Let Quebec be independent, let the western provinces be US states.
Sorry. BC at least is FAR too liberal to ever consider admitting it as a state.
They are run by the Extremely Silly party.
The following is a true story:
On my first visit to B.C., about 15 years ago, I drove to Vancouver and parked in a parking lot. As I was getting out of my car, I was approached by a somewhat strange looking man, who asked in a strong Canadian accent: "Do you have any change for a loony?" I told the crazy panhandler that I would not give him any change.
It was only the next morning, as I read the paper, that I realized what Canadians call their one dollar coin!
I got a good laugh from that :)
Yes, BC is indeed very liberal. Most of them inhabit Vancouver Island and downtown Vancouver. The problem is I live Vancouver Island. So I rather they leave. If we did split from the East maybe they would because they would not be able to endure a free society.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
The BC Liberals are actually a right wing party. Yes, 41% of the populace wanted to put the NDP back into power.
Right. Belinda Stronach is about as Conservative as Bill Clinton. So, in essence, she didn't jump any ship, she moved where she belongs.
The following won't contribute much to the conversation, but you live on Vancouver Island? Victoria is absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous. You are so lucky to live near that.
Back to the discussion on Canadian politics....
Lord Nelson, like your screen name, Admiral Nelson is one of my all time Heroes! Interesting analysis on the role of Christianity in Western Society....what do you think about the hypothesis contrasting the political base between the US and CN?
It is amazing, imo, how increasingly evil, dark and fascist the Left becomes in modern countries where they have almost all power. We are fortunate in this country to have the opportunity and time for our eyes to be opened....but just barely and US Conservatives are seeking with all our resources to turn the TIDE and I do hope the CN Conservatives can also. The target is our 2008 Election and it will be very difficult to turn back the forces of tyranny, but we cannot and willnot fail!
Oh, the good old days....
"It was only the next morning, as I read the paper, that I realized what Canadians call their one dollar coin!"
LOL!
I'm sure you've heard of Cascadia
The Republic of Cascadia
http://zapatopi.net/cascadia.html
Do you know we have a two dollar coin now?
It's called the Toonie, so you see it's all true....We are loonie-toons up here!
Please let me know if you want on or off the Canada/Adscam ping list
Canada is a truly beautiful county and I hope to travel up there sometime in the future and get to know it better. My last visit was to Toronto in 1998. I found everyone was very pleasant and helpful to American tourists...hope that hasn't changed.
I would suggest anywhere out west, any part of rural Ontario, (including Ottawa, believe it or not), and the east coast.
I spoke to a lady from Georgia who now lives in Toronto, and she said she had been mugged 4 times in the 2 years since she moved there.
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