Mark H.

It never should have been reduced. Poor policy, good politics.

Your comment about "shy Tories" and how they affected the polls in England really made me think of all of the people that have told me this election "I'm voting Conservative, but don't tell anyone", including this morning. It makes me wonder how many people are in that same boat. I look at all of the personal attacks made on the two of us here, and it really is a reflection of why people are downright afraid to speak up anymore unless they say they are voting Liberal or New Dumb. It's not worth the aggravation and the insults. Just quietly vote Conservative, and move on, without having to be yelled at by imbeciles. In real life - as in life outside of this forum - I am the exact opposite of a shy Tory. Try having a discussion about anything but Conservative with a bunch old farmers in a rural coffee shop - then you'll learn what a true roasting is.

Old John A. Drank gin in the HOC - it looked like water

The fact that people can walk down the street wearing a niqab if they choose - the fact that people are identified before the citizenship ceremony - makes the entire issue irrelevant. Harper was trying to create a political wedge - it backfired. In fact, this kind of political strategy is called a dead cat. Take an issue that doesn't matter and use it to create a wedge. Throw a dead cat on the table...

At least I turned this crap off and got some marking done - don't have to ask for 3 hours of my life back. Brain thrust should be scared of fan apathy...

That's the Brandon-Souris riding - it almost swung to the Liberals in a by-election

My company exports almost everything to the US so the low dollar is a real win for us. Come to think of it, I should be voting NDP! Doh...Priorities are mixed up, yo why do you say that? Oh - just the thought of KBF voting NDP.

My company exports almost everything to the US so the low dollar is a real win for us. Come to think of it, I should be voting NDP! Doh... Priorities are mixed up, yo

Not really moral authority. They ran on tough on crime and run successive campaigns. Thats not a moral authority issue. Its a voter issue. And it was the courts that made the Niqab an issue this election. And the 70% of Canadian who agree with the Conservative opinion. I agree the media blew it out of proportion as an issue impacting Canadians though. Its sort of one of those no-brainers that it makes "common sense" and so many Canadians agree, that it really shouldnt have been an issue. But the courts disagreed. Which is the role of the courts, so be it. It wasn't the courts or the media that connected the hijab to 'protecting Canadians from Terrorism.' But I'm not going down that road again - been there - done that.

There has been a whole lot of moral authority coming from harperquarters. Tough on crime, making niqab an issue (dare I say it), etc. etc.

This turn out is good news for the Cons. if those advanced polls were located in retirement homes but basically bad news if they weren't. They weren't. I'm in my late 30's - plenty of friends who are my age or younger voted yesterday

Maybe there's hope for democracy yet - if only there were more swing ridings across the country

2.4 million people have voted at advance polls. People were saying lineups were as long as 30 minutes.

That's easy - it's at the bottom of a Bombay bottle

Just wondering, do these polls reach people through social media or are they conducted as in the past, strictly by phone? • Ballot tracking reflects only the first choice given by decided voters • A national dual-frame (land+cell) random telephone survey is conducted nightly by Nanos Research throughout the campaign using live agents. Each evening a new group of 400 eligible voters are interviewed. The daily tracking figures are based on a three-day rolling sample comprised of 1,200 interviews. To update the tracking a new day of interviewing is added and the oldest day dropped. The margin of error for a survey of 1,077 decided voters is ±3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. • The margin of error for weekly surveys before Sept. 4 is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 This is way off topic, but if there are any statisticians out there, can you tell me why they phrase things like this. Is the margin of error +/- 3 or not .... if this happens to be the 20th time, what is the margin of error? Or is it completely unknown? 19/20 is 95% so why not just build that other 5% of uncertainty into the +/- 3. It all seems a little hodge-podge. It helps to cover their asses when they get it wrong. That's what I was going to say, it's sort of just like 60% of the time it works every time. Just a way to say usually it's within the 3 points but that one time you might get something totally screwy. I used to teach this stuff - switched to English and History. Every confidence interval has it's own margin of error. + or - 3% just happens to be the one they use for a 95% confidence interval. A 90% interval would have an even broader margin, whereas if you have a 99% confidence interval the margin of error is half of a percentage point. https://www.google.ca/#q=90%25+confidence+interval

Liberals have 120 seats on the poll tracker. And team New Dumb is down to 84 seats and dropping, daily. So happy to see that.... Some people like bashing Trudeau but he's done well and is winning Liberal seats back. Sure. Not entirely sure what your response has to do with me mentioning that the New Dumbocrats are falling in the polls, but all righty then. Because people who decide not to vote NDP again will very likely vote Liberal. If they had a snob like Ignatief running again, that wouldn't be the case.

Liberals have 120 seats on the poll tracker. And team New Dumb is down to 84 seats and dropping, daily. So happy to see that.... Some people like bashing Trudeau but he's done well and is winning Liberal seats back.

Curious: what's LPC seat projection at this point?

The more I read about this deal, the more it fits with rural ridings being strong CPC supporters. Harpers already upset some of his support base by taking away the wheat board's monopoly. Whether or not the pay out for dairy farmers is warranted (the wheat board issue is debatable) the CPC simply could not afford to upset their support base again.

NDP vote splitting helped the CPC last time - no such luck this time

Yes, I'm not sure why compensation is required at this point. Mind you, farmers make up a good chunk of Harper's support base, with most rural ridings being a Conservative slam dunk. That's just my own theory though.

Supply management is great for those farmers that have quotas. Not everyone paid for them - most were inherited when the system was put into place. The concerns raised here are all valid. It's just a matter of time till supply management is gone. To the majority that inherited their quota, this shouldn't matter. But there is a growing number of producers who have purchased quota over the years, spending millions of dollars. Those people should be compensated, but will they?

What happened to NDP? Mulcair saying he'd block that trade deal really helped their cause. /sarcasm Most unionized industries are heavily dependant on exports. What on earth was he thinking?

While they are not directly connected, they both came about the same way. Conservatives are racists and hate muslims. Here is your proof. I never said that, nor would I ever. But the hijab issue is a despicable thing to raise as an election wedge issue.

The hijab issue is not necessarily connected to the refugee issue. The hijab issue should not even be an issue - people are identified before they swear the citizenship oath.