Actually, it's doing very well. The current minority government could well be headed for a majority; most folks are relatively pleased with the performance of the Conservative Party, as well as its leader, Stephen Harper.

There is some truth to the statement that the Conservatives are now in power because of the collapse of the Liberals - but Flavelle would do well to spend more time on the why's and how's of Liberal self destruction. It has a lot to do with a party that is so out of tiouch with ordinary concerns that it could choose a policy wonk like Stephan Dion as its leader, who - with the help of speechwriters like Flavelle - have helped it reach new historic lows in popularity.

The Liberals used to be popular for the reason that most Canadians could put up with the grandiose schemes of folks like Trudeau and the historic corruption associated with Liberals if, at the same time, Liberals focused on things that matter - like jobs, education, a proud military, health care, national unity.

But Liberals forgot that. Instead we've been treated to an almost daily spectacle of Dion ridiculing many of the common themes important to Canadians, while at the same time offering little more than a truly bizarre "Green Shift" that they themselves seem to have trouble defining. As a result in many of areas of the country they've been reduced to almost fringe party status; if they want to move above that, they'll have offer something constructive and coherent.

I'm not holding my breath.

and it's articles like this that demonstrate WHY. the Liberals have this bizzare belive that only THEY have any rightful claim to run canada and are the only aprty TRUE to our values or some such nonsense. I mean it says something when they describe themselves as the "natural governing party of Canada"

Talk to the hand, halifax. This article neatly summarizes why I have never voted conservative and never will. Conservatism is a blight and can only be treated by throwing a government of that persuasion out. The necessity for the bizarre 'green shift' you refer to is being illustrated right now by Ike. How many more hurricanes and floods will it take for you to wake up? These are not freak storms, they are the foreseeable and predicted outcome of unchecked climate change. What's bizarre is that you can't connect the dots and see that it is the Harper government that is responsible for your current situation. I've seen this so many times. People like you will blame God, foreigners, bad ju ju, the stars, Nostradamus, cloud formations, chaos theory, the Liberals and any other damn thing before you face what's right before your eyes. You'll even say it's all fine, just as you have.

It's like the Chinese Communists who believed that Mao didn't know what the Red Guards were doing during the Cultural Revolution and if only they could get a message to him all would be well. I remember reading about one man who wrote a letter to Mao on the topic and ended up in a labour camp. Don't laugh. The Germans didn't think it could happen to them either. The conservatives, with their militarism and their free market voodoo, are the most dangerous thing in the western world at the moment and Harper is a small part of a bigger problem. Conservatives don't believe in democracy, what they believe is that they are the natural party of government. We're seeing this now in Australia where we have a conservative opposition that is currently trying to introduce a money bill into the parliament even though constitutionally they can't do it because they're not the government. In their minds they ARE the government even when they're not and they are completely relentless and ruthless in their attempts to subvert the will of the people. The only thing the previous conservative Liberal/National Party government didn't do was cut taxes. They were the highest taxing government in Australia's history but Harper has made the classic conservative blunder and started slashing away at taxes which always reminds me of a man sawing away at a branch of a tree on which he happens to be standing. Leave him in power long enough and he will destroy your economy and your democracy. It's what conservatives do, operating under the belief that war is honourable in and of itself and solves geo-political problems, that we don't need to reason because God's in control and also that taxes are evil, as is government itself since God is the real government. They are sick puppies and the only cure is not to vote for them.

Wow, that is a scary thought!

"The conservatives, with their militarism..." Too bad Harper only has Canada's armed forces to back up his crazy ideals. Good thing the Liberals had stripped them of all money and equipment over all those years in power. Maybe they knew it could happen?

Probably that was why on day 2 of the election campain, Dion parked his tour bus in front of Dawson college on Montreal, and demanded that all "assault rifles" be banned. He knows that all those crazy consertive voting, deer shooting hunters are the right wing army just waiting to go amok! Btw, assault rifles are banned. That particular nut bar was using a semi-automatic rifle, a silly looking one, but still basically a deer rifle.

Man, lefties. Where do you guys dream this stuff up? Sitting with your feet up in the CBC cafeteria trading conspiracy theories.

So all those Canadian soldiers who got killed in Afghanistan are something I just dreamed up? Stop talking shit. I stopped counting after three red herrings in your riposte. You act as if Canada doesn't have a military capable of fighting in a war and as if it hasn't been caught up in the current conservative madness, namely Iraq and Afghanistan. You know it has and it is, so why do you start raving about deer hunters and deer rifles? What has any of that got to do with what I'm talking about. Nothing. You don't want to discuss the facts. You can't find a conservative of any nationality, or any era who isn't always secretly itching to go to war and to dismantle any publicy funded program (apart from war, which the taxpayers always fund) because it takes funds away from their wars. Add to that their mania for cutting taxes and what have you got? America. I would've thought that would be a big enough warning for anyone as Lehman Brothers joins the chorus line of collapsing American financial institutions. Don't think we're all not going to pay for Bush's wars -we are, for years to come, in an even worse fashion than we paid for Vietnam. Harper's just a wannabe neo con. He won't be allowed to be one but that's not to his credit - Canada simply has a stronger democracy than America does and less corruption. The what cafeteria? I don't have time for sitting around - I work for a living. I don't know what conspiracy theory you're referring to - maybe you should brush up on your history and you'll see it's all happened before and I didn't make any of it up. Maybe you'll even see a pattern emerging - if you can stop deer hunting long enough.

laforce,

It was Martin's Liberal Party government, not Harper's conservative government, that "helped" the United States attack Afghanistan, and on the most recent bill regarding extending troops to Afghanistan until 2011, the Liberal Party supported it.

Further, what's wrong with the United States?

The Liberal party supported it! What else did you expect them to do? Imagine the screams of 'traitor' and 'cowards' from the conservatives if they didn't and since they started the fiasco (misled by 9/11 as so many others were) they lacked the intestinal fortitude to say 'We were wrong and we should get the hell out of there as soon as we can.' I've seen that 'patriot' game played with vicious skill by the conservatives here. What's wrong with the United States? Currently: they are involved in two wars they can't win, they have the biggest deficit in their history and they owe money to everyone including China and have no way to pay it back, their banks are collapsing one after the other and their stock market is heading for a crash, there are entire neighbourhoods of empty houses that no one can pay for and no one can sell, they have deregulated everything including war, they're currently having forums on bringing conscription in so more Americans can die in their futile wars, they have a Vice Presidential candidate who wants to have wars with Iran, Pakistan and RUSSIA and thinks God created the earth in six days and that dinosaurs lived on the earth four thousand years ago and that the earth is around six thousand years old and that the Iraq war is 'a task from God', they have a Presidential candidate who thinks bombing Iran is funny and who told reporters on his campaign bus , 'The good thing about Alzheimers is that you can hide your own Easter eggs', they have a health care system that is a criminal scam and bankrupts hundreds of thousands of Americans every year and leaves 45 million Americans completely uninsured, the woman who tried to fix this situation was burned in effigy for her trouble and didn't get the Presidential nomination even though she won the popular vote, Henry Kissinger is still alive, Dick Cheney is still alive and parts of George W. Bush are still alive, at least below the neck, after years of denying climate change they are now being battered by devastating hurricanes and floods just as the scientists predicted. Any more questions? Now I suppose you're going to tell me nothing's wrong with America either. Don't waste your time.

The Liberals get so defensive and angry when they aren't in power don't they? Seems to me I paid high taxes with the "promise" of good health care and a good social support system as a mother. All I got from the Liberals was "put your kids in daycare", give us your money, and pretty much nothing in return. Nothing but scandal, lies, corruption. Actually funnily enough, the record shows that the Conservative government has done more for the environment than the Liberals. Liberals talk a good game. Just sick and tired of their superiority and all your yelling and ranting and raving just supports all that I beleive about that.

What about now? The Liberal Party is out of government, has a new leader and public opinion is very firmly against Canada's participation in Afghanistan, yet the Liberal Party still supports the war in Afghanistan.

Just to point, as a % of GDP, Canada has more debt than the United States and if it weren't for the increases in commodity prices over the past 5 years, Canada would owe money to "everyone."

Also, America's politicians and people may be less openly concerned about the environment and global warming but overall they consume less energy per capita than Canada and use about the same % of renewable energy as Canada. Further, the US invests more per capita into renewable energy than any other country in the world.

Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed - Trudeau

Sheesh, laforce. Go back to your Naomi Klein book and stop making us rational small-l liberals look like crackpots by association.

Tell me, what exactly do you want the Liberals to do? They're out of government and they can't take the troops out in any case, they don't have the power. They're just adopting the small target strategy that so many politicians resort to so that they don't give the other side free shots. If they get back into government one of the first things they'll do is bring those soldiers home. You know that as well as I do. In the current politicial climate everyone has to pretend to be conservative to be credible. It's not about what they believe, it's about political survival. That's why war is so useful to conservatives: it divides their opposition and allows the conservatives to paint them as cowards and lacking patriotism if they say the war's a dud. But I can tell you now, NO ONE is going to win militarily in Afghanistan. No one ever has. If you look at history you'll see that the British Empire had a disastrous defeat there and even the Red Army lost there.The current cry for more troops is completely misguided. America had 500,000 soldiers in Vietnam but after years of chaos and murder they left in a hurry after throwing their helicopters into the sea. If they're crazy enough to go into Pakistan (a nuclear armed country) and McCain and Palin certainly are, it will be a similar situation but much worse. No army, however big and well armed can defeat an insurgency. There are insurgencies going on all over the world and some of them have been going for forty years. The only way to end an insurgency is to negotiate and sign a peace deal because when the other side can make bombs out of junk for a few cents and blow your tanks up while you're spending huge sums to keep your soldiers in their country that is obviously unsustainable. America could drop some nuclear bombs on both Afghanistan and Pakistan but if it did the shit would really hit the fan because it would clearly be genocide which is a war crime and Pakistan has nuclear weapons of its own.

America's record on energy is abysmal and if you're saying Canada's is more abysmal that's a problem that needs to be fixed but I can't see how it makes America any less culpable for the campaign its run for decades sneering at the people who have now been proven to be right about energy use and climate change. And it wasn't ignorance. It was like the tobacco industry, they knew about cigarettes and all the diseases they caused and are still causing but they decided to lie. The oil companies and the coal companies in America are SUBSIDISED BY THE TAXPAYER. Only Arnie is making any sensible efforts on the energy front but of course he's one of those 'Europeans' the Americans despise so much. If you want to wear helmets and have guns why aren't you in Afghanistan? If America's such a leader on renewable energy and climate change why was it humiliated at the Bali climate change conference when one of the younger (non-American) delegates told the leader of the US delegation (who had been stonewalling all through the conference) 'If you don't want to lead, get out of the way and let us do it.' Doesn't sound as if they were seen as a shining light of progress on renewables to me.

The Conservatives don't have a majority, they needed Liberal votes to extend Canada's stay in Afghanistan until 2009 and again to extend Canada's stay until 2011, without those Liberal votes, Canadian troops would not be in Afghanistan right now. So they could have effected change but didn't...further over 70% Canadians think we should leave Afghanistan, so it is hard to support that the Liberals are only supporting the government in Afghanistan because of politics.

In regards to Afghanistan, Britain and the USSR sought to occupy Afghanistan for their own gain and therefore faced a homegrown insurgency. This one is completely different, it is the remnants of a state apparatus that has been strengthened by Western stupidity, but is not one that is fully supported by the occupants of the nation in which the insurgency is occuring.

Every nations record on energy is abysmal, except maybe Germany, France and the United Kingdom. You can say the United States hasn't supported or that it hasn't lied. The US simply said they wouldn't let environmental regulations get in the way of economic growth. Canada and the EU both agreed on the Kyoto Protocol, but instead of doing anything to meet those standards have increased their energy consumption and will most certainly not meet the 1990 targets by 2012. Canada has subsidies and generous tax breaks for mineral & petroleum extraction which are extremely harmful to the environment. Arnold's efforts are not even going that well. California won't be able to meet any of its obligations and the states that use the least non-fossil fuel based sources are Nevada and Texas.

Further, I served Canada in West Germany and Iraq.

Yes, 70% of people always say they want to get the troops out of any war but will they simply vote for the party that says they will do it? -no they will not. Because all kinds of other issues are used by the media and the political parties to muddy the waters. I still say the Liberals would be skating on thin ice politically if they said 'Get the troops out of Afghanistan' because there is a strong attempt now to paint the war in Afghanistan as the 'good' war, the one they should have fought instead of invading Iraq, when the truth is, they shouldn't have invaded either of these countries because what has happened with the insurgencies would have been foreseen by anyone with any sense or any understanding of history. There is a strange madness around the place now that says they HAVE TO WIN militarily in Afghanistan or some catastrophe will occur. What they seem incapable of understanding is that a catastrophe has already occurred, namely these two wars, and the only way to avoid further catastrophe is to end them.

If the conservatives and the Liberals both agreed to get Canadian troops out it could be done quite quickly but the conservatives will continue playing politics with the issue and the Liberals will respond by playing it safe and not getting too far out ahead of the conservatives on the issue because they don't want to be accused of being 'soft on terror', especially if an election is looming. The point is, as the saying goes, 'When you change the government you change the country'. Not everyone thinks Harper has changed it for the better and they're entitled to their opinion. Isn't that the kind of democracy the west is supposed to be bringing to these countries? Look at America's response to the loss of their puppet Musharraf in Pakistan: they start doing raids into Pakistan without the permission of the government, clearly trying to destabilize an elected government. This is the kind of irrational, nutsy behaviour that has led to the mess they're in and shows the people in these regions exactly what hypocrites they are. 'Do as I say, not as I do' is their motto. I don't think the entire population of Iraq supported the insurgency there either. In the terrible situation they were in most Iraqis supported the idea of living to see another day and little else. When the Nazis occupied France everyone didn't join the French Resistance and everyone didn't support them but no one condemns them now for what they did. History will condemn these wars, not the insurgents, in spite of their violence, because they were defending their countries from invaders which is what these armies are no matter what other fancy names they find for themselves.

Thanks for saying that Dusty Bear. I don't think I've ever seen hysterical typing before, but Laforce has done it.

PS. In the upcoming election, whoever prioritizes federal debt reduction the highest gets my vote.