Tuesday, July 20, 2010
It Must Be Summer...
While I understand why some of my friends in the Liberal blogosphere are exercised about Census-Gate, can you honestly tell me that this would be a story any other time of the year? No, we shouldn't be cutting the long census. No, StatsCan is not going to sell your personal, confidential information to the highest bidder. Yes, the information acquired in the long census is useful. But since when have the Tories cared about doing the right thing for Canada's future? The actual political football of the census is its impact on the new electoral map that will follow. When you hear Republicans belly-aching about the census they're worried about cities being over-counted not about any privacy concerns. However, gerrymandering is not a major part of Canadian politics and nobody expects Elections Canada to start drawing ridings that look like American congressional districts. Long census or not, we will know where the seats are going come the end of the 2011 census. Bring on the open nominations, merged ridings and all the associated in-fighting. The last redistribution brought us the epic Valeri-Copps nomination battle in Hamilton. Now that is political fodder you can sink your teeth into.
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2 comments:
Well at least you're in touch with ordinary Canadians. But having read many Liberal blogs lately it has now become obvious that part of the problem with the Liberal Party is that its membership is not in touch with ordinary Canadians. The focus on this census long form is bizarre and the attacks against the police actions are not supported by a very, very strong majority of Canadians. I'm a centrist and former Liberal, but until Liberals get back in touch with the concerns of ordinary Canadians they won't be heading back to power.
It is my understanding they are decriminalizing it and boosting the amount of long forms from 1/5 to 1/3 so I am not sure where the cancel the long form started.
If I was playing devils advocate, I would suggest the CPC do these inside Ottawa baseball stuff to get the media and opposition to chase their tail.
I look forward to the hearing of the opposition demanding we keep the threats to jail and fine on the long form. I look forward to these clips on the campaign.
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