Harper defence to Trial #2 Here’s what Harper is saying in response to questions about the senior advisors and senators involved in a cover up of the real facts in the Duffy senate expenses scandal: The Conservative leader refused to respond to direct questions whether Novak had his support and
Continue readingTag: framing
CuriosityCat: Duffy trial: Nigel Wright and Emails change the ballot box question
The Plausible Deniability chickens come home Stephen Harper, blinking furiously, tries to stick to his two self-chosen ballot box questions (security and economic growth), while disregarding question after question about what he knew about the cesspool of misdirection and lies that a group of senior Conservatives indulged in while trying
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Duffy Senate trial: The Missing Prime Minister “Shut Down” Email
Barrister Bayne, Duffy and Nigel Wright chronicleherald Yesterday Donald Bayne, the bulldog barrister acting for senator Duffy in Duffy’s criminal trial, focused on an email that Nigel Wright, the prime minister’s former chief of staff, had not disclosed as part of the 400 plus pages of email data dump. Found
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Trump would be the Disruptive Presidency that the USA needs
Professor Rapaille, archetype guru We first heard about the creativity of disruption in the 1950’s when Joseph Schumpeter revealed his theory: According to Schumpeter, creative destruction describes the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”.
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Linda McQuaig’s nettle gift to Tom Mulcair
About to grasp the McQuaig nettle? One of the NDP’s prize candidates has opened a can of worms that Mulcair wishes was not opened. Here’s one report on what Mulcair said, trying to douse the flames (note the part I have bolded and reddened): He pledged that an NDP government
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Frank Luntz and his very own Trumpenstein
The Luntz Nightmare … Poor Frank Luntz! He’s got his knickers in a knot about Donald Trump’s Patton-like charge across the 2016 Republican convention battleground: And you look at the Trump situation, where he can say just about anything, and it doesn’t seem to affect his support. It is not
Continue readingCuriosityCat: How Trudeau can remove the debate veto imposed by Harper and Mulcair
Possible debaters So Mulcair has decided he will only debate if the prime minister is debating? And Harper has decided not to debate in a forum that would attract the widest public viewership. This leaves the Liberals twisting in the wind. Or does it? One of the secrets of martial
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Election: EKOS poll – Seniors will return Harper to power as Prime Minister
A key statistic is not who favours what party before election day, but how many voters actually cast a vote on that day. Seniors vote. Younger voters don’t vote in the same proportions. The latest EKOS poll explains why Stephen Harper will be Prime Minister on September 20, 2015, leading
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Harper’s Just Not Ready attack boomerangs!
Seems the Trudeau attack ad works with Conservatives but is making NDP supporters think about voting for Trudeau’s Liberals: A Conservative Party attack ad targeting Liberal leader Justin Trudeau for being “just not ready” to lead the country is actually working to convince Canadians to vote for him, a Forum
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Donald Trump will become President in 2016
Trump’s Powerful Slogan Chances are very high right now that in early November 2016 we will find that Donald Trump will be the next president of the USA, after narrowly beating Hilary Clinton in the election. And the symbol of his meteoric rise to the most powerful elected position in
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Vanity Videos and the Morphing of the Tories
Mister 100 Percent Satisified Move aside, YouTube: here come the new, improved Harper Tories’ Vanity Videos, made especially for every Canadian voter: Employment Minister Pierre Poilievre won’t apologize for using taxpayer dollars to produce YouTube videos of himself promoting the universal child care benefit.Poilievre insisted Friday that he’s simply using
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Perils of the Welcome Change in the 2015 Election Debates
Good news: the Conservative Party has refused to debate the other opposition leaders before the traditional news broadcasters, and have suggested a dramatically different – and very welcome – change of format. But this decision by Harper’s election brains trust might prove to be the first major blunder in their
Continue readingCuriosityCat: 2015 election: Harper on road to minority government?
The problem? The latest compendium of polls by 308 have good news and bad news. Good news for Harper who – based on these results – would form a minority government after the 2015 election. Bad news for the Liberals, whose support is slipping. And good news for the besieged
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On enduring foundations
The framing panel at the Progress Summit included plenty of ideas as to how the left can shape political debates. But I’ll note that it seemed to miss a couple of related issues. Most notably, there was an almost exclusive focus on reaching out to swing voters rather than framing
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Legacy of Ottawa: The Gutting of Canada
When Stephen Harper’s spinners start pontificating about his steady hand on the tiller over the past decade or so, think on this: Is Canada’s economy really that much better off under his watch? Or has he presided over a country whose financial and economic muscles had continued to waste away.
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Pipelines and Ottawa’s dropping of the ball: Gordon Gibson nails it
Gordon Gibson: The Nailer If you are a politician, or work with any political party –federal or provincial or municipal – you should definitely read the succinct, well-written and politically significant articleby Gordon Gibson in the Globe & Mail, entitled Enough with pipelines. Refine it. Gibson summarizes, in one short
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Will Canada have a snap election over new anti-terrorist laws and ISIS?
Big Brother is watching … There is a clear fault line between the two opposition parties, and PM Stephen Harper’s policies with regard to how to combat ISIS. The Conservatives favour actual fighting (planes dropping bombs etc.), while the opposition parties are against this. The NDP is further from the
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Why is Justin Trudeau dancing to victory?
Heather Malleck in the Toronto Star has a few good reasons why our next Prime Minister will be named Justin Trudeau: But what makes some politicians attractive and others repellent? Trudeau is intelligent, humane and self-confident, a Québécois who is devoted to Canadian unity and has the most marvellous family:
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Israel & Framing the Issues: The Israel Project and Frank Luntz
A key to understanding the inner workings of modern politics is to understand what role the framing of issues takes, and the key to that is to understand why Frank Luntz, the Republican advisor, ranks at the top of political framing. The news is full of interviews of Israeli and
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Visionary Concept of Wildrose Party’s Danielle Smith: A National Energy Corridor
Danielle Smith: Visionary Canada’s wealth depends largely on our ability to export goods and services that others want to buy from us. And one of our major exports is energy – whether it be electricity or oil and gas. Our ability to export large quantities of energy is under threat
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