Mark…it was a sham and it flopped. Canada endorses SSM. Harper played to his base, it was soundly defeated, he now wipes his hands of it all.

May Soy…what is 1ppp voting, sorry I’m missing the jargon. You are correct in stating that Canada, today only has one party right of centre, the problem is it is far right. We used to have right of centre, left of centre, those day’s are gone.

Truth is, Canada is progressive. This PM, in a minority government, does not enjoy acceptance.

Elections are around the corner.

How great to find a blog in Oz. I love your country (I have been there) and would move there in a second, if Harper is re-elected to a majority and I could afford it.

Hmm, that’s odd Brian. Still, you weren’t missing much.

Well, yes, he presided. And Canada had done, and continued to do, pretty much nothing about it.

Alright, I’m being a bit snarky. Dion seems like a decent chap, even if he should never use the word ‘humble’ of himself when speaking in English (it just doesn’t fit the stereotype for his accent). And it was a pretty cool upset, esp since he was almost the only federal party insider but had very little support from any part of the party machine.

Phil: luckily for me I was in Australia during Rick Mercer’s interview with Bob Rae. Whew! And no mention of Ken Dryden, the former Montreal Canadien’s goalie and sporting god (who seemed to me to do a very good job on the speeches front)? Of course, would have been a disgrace for Australia if Canada had a sporting superstar as PM and Australia didn’t.

The dangerous site had a different url though. Curious!

Phil I’ve got a sister who lives in Mississauga. She occasionally delivers an opinion on the politics there but it makes me realise that Canada is largely off the radar for our MSM.

It is interesting to know how the Left is doing in diverse places. There have been some disappointments recently eg The Netherlands where Labour was a cert but got done over by a conservative party that used unusually (for The Netherlands) negative tactics. BTW immigration, Muslin dress codes etc were NOT issues in the campaign. Or so they kept saying.

Any tips on how the free vote in Parliament on repealing same sex marriages Harper is bringing on will go?

The real trouble is that Canada has the 1ppp voting system and there is only one party on the right while on the centre-left you have the NDP (the REAL left party), the Liberals and the Greens, all of which will leech votes off each other.

However, I am hopeful that when I visit Canada next northern summer they will have a change of regime.