[Marcarc]

Can we have some verification of this? Unfortunately in this medium anybody can say anything, what is the source and where is the quote?

[Roy_Whyte]

[QUOTE BY= Marcarc] Can we have some verification of this? Unfortunately in this medium anybody can say anything, what is the source and where is the quote?[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Ditto. You know I heard Harper roasts puppies and Martin likes to eat them while Layton cheers it on in a wedding gown. See anybody can say anything, that does not make it true.

[Marcarc]

I suspect the quote wasn't that aggregious, but there's no doubt that green supporters are overwhelmingly urban. Rural voters really are in a tough spot, unfortunately green policies would often lead to MORE jobs in rural areas. I hate to say it but rural areas are even MORE controlled by the lobby groups than urban voters. At least in urban areas there is more than one voice. I picked up a forestry newspaper at the Royal Agricultural WInter Fair and the paper was clearly lobbying for COMPANIES, not the people who actually live in those areas. Unfortunately, in a rural area you literally only get one spokesperson-usually the company thats been laying off workers by increasing technology and moving elsewhere.

[Roy_Whyte]

[QUOTE BY= Marcarc] I suspect the quote wasn't that aggregious, but there's no doubt that green supporters are overwhelmingly urban. Rural voters really are in a tough spot, unfortunately green policies would often lead to MORE jobs in rural areas. I hate to say it but rural areas are even MORE controlled by the lobby groups than urban voters. At least in urban areas there is more than one voice. I picked up a forestry newspaper at the Royal Agricultural WInter Fair and the paper was clearly lobbying for COMPANIES, not the people who actually live in those areas. Unfortunately, in a rural area you literally only get one spokesperson-usually the company thats been laying off workers by increasing technology and moving elsewhere.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> If we can get factory farms under control and stem the loss of family farms, the rural parts of Canada are going to see a revival in the next twenty years. With the end of cheap oil and the energy it gives us, a return to the old ways will be a must. Rural areas will see more farming come back to their areas. It will be suburbia that dries up and disappears. We will be for the most part left with highly packed urban areas and larger populations in our rural areas - not necessarily a bad thing, but with everything in life that too will bring challenges.<br /> <br /> The Greens are getting lots of bad press lately. But in the larger scheme of things beyond the old "even bad press is good press", is that the party is no longer ignored. Once they start to target you, that means you must be at some level a threat to somebody.<br /> <br /> I don't have the exact numbers for which (urban vs rural) voted in greater numbers for the Greens, but it would be interesting to see them. Certainly the Greens are more popular in BC than anywhere else, and barely register in Quebec, but that does not cover the rural vs urban issue.

[Brent Swain]

The quote was on CBC in the morning of the 13th by a former Newfoundland candidate who quit the green party when they opposed the seal hunt, and had no proposals as to what Newfies would do to replace the lost employment. The party leader told her that ,as the Green party could expect very few votes from rural areas , and the party's strength was mainly in urban areas,the party had absolutely no interst in representing the interests of rural voters, period.<br /> Brent Swain

[Marcarc]

Yeah, sorry, I'm not buying into that. The 'party leader' isn't even identified so that's pretty spurious. Why somebody would even be a candidate in the green party and be surprised that they oppose a seal hunt is pretty nonsensical. I find it hard to believe that any politician, let alone a party leader, let alone the Greens who need every vote they can get, is going to be deriding any demographic. I would suspect that the actual comments are being taken out of context, however, I'd take this with a grain of salt until we actually get some kind of verification.

[Roy_Whyte]

[QUOTE BY= Brent Swain] The quote was on CBC in the morning of the 13th by a former Newfoundland candidate who quit the green party when they opposed the seal hunt, and had no proposals as to what Newfies would do to replace the lost employment. The party leader told her that ,as the Green party could expect very few votes from rural areas , and the party's strength was mainly in urban areas,the party had absolutely no interst in representing the interests of rural voters, period.<br /> Brent Swain[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> I am pretty good at Google searches and I could not find any official record of this. If someone has it, please post it, otherwise we must take it as a disgruntled candidate venting. Words are easy to twist and contort to what we want when we want to fit almost whatever situation we please. Direct quotes on the otherhand...

[Roy_Whyte]

[QUOTE BY= Marcarc] Yeah, sorry, I'm not buying into that. The 'party leader' isn't even identified so that's pretty spurious. Why somebody would even be a candidate in the green party and be surprised that they oppose a seal hunt is pretty nonsensical. I find it hard to believe that any politician, let alone a party leader, let alone the Greens who need every vote they can get, is going to be deriding any demographic. I would suspect that the actual comments are being taken out of context, however, I'd take this with a grain of salt until we actually get some kind of verification.[/QUOTE]<br /> <br /> Having lived most of my life on the West Coast of Canada and not knowing all that much about the actual people's feel for the seal hunt, I do see the Green Party's approach to this as weighing the good with the bad. With Europeans threatening to boycott our fish products in which only some 3% are derived from the seal hunt, it makes sense to protect the 97% at the expense of the 3%. Now of course there could be some middle ground to be found, but that would have to entail decades of animosity between the different parties. Deeply entrenched views are not easily overturned, as we all know.<br /> <br /> As for the former candidate bowing out due to her views being in direct opposition to the Green Party, that was her personal choice to make. Personally speaking now – she should have stayed for all the other reasons that brought her to the party but made it clear on that one issue that she did not agree. That is a fact in this world – we cannot always agree on everything. Voting the party line has its advantages and its obvious disadvantages. When it comes to actions in the House of Commons all MPs should feel that they can and should vote, as their constituents want them to, not as their party wants them to. That is democracy in action.<br />

[Marcarc]

Well, personally speaking I don't think OTHER people making our decisions for us is 'democracy in action', but thats another issue.<br /> <br /> As we've been saying I wouldn't even necessarily think it was a real stretch, since there is a perception of rural vs. urban as far as the Greens go. However, I did a VERY quick study of the past election and there really wasn't much of a rural vs urban difference. Rural ridings were getting the same percentage votes going green as were urban areas. However, it DID seem to vary among provinces. I only looked at Nfld, NB, Saskatchewan and Ontario, but Ontario seemed to be 3% higher to around 5%. The other provinces vary in the 1-3% range.<br /> <br /> What makes me very suspicious about the story is that Green economic policies are quite clear as far as taxation goes, which is to favour taxes on resource extraction and credits on environmental rehabilitation. This clearly means that rural areas would benefit because industry would be encouraged to use LESS technology and MORE 'smart models' which are generally kinder to the environment, and tend to favour heavy labour use. So rural areas would get MORE jobs, something that is the central issue in rural areas.<br /> <br /> So for one thing to believe this story we have to believe that the Green Party didn't even do an analysis of the last election to see where there votes were coming from-which is HIGHLY unlikely, no party is THAT stupid. So the greens know that while they get fewer percentage votes in the maritimes, its NOT divided on rural and urban lines.<br /> <br /> Being from the maritimes I know that there is little immigration in most areas, and the people there are VERY traditional. Many british loyalists have always voted on party lines for the same reason they belong to their church-because their parents did. These are the real issues, certainly not because of the seal hunt. <br /> <br /> We have to remember also that there are alwasy pat politician answers to the 'alternatives' issue. Meaning, instead of hunting seals skills development can take place, investment in other sectors of the economy can take place, even increasing EI. Very few parties oppose a policy or practise without at least using one of the pat political answers. Few use the "it's wrong, we're going to stop it, your all screwed" response to voters. It's politics at its DUMBEST.

[Rural]

I am sorry to say that ANY party that puts rural issues high on their list to the detrement of policies that favor the urbanite will not get far. We are the forgotten minority, a quick look at the Canadian census numbers will tell you that our future lays in the hands of city folk, many of whom neither know or care about the importance of our family farms, our forests, and our impact upon air and water quality. That said the Greens & CAP at least do not seem to be in bed with the corporations who would take over (and destroy) the long tradition of INDEPENDENT family farms and SMALL buisnesses that are the last line of defence for many rural communities.

[whelan costen]

CAP is the only party calling for a moratorium on foreclosure of farm property. Why, because we know that without the family farm, we are nothing but a resouce for corporate production. Rurual communities are losing the farms, their losing the post offices, the hospitals and everything that supports a community. People will be pushed into the cities so that all land in the rural areas can be exploited for oil/gas and to produce the gm crops without any interference from any concerned citizen. <br /> <br /> Farmers will be working for minimum wages harvesting someone elses crop! It isn't just about the lifestyle it is about our food supply. Hopefully Canadians will see it before it is too late.

[Marcarc]

I would say that it's pretty much too late for the above. Apart from mennonites in southern ontario I don't know ANY farms that are not corporations, and I don't think I've seen a rural area with a post office. The question is, how do you 're establish' such farming practices? Although at least a moratorium shows that it is an issue.

[Brent Swain]

The suggestion that Newfies give up traditional ways of life for the new, corporate Newfoundland sounds like what Joey Smallwood promised decades ago. Instead of becomming participants in the new corporate Newfoudland they went from a degree of cashless self sufficiency to a welfare province.<br /> I recently heard Corky Evans on CBC say that every major party of every stripe in Canada has joined the war onrural subsistence living, with an agenda of forcing Canadians off the land and into the cities, to make their lives easier to manage and intrude upon by governments and corporations.<br /> A similar thing happened just before the fall of the Roman empire and many other empires before them. This time it will be global.<br /> Brent

[Brent Swain]

The Green party 's policy on the gun registry is to scrap it and find more useful ways to spend the money, something which is very supportive of rural self sufficiency. Harper has only given lip service to such a proposal, while doing the opposite in many ways. He was the only reform party MP that voted in favour of the gun registry, and his word is law. Other tory members are forbiden from questioning him on this or any other issue. He is the absolute dictator on tory policy at the moment.
A vote for any of the Conservatives is a vote for Harper alone. The rest don't count.
Brent

[sasquatch2]

Brent Swain

$1:

The Green party 's policy on the gun registry is to scrap it and find more useful ways to spend the money, something which is very supportive of rural self sufficiency.

Sounds like the Greens have one redeeming quality.

Returning Canada's agriculture to 19th century practice is a guaranteed recipe for famine. In the 19th century, 50% of it's productive capacity wernt to feeding horses.