May Day

At least Canadian politicians still have shame. Elizabeth May is now in the televised leaders debates. Layton and Harper both backed down from their childish, selfish, cowardly, and idiotic boycott stances. I'm not that surprised, since this actually gave the Greens MORE publicity, and would have been mentioned time and again as the debates neared. I'm even less surpised because the NDP and Conservatives have a history of making foolhardy gaffes and constantly removing their feet from their respective mouths.

This interests me, from May -

"That's my main goal: To take them away from the pre-scripted, pre-prepared little advertisements for oneself that party leaders usually do and get into something more spontaneous."

Wait, an ACTUAL debate? Now that would be interesting to see.

This is shaping up to be an intriguing battle across all parties. If you think keeping track of the attacks between two parties is fun... well, here's an example of how it works here:

NDP attacks Conservatives and Liberals, Conservatives strike back at NDP, Liberals turn focus off them to Conservatives, Bloc Quebecois gets attacked by NDP, Liberals, and Conservatives, the Greens toss a small jibe at everyone, NDP strikes back, Liberals back Greens, etc, etc... It's an increasingly more complex knot all the time, and it all gets crammed into a month.

An interesting aside from that article - the attacks on the Bloc from both the Conservatives AND from the seperatists in Quebec. This COULD be the beginning of the end for the light blue party if it continues. I'll give Quebecers this - they'll strike back hard if they feel the Bloc isn't giving them what they want.

Also, I actually agree with Harper's comment about Ford. It's not the job of the government to guarantee jobs to people. The billions of dollars in grants to prop up the auto industry's presence in Ontario only delay the inevitable until the next round of gifts and tax breaks.

Yup, this is shaping up to be an interesting election...