Canada: Globe & Mail disappears online poll favouring the NDP

[Minstrel Boy]

On Friday, Toronto's Globe & Mail - Canada's "paper of record", editorially establishment conservative - ran an online poll asking the question, "If a Canadian election is held in 2004, how will you vote?" Total votes numbered 31,089.

The results were:

Bloc Quebecois
585 votes (2%)

Conservative Party
9477 votes (30%)

Liberal Party
8584 votes (28%)

NDP
9624 votes (31%)

Other
2819 votes (9%)

The NDP, New Democratic Party, is the socialist left, resurgent under new leader Jack Layton. That the NDP could be the most popular choice must have been too much for the staid Globe. Because a funny thing about this poll: it seemingly never existed. Here's the Globe page of polls for the last seven days. Wha' happen to this one? (Oh right. Rhetorical question.)http://tinyurl.com/2zh47

A discussion here on Rabble, Canada's DU, about the, uh, oversight:

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=25&t=000533

[Virgil]

1. Thanks for the information

The NDP has called for the legalization of cannabis with Jack Layton saying straight out and with pride. Paul Martin of the Liberal Party wants closer ties with Washington now that he is the new Prime Minister. They have a deception going with the complicity of the press up there on cannabis policy. They are calling the the new rules they want for cannabis a decriminalization bill, but its major failings is it drastically increases the penalties for cultivation up to 14 years.

They want to bring in a police state where there is a ready market for a popular plant to bring money to those that grow, where they can seize the money American style.

The recent Supreme Court ruling on the government's ability to criminalize cannabis was based on many fallacies and was a political passing of the buck. What it actually did is impose a black market and the perils of prohibition on the people that is the source of more harm than cannabis itself.

The Liberal party is not even liberal and Martin coziness with the Americans is not respected. The Americans put a big softwood tariff on Canadian timber several years ago that severely jurt an ailing economy. Once Bush took office DEA agents set up office in Vancouver and police cars had American flag stickers. The pollution Bush allowed at the old steam plants gives Canada more acid rain that they previously endured. Under NAFTA they have to send oil to the US in an emergency even if they need it. Under NAFTA Federal Express sued their postal system for $230 million because it monopolizes the system to prevent duplication. The press in the US blew up Canada with SARS and the one mad cow disease before they even blamed this recent occurence on them.

Paul Martin is a 65 year-old fart that says he wants to be Prime Minister for 10 years as if it is all about him instead of the Canadian people, just like the prick now in Residence here.

Plus the Liberal Party has had more than its share of corruption scandals. To see the media bow to current powers is somewhat of a surprise, but it won't play well in Canada. The elections should come in the spring and the Liberals are going to get their butts kicked.

I think I will copy some of the thread starter up at cannabisnews.com.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

2. Did you see William Thorsell's column in yesterday's Globe and Mail?

Is it the year of progressive conservative Liberals?
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040105/COTHOR05/Columnists/Columnist?author=William+Thorsell

'This opens an avenue on the left for the refreshed New Democrats under Jack Layton, who is not regionally confined. Yes, he looks a lot like Lenin, but he's a shrewd man of popular ideas and good performance skills in a changing world. It is not fanciful to imagine the Conservatives as the impotent NDP of the right under Stephen Harper, while the NDP itself emerges as the real contender for power against the progressive conservative Liberal status quo.

Mr. Manning failed; Mr. Mulroney prevailed; Mr. Martin presides; Mr. Harper recedes; Mr. Layton emerges. And English-speaking Canada has the reins.'

I may have to revise my estimate of NDP seats upwards. Ha!

[Minstrel Boy]

5. Only good news these days for NDPers,

which is a refreshing change!

The Liberals slapped up an webpage written by Dennis Mills attacking Layton. Nice to see Layton gets under their skin. :)
http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/es.es-01-06-0048.html
Here's the Liberal page: http://www.liberal.ca/SayAnything/
And the NDP reply:
"The NDP today welcomed the arrival of a new Liberal attack website on leader Jack Layton, the latest proof that the NDP is the party on the rise in federal politics...."
http://www.ndp.ca/

Distinguished Maritime singer Terry Kelly has announced he's seeking the nomination for Dartmouth (MP Wendy Lill is retiring). Former MP Peter Mancini and a respected United Church Minister, Susan MacAlpine-Gillis, are also expected to run. Nice to have a crowded field of high quality candidates.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/stories/singpol050104

Popular former leadership candidate Pierre Ducasse has announced he's running in Manicouagan. The riding's held by the BQ. If the BQ collapse is real, Ducasse could do it. And I don't discount the chance for a major seachange in Quebec voting habits. If the BQ dwindles, Quebec's social democrats will go somewhere, and Layton is the only Quebec-born leader, fluently bilingual, and is the standard bearer of progressive issues. Martin's conservatism and the increasingly unpopular provincial Liberal government could see a dramatic rise in our fortunes in Quebec this year. Here's hoping, anyway.
http://www.canada.com/search/story.aspx?id=0499f403-e8e6-4138-bbd1-1819374be6c6

And provincially, in BC, the NDP are back from the dead, only four points behind the Liberals in the latest poll.
http://vancouver.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=bc_poll20040105
BC is another province where an unpopular Liberal government - a particularly conservative one at that - should be a great asset to the NDP federally.

[canuckagainstBush]

3. The Globe

I wouldn't go so far as to call the Globe a conservative paper. Greenspon and the editorial board are conservative in the old time PC, Red Tory sense (like Paul Martin). Overall though they really are "fair and balanced" as far as newspapers go. It is weird that that poll disappeared though.

[Minstrel Boy]

4. When I called the Globe "establishment conservative"

that was what I was getting it. It's not neoconservative, as is The National Post, and is pretty comfortable with Martin. I think it's likely to endorse the Liberals in the election. (But then, I'd call the Liberals, especially under Martin, "establishment conservative" too. ;) )

[canuckagainstBush]

6. oops

Sorry, I should have thought that through more. :o